Registration is now open for an upcoming NSF NEON Workshop titled ‘Complex Landscapes at Scale: Integrating our Understanding of Managed and Unmanaged Lands at Regional to Continental Scales.’
Growing societal pressure for agriculture that is both productive and environmentally responsive creates opportunities to design crop and rangeland systems that better integrate with their wildland counterparts. Understanding potential interactions in complex landscapes and how they scale to regional and continental outcomes is prerequisite for creating landscapes that deliver multiple ecosystem services at scale.
A scientific workshop in June 2021 will identify ways to advance our understanding of managed and unmanaged lands at regional to continental scales by leveraging resources of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), the Long-term Agroecosystem Research Network (LTAR), and other networks with long-term managed and natural ecosystems including the Long-term Ecological Research Network (LTER) and Critical Zone Observatories (CZO). In a professionally facilitated virtual workshop, participants will 1) identify potentials and priorities for synthesizing existing data to address key large-scale questions, and 2) identify priorities for new measurements and data to address emerging questions. Of particular interest are issues related to scaling and interactions within natural and managed landscape mosaics; nonlinear changes in ecosystem processes, land use, and sustainability outcomes in response to global change drivers; operational questions related to data and sensor technologies; and training and organizational needs.
The organizers seek participants with interests in large-scale synthesis; with research experience in a range of ecosystem types, from natural to intensively managed; and who might value accessing and integrating data resources from different research networks. Discussion and outcomes will benefit from participants that reflect diverse expertise, institutions, ethnicity, gender, handicap status, and career stage. Current participation in a network is not required.
Please indicate your interest in participating by completing a brief pre-registration form by March 21, 2021, at https://tinyurl.com/cx75fmzc. The workshop is limited to 60 participants.
