The Key Laboratory for Resource Use and Environmental Remediation (RUER) was a research unit approved by the IGSNRR, CAS in 2014. The mission of the laboratory is based on the domestic and global, aiming at the development trend of international disciplines, focusing on solving the major public welfare scientific and technological problems in the field of resources and environment, which are related to the overall situation of the country and restrict the long-term development, and aiming at the strategic subjects such as national resources and environmental security, global change and regional sustainable development, etc. 

It aims to resolve with some technological issues, with the characteristics of basic, strategic, comprehensive and regional disciplines, and plays an important role in supporting and guiding science and technology in resource science, environmental science and regional sustainable development, and become an important academic think tank and talent bank in the field of resource utilization and ecological civilization construction in China, and eventually become the first class international and comprehensive research base of natural resources in Asia and the world.

The main tasks of the laboratory include two aspect as bellow. The first is to face the needs of the country. Focusing on the strategic deployment of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, the laboratory should explore the decisive mechanism of the market in the allocation of resources; closely focus on building a beautiful China, deepening the reform of the ecological civilization system, explore the establishment of an ecological civilization system, and study the new system of natural resources development, resource conservation and utilization, and ecological environment protection. The mechanism will provide scientific and technological support for the harmonious development of man and nature and the construction of a beautiful China and a modern power. The second task is based on discipline innovation. We will improve the basic and comprehensive research on China's natural resources, create a comprehensive information platform for the utilization of resources in China and the world, and promote the establishment and development of resources science.

The laboratory consists of four research divisions, one research center and one analytical laboratory, which are respectively Resources Geography and Land Resources Research Division, Resources Economics and Energy Mineral Resources Research Division, Resources Ecology and Bio-resources Research Division, Resources Engineering and Environmental Rehabilitation Division, Resources Utilization and Environmental Rehabilitation Laboratory, World Geography and Resource Research Center (affiliated).

By the end of August 2018, there were 68 full-time researchers in the laboratory, including 2 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 18 professors (including 1 foreign staff), 22 associate professors, 100 project and 2 outstanding young scientists. In addition, the laboratory employs 10 contracted staffs, 18 postdoctoral researchers, and 74 doctoral and postgraduate students, 6 guest postgraduates. The total staff of the laboratory amounts to 176.