AGU Meeting in San Francisco

Please consider submitting papers to the 2004 Fall AGU Meeting in San Francisco for one of the following Biogeosciences sessions.

B25 "Land Use / Land Cover Change: Balancing Human Needs and Environmental Functions" Conveners: Dennis Ojima, Ruth DeFries, Jonathan Foley

B21 Changes in land use and water use and their consequences on climate and biogeochemistry" Conveners: Xiangming Xiao, Dennis Ojima, and Dev dutta S Niyogi

The abstracts can be submitted until September 9, 2004 on-line (and by mail September 1). Session descriptions are attached. The fall AGU meetings will be held from December 13 through 17.

Hope to see you there.

Dennis

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Dennis Ojima

dennis@nrel.colostate.edu

Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory

B229 Natural and Environmental Science Building (NESB)

Colorado State University

Fort Collins, CO 80523-1499

Telephone: (970) 491 1976

Fax: (970) 491 1965

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B25 "Land Use / Land Cover Change: Balancing Human Needs and Environmental Functions" Conveners: Dennis Ojima, Ruth DeFries, Jonathan Foley

B21 Changes in land use and water use and their consequences on climate and biogeochemistry” Coveners: Xiangming Xiao, Dennis Ojima, and Dev dutta S Niyogi

Session B25 Description: "Land Use / Land Cover Change: Balancing Human Needs and Environmental Functions" Conveners: Dennis Ojima, Ruth DeFries, Jonathan Foley

Our understanding of earth system dynamics is dependent on our ability to understand better the role that human activities play in altering natural processes of the terrestrial biosphere and their interactions with the atmosphere and hydrosphere. Land use is a major driver of change in ecosystem services and affect terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems relative to changes in fluxes of energy, water, and nutrients, biodiversity, ecosystem structure and functioning. The human preferences and activities associated with these changes are influenced by increased population levels affecting land use change and forms of land management, industrialization and urbanization, and the globalization of trade and culture.

The presentations associated with this session will focus on a number of key issues, including:

• Land use and changes in disturbance regimes (e.g., associated with fire, pest, or diseases) on the human-environmental system and the provision of ecosystem goods and services (e.g., water resources (quality and quantity), emerging diseases, food production and security, biodiversity)

• Land use impact of changes in biodiversity on the maintenance of ecosystem goods and services.

• Vulnerability of ecosystems under multiple stresses brought about by land use change

• The impact of human activities in modifying the land use/cover pattern and human-environmental interactions along the urban-rural gradient.

• Detecting land use change at various scales

Conveners:

Dennis Ojima

dennis@nrel.colostate.edu

Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory

Colorado State University

Prof. Jon Foley, Director

Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE)

Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Ruth DeFries

Associate Professor

Earth Systems Science Interdisciplinary Center

and

Department of Geography

University of Maryland

Invited Speakers:

Ruth DeFries, Jonathan Foley, and Dennis Ojima, University of Maryland, University of Wisconsin, Colorado State University

Land Use Choices: Balancing Land Use Decision Making and Ecosystem Services

Jonathan Patz, University of Wisconsin:

"Altered Disease Risks Arising from Disturbed Landscapes"

Gretchen Daily,

"Landscape Change and the Provision of Ecosystem Services: A Case Study from Hawaii"

Hansen, Andrew, Montana State University

Land Use Fingerprint on Conservation Areas around the World

Session B21 Description: “Changes in land use and water use and their consequences on climate and biogeochemistry”

Human activities have substantially altered the land surface through land conversion (e.g., from forests to cropland, urbanization, construction of fish and shrimp ponds) and intensification of land use (e.g., multiple cropping systems). For instance, removal of seasonally moist tropical forests with deep root systems could have impacts on regional biogeochemical cycles, water cycle and the climate. At the same time, human activities have also significantly also modulated the water cycle, in part through management of water resources in support of land use changes (e.g., dams, reservoirs, irrigation). To quantify the spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of changes in land use and water use as well as their consequences on seasonal dynamics of carbon, nitrogen, water and climate is a grand challenge to the society at large. In this interdisciplinary session, we encourage presentations that address various aspects of natural and human interplays associated with land use, water use, biogeochemical cycles and climate change. This session will particularly encourage presentations that report recent progresses on (1) improved algorithms for quantifying spatial-temporal patterns of land use and water use from remote sensing approach (e.g., Landsat, MODIS, VEGETATION), (2) improved methods for measuring carbon and water fluxes at individual sites along a gradient of land use change and natural disturbances (e.g., eddy flux tower sites across various forest successional stages), (3) improved biogeochemical and climate models that incorporate new input data derived from advanced sensors and processes inferred from field observations.; and (4) application of remote sensed data and model analyses into societal decisions related to land use and water management.

Conveners: Xiangming Xiao, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space, University of New Hampshire, 39 College Road, Durham, NH 03824 USA, Tel: 603-862-3818, Fax: 603-8620188, email: xiangming.xiao@unh.edu, and Dennis Ojima, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, , Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA, Tel: (970-)491-1976, Fax: (970)491-1965, email: dennis@nrel.colostate.edu, and Dev dutta S Niyogi, Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Science, North Carolina State University, , Raleigh, NC 27695 USA, Tel: (919)515-7912, Fax: (919)463-7802, email: dsniyogi@ncsu.edu