The Workshop is organized around four main topics:

• Institutional Arrangements and Governance
• Vulnerability of Land Use and Food Security
• Environmental Services Provision
• Modelling and Data Provision & Analysis

Institutional Arrangements and Governance

Institutions are among the most important drivers of land use change. Recent institutional evolution in Brazil and in other South American countries, over the last two decades, acknowledges the importance of environmental issues in matters of territorial planning and public policy. Despite the specificities of each country's history and the role played by social actors at different institutional levels and scales (including global). This evolution has to deal with current national land tenure and land use regimes. Examples are the restricted land use laws in agrarian reform policies - with the goal of avoiding deforestation (Brazil), and the denial of claims to exploit oil deposits inside indigenous territories (Ecuador).

However, the broad acceptance of a new framework of environmental laws and policies is far from being achieved, and the range and limitations of their enforcement, in opposition to ancient political and economic structures, demands more inquiry. In order to understand the impacts of the institutional evolution on land use change, we will discuss here why and how actors accept, reject or change legal rules of territorial planning, and which modalities of institutional arrangements arise in the several contexts presented.

Vulnerability of Land Use and Food Security

Terrestrial ecosystems provide a number of vital services for people and society, such as biodiversity, food, water resources, carbon sequestration, and recreation. The future capability of ecosystems to provide these services is determined by changes in socioeconomic characteristics, land use, biodiversity, atmospheric composition and climate. Vulnerability is the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Assessments regarding the vulnerability of the human-environment system under such environmental change are needed to answer important multidisciplinary relevant questions such as: Which are the main regions or sectors in South America that are vulnerable to global change? How do the vulnerabilities of two regions compare? Which scenario is the least, or most, harmful for a given region or sector in South America?

The topic Vulnerability of Land Use and Food Security will discuss possible methods to address the concept and utility of vulnerability and resilience of coupled human-environment systems. The lessons learned about the application of the concept for global change studies and how these issues are approached conceptually and methodologically in South America.

Environmental Services Provision

Humankind benefits from a multitude of resources and processes supplied by natural ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are known as environmental services and include products like clean drinking water and processes such as the decomposition of waste. In South America, four main types of environmental services currently stand out: carbon sequestration and storage, biodiversity protection, watershed protection and landscape beauty.

The main questions in this topic include: the identification of generic pathways of environmental change in response to main land use transitions; fundamental environmental processes underlying tradeoffs and synergies among environmental services; key processes underlying ecosystem change in response to land use change, and their impact on ecosystem services. Key interactions between land use and other global changes (e.g. climate, nitrogen deposition, biological invasions) are also addressed here, as are scenarios of environmental (service) change in response to land use transitions.

Modelling and Data Provision & Analysis

Land use change models are tools used to support the analysis of the causes and consequences of land use dynamics in order to better understand the functioning of the land use system and support land use planning and policy. Models are useful for disentangling the complex suite of socioeconomic and biophysical forces that influence the rate and spatial pattern of land use change and for estimating the impacts of changes in land use. Scenario analysis with land use models can support land use planning and policy, and numerous land use models developed from different disciplinary backgrounds are available.

We can learn more about land use transitions in South America by looking both into modelling, and provision of observations and derived data. This topic focuses on approaches and methods for integrated land system modelling, including issues of temporal and spatial scale for land dynamics studies; on recent advances in the availability of EO (Earth Observation) data and monitoring, as well as derived datasets on land-use and land-cover; and also on methodological progress in land change science.