The Western Geographic Science Center conducts research to help communities make decisions about the interaction between people and their environment. We conduct geographic research on the environmental and societal consequences of a changing landscape.

Our projects analyze human / environmental interactions spatially and temporally. Our work is collaborative, involving many partners and linking many different natural science and social science disciplines. Our work is concentrated in the 9 states of the USGS Western Region and is conducted on local and regional scales.

Find out more about our science by following the links on the yellow bar above.

On April 21, 2008, WGSC hosted Dr. Jake Weltzin, executive director of the USGS-sponsored National Phenology Network in a discussion of phenology: an emerging integrative science for assessing impacts of global change, and for increasing citizen awareness and participation in understanding environmental impacts of human activities.

The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) is an emerging and exciting partnership between federal agencies, the academic community, and the general public to monitor and understand the influence of seasonal cycles on the Nation’s biological resources. The goal of the USA-NPN (www.usanpn.org) is to establish a wall-to-wall science and monitoring initiative focused on phenology, the seasonal pulse of the biosphere and thus the gateway to climatic effects on ecosystems and ecosystem services. (link to video of talk)

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