Population, Land Use & Health in Frontier Regions (RMI)

描述(由申请人提供)： 该项目汇集了七个跨学科研究小组，致力于描述、解释和预测全球前沿地区的土地利用变化。土地变化科学是一个动态的、涉及多学科的新兴科学领域，尚未形成标准化的方法论。总体目标是a)综合关于这七项研究的途径、方法、数据和分析的知识，b)与这一综合并行的是为新兴的土地变化科学制定一套关于现场报告、数据和方法的“最佳做法”，c)利用新出现的基于试剂的技术规划、实施和验证比较分析，以及d)评估未来项目的潜力，该项目将是对多个地点的土地利用变化的综合研究。 “边疆”是指人类未充分利用/未管理的土地区域，有可能被改造成更频繁使用和管理的景观。与土地潜力相比，土地利用不足是一个相对的概念，取决于市场、技术、制度安排等方面的发展。边界很重要，因为发生的典型农业变化对全球土地覆盖的影响最大，而这些变化反过来又与当地和全球健康问题有关。当地健康问题的例子包括接触中国的血吸虫病和新英格兰的莱姆病。 这七个团队在北美、南美和亚洲都有研究地点。所有七个小组目前都得到资助，以审查人口-土地利用-环境的联系和变化，但到目前为止，还没有项目之间的正式联系。每个团队都是多学科的，在七个团队中有以下学科的代表：人类学、生物统计学、植物学、人口学、发展研究、生态学、经济学、环境科学、地理学、历史学、水文学、气象学、遥感/地理信息系统、保护区管理和社会学。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project brings together seven interdisciplinary research teams working on characterizations, explanations and predictions of land use change in frontier regions around the globe. Land change science is an emerging scientific field that is dynamic, draws on multiple disciplines, and has not yet developed standardized methodologies. The overall goals are to a) synthesize knowledge of approaches, methods, data and analyses of these seven studies, b) parallel to this synthesis is the development of a set of "best practices" for reporting on site, data, and methods for emerging land change science, c) plan, conduct and validate comparative analyses using emerging agent-based techniques, and d) evaluate the potential of a future project that would be an integrated study of land use change in multiple sites. "Frontier" is a land area that is under-used/un-managed by humans and which has the potential/likelihood to be transformed into a more heavily used and managed landscape. Underutilization of land compared to its potential is a relative concept, dependent on developments in markets, technology, institutional arrangements and the like. Frontiers are important because the typical agricultural transformations that occur have had the largest impact on global land cover, and these transformations, in turn, are related to local and global health issues. Examples of local health concerns include exposure to schistosomiasis in China and Lyme disease in New England. The seven teams have research sites across North America, South America and Asia. All seven teams are currently funded to examine population-land use-environment linkages and changes, but heretofore there have been no formal links across projects. Each team is multi-disciplinary, and across the seven teams the following disciplines are represented: anthropology, biostatistics, botany, demography, developmental studies, ecology, economics, environmental science, geography, history, hydrology, meteorology, remote sensing/GIS, reserve management, and sociology.