• A personal note on IGBP and the social sciences


    Humans are an integral component of the Earth system as conceptualised by IGBP. João Morais recalls key milestones in IGBP’s engagement with the social sciences and offers some words of advice for Future Earth.
  • IGBP and Earth observation:
    a co-evolution


    The iconic images of Earth beamed back by the earliest spacecraft helped to galvanise interest in our planet’s environment. The subsequent evolution and development of satellites for Earth observation has been intricately linked with that of IGBP and other global-change research programmes, write Jack Kaye and Cat Downy .
Published: April 11, 2004

Vegetation, Water, Humans and the Climate (2004)

A state-of-the-art overview of the influence of terrestrial vegetation and soils within the Earth system. The text deals especially with interactions between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere via the hydrological cycle and their interlinkage with anthropogenic activities. Measurements gathered in integrated field experiments in the Sahel, the Amazon, North America and South-east Asia confirm the importance of these interactions. Observations are complemented by modelling studies, including regional models that simulate flows and transport in river catchments, coupled land-cover and regional climate systems, and Earth-system and global circulation models. Water, nutrient and sediment fluxes in river basins are also discussed and are shown to be highly impacted and regulated by humans through land use, pollution and river engineering. Finally, the book discusses environmental vulnerability and methodologies for assessing the risks associated with regional and global climatic and environmental variability and change.

The results reported in this book are based on the research work of many individual scientists and teams around the world associated with the objectives of the IGBP-BAHC and WCRP-GEWEX international research programmes.

More information:
A New Perspective on an Interactive System

Series: Global Change - The IGBP Series (closed)

Kabat, P.; Claussen, M.; Dirmeyer, P.A.; Gash, J.H.C.; Bravo de Guenni, L.; Meybeck, M.; Pielke, R.; Vörösmarty, C.J.; Hutjes, R.W.A.; Lütkemeier, S. (Eds.)

2004, XXIV, 566 p. 246 illus., 128 in color.

Hardcover, ISBN 978-3-540-42400-0

Go to the Springer home page:
Vegetation, Water, Humans and the Climate

Share this page
Tell a friend (opens in new window)
Follow us

Please note!

IGBP closed at the end of 2015. This website is no longer updated.

No events available

  • Global Change Magazine No. 84


    This final issue of the magazine takes stock of IGBP’s scientific and institutional accomplishments as well as its contributions to policy and capacity building. It features interviews of several past...

  • Global Change Magazine No. 83


    This issue features a special section on carbon. You can read about peak greenhouse-gas emissions in China, the mitigation of black carbon emissions and the effect of the 2010-2011 La Niña event on gl...
RECOMMENDED