***The National Map***

**Geographic Analysis and Monitoring Program**

**5- Year Program Plan**

**September 27, 2002**

Table of Contents

[**I. Executive Summary 3**](#i.-executive-summary)

[II. Introduction 5](#ii.-introduction)

[Program History 7](#program-history)

[Current Accomplishments 7](#current-accomplishments)

[Challenges from Land Use Dynamics
9](#challenges-from-land-use-dynamics)

[Calls for Research on Land Use Dynamics
11](#calls-for-research-on-land-use-dynamics)

[Research Priorities 12](#research-priorities)

[III. Program Mission and Long-Term Goals
13](#iii.-program-mission-and-long-term-goals)

[Program Mission 13](#program-mission)

[Bureau and DOI Context 14](#bureau-and-doi-context)

[Legislative Context 15](#legislative-context)

[Strategic Plan Context 16](#strategic-plan-context)

[Long-Term Goals 17](#long-term-goals)

[IV. Program 5-Year Goals 17](#iv.-program-5-year-goals)

[Goals and Objectives 17](#goals-and-objectives)

[Linked Goals 26](#linked-goals)

[Shared Goals 28](#shared-goals)

[Expected Outcomes and Performance Measures
29](#expected-outcomes-and-performance-measures)

[Partners and Customers 30](#partners-and-customers)

[V. Program Review 32](#v.-program-review)

[VI. Expertise and Capabilities 32](#vi.-expertise-and-capabilities)

[VII. Facilities 33](#vii.-facilities)

[VIII. References 34](#viii.-references)

#   {#section .unnumbered}

# I. Executive Summary

The Geographic Analysis and Monitoring (GAM) Program assesses the
Earth's land surface at a range of spatial and temporal scales to
understand the rates, causes, and consequences of land surface change
caused by natural and human-induced processes, and their interactions
that affect the landscape and environment over time. The program
conducts long-term studies of the land use and disturbance histories of
the United States and selected overseas areas, determines the reasons
for change, conducts research leading to improved understanding and
knowledge about geographic processes, and produces reports on the status
and trends in our Nation's land surface.

The GAM Program is part of the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Mapping,
Remote Sensing, and Geographic Investigations (MRSGI) Activity and
contributes to *The National Map*, a dynamic, evolving source of
national geographic information. *The National Map* is comprised of a
seamless, continually maintained, nationally consistent, vertically and
horizontally integrated geospatial database, a satellite land surface
monitoring system, and geographic assessments of the status and trends
of the Earth's land surface. The GAM Program adds scientific value to
*The National Map* through investigations of natural and human-induced
changes on the landscape that provide knowledge and understanding to the
spatial content of *The National Map*.

The GAM Program's mission is to bring focus to the Nation's urgent
environmental, natural resource, and economic issues through scientific
assessments that provide a national and global perspective on land
surface change. The GAM Program will work to institutionalize the
development of a report series on the status and trends of the Nation's
land resources. Research activities will focus on clarifying the impact
of land surface change on the activities and well-being of the American
people by providing unbiased scientific information on the rates and
trends of contemporary land surface change needed for effective land
management. The GAM Program will identify the relevant indicators of
land surface change, develop monitoring protocols and methodologies, and
model the associations between habitat patterns and biological
processes. The program will also quantify rates of land surface change,
identify key driving forces, and forecast future trends. All research
studies will be conducted within a geographic context and at a range of
spatial and temporal scales.

The GAM Program addresses four fundamental scientific issues concerning
changes at the Earth's land surface. Specifically, GAM strives to
achieve the following:

-   Understand what changes are occurring on the land surface and why,

-   Understand the impacts of these land surface changes on ecosystem
    health, climate variability, biogeochemical cycles, hydrology, and
    human health,

-   Understand how these impacts may in turn affect the land surface
    through feedback mechanisms, and

-   Understand what the best methods are to incorporate GAM science
    findings in the decision-making process.

To investigate these scientific issues, the GAM Program is pursuing the
following 5-year goals:

-   Analyze, understand, model, and predict the consequences of
    historical and projected land surface changes on ecosystem health,
    taking into account natural and human-induced stimuli at regional,
    continental, and global scales.

-   Determine and quantify the impacts of land use and land cover change
    on regional climate variability and biogeochemistry, including
    potential feedback processes.

-   Understand the influences and interactions between infectious
    diseases and the environment.

-   Analyze and interpret the record of land use dynamics that includes
    land use and land cover change to enhance understanding of the
    physical and social drivers of land surface change.

-   Conduct long-term monitoring of the state and trends of the Earth's
    land surface as critical input for regional and national policy
    decisionmaking.

-   Develop advanced techniques to monitor land surface change and
    ecosystem structure and function, in a spatially explicit fashion.

-   Develop methods to communicate research results and assist
    decisionmakers with ecosystem strategies and sustainability.

Studies conducted by the GAM Program focus on providing comprehensive
information needed to understand the environmental, resource, and
economic consequences of land surface change. Innovative applications,
such as natural resource utilization, ecosystem health, climatic and
hydrologic variability, biogeochemical cycles, hazards response
(including drought monitoring and flood inundation mapping), human
health and infectious disease control, effects of wildland fire, and
environmental modeling, are conducted to provide a basis for resource
managers and the public to understand the dynamic nature of our
landscape and to anticipate the opportunities and consequences of
natural processes and human actions.

The primary customers for products from the GAM Program are the
scientific community, State and Federal agencies, and public
organizations that make land management decisions or influence and shape
policy. The GAM Program works closely with stakeholders within the
Department of the Interior (DOI) Bureaus having land surface management
roles, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the National Parks
Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation. The program also supports U.S.
international agencies and international donors as expertise from the
USGS is called upon in international applications. In the past,
customers have included national agencies with regulatory or land
management roles, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the
U.S. Forest Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), the National Weather Service, and the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID).

The key impetus for this program is stated in the USGS Strategic Plan.
The USGS serves the Nation by providing reliable scientific information
to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property
from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral
resources; and enhance and protect the quality of life. By conducting
assessments to understand the rates, causes, and consequences of land
surface change, the program will provide an understanding critical to
geographic investigations within the United States and in support of
foreign policy initiatives, especially in developing countries.

The GAM Program can leverage many opportunities for collaboration with
other USGS science programs. Engaging these programs will be a
challenge. The GAM Program will need to identify appropriate research
partners, establish goals for mutual research, and measure performance
in reaching those goals. Potential linkages will be explored with the
Status and Trends, Ecosystems, Earth Surface Dynamics, National Water
Quality Assessment, Land Remote Sensing, and Cooperative Topographic
Mapping Programs.

# II. Introduction

# 

As human population grows, we make use of our land in increasingly
complex and potentially conflicting ways and as the value of our land
becomes more evident, it has become more important than ever that we
map, monitor, and understand the land surface and predict the outcomes
of things that may cause change. Likewise, as mapping and analytical
technologies have become more affordable and, therefore, nearly
ubiquitous, redundancy and fragmentation of data collection and analysis
have become the norm. Still, the problems being addressed by these
geographic activities often transcend jurisdictional boundaries.

The strategic vision of the Mapping, Remote Sensing and Geographic
Investigations (MRSGI) activity of the USGS is to take the next logical
step, The National Map. It will provide flexible current and historical
digital geographic information to meet national needs. Operated as a
partnership, it will be a dynamic source of national geographic
information comprised of seamless, continually maintained, nationally
consistent, vertically and horizontally integrated geospatial databases;
a satellite land surface monitoring system; and geographic assessments
of the status and trends of the Earth's land surface.

The National Map will manifest itself in several ways. Firstly, The
National Map will be visible as a publicly accessible Internet portal to
a set of relevant, seamless, nationally consistent, integrated, and
documented geographic information that will provide a trusted source of
basic geographic information needed by government at all levels.
Secondly, The National Map will be visible as regularly published
scientific studies and analysis of these and other geographic
information, which will provide a deeper understanding of earth surface
changes and trends. Thirdly, The National Map will be visible as a
service that links this information and other geographic information to
validated services and applications, which will guide the proper use of
the information in government applications. And finally, The National
Map will be visible as a network of partnerships at all levels of
government to share selected geographic information and a network of
public-private partnerships for geographic information collection,
dissemination, and technology development.

All three MRSGI programs, the Cooperative Topographic Mapping (CTM),
Land Remote Sensing (LRS), and Geographic Analysis and Monitoring (GAM),
will contribute to *The National Map* in the following ways:

-   The CTM Program will assemble, maintain, archive, and provide access
    to base layers of geospatial data (orthoimagery, elevation,
    hydrography, transportation, structures, boundaries, land cover, and
    geographic names). Applied geographic and cartographic research and
    development will be a support component of this program.

-   The LRS Program will operate and maintain on-orbit government
    satellites; collect and archive national and global coverages of
    Landsat and other land remotely sensed data; provide remotely sensed
    geospatial data for *The National Map*; respond to the Nation's
    needs for current geographic information in support of homeland
    security; and advance our understanding and use of the science of
    remote sensing through research.

-   The GAM Program will provide reports on the status and trends of the
    Nation's land resources, produce a land use and land cover database
    for the periodically updated Geographic Face of the Nation, conduct
    research leading to improved understanding and knowledge about
    geographic processes, and develop new applications capabilities with
    which the data from the CTM and LRS Programs can be used.

The GAM Program adds scientific value to *The National Map* through
investigations of natural and human-induced changes on the landscape
that provide knowledge and understanding to the spatial content of *The
National Map*. GAM scientific investigations help identify new or refine
existing data requirements for *The National Map,* thus enabling users
to more effectively use information for research, analysis, modeling,
and prediction of land surface change.

