On The Cover

The challenges for society and environment that are created through human use of land and water resources are exemplified in this U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) image developed for Florida Everglades restoration (Jones and others, 2003). Created from a winter 2000 Landsat image, patterns within this single view strikingly illustrate human transformation of the land surface for agriculture, commerce, flood prevention, water use, and biological resource conservation. Specifically, the image shows a portion of southeast Florida where the urban coastal area interfaces with the rural interior. The image shows an area extending along the Atlantic Ocean coast from Lake Worth on the north (top) to Pompano Beach on the south. The eastern portion of the image shows the dense urban development common along the southeast Florida coast that requires water control infrastructure for flood control and water supply. The lineations crossing the image diagonally are canals and drains. The three segmented dark areas are water conservation areas retaining some of their natural surface configuration. Light streaks in the conservation areas are tree islands rising above surrounding wetland vegetation and open water. The checkered area on the west (left) side of the image is the Everglades Agricultural Area.

What drives such human modification of land surfaces? At what rate do changes occur? How do these modifications affect other environmental processes or alter society’s vulnerability to natural hazards such as drought or floods? What tools are needed to answer these questions and most appropriately communicate our understanding to those who guide resource decisionmaking? The USGS geography science strategy presented in this document provides the foundation for addressing these important societal questions.

Geography for a Changing World

A Science Strategy for the Geographic Research of the

U.S. Geological Survey, 2005-2015

By Gerard McMahon, Susan P. Benjamin, Keith Clarke, John E. Findley, Robert N.
Fisher, William L. Graf, Linda C. Gundersen, John W. Jones, Thomas R. Loveland,
Keven S. Roth, E. Lynn Usery, and Nathan J. Wood

 Circular 1281

   U.S. Department of the Interior
   U.S. Geological Survey

U.S. Department of the Interior

Gale A. Norton, Secretary

U.S. Geological Survey

Charles G. Groat, Director

Preface

In early 2004, the Associate Director (Barbara J. Ryan) and Acting Chief Scientist (Mark L. DeMulder) for Geography at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) established a Geography Science Planning Team (SPT) composed of scientists representing all USGS disciplines and the geography academic community. They charged the SPT with creating “a succinct strategy to define, organize, manage, and grow the scientific activities of the Geography Discipline over the next 10 years (2005-2015), within the broad outlines of the USGS Strategic Plan.” The SPT’s primary objective was to develop a strategy for USGS geography science activities over the next 10 years by analyzing the strategic context provided by regional, national, and global scientific issues and needs, identifying focused research opportunities associated with these issues, and evaluating the implications of these opportunities for geographic science at USGS.

In developing this science strategy, the SPT reviewed the USGS Strategic Plan, other USGS discipline plans, and recent external reviews by the National Research Council. The SPT also examined science and strategic plans of other Federal agencies and of national and international earth science organizations. Through a series of panel discussions, the SPT heard from more than 175 people, including scientists and managers from the USGS and the U.S. Department of the Interior; representatives of other Federal and State agencies; industry leaders; university faculty; and professional societies. These meetings (convened in Reston, Va., Sacramento, Calif., Sioux Falls, S. Dak., Rolla, Mo., and Denver, Colo.) provided SPT members with perspectives on the opportunities and potential science priorities during the next 10 years.

The input provided the foundation for defining 9 interrelated science goals and 6 operational objectives. By undertaking the scientifically challenging and vital research activities outlined in this science plan, the USGS will attend to the Nation’s most pressing science issues that are consistent with the USGS mission and that are likely to benefit from the unique perspective and methods of the field of geography.

The SPT extends sincere thanks to the many contributors to this strategic planning process. This science plan has been reviewed extensively by colleagues in the earth science community, both within and outside the USGS, and has benefited greatly from these reviews. As a result of our participation in this effort, we have a much greater awareness of and appreciation for the diverse scientific programs, capabilities, and the enormous dedication of USGS geographers. We look forward to the consideration and implementation of this science plan.

The Science Planning Team for the Geography Discipline of the U.S. Geological Survey

Gerard McMahon, Water Resources Discipline (Chair), Raleigh, N.C.Susan P. Benjamin, Geography Discipline, Menlo Park, Calif.
Keith Clarke, University of California, Santa Barbara, Calif.
John E. Findley, Geography Discipline, Reston, Va.
Robert N. Fisher, Biology Discipline, San Diego, Calif.
William L. Graf, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C.
Linda C. Gundersen, Geology Discipline, Reston, Va.
John W. Jones, Geography Discipline, Reston, Va.
Thomas R. Loveland, Geography Discipline, Sioux Falls, S. Dak.
Keven S. Roth, Geography Discipline, Reston, Va.
E. Lynn Usery, Geography Discipline, Rolla, Mo.
Nathan J. Wood, Geography Discipline, Portland, Oreg.

Contents

Sidebars

Highlights

Figures

Executive Summary

This report presents a science strategy for the geographic research of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for the years 2005-2015. The common thread running through the vision, mission, and science goals presented in the plan is that USGS geographers will provide national leadership to understand coupled human-environmental systems in the face of land change and will deliver pertinent information to decisionmakers on the vulnerability and resilience of these systems. We define land change science as the study of the human and environment dynamics that give rise to changed land use, cover, and surface form.

A number of realities shape the strategic context of this plan:

• The Department of Interior Strategic Plan focuses on meeting society’s resource needs and sustaining the Nation’s life support systems, underscoring the importance of characterizing and understanding coupled human-environmental systems.
• In redefining its mission in the mid-1990s, the USGS envisions itself as an integrated natural science and information agency. The USGS will assume a national leadership role in the use of science to develop knowledge about the web of relations that couple biophysical and human systems and translate this knowledge into unbiased, reliable information that meets important societal information needs.
• The following trends will influence USGS geography-oriented science activities over the next decade. Most of the emerging earth science issues that the USGS will address are geographic phenomena. A growing international concern for aligning society’s development activities with environmental limits has led to an articulation of a science agenda associated with global environmental change, vulnerability, and resilience. Earth science investigations have evolved toward the study of very large areas, and the resulting huge volumes of data are challenging to manage and understand. Finally, scientists and the public face the challenge of gaining intelligent insights about geographic and environmental processes from these data, with the ultimate goal of guiding resource-management decisions.

The first four science goals in the plan support understanding the human and environmental dynamics of land change. Each science goal has an associated set of strategic actions to achieve the goal. These goals and actions are consistent with national science priorities and the Department of Interior and USGS missions, take advantage of existing expertise, and lead to the strengthening of critical geographic research capacities that do not exist in other USGS disciplines.

Goal 1: Characterize and quantify land surface status and trends to provide a framework for understanding change patterns and processes from local to global scales.

• Strategic Action 1.1: Establish a center of excellence focusing on land change science.

• Strategic Action 1.2: Expand global capabilities to map and measure land cover and land-cover change at multiple scales that are locally relevant yet globally consistent.
• Strategic Action 1.3: Determine how much of the annual national and global land changes result from natural and human influences.
• Strategic Action 1.4: Establish an operational global ecosystem monitoring system that continuously measures and characterizes the current status of ecosystem goods and services to estimate and explain deviations from normal conditions.
• Strategic Action 1.5: Establish a consistent, repeatable methodology that identifies the changes in the topographic form of the Nation at appropriate intervals.
• Strategic Action 1.6: Develop and implement a strategy that leads to a clearer understanding of the characteristics and changes in the urban environment.
• Strategic Action 1.7: Develop spatially explicit reconstructions of the land use and land cover of the North American landscape to provide the context and baseline for future resource management and public policy.

Goal 2: Identify local, regional, national, and global drivers of land change to forecast plausible land change scenarios over the next 20-50 years.

• Strategic Action 2.1: Establish an ongoing capability of assessing the social, economic, political, technological, and environmental influences on land change.
• Strategic Action 2.2: Conduct studies on the geographic variability of the types of responses associated with specific drivers (such as globalization, new technology, and policies) on land change and determine how those responses operate at different scales.
• Strategic Action 2.3: Validate the theoretical basis of land-use change by using data from landscape-dynamics research.
• Strategic Action 2.4: The USGS researchers will partner with the scientists outside of USGS in developing land change simulation models.

Goal 3: Understand past, present, and future environmental consequences of land change to support better management of their effect on people, environment, economy, and resources.

• Strategic Action 3.1: Conduct research on the consequences of land change on climate, water, carbon cycle, ecosystems, invasive species, and societal concerns.

• Strategic Action 3.2: Conduct research on specific consequences of land-use and land-cover patterns and changes for environmental health and public safety issues, particularly at the boundaries between developed and wildland areas.
• Strategic Action 3.3: Conduct research leading to improved capabilities to assess wildfire conditions, predict wildfire potential, prioritize treatment areas, and monitor effectiveness of fire treatments to support risk-reduction efforts in the urban-natural landscape interface.
• Strategic Action 3.4: Conduct research on the feedbacks between land change and environmental systems and resources.

