The Global Change and Sustainability Center is a faculty-led initiative to develop multi-college, interdisciplinary research and training that focus on environmental and sustainability themes.

One of the major cross-college foci linking affiliate faculty is sustainability of urban systems--the human-built environment. Here, faculty are exploring the design of sustainable communities, the effects of transit on traffic, and the consequences of fossil fuel use on air quality.

Faculty research intersects in studying global change and ecological dynamics related to factors including land use, invasive species, and atmospheric, biogeochemical and hydrological changes.

Themes related to climate and the water cycle include sustainability of urban water sources and of the connectivities and feedbacks between montane water-source regions and urban water-consumption regions.

Faculty research also provides a framework for policy advisors as they adopt solutions critical to sustaining quality of life and economic vitality in the face of future reduced water availability and competing demands on land use.

The GCSC also brings together faculty who explore both modern and geological histories of environmental change, and who use modeling to make predictions of future climates--information that is critical to informing our approaches to sustainability.