Support for International Council for Science (ICSU) Environmental and Global Change Activities

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ICSU will bring together international scientific communities to address pressing and intellectually challenging global topics, among which are the World Climate Research Program (WCRP); the biological diversity program, DIVERSITS; and the efforts of the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) to develop new studies on comprehensive global issues of food, carbon, water and health are of particular importance. ICSU facilitates intellectual cross-fertilization across broad fields of environmental science and serves both a scientific and a societal imperative by supporting international advancement of knowledge and of understanding while improving future ability to respond to environmental challenges in realistic ways. ICSU activities in environment and global change will focus over the next year on natural and manmade hazards; global observing systems; new environment science-related initiatives; vulnerability and resilience to multiple climate/global change stresses; planning for science associated with the Fourth International Polar Year (IPY); and scenarios to assess the status of the environment at both global and regional scales. ICSU will support activities of the WCRP related to further development of the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX), Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate (SPARC); the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) Study; the study of Climate and Cryosphere (CliC); and the Global Earth Observing System.ICSU will support implementation of the DIVERSITAS Science Plan that focuses on three core projects - BioDISCOVERY, dedicated to taxonomy, monitoring and drivers of biodiversity change; EcoSERVICES, dedicated to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and services; BioSUSTAINABILITY, dedicated to science at the basis of conservation and sustainable development. Progress in these core projects will be presented to and reviewed in the first DIVERSITAS Open Science Conference in Oaxaca, Mexico, in November 2005. ICSU will also support efforts of the ESSP to develop new studies on comprehensive global issues of food, carbon, water and health that are of particular importance. The latter cross-cutting programs will bring together under the aegis of the ESSP scientists in many countries cooperating through the WCRP, DIVERSITAS, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP); and theInternational Human Dimensions (of Global Environmental Change) Program (IHDP).