• Strategic Action 4.1: Establish a center of excellence focusing on vulnerability and resilience science and the integration of science with decisionmaking.
• Strategic Action 4.2: Investigate effects of land-use and land-cover change, such as urbanization and resource use, on creating hazards and human-environment system vulnerability.
• Strategic Action 4.3: Improve research capacity to model vulnerability and resilience to natural and anthropogenic hazards.
• Strategic Action 4.4: Improve understanding of the influences of societal perceptions, policies, and land-use practices on societal vulnerability and resilience.
• Strategic Action 4.5: Develop and implement a monitoring program that provides perspectives at multiple scales of vulnerability and resilience to adverse land change.
• Strategic Action 4.6: Develop and apply innovative geographic and economic methods to assess the effects of proposed scenarios for hazard mitigation strategies and risk management.
• Strategic Action 4.7: Provide innovative geographic methods and techniques to help secure the safety of the Nation in emergency response and recovery efforts.

Accomplishing these first four science goals will require a sustained investment in the geography-related core competencies of the USGS: integration of natural and social science (transmitting science results to decisionmakers and the public in forms that are useful for promoting the welfare of the Nation); regional geography (applying the concepts and tools of geography to understand processes and interactions characteristic of regions); remote sensing (comprehensive monitoring of the Earth at multiple resolutions); and GIScience (geographic information systems, data management techniques, visualization, remote sensing, and spatial statistics and modeling). The last five science goals in the science plan address these core competencies.

Goal 5. Develop credible and accessible geographic research, tools, and methods to support decisionmaking related to the human and environmental consequences of land change.

• Strategic Action 5.1: Establish a science and decisionmaking focus within the vulnerability and resilience science center of excellence.
• Strategic Action 5.2: Improve our understanding of the motivations and processes used by decisionmakers to manage and adapt to land change.
• Strategic Action 5.3: Develop innovative and effective mechanisms for identifying needs and opportunities for science to support decisionmaking.
• Strategic Action 5.4: Develop a national toolbox of metrics, indicators, models, and decision support systems that characterize the environmental, social, and economic consequences of land change.
• Strategic Action 5.5: Conduct multidisciplinary case studies to support environmental policy analysis and hazard risk-reduction efforts.
• Strategic Action 5.6: Develop and apply methods for examining the value, format, and transfer of knowledge for societal decisionmaking and policy analysis.

Goal 6: Develop and test hypotheses about the use of geographic regions to understand the human and environmental dynamics of land change.

• Strategic Action 6.1: Include a regional geography emphasis within the land change science center of excellence.
• Strategic Action 6.2: Take a leadership role in working with the USEPA, States, and other Federal agencies in completing the USEPA Level IV Ecoregion framework.
• Strategic Action 6.3: Provide ongoing assistance to scientists in the USGS and DOI in the development and use of regional frameworks.
• Strategic Action 6.4: Conduct research to answer questions associated with four priority issues related to regional frameworks: regional identity, regional boundaries, hierarchical relations, and regional ecosystem functioning.
• Strategic Action 6.5: Use a hierarchical local-regional-national-global approach to improve understanding of the phenomena and processes that cause land change.
• Strategic Action 6.6: Articulate a set of scaling rules for describing the mechanisms of land change that can be used for generalizing local study findings to larger scales.
• Strategic Action 6.7: Establish regional data observatories and archives in conjunction with USGS programs, the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, National Ecologi

cal Observatory Network (NEON), the National Acid Precipitation Program, NOAA, NASA, and other organizations that collect earth-science and biological data.

Goal 7. Observe the Earth at all scales using remote sensing to understand the human and environmental dynamics of land change.

• Strategic Action 7.1: Survey the requirements of the DOI, USGS, other government agencies, and the international remote sensing community for environmental data and monitoring, and define the remote sensing capabilities needed for current and future applications.
• Strategic Action 7.2: Investigate new technologies for Earth observation and define the specifications for the remote sensing capabilities needed to meet current and future Earth observation and monitoring requirements.
• Strategic Action 7.3: Undertake an aggressive role in the development and continuation of the Nation’s participation in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).
• Strategic Action 7.4: Consolidate and convert the Nation’s vast and dispersed historical aerial photography into an electronically accessible USGS remote sensing archive in a format that enables studies of the Earth’s land-cover/land-use history.
• Strategic Action 7.5: Develop a plan for the preservation of USGS remote sensing archive data that ensures the long-term availability of those data to support science investigations.
• Strategic Action 7.6: Conduct research on advanced data access and mining capabilities that leads to robust use of the USGS remote sensing archive for the purpose of gaining knowledge about the Earth’s dynamic history at multiple scales and temporal periods.
• Strategic Action 7.7: Conduct research that leads to the calibration of all appropriate USGS remote sensing assets.
• Strategic Action 7.8: Define and test protocols for determining the uncertainty, accuracy, and precision of products derived from USGS remotely sensed data.
• Strategic Action 7.9: Define the analytical methods needed to make better use of data from current and future remote sensing instruments for accurate measuring and mapping of landscape properties, including land-cover status, ecosystem services, and surface form.
• Strategic Action 7.10: Establish training and outreach activities that provide technical advice and support needed to incorporate USGS remote sensing capabilities into the DOI and USGS programs and projects.

Goal 8: Provide timely, intelligent access to new and archived USGS geographic data needed to conduct science and support policy decisions.

• Strategic Action 8.1: Establish a GIScience center of excellence.
• Strategic Action 8.2: Improve understanding of The National Map user needs, both inside and outside of the USGS.
• Strategic Action 8.3: Address research questions on the topic of geographic representation, including data model issues associated with multiple resolution data and data integration and fusion, uncertainty representation, and human cognition of the dimensions of geographic phenomena in a computer environment.
• Strategic Action 8.4: Research and develop design and symbolization specifications and innovative methods that support The National Map viewer and other geographic data displays on a large variety of display devices.
• Strategic Action 8.5: Research and develop automated methods for generalization to support multiple-scale display and delivery of The National Map and other USGS geographic data.
• Strategic Action 8.6: Build a critical mass of USGS scientists familiar with and able to exploit new developments in spatial data mining and knowledge discovery in supporting The National Map and other large spatial databases.
• Strategic Action 8.7: Develop specifications and analytical methods and tools for use in producing widely used, high-priority data layers for The National Map.

• Strategic Action 9.1: Address research questions on the topic of information synthesis and fusion.
• Strategic Action 9.2: Address research questions on the topic of map and geographic database projections.
• Strategic Action 9.3: Address research questions on the topic of geographic visualization.
• Strategic Action 9.4: Research and develop methods and techniques in modeling and geostatistics to exploit geographic data.

During the next 10 years, the focus of USGS geography activities will change from an emphasis on production-oriented cartographic excellence to an emphasis on research as a full partner in USGS science efforts. The transition to a research and science emphasis will require a transformation of the USGS geography culture. Key objectives of this transformation include vigorous

leadership, research-oriented science management, effective communication, focused growth in the addition of researchers, an effective annual science planning process, and the use of education to increase the understanding and use of geography to serve the USGS and DOI missions. Six operational objectives will stimulate progress in attaining the science goals and provide benchmarks for evaluating progress in the transformation of the geography culture at USGS.

• Objective 1 – Greatly enhance the leadership on behalf of research-based geography at USGS.
• Objective 2 – Increase the number of experienced, competent geography science managers that are excited about and committed to managing scientists on behalf of the science plan priorities.
• Objective 3 – Communicate and highlight the competencies of USGS geographers, identify the science needs of potential collaborators, and establish ongoing relationships with the geographic research community outside of the USGS.
• Objective 4 – Develop and implement a USGS geography workforce plan that supports a critical mass of geography researchers able to sustain a high level of excellence in research and applications on behalf of the priorities identified in the geography science plan.
• Objective 5 – Develop a more efficient, focused process to guide the annual science planning.
• Objective 6 – Expand geographic awareness of scientists at the USGS and DOI.

This plan charges the USGS with developing sound scientific approaches that will support assessments of land change and its human-environmental consequences, create innovative GIScience tools and methods for the entire USGS, and enhance the benefits of USGS science for decisionmaking. The science described in this plan addresses large, compelling challenges. The successful accomplishment of the plan requires engaging multiple disciplines in the physical, biological, and social sciences, considering the entire land area of a large Nation, and recognizing that the Nation’s changing landscape must be considered in a global context.

