Population, Land Use, and Environment Research Directions (2005) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Recommended Research Directions
2 Recommended Research Directions
Pages 31-39
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From page 31... ...
The ability to conduct such studies has been promoted by the existence of targeted funding for such research and by the development of international networks of researchers, aided in part by the organization of the international Land Use/ Land Cover Change Project, and its successor, the proposed Global Land Project, under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on the Human Dimensions of Global Change and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. Methodologically, research has been greatly advanced by the availability and use of observations from space, particularly from Landsat, that were little used to study land use change a decade ago.
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From page 32... ...
There is also the challenge of developing interdisciplinary collaboration across the wide range of sciences relevant to this topic and developing the capacity for this interdisciplinary research in the next generation of scientists. After consideration of research developments over the past decade and the state of knowledge on populationland useenvironment relationships, the panel makes the following recommendations for the continued development of this field.
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From page 33... ...
, in the existence and spatial scope of product markets, and in the institutions and regulations governing use of resources can have important effects on how population interacts with land and water use. Specification of the differences and similarities in these characteristics across localities is fundamental to interpreting and generalizing from research findings, developing an understanding of contextual effects and cross-scale interactions, and providing insights into possibly efficacious policy interventions.
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From page 34... ...
Population effects may depend in important ways on changing numbers of households by size and on the age structures of the members of these households over time and on temporary migrations that are not often measured, such as of commuters, tourists, seasonal workers, and illegal migrants. Land cover categories observable with current remote sensing techniques often contain highly heterogeneous land uses, especially in urban areas.
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From page 35... ...
In developing these integrated studies, researchers should be attentive, as noted above, to the specific demographic, land use, and environmental factors involved and to contextual factors that may influence these relationships, including social institutions and geographic location, among others. They should be attentive, as noted below, to the ways in which population land useenvironment relationships may vary depending on the spatial, temporal, and social units used for analysis and to the mechanisms and causal processes involved.
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From page 36... ...
There are many strategies for examining these scale dependence and scale interaction issues, including the incorporation of multiple scales of analysis within single studies; the linking of research activities that overlap on one dimension (e.g., same place) but differ in scale of analysis; and the use of dynamic modeling approaches, such as cellular automata, agent
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From page 37... ...
The objectives of building integrated knowledge; linking population, land use, and environment; and understanding scale dependencies and crossscale linkages will all be greatly advanced by the development of data sets that allow for comparisons across variables, research sites, and scales and for analyses of feedbacks from environmental to demographic variables. Investment should be made both in continuing existing linked longitudinal data sets and in developing similar data sets at new sites in under-studied regions and in places that offer unique research opportunities.
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From page 38... ...
These include the use of different words for essentially similar concepts and of the same words to mean different things in different disciplines, the presence of bodies of tacit knowledge that remain hidden during most conversations, disagreements over the best way to tackle interesting research questions, invidious distinctions between "hard" and "soft" science, and the challenge of administering large and sometimes spatially and temporally dispersed teams. Senior scientists report that such difficulties result in slower progress toward research results and increased difficulty in publishing interdisciplinary work.
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From page 39... ...
How do effective interdisciplinary teams recruit and reward participants? Do certain types of administrative structures, such as interdisciplinary research institutes, foster successful interdisciplinary research?
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