Achievement

The ESUR IGERT Program held an Advisory Committee meeting in October, 2012. To capitalize on the members who attended (Ann Kinzig, Arizona State; Andrew Mangan, U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development; Steve Polasky, U. Minnesota), a panel presentation “Ecosystem Services in the 21st Century: Critical science and management needed to support urbanizing regions” was held. Each panelist presented a brief synopsis of the science and management needed to advance knowledge of ecosystem service (ES) issues affecting urbanizing regions. Major themes included: (1) systems approaches for analyzing and managing ES; (2) neglected science on ES analyses for urban areas including linkages with rural areas; (3) improved analytical capacity to evaluate alternative ES policy mechanisms for urbanizing regions, and; (4) linking ES analyses to human wellbeing, including distributional effects. IGERT trainees benefited from the panel discussion and small group discussions with advisory members.