Acknowledgments

The Geography Science Planning Team has benefited from the advice of thoughtful colleagues throughout the planning effort and is grateful to recognize the assistance of:

Lee Allison (Kansas Geological Survey) David Applegate (USGS) Kwabena Asante (SAIC/USGS) Dan Ashe (FWS) Thomas Baerwald (NSF) Bryan Bailey (USGS) Lee Barkow (BLM) Jill Baron (USGS) Bart Bartlein (University of Oregon) William Battaglin (USGS) Richard Bernknopf (USGS) Kenneth Boyko (USGS) Clint Brown (ESRI) Nina Burkardt (USGS) Ray Byrnes (USGS) Rex Cammack (SMSU) Dan Carr (George Mason University) Michael Carr (USGS) Thomas Casadevall (USGS) Pete Chirico (USGS) Pam Clemmer (BLM) Thomas Cuffney (USGS) Anthony De Souza (NRC) Lee DeCola (USGS) Mark Demulder (USGS) John Dennis (NPS) Laura Dinitz (USGS) Michael Domaratz (USGS) Roger Downs (Pennsylvania State Univ.) Paul Dresler (USGS) Mark Drummond (USGS) Elizabeth Duffie (USGS) John Dwyer (SAIC/USGS) Jeffrey Eidenshink (USGS) Keith Elliott (USGS) Max Ethridge (USGS) Mark Feller (USGS) Jay Feuquay (USGS) Michael Finn (USGS) Carol Finn (USGS) James Flaherty (USGS) Eugene Fosnight (SAIC/USGS) Janet Franklin (SDSU) Anne Frondorf (USGS) Sven Fuhrmann (Pennsylvania State Univ.) Kevin Gallo (NOAA) Martha Garcia (USGS) Leonard Gaydos (USGS) Robert Gilliom (USGS) Keith Good (MMS) Elizabeth Graffy (USGS) Rhea Graham (Pueblo of Sandia) David Greenlee (USGS) Susan Greenlee (USGS) Chip Groat (USGS) John Gross (NPS) Glenn Guntenspergen (USGS) Diansheng Guo (Pennsylvania State Univ.) Stephen Guptill (USGS) Paul Hearn (USGS) Dennis Helder (SDSU) David Hester (USGS) Robert Hijmans (Univ. of Calif., Berkeley) Robert Hirsch (USGS) Richard Hogan (USGS) Rick Hooper (CUAHSI) George Hornberger (University of Virginia) Stephen Howard (USGS) Michael Hutt (USGS) Jeffrey Imes (USGS) Robert Jacobson (USGS) Kathleen Johnson (USGS) Gregg Johnson (SAIC/USGS) Carol Johnston (SDSU) William Kaiser (USGS) John Kelmelis (USGS) David Kirtland (USGS) Bob Klaver (SAIC/USGS) Gary Krizanich (USGS) Nicholas Lancaster (USGS) John Landis (Univ. of Calif., Berkeley) Arnold Landvoigt (NSA) William Langer (USGS) Matthew Larsen (USGS) Elizabeth Lile (USGS) Xavier Lopex (Oracle)

Roberto Lugo (USGS) Tom Lupo (CA Fish and Game) Peter Lyttle (USGS) David Mark (Univ. Buffalo) Carl Markon (USGS) Deborah Maxwell (USGS) Lindsay McClelland (NPS) Tim McGrath (Microsoft) Jim Merchant (Univ. Nebraska) Timothy Miller (USGS) Carol Mladinich (USGS) Laurence Moore (USGS) Douglas Muchoney (USGS) V. Rama Murthy (Univ. Minnesota) Donna Myers (USGS) Marilyn Myers (USGS) Mark Naftzger (USGS) Tom Owens (USGS) Robin O’Malley (Heinz Center) James Omernik (USGS/EPA) Jean Parcher (USGS) Monica Parisi (CA Fish and Game) P. Patrick (USGS) Jean Paulson (USGS) Milan Pavich (USGS) Ed Pfeifer (USGS) Barbara Poore (USGS) Curtis Price (USGS) Raymond Price (Queen’s University) Vivian Queija (USGS) James Quick (USGS) Jim Quinn (Univ. of Calif., Davis) Sharyl Rabinovici (USGS) Michael Ratcliffe (Census Bureau) Bradley Reed (SAIC/USGS) Douglas Richardson (AAG) Kernell Ries (USGS) Napthali Rishe (FIU) Donna Roy (USGS) David Sawyer (USGS) Randy Schumann (USGS) Gregory Schwarz (USGS) Mike Scott (USGS/Univ. of Idaho) Gabriel Senay (SAIC/USGS) Terry Sexson (FWS) Sarah Shafer (USGS) Carl Shapiro (USGS) Mark Shasby (USGS) Karen Siderelis (USGS) Benjamin Sleeter (USGS) Terry Slocum (University of Kansas) Greg Smith (NGA) David Soller (USGS) Jeffrey Spooner (USGS) Steven Stanley (JHU) Michael Starbuck (USGS) Daniel Steinwand (SAIC/USGS) Michael Stier (USGS) David Stockwell (SDSC) Thomas Stohlgren (USGS) James Stone (BLM) Sean Stone (USGS) Michael Story (NPS) Jim Sturdevant (USGS) Charisse Sydoriak (BLM) Gail Thelin (USGS) Robert Thompson (USGS) June Thormodsgard (USGS) Larry Tieszen (USGS) Alicia Torregrosa (USGS) Billie Turner (Clark University) Dalia Varanka (USGS) James Verdin (USGS) James Vogelmann (SAIC/USGS) Bill Walker (USGS) Cynthia Wallace (USGS) Janice Ward (USGS) Raymond Watts (USGS) Suzanne Weedman (USGS) Tom Wilbanks (ORNL) Alexander Wood (USGS) Connie Woodhouse (NOAA) Zhi-Liang Zhu (USGS) Richard Zirbes (USGS) NRC Board of Earth Science and Resources

LIST OF ACRONYMS

Geography for a Changing World

A Science Strategy for the Geographic Research of the U.S. Geological Survey, 2005-2015

By Gerard McMahon, Susan P. Benjamin, Keith Clarke, John E. Findley, Robert N. Fisher, William L. Graf, Linda C. Gundersen, John W. Jones, Thomas R. Loveland, Keven S. Roth, E. Lynn Usery, and Nathan J. Wood

Introduction

What are the ecosystem indicators of threats to the overall integrity of human and environmental systems?

Each of these questions falls within the scope of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), whose mission includes science leadership and excellence directed at describing and understanding the Earth; minimizing losses of life and property from natural disasters; managing water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhancing the quality of life (U.S. Geological Survey, 2000). The questions also are inherently geographic, focusing on the evolving character of the Earth’s surface, the ways in which natural and social phenomena and processes interact to create unique places, and on the influence that local places have on a broader temporal and spatial realm.

Geographic variability and the spatial interaction of natural and social processes are fundamental characteristics of the world, and our understanding of the world is incomplete without careful analysis of this variability and interaction. Geographic research improves this understanding by (1) providing a place-based perspective focused on understanding places, (2) considering flows of matter, energy, commodities, people, and ideas between places, (3) integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines or fields to understand the places and their interconnections, and (4) using unique geographic tools ranging from maps to spatial visualization and data mining tools.

Geographic understanding is not defined by any single subject or discipline, such as the case for geology (the science of the earth), biology (the science of life), or hydrology (the science of water). Rather, geography is a science that defines itself by its approach, somewhat like history. History offers understanding of the world by examining the variation of phenomena through time. Geography offers understanding of the world by explaining variation across space. Geography is the science of place and space, an intellectual enterprise that emphasizes the interaction between nature and society by focusing on the characteristics of places or regions, the spatial connections between places, and the variation of social or natural phenomena across scales of analysis (National Research Council, 1997). Because of its particular world view, geography is a logical partner for geology, biology, and hydrology. As a discipline, geography often is integrative, combining the insights of other disciplines and facilitating their investigation with special analytical tools and perspectives.

Geography lies at the heart of the intellectual traditions that support the USGS mission as the Department of Interior’s (DOI) primary science agency. This science plan presents a vision for geographic research at the USGS during the decade 2005-2015 by describing nine specific goals that contribute to the vision and mission of the USGS (see Sidebar I-1). For each science goal, the plan identifies a series of strategic actions and linkages and partners for achieving the actions and provides performance measures for judging progress.

The common threads running through the vision, mission, and goals are that USGS geography researchers will provide national leadership to understand coupled human-environmental systems in the face of land change, and they will deliver pertinent information on the vulnerability and resilience of these systems to decisionmakers (see Sidebar I-2 for definitions of key terms). Geographers will lead USGS research associated with the human and environmental dynamics of land change, regional geography, remote sensing, and GIScience (geographic information systems, data management techniques, visualization, and spatial statistics) needed to support land change research. Geography researchers also will provide leadership for cross-discipline integration of the many streams of USGS research, so that the knowledge developed about coupled human-environment systems provides a complete, functional view of the systems.

For example, USGS biologists will benefit from forecasting models for land change that support assessments of future biodiversity prospects in wildlife refuges. GIScience will enhance the creation and implementation of The National Map by focusing on fusing information from multiple scales and the use of interactive, dynamic visualization tools to examine multivariate geospatial data sets. USGS geologists who assess the spatial extent and probability of volcano hazards will see the value of their hazard assessment work extended by linking these assessments with an understanding of societal vulnerability, such as the potential property value loss arising from various land management scenarios. Finally, hydrologists will benefit from assessments of land change trends that influence streamflow and water quality. Collaboration with USGS biologists, geologists, and hydrologists, and with scientists from other DOI bureaus, university-based scientists, and scientists from national and international science organizations must be a hallmark of USGS geographic research activity in the next decade.

