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Introduction
Pages 7-13

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From page 7...
... In addition, there has been growing recognition of the value of multidisciplinary research involving natural and social sciences and engineering. Together these developments have led to a growing awareness of the central importance of the environmental sciences as humankind attempts to transition to a more sustainable relationship with the Earth and its natural resources.
From page 8...
... Thus environmental sciences include branches of social sciences and engineering just as they include branches of biological and physical sciences. For the environmental sciences to build the knowledge base they need, these disparate fields need to cooperate and collaborate.
From page 9...
... supports a wide variety of research in the environmental sciences, and as part of its long-range strategic planning sought advice from the National Research Council (NRC) about the most important and challenging scientific questions in the environmental sciences.
From page 10...
... These included many reports produced by the NRC, NSF, and others during the last decade that identified important research challenges within various disciplines and involving particular environmental issues. Process for Selecting Grand Challenges and Immediate Research Investments In response to the NSF request, the committee attempted to select a short list of high-priority research challenges.
From page 11...
... Although there are other sorts of challenges facing the environmental sciences such as developing new methods and databases, training environmental scientists, and addressing mismatches between scientific needs and the structure of research organizations we addressed such needs in the context of meeting substantive challenges rather than labeling any of them as grand challenges themselves. The committee recognized that selecting a few grand challenges from an extensive list would inevitably be a somewhat subjective enterprise.
From page 12...
... Challenges that might be met by research within a single discipline or research tradition were not ruled out. However, because multidisciplinary collaboration is both difficult and important for so much of the work in the environmental sciences, as discussed above, major research efforts that would build the capability for multidisciplinary collaboration would have positive spillover effects for the rest of environmental science, and therefore deserve priority.
From page 13...
... The committee also considered for each topic the level of current research support in relation to the probable need for support. In other words, in identifying topics for immediate research investment, we ranked those we judged to be in need of significant additional funding higher than others, which were often deemed to be of equal intellectual and practical importance.


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