Department Global Change and Natural Systems
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Overview of the DepartmentThe planet's land surface is covered by a fine-scaled pattern of ecosystems and water bodies. These are all sensitive to changes in the environment and human life depends on them. Our primary goal is to assess such changes, including their importance for human society, as well as feedbacks to the atmosphere. Most of our work is concerned with "human" scales of time and space. For ecosystems (natural and managed), we focus on landscape processes, such as tree and canopy development. In hydrological systems we assess the potential and risks environmental change might imply for human land use of river catchments. For the analysis of the entire biosphere we study interactions between human exploitation and the global carbon cycle. In none of these three cases can the direct human influence through management (or sometimes destruction) be ignored - often it is found to be the primary reason for concern. Our spatial scope is at multiple levels, ranging from the Elbe catchment, through pan-European studies, to global assessments. Our work is done primarily through research activities, often using computer models and large data bases. We do, however, also contribute to the coordination of national and international research consortia, and we have found this to be an important element of our activities. Additionally, we contribute to academic teaching at Potsdam University (mostly through its department of geoecology), and at several other german universities. The department consists of three working groups, acting closely together. The biosphere group studies primarily the biosphere as part of the Earth System, but also as a provider of services for society, the ecosystems group investigates mainly terrestrial ecosystems, their function and diversity, and their role for sustainable development of sectors such as agriculture and forestry, the water group works on questions of global change in large river catchments such as the Elbe. Interactions We aim at playing a useful role within several national and international
consortia that are concerned with challenging issues such as: vulnerability
of ecosystem services, management of agricultural, forest and water resources,
impacts and dynamics of land cover change, and the global carbon cycle.
This includes the co-ordination of several collaborative research projects,
and contributions to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. |