The remainder of this chapter describes a framework for geographic research at the USGS. Subsequent chapters discuss strategic opportunities for USGS geographic research, the research framework for understanding the influence of land change on human-environmental systems, and science goals associated with core geographic competencies needed to support research on coupled human-environmental systems. The final chapter reviews operational objectives that will enhance the likelihood of success in the plan’s implementation.

Sidebar I-1: USGS geography research framework, 2005-2015 Vision: The USGS will lead the Nation in advancing geographic science by improving and expanding earth observation and by integrating natural and social science knowledge for more informed decisionmaking. Mission: Understand the human and environmental dynamics of land change. Provide leadership in sustaining the Nation’s core geography competencies: regional geography, the integration of natural and social sciences, and GIScience, including modeling and remote sensing of earth systems. Develop and apply innovative methods to understand and improve linkages between science and decisionmaking. Establish creative and synergistic partnerships nationally and globally to create new knowledge, leverage resources, and support the geographic mission of the USGS. USGS geographic science goals for the next 10 years: Characterize and quantify land surface status and trends to provide a framework for understanding change patterns and processes from local to global scales. Identify local, regional, national, and global drivers of land change to forecast plausible land change scenarios over the next 20-50 years. Understand past, present, and future environmental consequences of land change to support better management of their effect on people, environment, economy, and resources. Improve the scientific basis for vulnerability and risk assessment, mitigation, response, and recovery related to the human and environmental dynamics of land change. Develop credible and accessible geographic research, tools, and methods to support decisionmaking related to the human and environmental consequences of land change. Develop and test hypotheses about the use of geographic regions to understand the human and environmental dynamics of land change. Observe the Earth at all scales using remote sensing to understand the human and environmental dynamics of land change. Provide timely, intelligent access to new and archived USGS geographic data needed to conduct science and support policy decisions. Develop innovative methods of modeling and information synthesis, fusion, and visualization to improve our ability to explore geographic data and create new knowledge.

A geography research framework for the next decade

Over the next decade implementation of a USGS geographic research agenda will support a four-part mission to:

1. Understand the human and environmental dynamics of land change;
2. Provide leadership in sustaining the Nation’s core geography competencies needed to understand land change dynamics–GIScience, remote sensing, regional geography, and the integration of natural and social sciences;
3. Develop and apply innovative methods to understand and improve linkages between science and decisionmaking; and
4. Establish creative and synergistic partnerships nationally and globally to create new knowledge, leverage resources, and support the geographic mission of the USGS.

The USGS geography mission is aligned with national science priorities that stress the importance of understanding land change and its consequences as part of a coupled human-environmental system (National Research Council, 1995; 1997; 2001a; 2001b; 2002; 2003a; 2003b; Turner and others, 2003; Rindfuss and others, 2004). By providing the basis for well-informed decisions about pressing societal issues in the coming decades, geographic research will support the overall USGS mission, particularly the emphasis on developing integrated knowledge and tools to support the science needs of decisionmakers and citizens. The proposed research activities also build on areas of current USGS geography expertise and, when the plan is completely implemented, it will place geographers in the mainstream of the USGS tradition of science excellence, leadership, and impact.

Land change and human-environmental systems

The fundamental objective of USGS geographic research is to understand the dynamics of land change associated with biophysical systems (such as land-cover, climate, invasive

species, volcanoes) and human systems expressed as land use (science goals 1 and 2). This effort requires an understanding of change as part of a coupled human-environmental system (Turner and others, 2003; Rindfuss and others, 2004). Research associated with this science goal occurs in a conceptual framework that links the occurrence, causes, and consequences of land change with human and environmental vulnerability and resilience in the face of change (science goals 3 and 4; fig. 1).

Core competencies

Successful research efforts to understand the human and environmental dynamics of land change (science goals 1, 2, 3, and 4) require a high level of competency in selected aspects of geography’s intellectual traditions and methods. Important competencies include the integration of natural and social sciences to support decisionmaking (science goal 5), regional geography (science goal 6), earth observations using remote sensing (science goal 7), and the provision of geographic data, imagery, and knowledge derived from these data (science goals 8 and 9).

Support decisionmaking about coupled human-environment systems

Information developed by USGS science activities has been used for 125 years to assist management decisions related to hazards, the environment, and natural resources. In the next century, policymakers and the general public will require multi-disciplinary, integrated information that sheds light on the operation of the general coupled human-environmental system, and particularly its land-change component.

Partnerships

As demands grow for objective, science-based knowledge about the rates, causes, and consequences of land change and budgets stagnate for most governmental and non-governmental science activities, the USGS will need to develop a sustainable research infrastructure that leverages limited resources to maximum effect. This infrastructure must, as a matter of routine, include procedures and relationships to enhance

Figure 1. Coupled framework for assessing land change, vulnerablility, and resilience (adapted from Turner and others, 2003).

Realizing this research vision

USGS geography science activities during 2005-2015 will focus on understanding coupled human-environmental systems in the face of land change and on providing information on the vulnerability and resilience of these systems to decisionmakers. These efforts will be supported by providing leadership in sustaining the Nation’s core geography competencies in the integration of natural and social sciences, regional geography, remote sensing, and GIScience. By the end of this 10-year period, successful implementation of the plan will result in the recognition of USGS geographers as world leaders and valued science colleagues in the areas targeted by this plan. The remainder of this plan provides additional details about the science goals and associated strategic actions.

This research-oriented mission and the associated science goals and actions are intentionally ambitious, given that USGS geography activities for most of the last century have focused on data creation rather than research-based knowledge development. Implementation of this science plan is intended to bring geography into the mainstream of the USGS tradition of science excellence, leadership, and impact (National Research Council, 2002; Highlight 1). Growing the research culture needed to support this ambitious research mission will require leadership that focuses on these science goals with a passionate commitment to excellence. It also will require a critical mass of geography researchers that can build a tradition of geography research excellence and leadership.

Three centers of excellence will serve as the primary vehicles for developing a critical mass of researchers around the priority general research themes (land change science, vulnerability and resilience science, and GIScience including remote sensing). The centers will be primary engines in the growth of a geographic research culture at USGS, providing a focal point and sense of identity for researchers in these priority areas. Center scientists, working with other USGS scientists, will develop and implement a research agenda consistent with the overall priorities of the science plan. Important responsibilities of center scientists will include providing technical expertise to other USGS and DOI scientists, serving as contacts for questions related to the center’s subject area, and providing mentoring for young researchers. Scientists affiliated with these centers may work in different geographic locations, although it will be desirable that a core group of researchers be collocated. USGS scientists who are not directly affiliated with the centers but who have an active interest in the themes addressed by a center can expect center scientists to serve as an important part of their extended intellectual community. Centers will be staffed by focused new hires and current USGS scientists. All center scientists will be part of the USGS research grade evaluation (RGE) system.

The Geography Science Planning Team (SPT) recognizes that the number of centers is likely to evolve into a larger number over the 10-year planning period to accommodate the growth of research activities and staff. A logical evolution would include the development of separate centers focusing on vulnerability science, integration of science and decisionmaking, GIScience, and remote sensing.


Highlight 1: Connecting Our Past and Revitalizing Our Future

Research on coupled human-environmental systems in the face of land change represents a substantial philosophical and operational evolution in emphasis for USGS geographers from their course in recent decades. This evolution results in a set of responsibilities more in accord with the important role of geography in the scientific advances achieved in the early years of the USGS. Geographers were an integral part of the science accomplishments of USGS at the inception of the agency. The agency could not undertake investigations of the Nation’s mineral, fuel, and water resources, for example, without accurate topographic maps to serve as a framework for data representation and analysis. Because of the importance of mapping, early USGS directors developed a powerful mapping operation, staffed with the Nation’s best cartographers and financed by as much as one-half of the USGS’s annual budget. Cartographers collaborated with scientists from other disciplines, particularly geologists, in employing expert judgment and the scientific method to synthesize data and observations from exploratory expeditions into maps. These maps integrated local and regional information useful to both scientists and the general public. The mapping of the Nation, an enormous enterprise that generated more than 55,000 topographic quadrangles worth more than a trillion dollars by the 1990s, provided a geographic foundation for scientific investigations of the USGS geology, biology, and water disciplines.

During the 20th century, while USGS geographers were building a foundation of data to serve science, USGS geologists, hydrologists, and biologists (inside and outside the USGS) were practicing science, pressing forward with question-driven research to investigate natural processes. Geographic research science dwindled in the USGS through the early decades of the 20th century. In contrast, the quantitative research approaches developed in the field of geography during the 1950s became widely used outside the USGS, with emphasis on the spatial dimensions of natural and social processes and the connections between nature and society.

