IGU new Commission on Geography for Future Earth: Coupled Human-Earth Systems for Sustainability established

The International Geographical Union announces that a new Commission on “Geography for Future Earth: Coupled Human Earth Systems for Sustainability” (IGU-GFE)  has formally established recently. The Commission will promote research and innovation in relation to sustainability, and provide a platform for communication among geographers globally.

The mission of the proposed commission of Geography for Future Earth: Coupled Human-Earth Systems for Sustainability is to promote Geography for people to thrive in a sustainable and equitable world. Under the banner of IGU and Future Earth, the commission will serve as the focal point for developing, coordinating, and implementing interdisciplinary research and education related to coupled human-earth system dynamics and sustainable development. The commission will seeks to build and connect knowledge to increase the impact of research, to explore new development paths, and contribute to achieving goals on global sustainable development by finding new ways to sustainable development.

Highly intertwined with humanity, the land systems is the most complex and important sub-systems of the coupled human-Earth systems. The proposed commission of Geography for Future Earth: Coupled Human-Earth Systems for Sustainability will initially focus on the human-land systems and its interfaces with coastal ocean and atmosphere. We will promote wider analysis and innovative thinking about global land sustainability through the bridging and synthesis of physical geography, human geography, ecology, hydrology, atmospheric, climate and social sciences.  With this mission, the commission aims at promoting and facilitating the following six thematic areas:

1. Fundamentals of Geography for Future Earth, and especially new theories and hypothesis on coupled human-earth systems for sustainability;
2. Open and inclusive platforms for Geospatial Big Data and observations of coupled human-earth systems;
3. Integrated Earth system models to deepen our understanding of complex Earth systems and human dynamics across different scales;
4. Linkages and dynamic analysis among ecological process, services, and human wellbeing;
5. Human Contributions and Responses to global climate/environmental changes and sustainability;
6. Evaluation tools for sustainable development, multi-scale sustainability evaluation, and sustainable scenarios for transformative development pathways.

The commission aims to support the purpose of IGU to promote Geography through initiating and coordinating geographical research and teaching around the world. It will endeavor to collaborate with global scholars in the field of ecological services and human needs, natural and anthropogenic processes, human-earth systems dynamics and modelling, sustainability evaluation and sustainable development solutions.

The steering committee for the Commission will be chaired by Dr. Prof. Bojie Fu, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University/Distinguished Professor of Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, with the Vice-chair, Dr. Prof. Mark Stafford Smith, Chief Coordinating Scientist in Institute of Land and Water, CSIRO, Australia.