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Zusammenfassung Central Asia holds a key position for understanding the interplay of geodynamic and climate processes. The region provides a natural laboratory to monitor environmental risks related to water excess and shortage, and high seismicity. Here we investigate natural climate archives (lake sediments, trees, speleothems), and develop regional monitoring systems as a key requirement for the palaeoclimatic interpretation of analytical data derived from these archives. As there is no modern analogue for the predicted future climate change investigating palaeo-records is particularly important to understand the natural recurrence frequency of disastrous events like floods, droughts, landslides and earthquakes and the full range of natural climatic variability. Results from lake sediment core analyses indicate that the regional climate was, in contrast to monsoonal Asia, characterized by a rather moderate drying trend since the mid-Holocene. We got similar results, plus details of interannual rainfall patterns, from speleothems for the last 5000 years. Tree-ring features of Central Asian long-lived tree species like juniper provide annually resolved information on past climate dynamics and adaption to recent global change. They can be likewise used for dating palaeoseismic events. Dust monitoring aims at a better understanding of the long-range transport of mineral aerosols across Eurasia in relation to seasonal changes in the hemispherical atmospheric circulation, and on the impact of aeolian dust on lake ecosystems and tree growth., System Erde; 3