Partnerships are a key component and foundation of *The National Map*.
The strategic goals of *The National Map* cannot be reached without the
active participation of other entities and organizations, including
internal and external cooperators, business partners, volunteers, and
government and private organizations. The GAM Program collaborates with
and provides information to a broad assortment of Federal, State, and
private sector interests that look to the USGS for a nationally
consistent description of current land surface and land use conditions
for the Nation. These partners and customers seek to enhance their
scientific understanding of land surface change to better manage public
lands, develop effective policy, manage resources, and convey to the
public the effects of their decisions. The GAM strategy will be to
increase the participation of partners through collaboration involving a
variety of resources. Combining partner resources with appropriated
funding will enable GAM to reach greater program strength while
contributing to land use trends that are of interest to partners and
customers. The strategy of the GAM Program over the next 5 years will
include these actions:

-   increase the resource-sharing partnerships in which its scientists
    participate

-   increase the number of agreements that bring partner resources to
    the GAM Program

-   increase cooperative relationships with academic institutions

-   build strong national advocacies

*The National Map* is built upon and uses existing congressional
legislation to help frame its goals and objectives. In this context, GAM
refers to the following bills to frame its research, goals, and
objectives:

-   The Organic Act of 1879 which established the USGS to "classify the
    public lands and examine the geological structure, mineral
    resources, and products within the national domain"

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-   The National Climate Program Act of 1978 which directed research "to
    assist the Nation and the world in understanding and responding to
    natural and human-induced climate processes and their known and
    potential effects"

-   The Global Change Research Act of 1990 which required research aimed
    at "understanding and responding to global change, including the
    cumulative effects of human activities and natural processes on the
    environment"

## Program History

The GAM Program was established during the restructuring of the National
Mapping Program in 2002. This change created three USGS programs (CTM,
LRS, and GAM) to better clarify and communicate the Geography Discipline
activities to Congress, customers, stakeholders, and citizens. The three
programs together underpin and implement *The National Map*. The new
programs also enable stronger collaboration and integration with other
Bureau science programs.

Although the GAM Program is new, current activities build upon and
continue functions and responsibilities associated with the former USGS
Geographic Research and Applications (GRA) subactivity and incorporate
functional responsibilities of the former Earth Science Information
Management and Delivery (ESIMD) subactivity. ESIMD's functions and
responsibilities that are now part of GAM include data and product
archiving, data maintenance, and data dissemination activities. The
program continues a rich legacy of geographic research developed through
GRA's innovative, integrated, and interdisciplinary scientific
investigations attentive to land surface description and analysis. The
legacy of GRA's research goals that are relevant to GAM include the
following:

-   to monitor, record, and understand land surface change and human
    interactions with the land's surface,

-   to advance the state of knowledge in geography,

-   to use geography as a framework for integrating results from other
    science disciplines' research, and

-   to maintain and advance national capabilities in geographic tools,
    such as remote sensing, image processing, and geographic information
    systems (GIS).

## Current Accomplishments

The GAM Program builds upon a tradition of land cover mapping activities
within the USGS. These roots extend to the USGS Geography Program of the
1970s. At that time, the program embarked on a plan to map, describe,
and monitor the changing national landscape -- objectives similar to
those of GAM. The cornerstone and legacy of the Geography Program is a
USGS Professional Paper on "A Land Use and Land Cover Classification
System for Use with Remote Sensor Data" in which the Chief Geographer,
James Anderson, and colleagues prepared a classification system and
intellectual framework for using remotely sensed data to map and monitor
land use and land cover change. The system has become a *de facto*
international standard and continues to be widely used.

During the late-1970s, the USGS used the Anderson system with remotely
sensed data to map land use and land cover (1:250,000-scale) across the
conterminous United States. The resulting high-resolution database was
in most ways "ahead of its time," as it was designed from the outset to
be a digital layer used in the then-emerging GIS technology. The
resulting national land cover database, along with associated maps
showing political units (counties and States), hydrologic units
(drainage areas), census county subdivisions (including census tracts),
and areas of Federal land ownership, became the USGS Geographic
Information Retrieval and Analysis System -- one of the Nation's first
analytical GISs.

Other geographic research landmarks of the USGS include the following:

-   The National Atlas published in 1970, depicting the physical,
    social, economic, and cultural patterns of the United States.

-   The Central Atlantic Regional Ecological Test Site and Arizona
    Regional Ecological Test Site studies, completed in the mid-1970s,
    served as the first demonstrations of large-area ecological
    assessments using Landsat and other remotely sensed data.

-   In the 1980s, innovative land management applications of GISs and
    remote sensing were developed in partnership with DOI agencies to
    facilitate the adoption of new technologies.

-   Mapping of vegetation and land cover for more than 75 percent of
    Alaska in cooperation with DOI and other Federal and State agencies
    using Landsat data in the 1980s. Vegetation inventory data were
    required by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

-   In 1993-94, the USGS led in the formation of the interagency and
    interdisciplinary Scientific Assessment and Strategy Team which
    conducted an exhaustive and comprehensive analysis of the causes,
    consequences, and mitigation of the 1993 Great Flood of the Upper
    Mississippi River Basin
    ([http://edc.usgs.gov/sast](http://edc.usgs.gov/sast/)/).

-   The USGS completed innovative research in the mid-1990s on new
    strategies for characterizing the national to global land cover.
    Included in the research were a series of collaborative experiments
    that collectively demonstrated the role of flexible land cover
    characterization approaches for improving large-area environmental
    simulation modeling.

-   As part of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the first
    high-resolution (1-km) global land cover
    (<http://landcover.usgs.gov/globallandcover.html>) and global
    elevation databases
    (http://edcwww.cr.[usgs](http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/products/elevation/gtopo30.html).gov/products/elevation/gtopo30.html
    ) were completed in the late-1990s. Global change research projects
    also investigated the effects of land use change on the carbon cycle
    and regional climate variability.

-   In the late 1990s, USGS developed a 30-meter resolution National
    Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) for the conterminous United States derived
    from Landsat satellite data. The NLCD dataset is based on a
    21-category land cover classification scheme that is applied
    consistently over the conterminous United States and includes
    ancillary data sources, such as topography, census, agricultural
    statistics, soil characteristics, other land cover maps, and
    wetlands data
    (<http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/products/landcover/nlcd.html>).

-   In the late 1990s, USGS developed a seamless 30-m digital national
    elevation model and topographic derivatives datasets for the
    conterminous United States
    (<http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/products/elevation/ned.html).>

-   The role of an integrated GIS and remote sensing-based analysis for
    the operational assessment of food security and other natural and
    human hazards was demonstrated throughout Africa and other parts of
    the world throughout the 1990s
    (<http://edcsnw3.cr.usgs.gov/ip/index.html>).

-   In the late-1990s, the Urban Dynamics Program was established, which
    provided assessments of urban land use change for dozens of U.S.
    metropolitan areas and a capability for modeling future changes
    (<http://landcover.usgs.gov/urban/intro.html>).

In many ways, the accomplishments of the past, highlight the challenges
of the future. At the same time, those accomplishments provide the
foundation for more innovation in geographic research of land use
dynamics and associated environmental assessments.

## Challenges from Land Use Dynamics

The Earth's surface is changing rapidly, at scales from local to global,
altering how ecosystems function and disrupting ecosystem services in
ways that are not well understood. For example, changes in land use and
land cover have significant influence on economic development and
environmental quality at multiple scales. Human-induced and natural land
surface transformations plus regional climate variability affect
ecosystem processes, habitat fragmentation, surface and ground water
quality and availability, biogeochemical cycles, vector-borne disease
propagation, invasive species introduction, natural resource
accessibility, and vulnerability to natural hazards. These changes are
modifying the Earth's landscape with significant consequences for
ecosystem health and sustainability.

Ecosystem change has occurred throughout the Earth's history. Change has
usually resulted from natural succession, with occasional disturbances
caused by natural events, such as flooding, windstorms, climate
variability, landslides, disease and insect infestation, and wildland
fires. Today, there is increased recognition that land surface change is
a major driver of a wide spectrum of environmental consequences through
its interaction with ecosystem processes, biogeochemical cycles,
biodiversity, and climate system (Nunes and Augé, 1999). Evolving local
land use patterns, formed by various biophysical and human processes,
result in land surface changes that affect ecosystem health through
unwanted changes in biodiversity, productivity, water and energy
budgets, and trace-gas emissions. Human vulnerability can increase
through settlement in hazard-prone areas. Cumulatively, these changes on
local ecosystems can alter the global climate and biosphere (Riebsame
and others, 1994), with potentially serious adverse consequences for
quality of life.

Unprecedented rates of land surface change and the corresponding impacts
on biological resources are creating growing public concern. For
example, the expansion of agricultural land and its use in manners not
sustainable are now widely recognized as having caused one of the most
significant human alterations to the global environment. This impact has
always been seen regionally, but only recently has its enduring
potential to affect the global climate system become understood. The
total area of cultivated land worldwide increased 466 percent from 1700
to 1980 (Matson et al., 1997). At the global scale, land used for
cropping encompasses nearly 28 million km^2^, or approximately 19
percent of the Earth's land surface (Loveland, 2000). Only forests cover
a larger area of the global land surface (40 million km^2^ or 27
percent) (Meyer and Turner, 1992). Although the transformation of
natural vegetation to croplands has slowed in the last three decades,
agricultural practices have increased in intensity. There is clear
evidence that agricultural intensification can have negative local
consequences, such as increased soil erosion, lower soil fertility, and
reduced biodiversity; negative regional consequences, such as pollution
of ground water and eutrophication of rivers and lakes, and negative
global consequences, such as atmospheric pollution and climate change
(Matson et al., 1997). Yet, in a system of expanding human populations,
as work in developing countries indicates, agricultural intensification
is the only real alternative, and only this achievement will reduce the
encroachment on forested areas documented above. USGS research can help
understand these ecosystem processes adequately to ensure that
intensification, wherever undertaken, is sustainable for the environment
and society.

Almost half of the conterminous 48 States were covered with forests
before European settlement. Forest area began a significant decline with
the onset of European settlement and continued until the early 20th
century. Today approximately 29 percent (2.3 million km^2^) of the
conterminous United States is forested. Fifty-three percent of American
wetlands were lost between the 1780s and the 1980s, principally because
of drainage for agriculture. Most of the conversion took place in the
20th century. Between the 1950s and 1970s alone, 445,000 km^2^ of
wetlands were lost. Land cover work in sub-Saharan Africa has shown that
woodlands over broad areas have nearly vanished and soils are now
nutrient depleted and devoid of the soil organic carbon stocks needed to
store plant nutrients.

