As sustainability science research enters its adolescence, several facets of it have emerged as instrumental for global environmental change, climate change, and sustainable development. Among these, land change and urbanization are so pivotal that they are the subjects of international programs of study under the auspices of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). The Global Land Project (GLP) of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the International Human Dimensions Programme joins environmental, remote sensing-GIS, and social-human sciences in the study of land systems and their change as coupled human-environment systems. The Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) project, established in 2006 and sponsored by the International Human Dimensions Programme, seeks to galvanize international research that fuses urban dynamics with environment. In recognition of the overlapping interests of the international research communities that these projects are nurturing, the GLP and UGEC projects will conduct overlapping open science meetings at Arizona State University on October 15-19, 2010. The GLP and UGEC open science meetings will be comprised of plenary, open paper, and poster sessions and are expected to draw 500 and 300 people respectively. In addition, each project will sponsor a special workshop designed to produce major forum articles for publication soon after the meetings that will address critical themes for sustainability science. October 17 will constitute an overlap day between the two projects in which the theme will be urban, land, and environment. Presentations and activities on this day will seek to improve ties and develop new research initiatives between the projects and related communities of researchers. This award will provide support to facilitate the involvement of members of underrepresented groups, early-career scientists, and scientists from developing nations in the GLP and UGEC open science meetings.
This group-travel award, which will complement awards made by other organizations, will facilitate the involvement in these critical meetings of researchers who might otherwise have difficulty participating in these meetings. The meetings will encourage development of new initiatives and synthesis of findings from past and current research. They also will advance the research capacity for the conduct of larger-scale, highly interdisciplinary, internationally collaborative research on a broad range of topics, such as ecology, ecosystem services, and climate change; remote sensing methods and land monitoring; agent-based, econometric, and spatial models of land change; land-tenure institutions; relationships between population and technology; and vulnerability and sustainability. The meetings also will enhance the policy-relevance of integrated urban-environmental models and assessments, improving capabilities for dealing with issues of uncertainty and explicitly addressing the need for multidimensional, data-driven policy making for urban sustainability.
(UGEC) and the Global Land Project (GLP), which were held between October 15 and 19, 2010, with one day overlap (shared meeting day, Oct. 17), on the campus of Arizona State Univeristy, Tempe, AZ. UGEC's theme was Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainability in an Urbanizing World; GLP’s meeting theme was Sustainable Land System in the Era of Urbanization and Climate Change. A principal aim of the shared day was to develop improved links between the two research communities regarding the role of land design and use in urban and near-urban areas relative to global environmental change. UGEC attracted 240 attendees as follows:47% from the U.S., 14% from Europe, 12% from China-Japan-Taiwan, 9% from Latin America, 7% from Central and Southern Asia, and 7% from Africa.The gender composition was 41% female was 59% male. Of the 240, 33, inlcuding 14 junior researchers, were support with pooled funds from vavrious resources, including those from NSF. GLP attracted 340 attendees as follows: 50% from U.S., 22% from Europe, 13% from China-Japan-Taiwan, Latin America 7%, 5% from Africa, 2% from Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands, and 1% from Southeast Asia. The gender composition was 37% female was 63% male. Of the 340, 35, including 24 junior researchers, were support with pooled funds from vavrious resources, including those from NSF. A major outcome of the UGEC/GLP shared day was the development of a joint workshop on "Sustainable Land Use in an Urbanizing World". The goal of the workshop was to re-conceptualize and refresh analytical frameworks for the study of land that incorporates urban and urban-rural dynamics explicitly and fully address the linkages and bidirectionalities between urban and non-urban uses of land. The workshop was held in Copenhagen 27-30 June 2011 with a small group of invited, international capacities. It was a precursor to a larger effort on conceptual innovation in land change science entertained as an Ernst Strungman Forum in 2012, entitled 'Global Land Use' (see www.esforum.de/forums/esf14_global_land_use.html). Both the workshop and forum are led by Karen Seto and Anette Reenberg. In addition, a special workshop held during the GLP meeting has prepared a major "policy forum" report on paying for ecosystem services that is currently under review by a major journal.
