science activities

focus 4 human-climate-ecosystem interactions

Structure of Focus 4, showing the Themes (brown boxes) and Working Groups (grey text), and overlap with external programs (white boxes). For descriptions of program acronyms please see Acronym List

This Focus addresses the long-term interactions among past climate conditions, ecological processes and human activities. Emphasis lies in comparing regional-scale reconstructions of environmental and climatic processes using natural archives, documentary and instrumental data, with evidence of past human activity obtained from historical, paleoecological and archaeological records. The Focus promotes regional integration of records and dynamic modeling to: (1) understand better the nature of climate-human-ecosystem interactions; (2) quantify the roles of different natural and anthropogenic drivers in forcing environmental change; (3) examine the feedbacks between anthropogenic activity and the natural system and; (4) provide integrated datasets for model development and data-model comparisons.

Overarching Questions:
- What are the historical patterns of human interactions with climate change and ecological processes?
- How can we learn from these past patterns and interactions in order to better understand and manage natural ecosystems at present and in the future?

To address the abovementioned questions, Focus 4 is divided into six topical Themes:
Land use and cover
Carbon
Biodiversity
Water
Soil and Sediment
Regional Integration

Focus Leaders: John Dearing, Mohammed Umer and Cathy Whitlock

Working Groups
> HITE (Human Impacts on Terrestrial Ecosystems)
> LIMPACS (Human Impacts on Lake Ecosystems)
> LUCIFS (Land Use and Climate Impacts on Fluvial Systems)
> IHOPE (Integrated History of People on Earth)

> Rationale and Goals
> Themes
> Meetings
> Products