Contribution of the NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program to the Northern Eurasia Partnership Initiative (NEESPI)

The Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI) is a rapidly growing program that involves national government agencies, academia and private organizations in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Northern Eurasia. The NEESPI Science Plan has been prepared as an integrated regional study to evaluate the role of anthropogenic impacts on the Northern Eurasia ecosystems, the hemisphericscale interactions, and to assess how future human actions would affect the global climate and ecosystems of the region. Inversely, projections of the consequences of global changes for regional environment, the economy, and the quality of life in Northern Eurasia that is of primary importance to the nations in the region is another focus of this initiative. The NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program has supported NEESPI since its inception, and currently funds over 20 NEESPI projects. More projects will join the program during this year. The NEESPI program links to the major international programs under the Earth System Science Partnership, such as IGBP and WCRP. The NEESPI activities are aligned with the Global Earth System of System (GEOSS) objectives so that the NEESPI framework can serve as a regional test bed for international cooperation in developing a system of observational systems. Currently, several NASA programs are supporting or planning to support the NEESPI. This article provides a short description of the ongoing NEESPI projects under the NASA LCLUC program that contributes to the overall NEESPI program. More information on the projects can be found at http://neespi.org or http://lcluc.hq.nasa.gov.