Keynote Address

Of Maps and Models in Land System Science

Dan Brown, Director, School of Environmental and Forest Science

Advances in the availability of temporally rich spatial data and in spatially explicit process modeling have improved the utility of GIS in scientific research and applications. Land system science, which seeks to understand the social and environmental causes and consequences of changes in land use and land cover, has benefited from these advances over the last couple of decades. Spatial sciences have contributed to better understanding the complex dynamics and processes that affect land system change and better predictive models. While the availability of temporally rich data (e.g., the Landsat data archive) has been extremely valuable in improving our observational understanding of land system change, equally important have been the development and testing of behavioral (e.g., agent-based) and environmental process models that are designed to simulate land system processes. Using examples from my own work, I argue that spatial sciences will continue to contribute most effectively to science and applications by combining analysis and pattern detection in large spatio-temporal data sets with improved representation of the processes driving those changes.

Professor Dan Brown is the Director of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. In this role, he also sits on the Natural Resources Board of Washington State, which oversees the management of state lands. Prior to coming to the UW, Dan served as interim dean and professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, where he was also a professor in the fields of conservation ecology and environmental informatics. His specific research interests focus on land use change and its effects on ecosystems and human vulnerability. His work connects computer-based simulation of land-use-change processes with GIS and remote sensing based data on historical patterns of landscape change and social surveys.