Critical Needs for the Twenty First Century: The Role of Geosciences
1. Climate Change + Resilience, Adaptation, & Sustainability: Climate change mitigation involves taking actions to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus reducing risks associated with a changing climate. Adaptation helps society and natural systems to deal with consequences of climate change. Managing risks from climate impacts protects communities and ecosystems and strengthens the resilience of the economy.
2. Water + High Quality Geospatial Data and Maps: Understanding the distribution of rock units and their geologic, chemical, and physical properties benefits the water resources community. Knowledge of which units have high, low, or no porosity; fracture vs. inter-granular porosity, etc., is essential in assessing groundwater hydrology.
3. Energy + Technology & Engineering: Innovative technology and engineering is essential to understanding alternative exploration scenarios for energy resources.
4. Natural Hazards + Infrastructure: Levee, floodwall and dam failures can be anticipated and avoided with proper assessments.
5. Natural Hazards + High Quality Geospatial Data and Maps: High quality mapping of bedrock and surficial materials is essential to understanding processes that involve the potential for natural hazards. Examples include mapping active faults or the relative stability of slope materials that could lead to landslide or produce slow mass-movement hazards.
6. Soils + Global Change: Global changes in temperature, precipitation, and nutrients will impact soils and agriculture.
7. Mineral Resources + Technology & Engineering: Mineral resources provide critical components for items that society relies on every day such as cell phones, batteries, and cars. Technology and engineering help geoscientists understand the extent and accessibility of the nation’s mineral resources.
8. Oceans & Coasts + Resilience, Adaptation, & Sustainability: Coastal cities across the globe are becoming more sustainable and resilient to disasters such as coastal flooding and hurricanes through adaptation informed by geoscience research.
9. Oceans & Coasts + Infrastructure: Ports are an important economic driver in coastal areas that create American jobs and help transfer goods to communities across the nation. Ports also serve as significant resources for national defense and emergency preparedness.
10. Waste Disposal + Public Health: Poor waste handling and disposal can lead to environmental pollution and cause diseases in animals and humans.
11. Workforce + Thriving Economy: A strong geoscience workforce can help create a thriving society by sharing their knowledge with the public and helping people to understand Earth’s processes. A workforce made of people from diverse backgrounds is best positioned to respond to our Nation’s needs, including ensuring a society safe from changing hazards.
© AGI (
American Geosciences Institute)
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