The IGBP terrestrial transects: science plan

The IGBP terrestrial transects are a set of integrated global change studies consisting of distributed observational studies and manipulative experiments coupled with modelling and synthesis activities organised along existing underlying global change parameters, such as temperature, precipitation and land-use. After presenting a rationale for the transects and methodology, the report goes on to describe the location of the initial set of transects in four key regions humid tropical systems undergoing land-use change; semi-arid tropical systems; mid latitude semi-arid systems; and high latitude systems. In general, the report concludes that the transects will serve as a valuable tool in facilitating interaction among the core projects and in calling the results of smaller scale process studies to the longer time and larger spatial scales required for global modelling and analysis. -H.R.Goode