The composition of U.S. land cover stabilized somewhat in the latter
half of the 20^th^ century, though some areas are clearly undergoing
significant land use and land cover transformations at the present time
(Waisanen and Bliss, in press). In a study on the impacts of land use
change on natural vegetation, it was determined that 23 of the 106
natural vegetation types occurring in the United States at the time of
European settlement have been reduced by more than 50 percent through
human-induced land use changes (Klopatek et al., 1979). In contrast,
only 26 natural vegetation types have had less than 5 percent of their
potential area converted to urban or agricultural land uses. Today, we
are still experiencing significant changes in land use and land cover.
The Southeastern U.S. region has experienced rates of change exceeding 5
percent every 6-8 years for the past 20 years, with some ecoregions
experiencing even higher rates owing to the urbanization and the
transformation to plantation forestry (Loveland and others, in press).

Population growth and migration patterns are recognized drivers of
human-induced land surface change. Since the 1960s, the population of
the United States has increased from 179 to 281 million. Although birth
rates are declining or holding steady in many regions, the U.S. Census
Bureau projects a 50-percent increase in population to 383 million by
the year 2050. These projections suggest significant changes in land use
that will likely have major consequences on ecosystem health and
sustainability. Increased national affluence, combined with ease of
movement, is generating a population shift that may have an impact on
some of our most critical and currently undisturbed ecosystems as
migration increases from urban to rural communities, often adjacent to
national parks and other scenic areas (Diamond and Noonan, 1996).

## Calls for Research on Land Use Dynamics

## 

There is a clear scientific call for research on land surface change.
For example, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has
designated land use and land cover dynamics, terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystem functioning, climate variability, the global carbon cycle, and
the global water cycle as focus areas for the new 10-year plan on
USGCRP-sponsored global environmental change research. In addition, the
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme of the International
Congress of Scientific Unions has established core research programs in
Global Change and Terrestrial Ecology (Steffen et al., 1992) and Land
Use and Cover Change (Turner et al., 1995).

Perhaps the clearest call for research requiring geographic analysis and
monitoring resulted from the National Research Council (NRC) response to
a National Science Foundation request to identify the "Grand Challenges
in Environmental Sciences" (NRC, 2001b). An interdisciplinary committee
was asked to determine the most important research challenges in
environmental sciences. The NRC (2001b) report examined significant
research challenges for the next 20- to 30-year period and identified
eight grand challenges. Among these, Grand Challenge 7 concerning Land
Use Dynamics is especially relevant to the core mission of the GAM
Program and is cited from the NRC (2001b) as follows:

-   Grand Challenge 7: **Land Use Dynamics**: The challenge is to
    develop a comprehensive understanding of changes in land uses and
    land covers that are critical to biogeochemical cycling, ecosystem
    functioning and services, and human welfare.

Several other Grand Challenges recommended by the NRC (2001b) are also
relevant to GAM and include the following:

-   Grand Challenge 1: **Biogeochemical Cycles**: The challenge is to
    understand how the Earth's major biogeochemical cycles are being
    modified by human activities in order to develop the capacity to
    predict the impact of these changes at local, regional, and global
    scales,

-   Grand Challenge 2: **Biological Diversity and Ecosystem
    Functioning**: The challenge is to understand the regulation and
    functional consequences of changes in biological diversity and to
    develop strategies for sustaining biological diversity and
    interdependent ecosystem functions.

-   Grand Challenge 3: **Climate Variability**: The challenge is to
    increase our ability to predict climate variability, from extreme
    events to decadal time scales; to understand how this variability
    may change in the future; and to assess its impact on natural and
    human systems.

> .

-   Grand Challenge 4: **Hydrologic Forecasting**: The challenge is to
    predict changes in freshwater resources and the environment caused
    by floods, droughts, sedimentation, and contamination in a context
    of growing demand on water resources.

-   Grand challenge 5: **Infectious Disease and the Environment**: The
    challenge is to understand the ecological and evolutionary aspects
    of infectious diseases; to develop an understanding of the
    interactions among pathogens, hosts/receptors, and the environment;
    and thus to make it possible to prevent changes in the infectivity
    and virulence of organisms that threaten plant, animal, and human
    health at the population level.

## Research Priorities

The USGS must undertake an aggressive science program that enables
citizens, resource managers, and decisionmakers to understand the
opportunities for improving and sustaining our Nation's land resources.
The GAM Program provides a powerful analytical framework for a broad
area of research addressing the complex interactions among human
activities, natural ecosystem processes, and the Earth's climate system.
Geographic analysis is an important tool to help understand these
complex processes. The GAM Program plans to focus on investigating the
consequences of land surface change in terms of ecosystem health,
climate variability, biogeochemical cycles, hydrology, human health,
sustainability of resources, and vulnerability of ecosystems and human
populations to environmental hazards.

The GAM Program seeks to provide leadership in understanding the
consequences of land surface change and in developing sound science that
will support assessments of ecosystem condition and performance. An
integrated research approach with a focus on ecosystem health,
integrity, sustainability, and land surface monitoring is necessary to
accomplish these goals.

Research needs to be initiated that examines how ecosystems react to
change, from both natural and human-induced stresses. An understanding
of ecosystem response to changes in the factors that drive ecosystem
behavior is important to prescribe ecosystem restoration and management
strategies that would enhance the sustainability of Earth's ecological
systems.

New tools, methodologies, and interdisciplinary approaches must be
developed for strengthening the capacity to assess the sustainability of
ecosystems to provide goods and services and for understanding the
potential consequences of future changes in ecosystems.

An improved understanding of the causes and mechanisms that underlie
current and past land surface changes is required to develop an ability
to predict future changes. Improved predictive models, including
decision support systems for land use planning and improved assessment
of the likely outcomes of alternative land use scenarios, must be
developed to assist managers in their activities.

An improved understanding and more information about the consequences of
these land surface changes is needed to aid decisionmakers dealing with
land use planning, land management, natural hazards mitigation, and
natural resource conservation. Understanding land surface change and the
interactions between natural processes and human-induced change is
essential for making informed decisions that best accommodate both land
development and conservation goals. Responsible land management
decisions depend on understanding, quantifying, and predicting how
ecosystem functions will change as a consequence of new patterns of land
use. The need for better information about causes and implications is
especially evident for changes induced by fire, agricultural production,
urbanization, logging, climate variability, and other factors operating
at broad regional scales.

# III. Program Mission and Long-Term Goals

## Program Mission

The GAM Program assesses the Earth's land surface at a range of spatial
and temporal scales to understand the rates, causes, and consequences of
land surface change caused by natural and human-induced processes and
their interactions that affect the landscape and environment over time.
The program conducts long-term studies of the land use and disturbance
histories of the United States and selected overseas areas, determines
the reasons for change, and produces reports on the status and trends in
our Nation's land surface. Geographic analysis determines the
consequences of land surface change in terms of potential impacts and
two-way feedbacks concerning ecosystem health, climate variability,
biogeochemical cycles, hydrology, and human health. The program
addresses questions concerning the sustainability of resources,
vulnerability of ecosystems and human populations, and evaluation of
development options in terms of their potential influences on land
surface status and trends.

The GAM Program's mission is to bring focus to the Nation's urgent
environmental, natural resource, and economic issues through scientific
assessments that provide a national and global perspective on land
surface change. The GAM Program will work to institutionalize the
development of a report series on the status and trends of the Nation's
land resources. Research activities will focus on clarifying the impact
of land surface change on the activities and well-being of the American
people by providing unbiased scientific information on the rates and
trends of contemporary land surface change needed for effective land
management. The GAM Program will identify the relevant indicators of
land surface change, develop monitoring protocols and methodologies, and
model the associations between habitat patterns and biological
processes. The program will also quantify rates of land surface change,
identify key driving forces, and forecast future trends. Many innovative
applications will be developed that associate human and natural
processes with endangered species, ecosystem health, land use patterns,
vulnerability to natural hazards, climate variability, changes in
environmental chemistry, and the effects of wildland fire.

The GAM Program addresses four fundamental scientific issues concerning
changes at the Earth's land surface. Specifically, GAM strives to
achieve the following:

-   Understand what changes are occurring on the land surface and why,

-   Understand the impacts of these land surface changes on ecosystem
    health, climate variability, biogeochemical cycles, hydrology, and
    human health, and

-   Understand how these impacts may in turn affect the land surface by
    feedback mechanisms.

-   Understand what the best methods are to incorporate GAM science
    findings in the decision-making process.

The U.S. Government extends economic, development, and humanitarian
assistance to friends and allies in the developing world. Many of these
countries are faced with threats because of resource depletion, land
degradation, floods, droughts, and other natural hazards. U.S.
assistance is often designed to help in these areas, but design and
implementation can be seriously hampered by out-of-date and spatially
sparse environmental information. The GAM Program seeks to provide
technical assistance to partners to overcome these difficulties. Remote
sensing and spatial analysis of processes over wide areas compensate for
the severe lack of basic environmental information. In this way, lessons
learned through case studies and sampling at the local level can be
generalized to guide policy formulation and decisionmaking that have
direct impacts on the interplay between human enterprise, ecosystem
processes, and the Earth's climate system.

## Bureau and DOI Context

The GAM Program mission closely aligns with the mission of the USGS.
Within this context, the GAM mission directly supports the Bureau
mission to serve the Nation by providing reliable scientific information
to do the following:

-   describe and understand the Earth,

-   minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters
    (especially those caused by human-induced changes to the land
    surface),

-   manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources, and

-   enhance and protect our quality of life.

GAM research uses geography as a framework for integrating results from
other science disciplines. GAM will contribute to the integration of the
Bureau's biological, physical, and social sciences to provide a more
thorough understanding of the consequences of change that will be useful
for land management decisions.