When Arch Gerlach and James Anderson began building the USGS’s remote sensing and land-cover analytic capabilities during the 1970s, geography was revived as a science partner in the USGS and served an important leadership role in these two areas. Despite the remote sensing and land-use/land-cover successes, however, geography as a discipline in the USGS is still not a full-fledged science partner with the other disciplines. While the agency has almost 1,000 practicing Ph.D. scientists in geology, hydrology, and biology, less than a score of Ph.D. geography researchers work at the USGS (National Research Council, 2002).

When the USGS was founded, geographers were full partners in basic and applied science activities associated with assessing the Nation’s resources, participating in the western land survey, and in founding the Association of American Geographers and the Geological Society of America. Geography was an integral contributor to the intellectual spark that ignited great science achievements in the early years of the USGS. This strategic plan presents a new vision and describes how geography’s world view and core competencies can address strategic needs faced by the USGS over the next decade, as well as the importance of using these competencies in concert with partners inside and outside of the USGS. The focus on land change, hazards, vulnerability, and resilience represents an opportunity to recapture the intellectual spark and make an important contribution to the success of the USGS mission.

Geographic research and the USGS mission

Geography provides a powerful world view; it is the science of space and place, distributions and patterns, networks, connections, and flows – all explored at a variety of temporal and spatial scales (National Research Council, 1997, 2002; Hanson, 2004). Geographers seek to understand the vertical characteristics (such as, the interactions of physical, biological, social, and cultural processes occurring in a place) that define a place as well as the horizontal connections between places. In this place-based framework, geographers focus on the relations and dependencies among the processes that define the identity of a place.

Geographers also rely on the synthesis of information developed by the natural and social sciences to understand the interactions among economic, cultural, and biophysical processes that shape the identity and sustainability of a place. Geographic research in this vein is oriented toward understanding how human actions modify or transform the environment and, conversely, how changes in the biophysical environment affect humans. By understanding how land change and human welfare are interconnected and how the risks of adverse consequences are perceived by the public and by decisionmakers, geographers also can assess options to mitigate adverse environmental or societal effects arising from land change, including hazards.

Geographers also depict, manage, represent, and analyze spatial data. Geographic research produces practical tools to monitor and represent spatial phenomena and relationships, facilitate access and use of these data, and create new knowledge from these spatial data. Remote sensing, for example, allows the observer to see the earth in ways that cannot be seen directly with the human eye, revealing patterns and connections among environmental systems that otherwise would be hidden. Other GIScience research supports traditional mapping activities related to managing, modeling, and representing geographic data, phenomena, and processes, as well as spatial statistics, geospatial visualization, and data mining, which are methods that are becoming essential for earth-science applications and research that focus on spatial patterns and distributions, networks, and diffusion and distance decay.

Strategic issues and opportunities for USGS geographic sciences

Geography’s research and analytical capabilities are well suited to address strategic science issues faced by the USGS during 2005-2015. The four mission responsibilities defined in the DOI Strategic Plan (2003) provide a general strategic context for geographic research at USGS. The development and application of scientific knowledge should meet the resource needs of society (resource use, recreation) while sustaining the life support systems of the Nation (resource protection, serving communities). The characterization and understanding of the vulnerability and sustainability of coupled human-environmental systems are integral to addressing these DOI concerns.

Following the redefinition of its mission in the mid-1990s, the USGS envisions itself as an integrated natural science and information agency, assuming a national leadership role in using science to develop knowledge about the web of relations that couple biophysical and human systems and in translating this knowledge into unbiased, reliable information that meets important societal needs (National Research Council, 2002). Four trends will influence USGS geography-oriented science activities over the next decade. First, most, if not all, of the emerging earth science issues that the USGS will address must be studied as geographic phenomena, with location acting as a primary parameter associated with research and data (National Research Council, 1997). Second, a growing international concern for aligning society’s development activities with environmental limits has led to an articulation of a science agenda associated with global

Future directions for geography at the USGS

Describing and understanding the relation between humans and the environment is a central focus of current monitoring, research, and applications at USGS (such as monitoring biodiversity and earthquake magnitude, assessing flood frequency and the recurrence of volcanic activity, and creating and testing hypotheses about the relation of land use and water quality). Many of these science activities rely on expertise and understanding from a single discipline. While this science often is conducted at a high level – representing national and international leadership – the outcomes of these many discipline-specific streams of research often are not blended to develop an integrated perspective on important societal concerns.

Multi-discipline integration has been a growing focus of USGS geographers over the last decade and will be a major focus for the next decade. In the next 10 years, USGS geographers will provide national leadership in understanding how coupled human-environmental systems respond to change. USGS geographers also will provide pertinent information on the vulnerability and resilience of these systems to decisionmakers. Additionally, USGS will assume national leadership in geographic core competencies in regional geography, the integration of natural and social sciences to support decisionmaking, and GIScience—including remote sensing. These emphases are responsive to national strategic opportunities, and they are consistent with the priorities for USGS science described in a series of reports by the National Research Council (National Research Council, 2001a; 2002; 2003b).

Partners

The success of this science plan will require USGS geographers and managers to assume responsibility for identifying and incorporating partners in the planning and execution of science activities (Sidebar I-3). The greatest synergy will occur when there is a broad understanding of the objectives and scientific priorities of all disciplines in the USGS, necessitating initiative, communication skills, and good will among the participants. An important objective of this collaboration is to avoid duplication of efforts and redundant investments.

Sidebar I-3: Current and potential science partners for geography at the USGS Other USGS disciplines. The U.S. Geological Survey Strategic Plan (2000) identified the need for the agency to integrate and coordinate scientific investigations, particularly at the planning and research-design stage. Geography researchers are poised to facilitate the integration of USGS scientific information and help provide scientific results to decisionmakers in a way that can be readily used. USGS geographers have an important role in providing accurate, current geospatial data, particularly associated with elevation, hydrography, and land cover, in a timely manner. The National Map will provide the Nation with a consistent geospatial framework for geographic knowledge, public access to high-quality geospatial data, and integrated information from multiple partners. Full implementation of The National Map requires extensive GIScience research. Other U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) Agencies. As the primary science agency in the DOI, the USGS has a special role in meeting the scientific needs of other DOI agencies – the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, and the Minerals Management Service – in managing Federal lands. The USGS provides objective scientific information and interpretation to these agencies and helps them in determining the types of monitoring required for gauging the success of resource-management policies. Among the management needs and issues of DOI land-management agencies are: understanding the mechanisms associated with the spread of invasive species and how to model the vulnerability of public lands to the introduction and spread of such organisms; forecasting the landscape conditions in areas adjoining Federal lands in the next 50-100 years, particularly near parks and refuges; forecasting the ecological effects of land changes; accessing up-to-date geospatial data regarding roads, park boundaries, land cover, and vegetative cover, particularly in remote areas; accessing historical aerial photos and other historical records in a georeferenced format that allows analysis of historical data on ecological conditions; and continuously updating landscape characterizations in and around the Nation’s national parks, monuments, and wildlife refuges. Other Federal Agencies. USGS geographers have numerous opportunities to collaborate with Federal agencies outside the DOI, particularly the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Energy, Department of Defense, U.S. Forest Service,

Sidebar I-3 (con't.) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), Federal Emergency Management Agency, and National Science Foundation. Interagency integrated science initiatives, including the Climate Change Science Program, also are important forums for USGS geographic science. The multidisciplinary approach to problem solving necessitates that this kind of collaboration be expanded. For example, NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise provides another outstanding opportunity for exciting science collaboration. State and Local Agencies. State and local agencies can play a vital role in enhancing the relevance of USGS science initiatives for regional decisionmaking processes. The USGS Geospatial Information Office’s (GIO) National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) partnership offices, which are usually collocated with other USGS discipline offices, can help ensure that USGS science objectives reflect an understanding of local and regional issues and that collaborative efforts reflect mutually beneficial objectives. Partnerships with local customers can enhance communication between USGS geographers and local parties and help in securing the best data for research needs. NSDI partnership offices can host local meetings on relevant science issues, keep channels of communication open between partners and the USGS, and pursue reimbursable agreements. To realize these benefits, communication and coordination between NSDI partnership staff and geography program coordinators must be strengthened. Academia. USGS geographers do not have a strong tradition of successful collaboration with the academic community and must work to develop and expand such collaboration. Stronger ties can be established in several ways, including cooperatively funding graduate students, developing a strong postdoctoral hiring program, and providing support for temporary sabbatical appointments. To achieve USGS science goals, geographers will need access to cutting-edge research techniques and facilities that may not exist within the USGS. Simultaneously, academic geographers can gain a better appreciation for the educational needs of USGS employees. Private Sector. The USGS has fostered strong partnerships with the private sector through cooperative research and development agreements (CRADA) and other agreements in the production and distribution of maps. In order to serve the Nation better, the USGS must maintain this partnership, particularly in the full implementation of The National Map. Understanding the needs and goals of private-sector partners will ensure that collaboration is mutually beneficial. Opportunities for collaboration are particularly promising in the GIScience area. Professional Societies. USGS geographers must continue to improve their visibility and cooperate with a wide range of professional societies, such as the Association of American Geographers. As members of a broader earth science community, geographers must actively participate in professional meetings and in writing, reviewing, and editing scientific journal articles and books. Further, professional societies have made substantial investments in education and outreach, and the USGS can explore opportunities for greater collaboration in these areas. Large organizations, such as the Ecological Society of America, Geological Society of America, and the American Geophysical Union, represent new areas of opportunity for integrating the geographic perspective into the earth and biological sciences. Technical societies, such as the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and the Cartographic and Geographic Information Society, also are important potential venues for USGS professional participation. International Agencies and Institutions. Cooperative efforts with earth science agencies in other countries are essential given the present transition to a more global economy, the global nature of many earth science problems (such as climate variability), and the clear need for global monitoring. USGS leadership and participation in international characterizations of land cover and elevation can contribute to the development of national economic and security policies.

