Build interdisciplinarity to enhance scientific knowledge about multiple stressors affecting
arid and semiarid ecosystems of the US Southwest and Mexico borderlands.
Establish strong networks for bringing science and expertise to bear on decision making in the
context of environmental and societal variability and change.
Create sustainable partnerships and synergies for long-term research, monitoring, and management
of the region’s resources, ecosystems, and communities.
Hold two workshops to initiate the program: the first to establish working groups to write synthesis
papers reflecting knowledge about the region and the second to design the program and identify leaders
who will shepherd key grant proposal-writing activities for funding an ongoing program in ecosystem
sustainability under conditions of uncertainty in arid and semiarid areas.
Deliverables
Publication of peer-reviewed interdisciplinary synthesis papers on the state of scientific knowledge
about the region’s ecosystems, biophysical processes, and human factors; the syntheses will focus
on interactions among these components and the implications for achieving sustainability.
Construction of a tractable interdisciplinary and collaborative research agenda that will fill
important knowledge gaps emerging from the synthesis process.
Identification of synergies with existing UA Centers, projects, and programs.
Input to efforts to develop a Conservation Biology program at the University of Arizona.
Publication on the Web of information developed in the workshops.
If sufficient interest and cohesion exists, development of a plan for building a Center for
Sustainability in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems.
Identification of potential grant possibilities, and grant writing teams, to generate resources
for the initiatives agreed upon at the workshops.