Land System Science in Latin America: Advances and Perspectives

The seminar was carried out at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), in São José dos Campos, Brazil, from 9 to 11th of November 2015. The seminar had the objective of gathering, synthesizing and conceptualizing existing advances in land systems science in Latin America, and of establishing perspectives of this research field for the region. The seminar gathered 23 regional experts in the field from 7 countries. We conformed three working groups including 1) monitoring land systems, 2) social-ecological dynamics of land systems, and 3) telecouplings and governance of land systems. The monitoring group focused on the shift from monitoring the relationships between forests and other land cover types to monitoring a greater diversity of land cover and land use types. A typology of social-ecological land systems and their dynamics and perspectives in the region was elaborated. Finally, challenges and opportunities linked with the growing importance of distant socio-economic interactions of the region with the rest of the world were discussed.

Download the resulting article in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

Download the original workshop call