The GAM Program mission closely aligns with the DOI mission as well. The
GAM Program supports USGS efforts to provide information and
technologies that are critical to DOI's mission on stewardship of the
Nation's land resources. The GAM Program helps the USGS to support the
DOI's strategic goals, most directly Goal 4, \"Provide Science for a
Changing World.\"

The DOI has defined the following outcomes for its Goal 4:

-   Resource managers make decisions on the basis of accurate, reliable,
    and impartial scientific information.

-   The loss of life and property from natural disasters is minimized
    through access to and availability of timely scientific information.

-   Federal, State, and local governments and the private sector have
    access to shared national databases of natural resources
    information.

-   The public has easy access to earth science information.

## Legislative Context

GAM research is broadly covered by the Organic Act of 1879 (43 U.S.C. 31
et seq.) establishing the USGS to "classify the public lands and examine
the geological structure, mineral resources, and products within the
national domain". Other authorizations exist that establish programs
whose activities relate indirectly to the GAM mission including those
shown below:

The National Climate Program Act of 1978 (15 U.S.C. 2901, 2908)
established a national climate program to assist the Nation and the
world in understanding and responding to natural and human-induced
climate processes and their known and potential effects. The DOI has a
mandated role in this Program.

The Global Change Research Act of 1990 (15 U.S.C. 2921-2953) (Public Law
101-606) established the U.S. Global Change Research Program aimed at
understanding and responding to global change (including the cumulative
effects of human activities and natural processes on the environment),
promoting discussions toward international protocols in global change
research.

The Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992 (15 U.S.C. 5631-5658) enabled
the United States to maintain its leadership in land remote sensing by
providing data continuity for the Landsat Program. The Act assigns
responsibility for the "National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data
Archive" to the DOI. The Act also authorized and encourages the DOI and
other Federal agencies to carry out research and development programs in
applications of these data and make Landsat data available to the
public.

The Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendment of 1972 (33 U.S.C.
1251 et seq.) and its successors, the Clean Water Act of 1977 and the
Water Quality Act of 1987, authorized extensive water quality planning,
studies, and monitoring primarily under the direction of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The USGS is called upon to
participate in many of these activities, partly by the EPA and partly by
State agencies in the Federal-State Cooperative Program. The act of 1987
includes new water quality work concerning Chesapeake Bay, the Great
Lakes, Estuary, and Clean Lakes Programs, and studies of water pollution
problems in aquifers.

The Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-457) amended
the Federal Water Pollution and Control Act (commonly know as the Clean
Water Act) to include authorization for many activities, including
Chesapeake Bay Restoration and the National Estuary Program. The USGS is
a key Federal partner in the Chesapeake Bay Program and the National
Estuary Program.

# 

## Strategic Plan Context

# 

The Bureau Strategic Plan reflects a commitment to serve as the Nation's
principal natural sciences and information agency by conducting
research, monitoring, and assessments that contribute to our
understanding of the natural world -- our land, water, and biological
resources. This commitment aligns closely with GAM's Program mission to
provide data and information on the Nation's land surface.

The USGS Strategic Plan identifies two broad mission goals -- Hazards,
and Environment and Natural Resources. These mission goals were derived
from organizing USGS activities in a way that would be useful for
natural science customers and serve as a framework for marshalling the
Bureau's expertise in geology, biology, hydrology, and geography to meet
societal issues.

The GAM Program plays a major role in both goals. GAM science
contributes to a better understanding of the effects of land surface
change on flood and fire hazards. For example, GAM fire science research
is improving our spatial knowledge of the current and historical
dynamics of fire and its effects. It is assessing fire disturbance
regimes and the accumulation of fire fuels to understand the impact of
fire on ecosystems.

The GAM Program contributes to the Environment and Natural Resources
Goal by improving the development and use of national and temporal data,
maps, and information, and by providing strategies and options for
decisionmakers to better understand and mitigate the effects of land
surface change on the Nation's land, water, and biologic resources.

The Bureau Strategic Plan also stresses customer service, underscoring
the application of science to customer, partner, and other stakeholder
needs. Within this context, GAM is seeking to enhance and build stronger
alliances with current partners so they may become advocates
representing program stakeholders and national organizations. Through
focus group meetings and listening sessions, GAM is encouraging its
customers and stakeholders to communicate and describe more effectively
the utility and value of documenting, measuring, and accessing land
surface change.

## Long-Term Goals

The long-term goals of the GAM Program are as follows:

-   Provide a nationally consistent description of historical land use
    conditions for the Nation and define long-term trends in land
    surface conditions.

-   Identify, describe, and explain major factors that affect the rates
    and trends of land surface change.

-   Advance the understanding of the consequences of land surface change
    at various scales for abiotic (physical), biotic (biological), and
    anthropogenic (human) systems.

-   Ensure that information is made available to land managers,
    policymakers, and the public to provide an improved scientific basis
    for evaluating the effectiveness of land management programs and for
    predicting the likely effects of contemplated changes in land
    management practices.

# IV. Program 5-Year Goals

## Goals and Objectives

The program will work toward seven research goals over the next 5 years.
Annual guidance will define the detailed research priorities that guide
the development of research proposals that address the goals and
objectives of the program. Listed below are the GAM Program's 5-Year
Goals:

**Goal 1: Analyze, understand, model, and predict the consequences of
historical and projected land surface changes on ecosystem health,
taking into account natural and human-induced stimuli at regional,
continental, and global scales.**

[Justification]{.underline}: Natural ecosystems are being altered by the
impacts of land surface change. Cities and suburbs are expanding,
natural resources are being extracted, and land is being farmed, all of
which are altering important ecological patterns and processes and
threatening the ecological sustainability of natural systems. Key
ecological issues facing land managers and planners include
fragmentation of continuous habitat, accumulation of toxins and
nutrients, alterations in the hydrologic cycle, climate variability,
degradation of soil resources (carbon, nutrients, and structure), loss
of biodiversity, expansion of invasive species, and altered fire
regimes. An understanding of the ecology of critical environments is
essential. Resource managers require assistance from the scientific
research community to determine the course and effectiveness of projects
and programs to achieve ecosystem integrity.

Intensified land use, if not managed appropriately, can diminish the
capacity of ecosystems to provide important functions critical to
maintaining either the environment itself or the quality of life people
have come to expect. Scientific investigations of the impacts of
wildland fire, resource extraction, urbanization, climate variability,
and other changes need to be conducted to develop methods for managing
land in response to those impacts. Several types of change may combine
to stress an ecosystem, such as the collapse of salmon populations
following modifications to spawning streams (water management) and their
host watersheds (land use). Regulations and decisions typically have
been based on site-specific analysis. New ecosystem understanding now
requires that we consider larger areas and longer time spans,
specifically the ability to scale site-specific information (for
example, a soil chemical analysis, sparse weather station information,
or CO~2~ flux observations) to regional and global applications. It is
the nature of large-area and long-time-span systems to involve all
elements of the landscape: physical, biological, and cultural. Thus,
interdisciplinary science is required for place-based ecosystem studies.

This ecosystem health research can capitalize on USGS international
project work in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, recent studies
suggested that management of agricultural intensification in a
sustainable manner yields more harvestable products for human use and
decreases the impacts on biodiversity and the environment. Another USGS
study in sub-Saharan Africa provides insights into data integration and
analysis for near real-time monitoring, spatial modeling, and scaling
used by the famine early warning system (FEWS) in Africa for drought and
flood hazards. For example, hydrologic forecasting to identify drought
and flood hazards has long been limited by sparse hydrometeorological
surface observations and little understanding of the interactions
between the land surface and atmosphere. Assessment of long-term and
interannual impacts on ecosystems and related human economic activity
can be improved through the application of Earth-observing remote
sensing systems, techniques of GIS, and newly available and globally
complete datasets describing topography, land cover, and soils. In
particular, the impacts of changing land cover (either for better or for
worse) on the timing and magnitude of flooding events can now be more
readily addressed through remote sensing and GIS support of physically
based, distributed parameter hydrologic modeling. Similar effects of
changing climate patterns can also be ascertained more explicitly with
available satellite imagery, geographic data, and software for spatial
analysis.

The USGS 30-m seamless digital elevation model (DEM) data, including
topographic derivatives for the conterminous United States can be used
to understand the hydrologic component of ecosystem structure and
function, and to geographically analyze land surface change effects on
ecosystem health. This approach involves analyzing
landscape-connectedness within a hydrologic context. With newly
developed datasets and tools, it is now possible to use geographic
analysis to answer questions about the surface, such as, "What are the
land cover characteristics of the area upstream from this point?" and
"Are these two areas of change connected or disconnected when analyzed
in the context of stream flow?" The connectedness of the landscape will
be analyzed within the GAM Program for national-scale characteristics,
such as those of large rivers and their watersheds, and regional
characteristics, such as those of the spatial components of ecosystems
and local behavior in small areas of change.

The USGS conducts many investigations of specific ecosystems, often
investigating a particular question or need, with the expectation that
the completed work will be transferable to other sites in the region or
the Nation. Ecosystem and land surface change studies cannot be handled
at a single scale of observation. An understanding of how processes
operate at various spatial scales and how they can be linked across
scales becomes a primary goal when investigating these complex phenomena
(Marceau, 1999). Research is done on strategies and procedures for
ensuring that the results of these site-based investigations can be used
to help answer questions of national importance. The USGS needs to
implement the National Research Council\'s (2001a) recommendation that
it place more emphasis on multidisciplinary, integrative projects that
address environmental issues on a national scale, but the Bureau will
still be involved with various site-specific investigations and
assessments. The USGS should be committed to providing national
leadership in integrating and extending the results of ecosystem
research at all levels.

GAM research will seek answers to the following questions: What are the
regional environmental consequences of land surface change at various
scales on ecosystem health and for abiotic and biotic systems? What are
the effects of land surface and land use change on habitat and
biodiversity? What is the state of the ecological integrity and
ecosystem health for major metropolitan areas? How can we put site-based
studies of ecosystem processes into a spatial context so that we can
extrapolate the results of those studies over larger geographic areas
(drainage basins, landscapes, ecoregions)?

