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NEW MAPS REVEAL TRUE EXTENT OF HUMAN FOOTPRINT ON EARTH
05 December 2005 - University of Wisconsin-Madison
| As global populations swell, farmers are cultivating more and more land in a desperate bid to keep pace with the ever-intensifying needs of humans. As a result, agricultural activity now dominates more than a third of the Earth's landscape and has emerged as one of the central forces of global environmental change, say scientists at the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. |
Navin Ramankutty, an assistant scientist at SAGE, says, "the real question is: how can we continue to produce food from the land while preventing negative environmental consequences such as deforestation, water pollution and soil erosion?" To better understand that crucial trade-off, Ramankutty and other SAGE researchers are tracking the changing patterns of agricultural land use around the world, including a look at related factors such as global crop yields and fertilizer use. Distilling that information into computer-generated maps, the scientists will present their early findings during the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "In the act of making these maps we are asking: where is the human footprint on the Earth?" says Amato Evan, a SAGE researcher who merged available census and satellite data to create visuals reflecting the reach of pasture and croplands worldwide. Chad Monfreda, a graduate student at SAGE, is similarly mapping the location, range and yields of over 150 individual crops reared around the planet. The exercise is already beginning to cast light on some emerging trends. Countries such as Argentina and Brazil, for instance, have increasingly cleared forests to grow soybean, a legume that has never been a traditional crop of Latin America. Scientists say the surge in soybean production there has a lot to do with the booming demand for soy all the way at the other end of the world - in China. Meanwhile, Monfreda notes, long-time soybean farmers in the U.S., the world's top soybean producer, are growing increasingly insecure about their place in the global market. But scientists risk missing important regional and local trends by taking only a global approach to land use change. "There is still a large 'disconnect' between global, top-down views of changing planetary conditions, and the local, bottom-up perspective of how humans affect and live in a changing environment," says Jonathan Foley, director of SAGE. To help bridge that gap, SAGE researchers are working towards a new "Earth Collaboratory," an unprecedented Internet-based data bank that would simultaneously draw on the knowledge of global scientists, local environmentalists and everyday citizens. Adds Foley: "[The Collaboratory] will truly be a brave new experiment that effectively bridges science, decision-making and real-world environmental practice - collectively envisioning a new way to live sustainably."
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About: University of Wisconsin-Madison
In achievement and prestige, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has long been recognized as one of America’s great universities. A public, land-grant institution, UW-Madison offers a complete spectrum of liberal arts studies, professional programs and student activities. Many of its programs are hailed as world leaders in instruction, research and public service.The university traces its roots to a clause in the Wisconsin Constitution, which decreed that the state should have a prominent public university. In 1848, Nelson Dewey, Wisconsin’s first governor, signed the act that formally created the university, and its first class, with 17 students, met in a Madison school building on February 5, 1849. From those humble beginnings, the university has grown into a large, diverse community, with about 40,000 students enrolled each year. These students represent every state in the nation, as well as countries from around the globe, making for a truly international population. UW-Madison is the oldest and largest campus in the University of Wisconsin System, a statewide network of 13 comprehensive universities, 13 freshman-sophomore transfer colleges and an extension service. One of two doctorate-granting universities in the system, UW-Madison’s specific mission is to provide "a learning environment in which faculty, staff and students can discover, examine critically, preserve and transmit the knowledge, wisdom and values that will help insure the survival of this and future generations and improve the quality of life for all." The university achieves these ends through innovative programs of research, teaching and public service. Throughout its history, UW-Madison has sought to bring the power of learning into the daily lives of its students through innovations such as residential learning communities and service-learning opportunities. Students also participate freely in research, which has led to life-improving inventions from more fuel-efficient engines to cutting-edge genetic therapies. Students, faculty and staff are motivated by a tradition known as the "Wisconsin Idea," described by UW President Charles Van Hise in 1904 as the compelling need to carry "the beneficent influence of the university ... to every home in the state." The Wisconsin Idea permeates the university’s work and helps forge close working relationships among university faculty and students and the state’s industries and government. |
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