Also available:
PDF version of the full report

Back to
Table of Contents

The Purpose of this Document

The US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) is a combined initiative of the US Global Change Research Program and the Climate Change Research Initiative. In 2003 CCSP developed a Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan laid out a ten-year research agenda and outlined the research elements and cross element integration aspects of the climate change program. As part of the process of developing a concerted research plan a Land Use/Land Cover Change Interagency Working Group (LUIWG) was formed consisting of representatives from the participating Federal Agencies with research activities in the area of land use change. This group was responsible for developing the Land Use/Land Cover Change chapter of the Strategic Plan (Chapter 6) and will be responsible for coordinating the implementation of the research agenda.

The Land Use and Land Cover Change element of the CCSP is a new element of CSSP and of direct and immediate relevance to a wide variety of stakeholders.   Land management decisions and actions provide a direct link to many of the issues addressed by the CCSP.   Stakeholders guide many of the societal needs for research on land use and land cover and, in turn, scientific research on land use and land cover provides important understanding and knowledge that is useful for decision-making and management.   The involvement of stakeholders is central to the success of the land use and land cover research described in the strategic plan and this science strategy and scientists and stakeholders will need to develop and maintain active partnerships.  

The Land Use chapter of the Strategic Plan lays out the major areas for research in land-use and land-cover change science, but it does not contain details, such as an analysis of feasibility or a sense of prioritization within the research element. A workshop was therefore organized by the LUIWG in November 19-21, 2003 to bring together representative university and federal agency scientists and stakeholders with an interest in the program. The objective was to expand on the components of the outline strategy and develop a more detailed science strategy.

Forty people attended the workshop hosted by the Smithsonian Institute. The scientists attending were charged with reviewing the Land Use Chapter of the Strategic Plan and further developing the research elements, focusing on what needs to be done, providing an indication of priorities for the science and stakeholder communities and a broad assessment of resource levels and timing needed to achieve the various research goals. This summary provides an overview of the findings of the meeting under the chapter headings of the full report.