2023-2024 Academic Catalog

Nov 23, 2024

2023-2024 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

GEOG 343 - Foundations and Frontiers in Land System Science

Global environmental changes involve worldwide transformations of land, oceans and atmosphere, driven by human activities interwoven with natural processes. Changes in land use at multiple scales have dramatic cumulative impacts on the Earth System, that feedback on ecosystem services, human well-being, and vulnerability to future climatic and political-economic shocks. Land change is a key concern across different scientific, policy and practitioner communities, and multiple international programes and stakeholders. The interdisciplinary field of Land System Science focuses on the study of land systems and their change, and the co-design of solutions for global sustainability. This advanced seminar examines the foundations of land system science from an initial focus on monitoring and modeling land use/cover change and its drivers, to emphasizing the feedbacks between social and environmental systems and the co-design of sustainable transformations. We will employ an interdisciplinary approach bridging biophysical, social, and geospatial analysis to examine complex challenges in: landscape change and sustainability across urban-rural gradients; telecoupled land in a globalized world; land change and conflict; land-climate interactions; tradeoffs in biodiversity and ecosystem services; the food-energy-water nexus; emerging infectious diseases; advances in land monitoring and modelling; knowledge co-production and stakeholder engagement, and land governance. Open to doctoral and masters students.

Anticipated Terms Offered: every other fall