Goals

The original goal established for the NEESPI was to establish a large-scale, interdisciplinary program of funded research aimed at developing a better understanding of the interactions between the ecosystem, atmosphere, and human dynamics in northern Eurasia in support of international science programs with particular relevance to Global climate change research interests and government agency funding priorities. The long range goal is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the Northern Eurasian terrestrial ecosystem dynamics, biogeochemical cycles, surface energy and water cycles, and human activities and how they interact with and alter the biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere of the Earth. The anticipated outcome from this program of research is the ability to measure, monitor, and model the processes that will provide accurate future projections of climatic and environmental changes in this region, which is essential because these changes and potential changes are believed to have a substantial potential to impact the Global Earth System and the human society.

The NEESPI research strategy intends to capitalize upon a variety of remote sensing and other tools and implement a general modeling framework linking socio-economic factors, crop, pollution, land use, ecosystem, and climate models with observational data to address the key research questions within Northern Eurasia. As an integral part of these activities, a set of educational activities for students, educators, and the general public is planned as well as substantial interaction with appropriate components of the related ongoing scientific and operational programs. A major objective of NEESPI will be to provide information, which empowers society and decision-makers to plan and react wisely, to mitigate the negative and to benefit from the positive consequences of environmental changes.

Specifically, the objective for conducting the scientific research (implementing the NEESPI Science Plan) during the next decade is to develop the following products:

• An integrated observational knowledge data base for environmental studies in Northern Eurasia that includes validated remote sensing products.

• A suite of process-oriented models for each major terrestrial process in all its interactions (including those with the society)

• Prototypes for a suite of global and regional models that seamlessly incorporate all regionally specific feedbacks associated with terrestrial processes in Northern Eurasia and which could serve to improve scientific understanding that would enable future environmental change projections and provide input to informed decision-making for land use and environmental protection policies.

• Systems demonstrated in the research domain in collaboration with operational partners that can serve the emergency needs of the society (early warning / management / mitigation of floods, fire, droughts, and other natural disasters) .