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NSF PR 96-40 - August 6, 1996
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NSF Awards $17.8 Million to Study Human Dimensions
of Global Change
What are the results -- both good and bad -- when humans and their environment interact?
Six research centers and teams of scientists, assisted
by $17.8 million from the National Science Foundation
(NSF), will study such complex interactions and seek
some useful answers.
"Population growth, environmental changes, natural
resources, public health, technological advances,
social organizations, and political and economic shifts
are among critical factors," says Cheryl Eavey, who
coordinates NSF's Human Dimensions of Global Change
research program. "By combining research in the natural
and the social sciences, we hope to discover ways
to better predict the impact of changes on populations
and their environment."
The six new NSF awards are:
- $6.3 million over five years to Indiana University
to establish a Center for the Study of Institutions,
Population and Environmental Change. The focus
is a long-term study of how institutions and humans
at the household and community level affect deforestation
and replacement. Under the direction of anthropologist
Emilio F. Moran and political scientist Elinor
Ostrom, studies will employ satellite and aerial
photo data, data bases, surveys and interviews.
(Media contact: Jeff Austin (812) 855-3911)
- $5.8 million over five years to Carnegie Mellon
University to support its Center for Integrated
Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change.
Engineers M. Granger Morgan and Hadi Dowlatabadi
will coordinate activities of more than 30 researchers
from 14 institutions in seven nations. The center
will provide a framework for integrated analysis,
foster educational services for citizen groups
and schools, promote worldwide discourse on global
change issues among researchers and the public,
encourage collaboration between social and natural
scientists, and improve data analysis. (Media
contact: Debra Jacob (412) 268-8495)
- $1.9 million over five years to Harvard University
to support studies of societal responses to large,
long-term global environmental change. Under the
leadership of the University Committee on the
Environment, the project will involve scholars
from Carnegie Mellon, Cornell and Duke universities
and from the International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis. They will examine how assessments
of global change interact with policy-making,
politics and negotiations, and how to improve
the process. (Media contact: Steve Singer (617)
495-1115)
- $1.6 million over five years to Pennsylvania
State University to support its Methods for
Integrated Regional Assessment Project under the
direction of geographer C. Gregory Knight in the
Earth System Science Center. In collaboration
with researchers at the University of Arizona,
the project will develop methods to assess regional
consequences of global change. (Media contact:
Andrea Elyse Messer (814) 865-9481)
- $999,600 over five years to the University
of Arizona, for an economics study of water
allocation. Economist Vernon L. Smith will direct
research on environmental change and adaptive
"smart" markets, especially in arid lands. He
will initially apply his trade model in California.
(Media contact: Julieta Gonzalez (520) 626-4336)
- $985,000 over five years to the National Bureau
of Economic Research, to work with the Yale
Center for Global Change and Austria's International
Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, to organize
conferences and workshops designed to encourage
domestic and international cooperative research
on human dimensions of global change. Economist
William D. Nordhaus will oversee the development
of the project. (Media contact: Gila Reinstein
(203) 432-1325)
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