[Objectives]{.underline}: Develop a series of hypotheses that link
site-specific landscape processes and interecosystem processes into a
larger framework. Establish a national framework suitable for
coordinating and integrating site-based investigations of ecosystems so
that results and conclusions can be evaluated and extended to other
systems at the same or greater spatial scales. To enhance
sustainability, examine the interconnectedness among natural resources
and processes as they affect and are affected by human systems.
Assimilate data from gages, satellites, weather forecast models, and
digital maps of land cover, soils, and topography in a common modeling
framework using GIS. Apply advanced models of climate, water, and carbon
cycle processes and decision support tools to simulate linkages among
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems across spatial and temporal scales.

**Goal 2: Determine and quantify the impacts of land use and land cover
change on regional climate variability and biogeochemistry, including
potential feedback processes.**

[Justification]{.underline}: Complex interrelationships, including
potential feedbacks, exist among land cover and land use changes,
regional climate variability, and biogeochemical cycles. Reducing
uncertainty and understanding these interrelationships is difficult,
especially if variations and dependencies are influenced by both natural
and anthropogenic forcing factors. Climate variability can affect the
land surface (for example, vegetation and ecosystems) and biogeochemical
cycles. Conversely, land use change can affect the carbon cycle, and
there is growing evidence that land use changes can also affect regional
climate and weather variability. Such human-induced changes can
contribute to either positive or negative feedbacks on land surface
processes and the land surface. To illustrate, land use change may
increase land surface temperatures and reduce seasonal rainfall amounts,
which may then adversely affect ecosystem processes and agricultural
activities. Understanding such complex systems and feedbacks cannot be
accomplished without the use of integrative system models (NRC, 2001a).
Furthermore, NRC (2001a) recommended that the "USGS emphasize system
modeling as a powerful tool for integrative science in the 21^st^
Century." Such a coupled-systems modeling approach could involve the
linking of land surface, ecosystem, and biogeochemical models with a
regional atmospheric model to help understand these complex processes
and to quantify the consequences of land surface change. Reconstructed
historical land use datasets are a key input for hypothesis testing in
these types of modeling experiments. Historical observational records
and paleo-datasets from geologic studies are needed to help evaluate the
model results.

For example, a key research challenge in the climate change science
community is to develop a greater understanding of the relationships
among land cover, land use, climate, and weather. Research is needed to
understand how changes in land cover and land use patterns may affect
local and regional climate, including land processes such as the surface
energy balance, surface temperatures, and precipitation patterns.
Furthermore, investigations are needed to understand how altered
temperature and precipitation patterns affect terrestrial ecosystems.

As a second example, many scientists have determined that there is a
connection between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and
global warming. Global warming is anticipated to have far-reaching
effects on many aspects of human activity, including the possibilities
of increased frequency of severe storms, droughts, and floods, stresses
to natural ecosystems and to agricultural production, and direct and
indirect impacts on human health. Two of the primary greenhouse gases,
carbon dioxide (CO~2~) and methane (CH~4)~, are part of the carbon
cycle. Before the human influences of fossil-fuel burning and land
conversion to agriculture, the processes that store carbon on the
landscape (sequestration of CO~2~ by photosynthesis) were most likely in
rough balance with the processes that release carbon to the atmosphere
(respiration by plants, animals, and microorganisms) when averaged over
time periods on the order of centuries. Although currently the release
of fossil fuels dominates the buildup of greenhouse gases, land
conversions from forest or grassland to agricultural uses have also
contributed to the process.

New knowledge is needed on the positive and negative feedbacks between
changes in land use, land cover, and ecosystems and whether the
feedbacks will accelerate or reduce the effects on climate (National
Research Council, 2001b). Past changes in land use and management are
now being recognized as important terrestrial sources and sinks of
carbon, and documenting such changes is essential for understanding the
terrestrial carbon cycle. A substantial carbon source from forest
clearing and a subsequent sink from land management have broad
implications. Future research on the terrestrial sink may need to focus
both on the history of past management and on ecosystem responses to
future changes in climate and atmospheric composition. In studies on the
carbon cycle, the interaction of global changes with land management
should receive the same priority as the responses of natural ecosystems
(Field and Fung, 1999).

Decisionmakers and scientists are actively exploring various methods to
sequester carbon, including altering land use practices. Research is
needed to determine the historical and current magnitudes of land
conversions and their impact on the carbon cycle. Research scientists
will need to use spatial datasets, including those acquired by remote
sensing, to improve the precision with which the terrestrial carbon
cycle can be measured and modeled. They will incorporate the processes
of soil erosion and deposition, which were inadequately treated in
previous analyses. As scientists achieve a better understanding of the
physical linkages between land conversion and the carbon cycle, they
will work with social scientists to model the social and economic
alternatives for changing the human behaviors that lead to the buildup
of greenhouse gases.

GAM research will seek answers to the following questions: What are the
feedbacks between land use and land cover change, climate, and
biogeochemistry? How does land use change affect regional weather and
climate variability? What are the effects of climate variability on
natural and human ecosystems? What have been the spatial and temporal
patterns of the rates of carbon emission and sequestration caused by
human activities related to land use change in the United States? How
can land intensification occur without further deterioration of natural
ecosystem services? Ultimately, what is the relationship between private
land holders (small holders, in many cases in developing countries) and
the ecosystem services "their land" provides? Can improved data and
models contribute to a capability to predict the implications of
projected land use change on the carbon cycle? Will an improved
understanding of erosion and deposition of soil carbon, including carbon
sedimentation in reservoirs, contribute to resolving the apparent
imbalance in the global carbon budget (the so-called \"missing carbon
sink\")?

[Objectives]{.underline}: Quantify the effects of changing land use and
land management practices on biogeochemistry (that is, nutrient
enrichment, atmospheric CO~2~) and regional climate variability (that
is, modified land surface biophysical processes, altered temperature and
precipitation patterns). Determine potential feedbacks among land
surface change, regional climate variability, and biogeochemical cycles.
Incorporate the effects of climate variability, including feedback
mechanisms, into integrated assessments of ecosystem functioning.
Evaluate the contribution of erosion and deposition to the rate of
carbon sequestration or release in a variety of ecosystems. Document the
existence, location, and magnitude of carbon sources and sinks resulting
from historical and current land use change and management.

**Goal 3: Understand the influences and interactions between infectious
diseases and the environment.**

[Justification:]{.underline} Health problems caused by emerging
infectious diseases are a growing concern worldwide among governments,
scientists, the media, the popular press, and the public. With
geographic distance and isolation no longer meaningful barriers, the
opportunities for once-isolated diseases to spread have never been
greater. The emergence of so many new diseases in humans in recent years
is a result of our densely populated, highly mobilized, and
environmentally disrupted world. Our vulnerability to such diseases is
not going to go away. Dealing with emerging diseases requires the
ability to recognize pathogens when they first appear and to act
appropriately**.** Many emerging human diseases (zoonoses) are shared
with wildlife species, where wildlife can act as a carrier or reservoir
of human infection, often through invertebrate vectors such as
mosquitoes. Since outbreaks are often evident in the nonhuman components
of the environment before humans are affected, understanding
environmental health is a prerequisite to protecting human health.

The USGS can monitor and model environmental and habitat changes, such
as altered land use patterns and urban growth, which increase the rate
of human exposure to zoonotic or vector-borne infections. Today, GISs,
remote sensing satellites, and other technologies are providing
scientists with the tools and the data to make clear the geographic
relationships between environmental habitats of disease hosts**,**
vectors, and pathogens, and the occurrence of disease. Although health
professionals can effectively analyze the incidence and direct cause of
illness, they lack the information and expertise to relate the
occurrences of diseases with factors in the environment. Public health
agencies need information on the source, occurrence (in space and time),
transport, transformations, and fate of the pathogens that cause public
health problems**.** They need to know what influencing factors, such as
human population density and distribution, land and resource use, soil
type, climate, animal reservoirs, and vectors, affect the risk of
disease spread.

GAM research will seek answers to the following questions: How can we
detect the presence of pathogens in the environment and measure and
predict their extent and virulence? What methodological advances are
needed to detect rare events, to determine the likelihood of an outbreak
of infectious disease at a given place and time, and to determine risk
when there is uncertainty in the underlying data? What are the roles and
impacts of wildlife species on the maintenance and distribution of
zoonotic diseases? What are the impacts of weather, especially
temperature, humidity, and precipitation, on vector-borne disease
transmission?

[Objectives:]{.underline} Conduct a multiyear campaign of field research
to obtain a better understanding of bird migration as a mechanism of
virus dispersal, vertebrate host/vector relationships and range, and the
current and future geographic distribution of West Nile Virus. Study how
weather and environmental conditions influence the dynamics of potential
disease vector populations**,** wildlife host distribution and
abundance, and the interface between these components and human
populations. Develop models that predict the spatial patterns of
seasonal vector population dynamics, specify interaction with animal
hosts (including humans), and estimate the disease risk to humans.

**Goal 4: Analyze and interpret the record of land use dynamics that
includes land use and land cover change to enhance understanding of the
physical and social drivers of land surface change.**

[Justification]{.underline}: Historically, the macrodriving forces of
settlement and the corresponding land use and land cover changes
experienced in this country have been directly related to advances in
transportation technology (Borchert, 1967). For example, improved
transportation systems permitted the rapid westward expansion of
agriculture beginning in the late 1700s. The contemporary forces are
more diverse but relate to combinations of factors, including
population, affluence, technology, economy, government regulations and
policy, attitudes, and values (Von Hoffman and Felkner, 2002;
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, 1993). Land transformation
may be triggered by local forces (for example, a family decides to
harvest timber on a woodlot to pay debts), regional and national forces
(for example, government policies, such as wetlands legislation or crop
subsidies), and global forces (for example, competitive advantages for
producing food or wood). Driving forces commonly operate in
combinations, which vary from place to place and from time to time.
Understanding the driving forces of past land transformation is
essential before future impacts can be projected or mitigated.

