Global warming is predicted to cause more serious challenge to the management of arid agro-ecosystem. Sustainable solution must be developed on the basis of systematic research at different scales from individual organism to global system, and with the feedback and interaction mechanism of socio-economic system into consideration. This paper summarizes eighteen oral presentations from the Young Scholars Forum of the 2nd International Ecosystem Assessment and Management (EAM) which was held on the July 24, 2010 at Lanzhou University, China. The papers at the forum covered following five aspects: global change ecology, plant & water ecology, plant nutrition and soil ecology, integrated grassland & livestock ecology and ecosystem design & management. Arid agro-ecosystem management has been developing at multiple scales from individual organism to global ecosystem, and across the dimensions from natural to social ecosystems. At the latter part of this paper, the theme of EAM Young Scholar Forum is discussed with the perspectives of "drylands development paradigm (DDP)" (Reynolds et al., 2007, SCIENCE) and "coupled natural and human systems (CHANS)" (Jianguo Liu et al., 2007, SCIENCE), and with the concept and principle of "ecotope" (i.e. the stratified feature and distinct management for arid fragile ecosystem, SFDM; Thorvald Srensen, 1936). On the other hand, we make an integrated evaluation on the methods, approaches and theories of arid agroecology which we carried out over last two decades in the Loess Plateau. Based on the recent advances in this area of research we propose a new model of how to manage fragile arid agricultural ecosystem in the 300-550 mm annual rainfall areas of the Loess Plateau. The model proposes to improve agricultural productivity and increase vegetation coverage, and accordingly brings greater economic benefits to local farmering community. Under the conditions of low and variable soil water availability in the Loess Plateau, how to improve farmland productivity, particularly substantial increase water productivity is the key issue. Since the late 1980s, the Arid Agroecology Research Group at Lanzhou University has conducted substantial research in the ecological rain-harvested agriculture. These studies included the theoretical model and practical approaches to significantly improve the yields and water use efficiency of corn and alfalfa grass mixture by developing methods of double ridge-furrow and plastic-mulching and the novel techniques of fallow and rotation tillage. Over last five years, further progresses have been achieved by the collaboration with The University of Western Australia. Based on rain-harvested agricultural model, the grass-crop rotation system led to a great improvement in agricultural cropping patterns, and promoted agriculture and animal husbandry enterprises in semi-arid rain-fed farming region of Loess Plateau. In conclusion, the approach to implement CHANS objective is to boost ecological restoration in large areas (mainly on fragile and infertile hill top and steep slope lands), and develop efficient agriculture in small but potentially productive areas (mainly refer to the flat lands surrounded by the mountains). The proposed model may act as a paradigm to cope with increasing challenges caused by global climate change and variability in arid agro-ecosystem management program in the coming decades.