On April 1-3, approximately forty US and international researchers convened at Arizona State University to discuss global monitoring and modeling of urban growth patterns in two parallel workshops along with local stakeholders. This initiative originated from workshop funding provided by NASA and NSF as well as coordination by the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) International Project Office at the Global Institute of Sustainability. Both workshops examined different disciplinary perspectives (e.g., geography, urban planning, remote sensing, economics, conservation, and landscape ecology) and methodological approaches (e.g., remote sensing, statistical and econometric modeling, system dynamics modeling, agent-based models) to address pressing questions such as: What do we know about future urban land-use change and how does it relate to other land uses and land covers? What is the policy relevance of urban growth models; do they provide solutions to problems associated with rapid urbanization in the face of global environmental change? Are there steps to be taken that make urban growth forecasting more policy relevant? We are currently exploring avenues for potential outputs through journal publications and other collaborations. Please visit the workshop website for more details and for updates regarding post-workshop activities as they progress.

For more information please refer to the website