Natural and social driving forces need to be investigated within
ecological regions nationwide in a framework that reflects the Earth's
natural and human variation. These investigations will yield a
determination of the relative importance of location, technology, the
natural environment, and social preferences to explain land changes.
Research activities must integrate remotely sensed images, socioeconomic
data, and theories of land use dynamics to determine how and why these
changes occurred. Research on the driving forces that produce the land
dynamics of urban and ecological regions will allow public and private
organizations to undertake planning and action with more knowledge of
the impacts that their decisions will have. This research goal will also
support Earth systems research that explores the consequences of human
landscape modification. Lessonslearned from procedures and approaches
developed for international applications will benefit this effort.

GAM research will seek answers to the following questions: What are the
major natural and human-induced causes of land use change in different
geographic and historical settings? What are the driving forces for land
use and land cover change at the local, regional, and national scales?
What are the most effective methods to link remotely sensed imagery to
socioeconomic databases and land use dynamics theories? To what extent
do relative location, path dependency, biophysical and social feedback,
land resource institutions, and technology explain land use dynamics? To
what extent can future land use changes be reliably predicted?

[Objectives]{.underline}: Develop a framework for determining the local,
regional, and global driving forces of land use and land cover change.
Document the major driving forces of U.S. land use change for the past
100 years. Identify episodes of combined driving forces that had
specific geographic and temporal signatures. Identify the major forces
driving urban growth and sprawl development.

**Goal 5: Conduct long-term monitoring of the state and trends of the
Earth's land surface as critical input for regional and national policy
decisionmaking.**

[Justification]{.underline}: The spatial and temporal pulses of land
surface change that have occurred over the past 300 years are understood
in only very general terms. For example, regional- and global-level
changes of most land covers and uses, including such essential
categories as forest and grassland cover, agricultural uses, and urban
and suburban settlement, are still poorly documented (National Research
Council, 2001b). An improved understanding of land use dynamics is
critical to understanding the contemporary changes of ecosystems and to
developing the baseline understanding needed to protect and mitigate
future impacts to ecosystem health (International Geosphere-Biosphere
Programme, 1993).

Human modification of the Earth accelerated dramatically at the onset of
the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution started a long
transition from an agrarian to an urban society. During this period,
human population began to rise at an unprecedented rate, and the
expanding population had greater demands for land and a more diversified
economy. European settlement of the Americas increased. Although Native
American land uses had modified the natural environment locally, the
sheer number of European settlers started a transformation of ecosystems
that continues today.

Assessing the status and trends of the Nation's land resources is
essential for regional and national decisionmaking. Such assessment is
the first step in understanding how ecosystems are influenced and
affected by natural and human-induced changes. This information is
needed to address significant national issues that include quality of
life, the ecology of urban environments, ecosystem health, ecological
integrity, water quality and quantity concerns, resource availability,
vulnerability to natural hazards, human health, and altered air and land
quality. These issues are of concern to the U.S. Government domestically
as well as overseas, where scientific analysis is needed to guide
investment decisions for development and humanitarian assistance.

GAM research will seek answers to the following questions: How has the
land surface been changed by human use over the past 300 years? What are
the national rates of land cover change, and how do the rates vary by
region? What is the geographic variability of the sectoral, spatial, and
temporal characteristics of land use and land cover change? What sectors
and time periods are the most dynamic?

[Objectives]{.underline}: Map the condition of the land surface at
multiple spatial and temporal scales. Monitor and document changes in
the land surface to determine how physical alterations of habitats
influence ecosystem services and productivity. Develop a spatially
explicit land use history of the United States from pre-European
settlement to the present. Conduct detailed case histories, domestically
and in developing countries that provide a means to understand the
detailed mechanistic components of land use and land cover change.

**Goal 6: Develop advanced techniques to monitor land surface change and
ecosystem structure and function, in a spatially explicit fashion.**

[Justification]{.underline}: Geographic analysis and monitoring will
require the measurement and observation at multiple scales of numerous
variables that describe the land surface (for example, land cover type,
land use, canopy density, ground cover type, and surface imperviousness)
and ecosystem structure and function (for example, vegetation
characteristics such as canopy height, density, and seasonally dependent
characteristics, which may include fraction of photosynthetically active
radiation, indexes of vegetation health and vigor, leaf-area index,
fractional vegetation cover, net primary production, and
water-energy-carbon fluxes). Field measurements, including site-specific
studies to validate remote sensing products, will be needed to establish
the baseline conditions of specific ecosystems. Greater use of remotely
sensed data for synoptic monitoring will be needed, as will
extrapolation of in situ measurements. Characterizing the temporal
dynamics of large areas may be more practical with remote sensing
technology than through traditional field approaches (Quattrochi and
Pelletier, 1990). Monitoring and predicting change (for example,
urbanization, deforestation) is one of the most important, yet
difficult, contributions of remote sensing technology to studies of
ecological change (Roughgarden et al., 1991). The transition from
conventional mapping studies to a more analytical endeavor based on
theory and modeling will be difficult. This transition should be aided
by growing attention to the role of land surface change and ecosystem
processes in fields such as landscape ecology and the development of
tools such as GISs (Riebsame et al., 1994).

GAM research will seek answers to the following questions: What are the
fundamental spatial and temporal scales upon which to monitor
ecosystems? What methodological advances are needed to map ecosystem
structure and function and land surface change in a spatially explicit
fashion? What spatial frameworks and overall monitoring design should be
implemented to sample ecosystems? What ecosystem and land cover
characteristics should be measured, and how should they be captured and
validated?

[Objectives]{.underline}: Develop criteria and indicators of land
surface condition. Develop GIS, remote sensing, and other techniques to
improve the accuracy and efficiency of land use and land cover mapping,
as well as the study of ecosystem structure and function. Develop
criteria for validating remote sensing products, including map accuracy
assessment. Study the feasibility of research on improving fuel moisture
content estimation and fire-scar mapping.

**Goal 7: Develop methods to communicate research results and assist
decisionmakers with ecosystem strategies and sustainability.**

[Justification]{.underline}: The real world is complicated, and there
are no simple solutions to vexing environmental policy issues. Natural
ecosystems and human social systems are complex and interdependent. To
gain a better understanding of these complex systems, it is necessary to
take an interdisciplinary approach and consider a full range of values
and interests that include the scientific, economic, political, social,
cultural, ethical, and aesthetic. Citizens and decisionmakers are
finding themselves having to weigh both sound science and community
values in making choices and tradeoffs about land use and environmental
resource management. The USGS needs to develop new methods and products
and explore means of combining different ways of knowing and learning to
better communicate research results and assist citizens and policymakers
with these difficult decisions. It is necessary to take a
problem-focused, rather than a discipline-focused, approach that cuts
across USGS discipline boundaries and links many of the programs within
the USGS. The research will be coordinated with programs of other
Government agencies, universities, and institutions.

Applying scientific information to decisionmaking and public policy
requires the application of decision support system tools that
incorporate data, analyses, predictive models, and advanced
visualization techniques that provide alternative policy scenarios for
decisionmakers to consider. Facilitating the integration of scientific
and economic information with social and political values helps achieve
balanced, informed solutions to environmental and resource policy
issues. To do this, scientists will need to develop a better
understanding of the decisionmaking process. They also need to recognize
that many land management decisions require consensus building and are
inherently political.

The impact of policy and management strategies on the physical landscape
and the human environment is determined in large part by rules allowing,
or restricting, land use. Land use patterns represent a distribution of
investments in both physical and human capital that is exposed to risks
from environmental and natural hazards. Identifying the relationship
between the physical environment and the implicit social and economic
environment, as regulated by land use policies, will allow a better
assessment of environmental hazards and losses and improved
risk-management policies and hazard mitigation planning. Research aimed
at this goal will develop the analytical tools to model these
relationships.

The USGS is currently developing a natural science/economics land use
portfolio methodology to communicate environmental risk. Environmental
risk maps are developed by statistical integration of demographic,
environmental, and socioeconomic data. Environmental hazard
susceptibility is estimated as a probability of a physical state change
from the current state of the environment in a community or region. The
physical state change can be triggered either by a dynamic natural
physical process or by a human-induced environmental change. In most
cases, the maps represent the susceptibility to an adverse physical
change. Environmental risk maps have been designed as a quantitative
approach to translating natural science information to a metric for
policy decisions and to providing the core element of a GIS-based risk
communication instrument to assist private and public sector
stakeholders. Examples of application areas include estimates of flood
inundation, the significance of rainfall anomalies for enhanced malaria
transmission, and the extent and impact of drought upon agricultural
systems.

GAM research will seek answers to the following questions: To what
extent can land use and environmental policy and management be based on
scientific information in combination with social and political factors?
Is there a systematic relationship between the relative influence of
scientific information on policy and management decisions and other
national and regional social, physical, and economic information? Will
scientific information actually have an impact on land use through the
mitigation of natural and environmental hazards? What economic benefits
accrue when decisions supported by scientific information are applied to
high-risk areas and development is constrained?

[Objectives]{.underline}: Develop GIS-based decision support tools that
integrate earth science information and economics to model complex human
and natural systems related to specific environmental or risk issues.
Develop community-based participatory procedures that involve
scientists, citizens, stakeholders, and users of knowledge in seeking
consensus on decisions to vexing environmental policy issues in a world
put at risk by the unintended consequences of technological change and
population growth. Determine the usefulness of science in land
management decisionmaking.

## Linked Goals

The results of many GAM 5-year goals support the results of goals in
other Bureau programs. GAM investigations provide fundamental
socioeconomic, land use, and land cover information that provides a
foundation for the biologic, hydrologic, and geologic process studies of
those programs. The GAM Program has identified and linked several of its
science goals to the goals of the CTM, LRS, Status and Trends,
Ecosystems, Earth Surface Dynamics, and National Water-Quality
Assessment Programs.

