At the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) meeting of the Global Land Project (GLP) held from Feb 12 to 14 in Rome, Italy, it was decided that regional offices will be created in Beijing of China, Wageningen of the Netherlands and Sapporo of Japan.

GLP is a new research project co-sponsored by the International Geophere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Program on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). It is the successor of the jointly sponsored IGBP/IHDP core project Land Use and Land Cover Change (LUCC, finished in Oct. 2005) and the IGBP core project on Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (GCTE) (closed in Nov. 2003).

The Global Land Project focuses on the interactions of people, biota, and natural resources of terrestrial and aquatic systems. The Science Plan emphasizes the study of changes in the coupled human-environmental system at local to regional scales. Changes in coupled human-environmental systems also affect the rates of cycling of energy, water, elements, and biota at the global level, while global-level changes in political economy, such as international treaties and market liberalization, in turn affect decisions about resources at local and regional levels. The research goal of the GLP is to measure, model and understand the coupled human-environmental system ("land system") as part of broader efforts to address changes.

At the GLP SSC meeting, Prof. Liu Jiyuan, director general of the CAS Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resource Research (IGSNRR) and member of GLP SSC, submitted the proposal for an IGSNRR-based GLP office in Beijing. The proposal was ratified at the meeting. The office will coordinate research into relations between land system changes and carbon circle in an ecological system in Asian and Pacific region. It will also make preparations for the second SSC meeting that will be held in Nov. 2006 in Beijing.