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- Permanent Link:
- http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15042668/00001
Notes
- Summary:
- The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), a nonregulatory Federal science agency with national scope and responsibilities, is uniquely positioned to serve the Nation’s needs in understanding and responding to global change, which includes changes in climate; sea level; land use and land cover; ecosystems; and the global water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles. Global change is among the most challenging and formidable issues confronting our Nation and society. Scientists agree that global environmental changes during this century will have far-reaching societal implications [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007; USGCRP, 2009]. In the face of these complex challenges, the Nation can benefit greatly by using natural science information in decisionmaking.
Over the past 20 years, the USGS Global Change Program has made significant scientific contributions to understanding the interactive living and nonliving components of the Earth system. USGS natural science activities have led to fundamental advances in observing and understanding climate and land-cover change and the impact these changes have on ecosystems, natural-resource availability, and societal sustainability. Most of these major advances were pursued in partnership with others. The inherent value of partnerships—among USGS mission areas and with other U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) agencies and natural-resource managers—is emphasized in all aspects of planning and implementation of this USGS Global Change Science Strategy for the coming decade.
Over the next 10 years, the USGS will make substantial contributions to understanding how Earth systems interact, respond to, and cause global change. The USGS will work with science partners, decisionmakers, and resource managers at local to international levels to improve understanding of past and present change; develop relevant forecasts; and identify those lands, resources, and communities most vulnerable to global change processes. Science will play an essential role in helping communities and land and resource managers understand local to global implications, anticipate effects, prepare for changes, and reduce the risks of decisionmaking in a changing environment. USGS partners and stakeholders will benefit from the data, predictive models, and decision-support products and services resulting from the implementation of this strategy.
This Global Change Science Strategy recognizes core USGS strengths and applies them to address key societal problems. It defines six programmatic goals for USGS global change science over the short term (1–5 years) and the longer term (5–10 years). Progress towards these six goals will improve understanding of:
1. Rates, causes, and impacts of past global changes.
2. The global carbon cycle.
3. Land-use and land-cover change rates, causes, and consequences.
4. Droughts, floods, and water availability under changing land use and climate.
5. Coastal response to sea-level rise, climatic hazards, and human development.
6. Biological responses to global change.
Next, we discuss the central role of monitoring in accordance with the USGS Science Strategy recommendation that global change research should rely on existing “decades of observational data and long-term records to interpret consequences of climate variability and change to the Nation’s biological populations, ecosystems, and land and water resources” (2007, p. 19). Finally, we address the need for a comprehensive and sustained communications strategy.
Record Information
- Source Institution:
- Florida International University
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