From transdisciplinary projects to platforms: expanding capacity and impact of land systems knowledge and decision making

Land system science can inform decision making to address societally important issues, including food, energy, and water security, livelihoods and lifestyles, biodiversity loss, and climate change. There is growing experience among scientists and practitioners with land systems as a transdisciplinary science. Most often, this experience has accumulated through short-term projects. However, there is a need for durable, long-term land system science platforms to address diverse types of complex, wicked problems, from immediate crises and emergencies over days and weeks; to sudden events over months and years; to extensive, pervasive, and subtle changes occurring over decades. In this paper, we offer a strategic framing of the issues and features for transdisciplinary land system science platforms that can be adapted and applied to local conditions.