Goal 1: Characterize and quantify land surface status and trends to provide a framework for understanding change patterns and processes from local to global scales.

In 2015, land-use and land-cover changes arising from human activities and variations in atmospheric, hydrologic, and biological systems provide many benefits and improve the quality of life for humans. Unfortunately, the changes also jeopardize the sustainability of many ecosystems, as well as the goods (such as food and construction materials) and services (such as cleaning and recycling water and essential nutrients) that ecosystems provide. The USGS Land Cover Institute routinely monitors and assesses land-cover change at local to global scales and provides definitive information required by researchers and decisionmakers around the world to understand how the types, patterns, and changes in land cover affect valuable and endangered ecosystems. Geographers at the Land Cover Institute provide national and international leadership by defining, monitoring, and explaining the changes, as well as by providing aid in assessing management goals and objectives. The Institute makes the critical connection between data and the analysis that provides the added value of geographic explanation. The resulting information, developed using a “locally relevant and globally consistent” philosophy, allows resource managers to understand the changes, anticipate threats to resources and the environment, develop management strategies, and assess the effectiveness of their plans.

Land change is one of the critical science issues of the 21st century and is perhaps the most important scientific issue rooted in the discipline of geography. Science agendas established by national (for example, National Research Council, 2001a, 2001b; Climate Change Science Program, 2003) and international (for example, International Geosphere Biosphere Program, 1999) organizations have called for acceleration of land change research. Land change is a pivotal issue in the discipline of geography because it is a major force in modifying climate, ecosystem goods and services, economic welfare, and human health at multiple scales and is a major responder to climate change (Gutman and others, 2004). Land change directly affects water resources and their management, and alters the habitat for valued species. The foundation of land change studies are descriptions of the status and trends of land cover, land use, and surface form. Such data are essential if we are to understand almost any aspect of land change, including its causes and consequences. Documenting land surface status and trends involves monitoring and mapping to integrate information from personal observation, remote sensing, field inventories and surveys, and spatial models. Land change research also integrates regional geographic perspectives and insights from ecology, climatology, hydrology, geology, urban planning, and other disciplines.

Understanding land change issues also requires a perspective that spans local to global scales. Land change is perhaps the most noticeable form of global environmental change because it occurs locally. The effects of local land changes are cumulative and attain a global importance because of their outcomes in the global ecosystem (Turner and Meyer, 1991). Improved information and understanding of local and global land attributes are essential to our ability to successfully mitigate and manage the effects of land change on human and environmental systems.

Strategic Science Actions

The first step in land change science is to characterize the status and trends of key land attributes (such as type, condition, and patterns) that affect human-environment systems. Critical research questions about land status and trends include:

• What are the current patterns and attributes of land use and land cover at national to global scales that affect the carbon cycle, atmospheric processes, and ecosystem structure and function?
• What are the regional, national, and global rates, patterns, and characteristics of contemporary land-use and land-cover change?
• Where are the current areas of land-use and land-cover change at national and global scales?
• Why do these changes occur in specific ways and in particular locations or regions?

To address goal 1 and answer these questions, USGS geographic research must be expanded by taking several strategic actions. These actions collectively will contribute to a USGS geographic monitoring infrastructure that provides the information needed by scientists, resource managers, and the public considering land change problems.

Strategic Action 1.1:

Establish a center of excellence focusing on land change science

The research outlined here, as well as the research associated with goals 2, 3, and 6, requires a team of established researchers to develop plans, conduct critical studies, make national assessments, and synthesize regional and topical information. This group, organized within the framework of a center of excellence, will provide the leadership to establish real-time monitoring capabilities, working across the USGS to identify and capitalize on research opportunities. Research

Sidebar 1.1: Establishing a land change science center of excellence Linkages: A land change science center will be an interdisciplinary endeavor. The center will be founded with strong links to the land change research found across the USGS but also must connect with interagency activities in the Climate Change Science Program. Links with NASA on earth observation issues, USEPA on statistical indicators, and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on a range of forestry and agricultural land topics are particularly important. Academic participation must be planned from the onset in order to ensure that the goals of the center reflect the best practices and capabilities of the land change science community. Performance Measures: A USGS land change center of excellence is established (within 1 year). The center is staffed initially with 10 Ph.D. scientists with support staff (within 2 years) and expanded to 20 scientists (within 5 years). An international symposium on land change science opportunities and challenges is held and used to form the science strategy for the center (within 2 years). A land change science plan is prepared and approved by USGS (within 2 years). Partnerships with key Federal and academic organizations are formalized (within 2 years). A research strategy and implementation plan is prepared for developing comparable land-cover data for the period 1970 to the present (within 3 years). A strong focus on regional geography is included (see Goal 6 discussion).

activities of the center also will benefit from the geographically distributed nature of the USGS, with its regional science centers, dispersed staff, and regional expertise.

The USGS will receive high returns from a relatively modest investment. A center with a minimum of 10 geographic researchers can affect a far-reaching cultural transformation of geography in the USGS and provide the Bureau and its scientists with core intellectual resources related to land change. The center will promote research synergism, provide a focal point for collaborating with external scientists, and foster a culture of research excellence and high productivity.

Strategic Action 1.2:

Expand global capabilities to map and measure land cover and land-cover change at multiple scales that are locally relevant yet globally consistent.

The USGS already has a substantial investment in large-area land characterization, with a capability to map the land use and cover of the Nation and to assemble the elevation data needed to understand changes in land surfaces. The USGS is an international leader in global land cover and elevation mapping, but has not invested adequate research resources in this topic to take advantage of the resulting products for knowledge-building research. To meet science goals, USGS geographers must develop a “locally relevant and globally consistent” program for characterizing land-cover change at multiple scales. This strategy must recognize the diverse requirements of land change applications and provide increasingly more accurate and detailed land attributes needed to address current and future applications.

Strategic Action 1.3:

Determine how much of the annual national and global land changes result from natural and human influences.

Managing land change requires understanding the extent of natural variability and natural land disturbances resulting from wildfires, floods, and other natural events, as well as changes caused by human activity. In many cases, land changes result from combinations of natural and human influences, necessitating sophisticated analysis to understand the relative contributions of each causal mechanism. Understanding and explanation depend on research to document the full extent of natural and human disturbances at global and national levels. The required information is a product of an ongoing land monitoring strategy that provides the identification of types and trends of disturbances and that leads to meaningful land management policies.

Strategic Action 1.4:

Establish an operational global ecosystem monitoring system that continuously measures and characterizes the current status of ecosystem goods and services to estimate and explain deviations from normal conditions.

The USGS must develop a multi-disciplinary suite of ecosystem health and productivity indicators that can be used to assess ecosystems throughout the Nation and globally. Resource managers must continually update management strategies to balance short-term, multiple uses of ecosystems with long-term sustainability goals. A global monitoring system will provide near real-time information enabling resource managers and resource-assessment experts to confidently make informed policy and management decisions. Global capability is a requirement because it is only at the global scale that ecosystem influences on climate become clear along with critical biological connections such as migration patterns, biodiversity threats, and invasive species effects.

Strategic Action 1.5:

Establish a consistent, repeatable methodology that identifies the changes in the topographic form of the Nation at appropriate intervals.

Periodic assessments of the changes in the Nation’s topography and land cover every 5-10 years will employ advanced topographic mapping and monitoring methods. Understanding the characteristics of a changing surface form and the links between changing land use, land cover, and surface form is an important element of understanding the overall causes and consequences of land change.

