CHANS-Net: The International Network of Research on Coupled Human and Natural Systems

• Understanding the effective processes by which communities manage tropical forests

  Published on September 23, 2015
  This interdisciplinary research project will evaluate the effective management of tropical forests by communities. The project will draw on and contribute to understandings of the ways that individuals, groups, and organizations collectively manage f...

• Adaptive Coupling of Human Environment Linkages in Response to Globally Driven Changes in Subsistence in Rural Alaska

  Published on September 23, 2015
  An active and productive subsistence lifestyle is nutritionally and culturally critical to rural communities in Alaska, yet changes in climate and rising energy costs are challenging rural residents' ability to conduct subsistence activities. Changes...

• A Social-Ecological Analysis of Nitrogen in Agricultural Systems of the Upper Midwest

  Published on September 15, 2015
  Nitrogen loss from corn farming in the Midwest is a major cause of water pollution and greenhouse gas emission. Focusing on farms in Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan, this project will address important gaps in our current understanding of the links betw...

• Quantifying Linkages Among Land-Use Policies, Agricultural Intensification, Habitat Fragmentation, and Social-Ecological Resilience in a Tropical Biological Corridor

  Published on September 15, 2015
  This project is about understanding the interactions between land-use policies, agricultural rural development and land use change in tropical landscapes, and how these changes affect the resilience of and relationships between human populations and ...

• Managing Impacts of Global Transport of Atmosphere-Surface Exchangeable Pollutants in the Context of Global Change

  Published on September 15, 2015
  Toxic pollutants that pass readily in both directions between the atmosphere and environmental surfaces exhibit three characteristic tendencies when they are emitted to the environment: resistance to rapid degradation, accumulation in organic-rich su...

• An Analysis of Disturbance Interactions and Ecosystem Resilience in the Northern Forest of New England

  Published on September 15, 2015
  This project will expand a widely used simulation model to study how natural processes interact with changing social and economic pressures to determine the sustainability of forests. Researchers will examine patterns and causes of land use and fores...

• The Effects of China's Grain-for-Green Program on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural-Human System in Rural China

  Published on September 15, 2015
  Perverse economic effects can create strong negative feedbacks between natural and human systems. For example, short-term, fine-scale, net economic benefits from uses of natural resources that compromise the future supply of related resources can red...

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  Special issue explores feedbacks between human and natural systems

  Published on September 11, 2015
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• Climate Effects on Tea Quality and Socioeconomic Responses

  Published on September 11, 2015
  This project focuses on why and how tea quality is vulnerable to changing climate conditions and how changes in quality may affect farming communities and land-use strategies. Tea production and consumption systems are used as a case study to explore...

• Pastoralism in Transition: Linking Localized Interactions and System Behavior to Evaluate Social-Ecological Vulnerability

  Published on September 11, 2015
  This CNH project is about livelihood transitions that poor rural communities in developing countries are making in order to cope with deteriorating environmental conditions, shifting social trends, and broader changes in governance. While the transfo...

• Coupling Burning Practices, Vegetation Cover Change, and Fire Regimes to Determine Fire-Emission Dynamics

  Published on September 11, 2015
  This project focuses on improving estimates of emissions from the most frequently and widely burned areas on Earth, the savanna in Africa. Savanna fires emit large quantities of greenhouse gases and aerosol particles. While it is increasing recognize...

• Coping with Change: Water Availability and Arid Land Management

  Published on September 11, 2015
  Rapid changes in water availability, due to climate change or land and water management practices, can present extreme challenges to arid land agricultural systems, ecosystems, and economies. In the American West the existing risks of water shortage,...

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  NSF awards $20.4 million for research on how humans, environment interact

  Published on September 11, 2015
  The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced 16 recipients of grants made in 2015 by Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) program. Total funding for the 2015 CNH grants is $20.4 million. The program has been issuing aw...

• Assessing Vulnerability of Provisioning Services in the Southern Highlands of Ethiopia

  Published on September 10, 2015
  Use of natural resources and lands by humans is decreasing biological diversity with unknown but potentially large effects on the future availability of resources to humans. This project will investigate the feedback loop between biodiversity and the...

• Coupled Climate, Cultivation, and Culture in the Great Plains: Understanding Water Supply and Water Quality in a Fragile Landscape

  Published on September 4, 2015
  Freshwater is central to agriculture, industry, residential development and other aspects of the US economy, provides essential ecosystem goods and services for society, and maintains the health of the biota that inhabit aquatic ecosystems. Existi...

• Ecosystems and Societies: Divergent Trajectories and Coevolution

  Published on September 4, 2015
  The Mongolian Plateau includes two regions with similar ecological systems but contrasting socioeconomic systems: Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. The Plateau has increasingly received worldwide attention due its rapid biophysical and socioeconomic ch...

• Small Natural Features with Large Ecosystem Functions in Urbanizing Landscapes

  Published on September 4, 2015
  This project focuses on the management of small natural features with large ecosystem functions in urbanizing landscapes. Many landscapes have small natural features that are far more important for maintaining biodiversity or for providing ecosyst...

• Linking Livestock Markets and Grazing Practices with the Nutritional Ecology of Grasses and Locusts Under Alternative Property Rights Regimes

  Published on September 4, 2015
  Research has recently shown that overgrazing of livestock in a grassland in China lowered the nitrogen content of the grasses and that this caused a rise in the abundance of a locust likely to lead to locust swarms. This proposal will test whether...

• Tropical Reforestation Network: Building a Socioecological Understanding of Tropical Reforestation

  Published on September 4, 2015
  Sustainable use of tropical forests depends upon the ability of forests to regrow after clearing. This project -- Tropical Reforestation Research Coordination Network -- will address major gaps in our understanding of the social and ecological dri...

• Socio-Ecosystem Dynamics of Human-Natural Networks on Model Islands

  Published on September 4, 2015
  This project will improve our understanding of coupled natural-human systems and advance the frontiers of natural and social sciences, integrating them through a focus on model systems comprising four well-studied islands before and after a millen...