Carl Sagan Lecture Series: Reflections of human influence on the land surface

The AGU Sagan Lecture series, sponsored jointly by the Biogeosciences and Planetary Sciences Sections of AGU, provides perspectives on astrobiology and public engagement on critical issues that transcend boundaries of disciplinary research and planetary boundaries. These lectures encompass topics that integrate and synthesize multiple disciplines in a unique fashion to explore and to expand our knowledge of life without boundaries. This seminar, "Detecting land cover change: Reflections of human influence on the land surface," will cover land fragmentation, land cover change, biodiversity changes as observed and studied with remote sensing techniques provides a greater global evaluation of these localized phenomena.

Mathew Hansen is a Professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland. He is a remote sensing scientist with a research specialization in large area land cover and land use change mapping.