Food and energy demands from a growing global population, combined with rapidly changing lifestyles, are placing unprecedented pressure on land and ecosystems. At the same time, land is increasingly expected to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services, often under the destabilising influence of climate change, which can significantly modify plant productivity. These overlapping and sometimes conflicting demands represent one of the central challenges to achieving long-term sustainability.
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) - Campus Alpin, offers a 7.5-day international Summer School (3-4 ECTS) on the topic of land use and ecosystem change. Participants will learn about a wide range of issues related to land use change, socio-ecological systems, ecosystem functioning, and modelling techniques. Lectures will cover the following topics:
- Approaches to modelling future land use change
- Land use change processes and drivers across time and space through observational data
- Analysing management techniques, social networks, and historical context
- Modelling ecosystem functioning and environmental change
- The role of tipping points, risk management, and resilience in ecological systems
- Climate and social change effects on biodiversity, habitats, and ecosystem services
- How land use and ecosystem change fit into international assessment processes and policies