For example, the CTM Program assembles and maintains a seamless,
nationally consistent, vertically and horizontally integrated set of
basic geographic data. The program also develops tools and applications
that promote *The National Map* as the geospatial underpinning for other
Federal mapping activities and those of other public and private
organizations. The CTM Program provides baseline geographic data for
many GAM research studies. The CTM Program work in maintaining,
archiving, and disseminating spatial information will support GAM goals
in information dissemination and decision support. GAM goals, in turn,
contribute scientific value and knowledge to the spatial content of *The
National Map* by demonstrating the value of *The National Map* data
products in case study applications that address environmental, natural
resource, and economic issues. GAM goals will support CTM goals by
providing feedback on data requirements and demonstrating uses of *The
National Map* through regional applications monitoring rates of change
and environmental consequences. GAM goals also support CTM by developing
decision support tools and models that users can integrate with *The
National Map* to deal with environmental, natural resource, economic,
and land management issues. GAM's analysis of change serves a valuable
role in identifying areas for updating *The National Map.*

The LRS Program develops an understanding of the spectral, radiometric,
spatial, temporal, angular, and stereographic information content of
remotely sensed data as related to the Earth's surface and land surface
processes. The LRS Program also conducts validation studies and
investigates advanced algorithms for land cover mapping and land surface
characterization. These activities provide the GAM Program with
essential information on the application of remote sensing data and
algorithms. The GAM Program in turn supports LRS program goals with
valuable feedback and additional testing and validation of remotely
sensed data for detecting change detection and monitoring ecosystem
health. Feedback includes user requirements on data needs for advanced
remote sensing products and sensor design.

The Status and Trends Program determines rates of change and trends in
the Nation's biological resources. The program also develops monitoring
strategies for regional and national assessments. GAM goals that support
Status and Trends goals are those that will contribute nationally
consistent descriptions of current land surface and land use conditions
to draw linkages with biological observations.

The Ecosystems Program conducts research to understand the natural
processes that control environmental conditions, such as animal and
plant productivity, the health of aquatic communities, and local to
global biodiversity. Research activities include assessing ecosystem
vulnerability to the effects of natural and human-induced environmental
change and providing information to mitigate these effects. Research
topics include the ecology of wetlands, forests, arid lands, and
grasslands, disturbance and landscape ecology; modeling of ecological
systems and quantifying ecosystem services; restoration and fire
ecology, and global change. GAM goals will offer an understanding of the
relationships among land use changes and environmental quality essential
for the Ecosystems Program to assess ecosystem goods and services.

The Earth Surface Dynamics (ESD) Program focuses on understanding the
interactions among changes in climate, human activities, Earth surface
processes, and ecosystems. The program supports multidisciplinary
studies of past environmental and climatic changes, monitors present
conditions and ongoing changes, conducts process studies that explore
the sensitivity of the Earth surface and associated ecosystems to
natural and human-induced changes, and forecasts potential future
changes and their effects (particularly on public lands and waters).
These studies provide an integrated long-term perspective on the causes
and effects of environmental and climatic changes. The common interests
and links between ESD and GAM are obvious. The results from one program
will support the work of the other in many areas. Collaboration and
coordination between the programs promises to enhance and broaden the
scope of USGS research.

The National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program assesses the
status and trends of the Nation's water quality. Study unit assessments
are used to provide a national synthesis on the condition of the
Nation's streams and ground water. Links between GAM and NAWQA are
primarily related to understanding land use and land cover change, in
particular the rates, trends, and driving forces of this change.

## Shared Goals

Shared goals are goals that are common to two or more programs. The GAM
program shares goals with at least three other programs.

GAM and the Status and Trends Program share goals to assess and report
the condition of the Nation's land and biological resources,
respectively. Both intend to develop a national framework for monitoring
and integrating information at multiple spatial and temporal scales.
Both envision developing methods, protocols, and technologies for
inventorying and monitoring change in land and biological resources.

GAM and the Ecosystems Program share goals for national monitoring and
synthesis. Common goals include determining the sensitivity of
biological resources nationally and by specific geographic areas to
detect early ecosystem changes. This effort includes quantifying the
role of scaling in understanding the spatial and temporal responses of
change. The GAM Program and the Ecosystems Program also share a common
goal to quantify and understand patterns of temporal and spatial
variability in key ecosystem components and processes. These patterns
are key for understanding the present condition of natural resources and
predicting likely future changes.

The GAM and the ESD Programs share a goal of providing scientific
support and perspectives for policymakers and land resource managers.
Both programs emphasize the need to study the impacts of land use on
ecosystems. Both focus on monitoring, modeling, and forecasting the
impacts of environmental change on landscapes. Common interests and
goals include the following: involve reconstructing land use histories,
records of fire frequency, climate change, and shifts in plant
communities to provide a deeper perspective on current environmental
trends, monitor landscape processes to understand biogeochemical cycling
of carbon and nutrients, monitor selected indicators of landscape
change, understand rates of key processes and landscape responses, and
develop predictive models of complex interactions and feedback
mechanisms among climate, land surface, ecologic, hydrologic, and
societal systems.

## Expected Outcomes and Performance Measures

The expected outcomes and performance measures for the GAM Program are
rooted in six key documents. They are the GAM 5-Year Program Plan,
Director's Annual Guidance, Annual Program Direction, Annual Work Plans,
Project Plans, and Annual Accomplishments. The GAM 5-Year Program Plan
must align with the USGS Strategic Plan to ensure that GAM is
contributing to regional and national priorities of interest to the
USGS, DOI, and the public. This process for establishing GAM Program
priorities is further refined by ensuring that the GAM Annual Program
Direction and GAM Project Work Plans are consistent with the USGS
Director's Annual Guidance. As part of the process to determine the
Annual Program Direction, the GAM Program will also seek information
from the three USGS Regions and GAM scientists concerning any additional
regional, national, or innovative research priorities that should also
be considered for funding as projects or tasks within the GAM Program.

Given the information resulting from this process, plus deliverables
promised in approved research proposals, Project Plans including task
descriptions will define the expected outcomes, scientific deliverables,
and performance measures for each project. In this context, a project
deliverable could represent an expected outcome, performance measure, or
both. Information on each GAM research project, component tasks, and
expected outcomes will be recorded in the Bureau's Budget and Science
Information System (BASIS), which is the Bureau system for project
planning, project- and account-level budget planning, fund management,
and account balance reporting. GAM project chiefs are responsible for
entering individual project work plans, budget, expected outcomes, and
deliverables into the system. At the end of each fiscal year, the
project chief will submit written documentation, which summarizes the
accomplishments, outcomes, and deliverables completed by the project.
For example, expected outcomes and deliverables could include
publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, USGS publications
(Professional Papers, Circulars, Bulletins, Open-File Reports, Fact
Sheets, and so on), conference papers and posters, GIS datasets, Web
sites, briefing packages, and proposals. Projects can communicate
project outcomes, accomplishments, relevance, and deliverables by a
variety of means (scientific papers, Web sites, workshops, forums,
briefing packages, and so on) to USGS and DOI resource managers and
policymakers and the public. However, it is imperative that project
chiefs and task leaders ensure that Annual Work Plans promise expected
outcomes, deliverables, and performance measures that are consistent
with project resources, and take into account potential uncertainties
that can either impede progress or create "new opportunities" inherent
within any scientific research endeavor.

GAM Program management will routinely monitor and evaluate expected
outcomes and deliverables, including the quality, timeliness, and
relevance of products as defined by annual work plans and Annual
Accomplishments. Feedback from Bureau officials and others will be used
to improve the outcomes and products of projects. GAM Program Managers
and Project Chiefs will routinely assess the scientific results in terms
of how well the GAM Program is contributing to the Nation's priorities,
as well as the scientific relevance of its accomplishments. The GAM
Program will determine how the expected outcomes and deliverables are
making a difference to other USGS programs and policy in DOI and
elsewhere. Other questions for determining performance include: Are the
projects within the GAM Program producing scientific results and
products that satisfy the program's mission requirements? Are projects
making direct contributions to the missions of USGS and DOI? Are the
Program's outcomes and findings contributing to the science priorities
of the USGS and DOI, as communicated in the USGS Director's Annual
Guidance? Are the scientific results and products of the GAM Program
recognized by the USGS and broader scientific communities as
representing sound scientific contributions of relevance to USGS, DOI,
regional, and national priorities? Does the GAM Program include projects
that are producing innovative and "leading edge" scientific results,
which provide the basis for future USGS and DOI policy directions? Is
the Status and Trends Report of the GAM Program recognized as a premier
USGS scientific publication of relevance to USGS, DOI, regional and
national policy?

## Partners and Customers

The GAM Program collaborates with and provides information to a broad
assortment of Federal, State, and private sector interests that look to
the USGS for a nationally consistent description of current land surface
and land use conditions for the Nation. These partners and customers
seek to enhance their scientific understanding of land surface change to
better manage public lands, develop effective policy, manage resources,
and convey to the public the impacts of their decisions.

Primary partners are DOI Bureaus and Federal agencies, such as the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, EPA, and USAID. An increasing emphasis will
be placed on partnerships with DOI Bureaus with land management roles,
such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service
(NPS), and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The primary partners for goals 1, 4, 5, and 6 are groups with needs for
land surface characterization, with particular emphasis on its dynamic
nature. In the past, this has included Federal agencies with
geospatially based activities, such as the EPA, the Bureau of the
Census, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An
increasing emphasis will be placed on partnerships with Department of
Interior bureaus and others with land management roles such as BLM, the
NPS, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers. In addition, the program will work with
partners in other USGS programs such as the GAP Analysis Program,
National Water Quality Assessment Program, Earth Surface Dynamics
Program, and Land Use History of North America Program.

These four goals (1, 4, 5, and 6) also support partners involved with
GAM's natural hazards activities. Other organizations, national and
international, public and private, engaged in hazard identification,
mitigation, and recovery efforts, use GAM land surface change products
to help identify and mitigate natural hazards. These include the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, NOAA, the Red Cross, EPA, and the office of
U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. A particularly strong partnership will
be maintained with the National Interagency Fire Center.

