The Web of Science Group, a Clarivate Analytics company released its annual list of Highly Cited Researchers this week. The highly anticipated list identifies scientists and social scientists who produced multiple papers ranking in the top 1% by citations for their field and year of publication, demonstrating significant research influence among their peers.

Congratulations to the following 26 GLP Members, SSC Members and GLP Fellows, who were recognized in the list:

Almut Arneth, Katherine Calvin, Sandra Díaz, Ruth DeFries, Erle Ellis, Karlheinz Erb, Mark Friedl, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Dagmar Haase, Helmut Haberl, Tobias Kuemmerle, Eric Lambin, Sandra Lavorel, Hermann Lotze-Campen, Patrick Meyfroidt, Nathan Mueller, Unai Pascual, Josep Penuelas, Tobias Plieninger, Navin Ramankutty, Karen Seto, Allison Thomson, Peter Verburg, Paul West, Jianguo (Jingle) Wu, Jianchu Xu

If we missed you or a colleague on the Clarivate list, please email Communications Manager Lauren Hertel.

Tuesday, 8 December
14:30 Central European Time

The GLP Working Group on Telecoupling Research Towards Sustainable Transformation of Land Systems will hold its fourth webinar to discuss the challenges and opportunities related to governing telecoupling from the perspective of company policies to reduce commodity-driven forest loss. The webinar will include two presentations by Sam A. Levy (ETH Zürich) presenting work on the role of market share on the effectiveness of zero deforestation commitments in the Brazilian Amazon’s cattle sector, and Janina Grabs (ETH Zürich) discussing effective of performative governance in relation to implementation of zero deforestation commitments in the Indonesian palm oil sector.

Thursday, 10 December
15:00 Central European Time

The GLP Working Group on Social-Ecological Land Systems of Latin America is pleased to invite you to the group's first webinar. In this webinar you will hear about the concept of Socio-Ecological Land Systems (SELS) for South America presented by Dr. Sébastien Boillat. You will also be introduced to a novel spatial characterization of SELS for South America by Ms. Lucía Zarbá. The webinar will conclude with a presentation of the LASELS Working Group and the upcoming agenda by Dr. María Piquer-Rodríguez, which will be then open for discussion.

The GLP Working Group on Archetype Analysis in Sustainability and Land Governance Research invites submissions for a Focus Issue of Environmental Research Letters that will consolidate archetypes of sustainable land use and governance in order to provide a state-of-the-art knowledge resource to transform land use systems towards sustainability across world regions. It will advance knowledge in four thematic priority areas of land use systems: telecoupled land systems; land governance; farming systems; and interactions between land, food, climate and biodiversity. Expressions of interest must be submitted by 11 December 2020, with articles due by 30 June 2021.

The GLP/AIMES Working Group on Large-scale Behavioural Models of Land Use Change welcomes all contributions for a thematic issue of Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling (SESMO), dedicated to the better understanding and modelling of temporal or spatial scales in land use dynamics. These contributions can present theoretical or empirical analyses, methodological contributions, or relevant model developments, and will together build towards a robust agenda for future research in this field. The expected deadline for the submission of the contribution is the end of June 2021.

The GLP/AIMES Working Group on Large-scale Behavioural Models of Land Use Change held its first webinar, featuring Peter Verburg and Elke Weber discussing whether the idea of large-scale behavioural modelling is realistic, in November 2020.

The webinar recording and presentations are now available.

Identifying Agricultural Frontiers for Modeling Global Cropland Expansion
A novel, two-stage method for predicting where cropland expansion is likely to occur in the future was published recently published in One Earth. First, available data are used to model where cropland existed in 1992. They then use maps that show where the first model fails to explain cropland in 1992 to help predict expansion of cropland between 1992 and 2015. They then show that this approach is an improvement over simply using existing data to predict recent expansion of cropland. Read more

Farm scale as a driver of agricultural development in the Kenyan Rift Valley
A new article in Agricultural Systems looks at medium-scale farms, which are often considered to be either the "light" version of land grabbing or a much-needed model of innovation. The findings of this new study suggest that the qualities attached to medium-scale farms are not as clear-cut as they are often made out to be. Read more

Harmonization of global land use change and management for the period 850–2100 (LUH2) for CMIP6
A new article in Geoscientific Model Development presents results from the Land-Use Harmonization 2 (LUH2) project, which smoothly connects updated historical reconstructions of land use with eight new future projections in the format required for Earth system models (ESMs). Read more

Floristic evidence for alternative biome states in tropical Africa
A new paper in PNAS from the SEOSAW project, a GLP Contributing Project, provides large-scale evidence that there are alternative states in tree species composition of tropical vegetation in Africa. An article in ScienceDaily provides links back from the research to debates in the GLP community. Read more

Sustainable Land Management in a European Context
A new book that reflects on the European debate about sustainable land management. The eBook version is open access and can be downloaded for free. Read more

One simulation, different conclusions - the baseline period makes the difference!
An article in Environmental Research Letters shows how the choice of the baseline period as a reference for assessing future changes can dramatically impact the key messages drawn from a basin-scale climate impact study. Read more

Advances in Understanding and Managing Catastrophic Ecosystem Shifts in Mediterranean Ecosystems
A new paper in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution seeks to synthesize insights into the drivers, processes and management of catastrophic shifts to highlight ways forward for the management of Mediterranean ecosystems. Read more

Terrestrial Protected Areas and Food Security: A Systematic Review of Research Approaches
A new study published in Environments aims to better understand the state of research on protected areas and food security through a methodological lens. Read more

Introduction to NASA’s "Black Marble" Night Lights Data
3 December
This webinar will focus on building the skills needed to choose the appropriate night lights product, acquire and understand Black Marble data, and how to use the data in analyses for tracking urbanization, electrification, and disaster monitoring. Learn more and register

Protected areas under climate change: challenges and opportunities
19-21 January 2021
Join the British Ecological Society's Climate Change SIG in creating new suggestions to manage protected areas under climate change. Learn more and register

FSc MER 2021: Summer Field School on Mountain Ecosystems and Resource Management
11-20 August 2021
This international training program examines the mountain ecosystems in contexts of human development and natural resources, principles of managing natural resources, and governing the resources for sustainable conservation. Deadline to apply: 31 January. Learn more and register

Call for submissions: Land acquisitions, wellbeing, and environment
Submissions sought for an Ecology and Society Special Feature. Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2021. Learn more

Professors
Associate Professor or Professor, Environment and Human Interactions, University of Connecticut, Deadline: 15 December

Assistant Professors
Two Assistant Professors in Land System Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Deadline: 29 November
Cluster hire focused on Sustainability and Equity, University of Oklahoma, Deadline: 1 December

Postdocs
Modelling socio-ecological systems, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Deadline: 27 November

PhDs
Global effects of drought on hydroelectric power generation, University of Southampton, Deadline: 4 January
How fragmented are the world's savannas?, University of Edinburgh, Deadline: 10 January
20 scholarships for students from the Global South, KU Leuven, Deadline: 11 January
Tropical Floodplain Agriculture, McGill University, Deadline: 15 December

Other
Two MSc Fellows needed to support NASA LCLUC program, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Conservation International, Deadline: 1 December
Two MSc funded positions in neotropical geography, McGill University, Deadline: 15 December