Sidebar 1.2: Establishing science-driven land status and trends characterization Linkages: USGS geographers have an outstanding track record in large-area land-cover analysis and topographic characterization. Improving the capabilities will require a strong research agenda that draws from remote sensing and GIScience goals (7, 8, and 9). Expanding this capability also will require partnerships with NASA and NOAA on earth observation technologies and strategies. Creation of useful science priorities depends on cooperation with the Climate Change Science Program Land-Use and Land-Cover Change Interagency Working Group. The Federal Multi-Resolution Land Characterization consortium will play an important role in defining research and mapping objectives. Additional important cooperators include such programs as the Global Observation of Forest Cover/Global Observation of Landcover Dynamics and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Global Land-Cover Facility. Performance Measures: A strategy for global land-cover mapping and change analysis is designed and tested (within 2 years) and operational (within 5 years). Annual assessments of the overall extent of land change, as well as a determination of the extent of natural compared to human-induced change, are made for the Nation (within 5 years) and the globe (within 10 years). Near-time assessments of indicators of key ecosystem goods and services are made for the Nation (within 3 years) and the globe (within 6 years). A strategy for measuring the extent of surface form change is designed and tested (within 2 years) and becomes operational (within 5 years). The requirements for an urban monitoring system are defined and a monitoring system is designed and tested (within 2 years), and is followed by system implementation (within 5 years).

Strategic Action 1.6:

Develop and implement a strategy that leads to a clearer understanding of the characteristics and changes in the urban environment.

The urban and built-up landscape offers a particularly unique challenge to land change studies. An urban land-change monitoring program that places local and regional urban growth in a national perspective will give policymakers and planners a framework for clarifying and prioritizing the effects on economic development, environmental quality, and quality-of-life objectives. A strategy to combine sampling and mapping in a regional geographic framework will permit better understanding of the differences in land change issues by region, city size, and function, providing the basis for a full assessment of urban environmental issues.

Strategic Action 1.7:

Develop spatially explicit reconstructions of the land use and land cover of the North American landscape to provide the context and baseline for future resource management and public policy.

Changes that have occurred in the past provide the context for understanding contemporary and future land changes. Historical disturbances and settlement patterns directly affect current environmental processes. For example, carbon fluxes that affect atmospheric chemistry and the global carbon budget are literally rooted in the land management practices of the past that affected soil carbon accumulation, vegetation age structures, and total biomass. Reconstruction of the land-use and land-cover history of North America requires close cooperation between USGS geographers and scientists from other USGS disciplines. The history must span the periods from pre-settlement to the present and provide a geospatial representation of the evolution and effects of human settlement across the once-natural landscape.

Sidebar 1.3: Developing the land-use and land-cover history of North America Linkages: Experiences gained in the Land-Use History of North America initiative establish a starting point for creating a land-use and land-cover history of North America. The history from case studies and synoptic investigations will necessitate a broad consortium of partners, including those in the USGS with considerable biologic, geologic, and hydrologic expertise, and similar specialists from academia and non-governmental organizations. Performance Measures: A meeting of experts is used to establish objectives and scope for a land change history (within 1 year). A comprehensive and spatially explicit North America land-use and land-cover history is completed (within 6 years).

Highlight 2: Monitoring the Cycle of Land-Cover Change

The Landsat record is the longest continuous record of the globe in existence. Five Landsat images (fig. 2) covering a 10-kilometer (km) by 10-km phosphate mining area near Lakeland, Florida illustrate the value and advantages of Landsat data for monitoring land change. From the vantage point of more than 700 km above the Earth, remote-sensing instruments onboard six Landsat satellites have provided a synoptic historical record of the cycle of land-cover changes taking place from 1973 to 2000. The five images offer false color renditions of the process of land change in which the original pastures and grasslands (shown in mottled red tones in the 1973 image) were converted to active phosphate mines (white areas in the 1979 image), water-filled mine pits (blue and black colors in the 1986 and 1992 images), and to reclaimed land (smooth pink colors in the 2000 image). During the 27-year period of observation, nearly 80 percent of the land in this area changed. Measurements and maps of change, essential elements for investigations of the causes and consequences of change, are possible because the USGS, working in concert with NASA, provides leadership and technical and scientific expertise for global Earth observation.


        

Figure 2. Changing land cover near Lakeland, Florida.

Goal 2: Identify local, regional, national, and global drivers of land change to forecast plausible land change scenarios over the next 20-50 years.

By 2015, the USGS will use knowledge gained from studies of the historical and contemporary driving forces of land change to project possible changes 20 to 50 years into the future. In 2015, the USGS will be the primary Federal agency providing insights into the Nation’s future land change scenarios and the possible effects of those changes. Understanding the agents or driving forces that stimulate land change will provide the foundations of this predictive capability. This understanding of the drivers of change will come about because an expanded USGS capability to merge social and natural sciences will create new understanding of the connections between changes and their drivers.

The USGS will provide decisionmakers with assessments of the likely outcomes of various policy options. More specifically, USGS research will provide decisionmakers with knowledge of the rates and types of land changes that can be expected given changes in specific drivers (such as technology, economics, policy, and legislation). In 10 years, USGS models for predicting land-use and land-cover changes will provide decisionmakers and scientists with objective projections given plausible scenarios of change at local, regional, and national scales. This predictive capability contributes directly to assessments of the potential consequences of future changes of the Nation’s economy and environment.

Simulation models that generate realistic projections of change for future periods are critical tools for managing the consequences of land change. Models allow decisionmakers and resource managers to illuminate possible outcomes of land changes arising from specific proposed scenarios. Understanding the past, current, and future drivers of land-use and land-cover change makes predictions and evaluations of change possible. The interaction of economic, environmental, social, political, and technological forces at local to global scales shape land-management practices and patterns of land change. By associating historical land change patterns with the forces that stimulated that change, it is possible to create and validate theories about land change. By establishing an in-depth understanding of the relation between drivers and the characteristics of change, it also is possible to improve projections of land-use and land-cover change. Improved change projections will help minimize negative effects of change on the environment and resources, and maximize positive effects. Successful, useful studies of change drivers require the integration of various disciplines from the natural, physical, and social sciences.

Strategic Science Actions

Research on driving forces and land change projection must consider a series of questions governing key theoretical and empirical issues, including:

• What are the primary historic and contemporary human drivers of land change and what will they be in the future?
• What are the relations between changes in land use and land cover at different scales and in different regions?
• How do driving forces affect land change at different scales (for example, local, regional, and global)?
• How could environmental, political, technological, demographic, and economic processes determine land-cover over the next few decades?
• How, and to what extent, do extreme events (such as natural disasters, public health emergencies, and war) affect land change? What is the relative importance of extreme events in land change history?
• What are the geographic data requirements for predicting land-use and land-cover change and consequences at regional, national, and global scales?

Four strategic science actions will advance the USGS capability to apply an expanded understanding of the drivers of land change in models to project land use and land cover 20 to 50 years into the future.

Strategic Action 2.1:

Establish an ongoing capability of assessing the social, economic, political, technological, and environmental influences on land change.

A partnership between USGS and academic institutions will outline a strategy to investigate driving forces for land change. In addition, the USGS must assemble the appropriate expertise needed to cooperatively conduct research on the socio-economic and political aspects of land change drivers. Because the drivers of land change usually are regional in their influence, a national USGS strategy must include regional implementation.

Strategic Action 2.2:

Conduct studies on the geographic variability of the types of responses associated with specific drivers (such as globalization, new technology, and policies) on land change and determine how those responses operate at different scales.

The land change responses associated with specific drivers vary regionally and over time. Over time, the same drivers can have a shifting effect on land change. Understanding how specific groups of drivers affect land change in different regions of the United States is necessary for relevant projections of future land change over large areas. In addition, the USGS must conduct multiple-scale (for example, local, regional, national, and global) investigations of the consequences of change resulting from specific drivers such as land management practices, legislation, technology, and globalization. Multiple-scale research will determine how historical change, land-use theory, and resource capacity interact to affect future land change.

Strategic Action 2.3:

Validate the theoretical basis of land-use change by using data from landscape-dynamics research.

Reliance on empirical evidence alone has limited the conceptual basis for land change projections, a short-coming that the creation of a theoretical framework can alleviate. General theories from the social sciences, such as highest and best use, distance decay, and comparative advantage, can be integrated with an understanding of how geographic variations in climate, landforms, geology, soils, and other physical, chemical, and biological landscape characteristics affect land-use potential. A series of case studies and empirical assessments can provide test cases to develop and test integrated hypotheses about the interaction between cultural and biophysical landscape characteristics that produce land-use change. The development and validation of hypothesis-driven research will improve the theoretical basis for land-use and land-cover change predictions.

Strategic Action 2.4:

The USGS researchers will partner with scientists outside of USGS in developing land change simulation models.

The need for improved simulation of future land cover and land use is being expressed with increasing frequency in the land change science community. The current status of land change projection models is evolving rapidly, but most research is at local scales either within a non-spatial, resource-based econometric framework or in urban settings. Simulation models, on the other hand, must predict change over very large areas to be compatible with the scale of climatic, geologic, hydrologic, and economic drivers. Land change models must couple with other process models to incorporate feedback and with dynamic updating. Research must define coupling strategies that address the influences of ecosystem functioning, such as carbon, water, and energy cycling, on land change projections. Model validation will be a particularly challenging element of this research area. Simulation of past conditions will be a necessary strategy for testing the performance of models, placing more emphasis on the need to understand land-use and land-cover change in both historical and contemporary contexts.

Goal 3: Understand past, present, and future environmental consequences of land change to support better management of their effect on people, environment, economy, and resources.

