Science Plan and Implementation Strategy

Preface The global environment is changing due to human and natural causes. The challenge of understanding global environmental change and of providing the policy-relevant knowledge base required by societies to deal with this change reaches across many aspects of scientific endeavour. Research combines observations, process studies, manipulative experiments and modelling, to improve the capability to explain and predict global environmental changes. Much of the international global change research is facilitated by four programmes, which in addition to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) include DIVERSITAS (an international programme of biodiversity science) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). The programme-specific and co-sponsored research projects of these four programmes, while retaining more focused disciplinary efforts, are increasingly evolving to tackle critical system-level questions that require a more integrated approach across disciplines and programmes. The Global Land Project (GLP) Science Plan and Implementation Strategy represents the joint research agenda of IGBP and IHDP to improve the understanding of land system dynamics in the context of Earth System functioning. This plan is therefore a first critical step in addressing the interaction between people and their environments. It is part of the broader efforts to understand how these interactions have affected, and may yet affect, the sustainability of the terrestrial biosphere, and the two-way interactions and feedbacks between different land systems within the Earth System. GLP will play a clear role in improving the understanding of regional and global-scale land systems, as well as promoting strong scientific synergy across the global change programmes. This Science Plan and Implementation Strategy sets out the research agenda for the next decade, based on credible, high quality science. It is intended primarily for researchers and potential sponsors, but also for the wider scientific community. One of the most important roles of GLP will be to work with the scientific community to build implementation strategies for international research that are scientifically effective and resource efficient. Many of the questions posed can best be answered by long-term coordinated efforts enabled by an international community. GLP networks will share expertise, thus contributing to an accelerating knowledge base on an emerging land systems science. This Science Plan and Implementation Strategy develops a new integrated paradigm focused on two main conceptual aspects of the coupled system: firstly, it deals with the interface between people, biota, and natural resources of terrestrial systems, and secondly, …