Land system science and the social-environmental system: the case of Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region (SYPR) project

Land system science axiomatically addresses social-environmental systems by integrating the dynamics of land uses (social) and land covers (environment), invariably including the use of remote sensing data and often, spatially explicit models of land change. This kind of research is illustrated through the Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region project (1997-2008) aimed at understanding, predicting, and projecting spatially explicit land change in a region with juxtaposed land uses-agriculture and a biosphere reserve. The successes of the project, its contributions to contemporary land system science, and the organizational mechanisms that fostered the research are identified as well as various corrections, which if applied, may have refined and extended the project's goals. Overall, the project demonstrates the kind of integrated research required to advance understanding of a social-environment system and the team-based methods used in the process.