Throughout the 21st century, the continuing conversion of land cover and land use in the United States and throughout the world, along with the migration of labor, jobs, products, and resources associated with a global economy, will result in physical, biological, and social consequences at all scales. One consequence is the introduction of thousands of harmful plants, animals, and diseases to the United States from other countries, which create annual damages in excess of $138 billion. Tamarisk (salt cedar), West Nile Virus, and the snakehead fish are three notorious examples from a current list of more than 6,500 invasive species. Geography’s unique suite of analytical capabilities can address the dimensions of these invasions and contribute to the explanation of the dynamics of invasive species.

A decade from now, the USGS Invasive Species Forecasting System will document, map, and predict harmful invasive species and serve as the primary tool used by land-management agencies, Tribes, State and local governments, and citizen volunteer groups for combating invasive species. USGS geographers and biologists will collaborate, using capabilities to monitor and assess land change at local and regional scales and understand the processes underlying the spread of invasive species and pathogens, to track the future distributions and abundance of harmful invaders and to aid in prevention, early detection and rapid response, inventory and monitoring, and restoration efforts. By integrating the physical and biological sciences with high resolution remote sensing and high performance computing in a geographic framework, USGS geographers will lead the Nation’s efforts to locate and contain invasive species before they gain dominance and harm our economy and environment.

The public is interested in understanding the consequences of land change for social and economic well-being, sustainability of resources, and preservation of environmental quality. Understanding the consequences of land change at multiple spatial and temporal scales is a fundamental goal of land change science. Such an understanding provides resource managers and decisionmakers with an objective basis for

formulating land-use and land-management decisions and practices to mitigate the undesirable aspects of land change.

Land changes have substantial effects on environmental, economic, and social welfare at all scales. For example, the water cycle depends heavily on vegetation, surface characteristics, and soil properties, while water resources development also influences water quantity and quality (Climate Change Science Program, 2003). Land-use and land-cover change, climate change, soil degradation, and other environmental changes interact to affect ecosystems and the services they provide. The ecosystem effect of these perturbations often is cumulative.

Complex linkages and feedbacks between land change and environmental response further complicate understanding the consequences of land change. For example, changes in land attributes affecting greenhouse gas emissions, albedo, surface roughness, and other variables modify land-atmosphere interactions and therefore affect climate. Subsequent adjustments in climate may then lead to further accelerated changes in land cover and the ways lands are used. Although there is growing evidence of the circular relation between land change and climate variability, the understanding of the different scales of interactions, feedbacks, and consequences is only at an embryonic stage.

Strategic Science Actions

The USGS has a long and distinguished research record related to research on physical and biological systems and processes. Future USGS research associated with this goal must combine the longstanding physical and biological sciences with geographical land change science. The research requires extensive interdisciplinary cooperation to address the consequences of land change at a variety of spatial and temporal scales. The research must provide answers to several questions, such as:

• How will different scenarios of future land change affect the productivity of public and private land, and what are the economic and environmental consequences of changes in land productivity?
• How will land changes affect the form and functioning of ecosystems, including the ability to provide essential goods and services and levels of ecosystem biodiversity, and what are the ecological, economic, public health, and social costs of the changes?
• How does land change affect climate and, subsequently, how does climate change affect the way land is used?

Strategic Action 3.1:

Conduct research on the consequences of land change on climate, water, carbon cycle, ecosystems, invasive species, and societal concerns.

This research will explore the consequences of past, present, and future landscape patterns and types of land change. Understanding the mechanisms of change in both a historical and present-day context is necessary to understand future consequences of land change. The research also must include process-based investigations of local to regional studies and scaling strategies for estimating consequences over very large areas. Coupled models that link land change to priority environmental and social processes also will be needed to develop this understanding. Understanding the connections between land change and environmental and societal consequences of concern to DOI resource managers also is necessary.

Strategic Action 3.2:

Conduct research on specific consequences of land-use and land-cover patterns and changes for environmental health and public safety issues, particularly at the boundaries between developed and wildland areas.

The consequences of land change are potentially more severe at the contact point between people and nature. Human activity can fragment habitat, contribute to water-quality degradation, provide pathways for invasive species, and serve as breeding grounds and transfer points for vector-borne disease hosts. It also creates critical zones where the risks of wildfire and other hazards are high and possibly life-threatening. Research on the causes and effects of land changes at interfaces is particularly important because of the special magnified risks and hazards in such zones (Fisher and Rahel, 2004).

Strategic Action 3.3:

Conduct research leading to improved capabilities to assess wildfire conditions, predict wildfire potential, prioritize treatment areas, and monitor effectiveness of fire treatments to support risk-reduction efforts in the urban-natural landscape interface.

Wildfires are serious threats to the public that pose substantial resource management challenges for lands administered by DOI and other government agencies. The complexity of wildfire issues calls for a special science effort to provide the data, knowledge, and management options for wildfire management. Effective science and management require an improved understanding of the influence of land change and natural ecosystem disturbance on wildfires and an improved capability to define risks and consequences of the fires. This research must explicitly account for feedback among wildfires, ecosystem changes, societal choices, and social welfare.

Strategic Action 3.4:

Conduct research on the feedbacks between land change and environmental systems and resources.

Land change alters environmental systems, which subsequently affects land use and land cover. Understanding the feedback between land change and climate, carbon fluxes, water quantity and quality, and societal resource allocation choices can lead to comprehensive coupled models of environmental behavior. Advanced understanding of the circular relation between land change, environment consequences, and human choices will provide decisionmakers and resource managers with better information on the ramifications of various policies and strategies.

Sidebar 3.1: Assessing the environmental consequences of land change Linkages: Because research into the consequences of land change is interdisciplinary, the USGS approach to the issue also must be interdisciplinary. Drawing on all of the core capabilities of geography, the research must be coordinated throughout the USGS and DOI and through interagency forums to other agencies including the Climate Change Science Program, North America Carbon Program, Joint Fire Science Program, and National Interagency Fire Center. The research requires a functioning partnership among USGS geography, geology, water, and biology researchers. Performance Measures: USGS geographers, working with biologists, geologists, and water scientists from across the USGS, must identify research priorities and prepare a research plan (within 2 years). A national assessment of the contemporary effects of land change on regional carbon dynamics is completed (within 3 years). National assessments of the consequences of land change on ecosystem services, water quality, and climate variability are completed (within 10 years). Regional analyses of the threats of land change in the urban-wildland interface are conducted (within 5 years). A systematic assessment of wildfire risks and consequences on DOI lands is made (within 6 years)

Sidebar 3.2: Developing a comprehensive capability to assess the effects and feedback between land change and environmental responses. Linkages: The systematic modeling of land change and its consequences demands a research effort spanning all the USGS disciplines. This effort requires geographers to provide a spatial framework and the understanding of the human-environment issues, and the other USGS disciplines to contribute specialized knowledge about ecosystem operations. The effort also will require cooperative partnerships with scientists from academia and other Federal agencies such as the NSF’s National Environmental Observatory Network (NEON) initiative, NOAA, and NASA. Performance Measures: USGS geographers, working with biologists, geologists, and water scientists from across the USGS, must identify research priorities and prepare a research plan (within 2 years). Define the feedback between land change and environmental responses and develop a series of models for assessing system feedback (within 4 years).

Highlight 3: Land-Use Change and the Carbon Cycle

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere plays an important role in regulating the Earth’s climate. The continuing increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration has the potential of substantially altering the environment and affecting the economy at regional to global scales (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). However, the pathways that regulate the change of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere are not well understood or quantified. The National Academy of Sciences reported that “how land contributes, by locations and processes, to exchanges of carbon with the atmosphere is still highly uncertain” (National Academy of Sciences, 2001). One of the largest challenges in the study of local to global carbon cycles is to quantify the effects of land-use and land-cover change on CO2 exchange between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere. The U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan identified the establishment of accurate estimates for the effects of historical and current land-use patterns and trends on the evolving carbon budget at local to continental scales as one of its five overarching goals. (Sarmiento and Wofsy, 1999).

Highlight 3 (cont.)

Many studies indicated that a substantial portion of the terrestrial carbon sink is related to present and historical land-use activities (Houghton and others, 1999; Caspersen and others, 2000). Historical land-use change has contributed about one-third of the increased CO2 concentration observed in the atmosphere globally (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2000). In North America, land-cover and land-use change is a dominant driving force for the terrestrial carbon sink. The widespread reforestation that occurred since 1900 in the eastern United States has sequestered increasing amounts of carbon from the atmosphere (Wofsy and others, 1993; Houghton and others, 1999). The heavy use of fertilizers (Matthews, 1994) together with increased atmospheric nitrogen deposition (Schindler and Bayley, 1993; Holland and others, 1997) and improved tillage and crop rotation practices (Paul and others, 1997) also has led to increased storage of carbon in soils and biomass.

Although the importance of land-use change on carbon dynamics is widely recognized, the effects of land-use