Land Use Change and Agriculture Program

The Land-Use Change and Agriculture (LUC) Program provides policy-relevant research and capacity building with an emphasis on global change and sustainable resource use. LUC focuses on agro-ecosystem services such as food, fiber, carbon storage and bioenergy, with special attention to: food security and rural livelihoods; sustainable soil and water resources; impacts of climate change and variability; and mitigation and adaptation strategies. The Program builds on its extensive expertise and will continue to utilize its established close interactions with relevant international organizations, ensuring that deliverables are of high policy relevance. International collaborations with leading climate change research institutions strengthen the Program’s ability to deliver products with high scientific standards.

Three areas of research are identified for the period 2006–2010, covering key issues of importance to understanding the interactions between society, land use, agriculture and climate over the coming decades. The first provides a common thread for the program’s global research, by proposing a Food and Agriculture to 2100 project that unifies themes of climate and anthropogenic impacts on soil and water resources, adaptation and mitigation strategies, and rural development. The second area analyzes sub-sets of these issues in regional case studies in Europe, China, India and sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the third area proposes activities aimed at developing new methodologies that advance our ability to derive and manipulate spatially-explicit data and provide better integration of socioeconomic and bio-physical analyses.

Applicants are encouraged to contact the program representative, David Wiberg (wiberg@iiasa.ac.at) for any scientific related questions. For more information about the LUC program check the web site.

Responsible for this page: Tanja Huber
Last updated: 03 Oct 2011