Participants in the program under goal 2 (Impacts of Land Use Change on
Climate Variability and Biogeochemistry) will partner with other
agencies in the U.S. Global Change Research Program and future climate
system science initiatives. There are opportunities for partnerships
with agencies in NOAA, such as the National Weather Service,
particularly because of an increased awareness in the atmospheric
sciences community that the potential of GIS technology has not been
fully exploited.

Participants in the program under goal 3 (Impacts on Human Health) work
closely with the Center for Disease Control, as well as with local and
State public health organizations in States with disease focus sites,
which rely upon GAM investigations and data to understand the impacts of
land change on human health. Internationally, this is exemplified by
work on Rift Valley Fever in Africa and support to the Roll Back Malaria
initiative of the World Health Organization.

Participants in goal 7 (Communicating Science to Decisionmakers) work
closely with State and local agencies that depend on land use and
related natural and social science information collected by this and
other USGS programs for making decisions about local and regional
issues. Partners include the Consensus Building Institute, Collaborative
Decisions, National Center for Ecological Assessment and Synthesis,
Nature Serve, Association of Bay Area Governments, and Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency.

In the international arena, GAM products can greatly assist USAID in
implementing landscape-level models and climate forecasts in
humanitarian responses (for example, Afghanistan and Africa), as well as
in long-term assessments of sustainable management in the Sahel, for
example. Other partners include the U.S. State Department, the United
Nations, and nongovernmental organizations, as well as those mentioned
under goal 3.

The GAM strategy will be to increase the participation of partners
through collaboration on a variety of resources. Reimbursable funding is
only one strategy for sharing resources. Other resources that can be
shared include expertise, data, equipment, facilities, and goodwill. It
will be the strategy of the GAM Program to increase the resource-sharing
partnerships in which its scientists participate. Agreements that allow
organizations to share resources include cooperative research and
development agreements, technical assistance agreements, and memoranda
of agreement. It will be the GAM strategy over the next 5 years to
increase the number of agreements that bring partner resources to the
GAM Program.

Funds appropriated to the GAM Program are used to manage the ensemble of
scientific studies, to develop new partnerships, to represent the USGS
in international scientific entities, and to carry out USGS
mission-critical activities that do not provide partnering
opportunities. Combining partner resources with these funds will enable
the GAM Program to reach greater program strength while contributing to
land use trends that are of interest to partners and customers.

In the past, GAM has been associated with a wide variety of academic
institutions both in the United States and around the world. Given the
science basis of the GAM Program, the strategy is to increase
cooperative relationships with academic institutions. The GAM Program
maintains and plans to strengthen existing ties to academic institutions
through grants, cooperative agreements, collaborative projects, onsite
faculty, and job opportunities for graduate students. The GAM Program is
closely affiliated with the Association of American Geographers. Use of
the National Research Council Fellowship Program adds expertise to the
GAM Program's scientific capabilities.

# V. Program Review

The GAM Program will conduct several types of program reviews. A
scientific review will be conducted every 2 years. The program's goals
and objectives will be reviewed and modified accordingly. Every 3 years
a peer review of the program will be conducted by a panel of 10 leading
professionals. The panels recommendations will contribute to the 5-Year
GAM planning process. These reviews will follow Bureau policy on review
procedures and the requirements for achieving and reporting on the
Bureau performance metrics and the Government Performance and Results
Act (GPRA).

The GPRA requires all Federal agencies to define long-range goals,
establish annual performance targets, and report on achievements of
those targets. The goals of the GAM Program are linked to the Bureau
Strategic Plan in terms of critical business activities. These goals
emphasize the impact of program accomplishments on issues critical to
the Nation, and the annual measures are structured to include reporting
accomplishments by each part of the program.

Once the GAM 5-Year Program Plan is completed, a process of review will
begin at a detailed level by cost centers and gradually move to a
broader review by upper level management until it is determined that the
plans are meeting goals of the organization.

Cost Center Chiefs in the Regions and Headquarters review the draft
BASIS+ project plans and proposals to verify that planned work is
scientifically and fiscally sound. The completed plans are reviewed by
Regional Executives (REX) to ensure the health of the cost centers and
that the Regional science and operational goals are being met and the
performance measures addressed. Bureau Program Coordinators also review
project information during this time to ensure that program goals will
be accomplished as needed and coordinated with REXs on any needed
changes. Regional Directors review summaries of the plans to access
regional financial and operational health and to ensure that regional
goals are met, high-priority issues have been addressed, Bureau guidance
has been adhered to, interdisciplinary and interregion coordination has
occurred, and performance measures have been established. Similarly, the
Deputy Director, with the Associate Directors, Geographic Information
Officer, and Chief of APS, review plans for the headquarters cost
center. The Bureau Program Committee approves the overall plan for work.
At this point, annual planning is complete and approved, contingent upon
appropriated funding for implementation.

# VI. Expertise and Capabilities

Staff and laboratories in USGS's National Mapping Discipline embody
broad expertise in geographic, biologic, climatic, soil, and hydrologic
processes. Notable are long-term perspectives provided by understanding
land use history. Capabilities span the scientific fields of
climatology, hydrology, process modeling, remote sensing science,
biogeochemical cycling in soils, topographic mapping, and GISs.
Scientific support includes analytical labs, database management, GIS,
remote sensing data analysis, visualization techniques, and science
policy analysis. The USGS is well positioned to undertake broad-based
landscape studies such as those outlined here.

The GAM Program is committed to a long-term goal of developing and
strengthening the scientific capabilities of its current and future
workforce of scientists, managers, and support staff. The GAM Program
seeks to further the ability to predict the consequences of
human-induced or natural processes. To achieve this, GAM needs staff
with expertise in modeling, analysis, and predictive methods. The GAM
Program seeks to communicate societal impacts. This will require us to
use new and novel communication channels to effectively reach society
with the results and conclusions of our monitoring, research, and
analysis efforts.

The GAM Program will require the capability to monitor and collect new
types of data. There will be a need for a variety of specialized field
data-collection capabilities, such as off-road vehicles,
ground-penetrating radar, coring devices, boats, and digital cameras.
Aspects of these new technologies are being facilitated by the Global
Development Alliances that USAID is forging with USGS assistance for
field applications in developing countries but relevant to national
needs as well.

It is essential to maintain continuity in USGS's broad expertise in land
use and land cover mapping, trend analysis, database management, and
information science. It is equally essential to develop or supplement
capabilities in the following areas:

-   Geographic information science

-   Environmental simulation modeling

-   Spatial statistical analysis

-   Biogeochemical cycling

-   Climatology

-   Remote sensing science

-   Hydrology

-   Landscape ecology

-   Ecosystem processes.

Over the next decade, the program will direct increased resources to
improving the usefulness of geographic maps, both through technical
advances in digital display and interpretation and through the inclusion
of \"value-added\" information that is relevant to public use, such as
engineering and hydrologic properties of map units.

GAM will advance the use and technical development of geographic
information systems and three-dimensional visualization as tools for
landscape mapping and for transport of geographic information into
modeling geologic, hydrologic, biologic, and geographic processes.

# VII. Facilities

GAM scientists, managers, and support staff will be geographically
dispersed across the country organized into Geographic Analysis Teams
(GATs) with either a local, regional, national, or international scope.
The GA Teams will use existing USGS facilities. The GAM Program will
need to provide private offices with access to a common area, lab space,
conference rooms, and a library for each GAT. The GAM Program needs to
provide high-speed Internet access to facilitate the communication and
sharing of information between GATs and other USGS science teams.

The GAM Program currently maintains small field offices in Anchorage,
Portland, and Tucson. These offices have proved extremely effective in
building local support for the GAM Program and in expanding the
\"customer base\". These offices will be expanded and additional offices
established in cities such as Tampa Bay, San Antonio, and Chicago.

The recent movement of offices in Menlo Park should reduce space charges
there. Considerable effort will be needed by managers to maintain
programmatic cohesiveness between GAM personnel.

# VIII. References

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Review 57: 301-332.

Diamond, H.L. and Noonan, P.F., 1996, Land use in America. Island Press.
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Field, C.B. and Fung, I.Y., 1999, The not-so-big U.S. carbon sink.
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International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, 1993, Relating land use and
global land-cover change: A Proposal for an IGBP-HDP Core Project. B.L.
Turner II, R.H. Moss, and D.L. Skole, editors, IGBP Global Change Report
No. 24, International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, Stockholm, Sweden,
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Klopatek, J.M., Olson, R.J., Emerson, C.J., and Jones, J.L., 1979,
Land-use conflicts with natural vegetation in the United States.
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Loveland, T.R., 2000, The patterns and characteristics of global land
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Loveland, T.R., Sohl, T., Stehman, S.V., Gallant, A.S., and Sayler, K.,
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Marceau, D.J., 1999, The scale issue in the social and natural sciences.
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Matson, P.A., Parton, W.J., Power, A.G., and Swift, M.J., 1997,
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Meyer, W.B., and Turner II, B.L., 1992, Changes in land use and land
cover: a global perspective. Papers arising from the 1991 OIES Global
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National Research Council, 2000, Ecological indicators for the Nation.
National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 198 p.

National Research Council, 2001a, Future roles and opportunities for the
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National Research Council, 2001b, Grand challenges in environmental
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Nunes, C. and Augé, J.J., eds., 1999, Land-use and land-cover change
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Quattrochi, D.A. and Pelletier, R.E., 1990, Remote sensing for analysis
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Riebsame, W.E., Parton, W.J., Galvin, K.A., Burke, I.C., Bohren, L.,
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Steffen, W.L., Walker, B.H., Ingram, J.S.I., and Koch, G.W., 1992,
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Turner, B.L., II, Skole, D., Sanderson, S., Fischer, G., Fresco, L., and
Leemans, R., 1995, Land-use and land-cover change: science/research
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Von Hoffman, A., and Felkner, J., 2002, The historical origins and
causes of urban decentralization in the United States. U.S. Geological
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Waisanen, P.J., and Bliss, N.B., in press, Changes in population and
agricultural land in conterminous U.S. counties, 1790 to 19997, Global
Biogeochemical Cycles.