Workshop on Geographic Contributions to Global Change Research: Atlanta, Georgia; April 1993

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

As research on global change has evolved in recent years, the need for greater understanding of the complex interactions among human and natural systems has become increasingly apparent. Because of long-standing interests and expertise in the analysis of human-environmental interactions at a variety of scales, geographers have been especially well suited to play central roles in the development and conduct of research on the human and other dimensions of global change. While a significant number of geographers have stepped forward and turned their scholarly attention to this important topic, many other geographers have not recognized the potential for using their conceptual frameworks and research approaches to address these important problems. This award will provide support for a workshop on geographic contributions to global change research. The workshop will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, in early April 1993, immediately prior to the start of the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the largest professional society of research-oriented geographers in the U.S. This workshop marks a critical stage in joint work that has been conducted by AAG leaders together with NSF Geography and Regional Science Program officers. Geographers who have been leading researchers on topics related to the human dimensions of global environmental change will assist AAG leaders and NSF program officers in the selection of roughly 50 participants and in the conduct of the conference. The workshop will consist of a series of working-group discussions interspersed among plenary sessions at which all participants will meet to consider salient points raised in their group discussions. The outcome of the conference will be a number of articles in widely disseminated publications of the AAG and its specialty groups. These articles should help identify important lines of inquiry to be pursued by geographers in one or more of three general approaches. Another outcome of the workshop should be new knowledge by NSF program officers of research needs that must be addressed in order to stimulate greater involvement of geographers in basic and applied inquiries into the human and other dimensions of global change. This workshop should facilitate the more active involvement of geographers in research on global change by identifying ways that current theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches can be adapted to address a variety of problems. The workshop also should assist NSF program officers in determining new strategies that the foundation might use to facilitate and support basic research by geographers and other spatially oriented scientists on this critical topic.