Together with partners, START organized a forum to discuss Land-Cover and Land-Use Change (LCLUC) and its impacts in South and Southeast Asian countries. The International Regional Science Meeting of the South/Southeast Asia Research Initiative (SARI) of the Global Observation of Forest Cover and Land Dynamics (GOFC-GOLD) program was held July 17-19 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The meeting was organized around the following themes: 1) agriculture and water resources, 2) biomass burning, including land-atmosphere interactions, 3) urbanization,  4) land use in coastal zones and estuaries, and 5) land use in forests and mountain regions.

Overview presentations shared recent research accomplishments and the state of the art on these topics in South/Southeast Asia, and formulated future research directions and applications development needs for the region. The meeting also explored opportunities for coordination and collaboration among research scientists and teams and ongoing projects aimed to advance understanding of the spatial extent, intensity, social consequences, and impacts on environment in South/Southeast Asian countries.

In total, 165 participants from 16 countries (Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, UK, USA and Vietnam) attended the meeting. Representatives from the NASA-USAID SERVIR nodes in Asia participated in the meeting, as well as scientists from the other space agencies such as JAXA, Vietnam Space Agency and GISTDA.

After the meeting, 95 early career scientists from different countries participated in a three day hands-on training session focused on the use of remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) for regional applications, including atmospheric impact studies using MODIS, Landsat, Sentinel-1 and -2 and other sensors’ observations.

More details are available at: http://lcluc.umd.edu/meetings/lcluc-sari-international-regional-science-meeting-southsoutheast-asia.