Our mission is to understand landscapes, their people, and their futures and, by doing so, improve landscape policy and management decisions. Questions that motivate our research include: What determines landscape trajectories? Will future landscapes be able to adapt to human-driven change? How will landscape management shape future landscapes? We particularly focus on the role of anthropogenic change (climate change, land use change) and management practices. We address the immediate concerns of society, providing insight for long-term landscape management and planning.

To address these questions and concerns, we seek to understand the primary drivers that influence landscape transformation. Therefore, we use concepts and theories from landscape ecology, ecosystem ecology, and landscape management. Social science substantially contributes to our research approach as local knowledge and actions and networks are pivotal to understanding potential futures.

We are future-oriented. We forecast landscape change, taking into consideration emerging threats to landscape health and sustainability. These threats include climate change, land use change and development, fragmentation, and novel disturbance regimes.

Our research is powered by data science. Data enable us to test concepts and theories and to capture the local variation that makes each landscape unique. We blend data from local, national, and global scales that come from satellite, social, and ecological sources.

The Dynamic Ecosystems and Landscapes Lab is located at North Carolina State University. Our lab includes faculty, research scientists, and graduate students. As a lab, we are committed to educating all people and promoting sustainability across all landscapes.