The South-East Europe regional chapter of Ecosystem Services Partnership lately joined as a co-organiser of the International Geographic Conference “Geo Decade 2020-2030”. That news was published in the beginning of June with the second invitation for the conference.
The conference will be conducted at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” on 24-26th November 2020 in a combined format: “face-to-face” and on-line.
IGC “Geo Decade 2020-2030” is devoted to the future development of geosciences within the next 10 years. Ograniser of the conference and major promoter of the idea is the Bulgarian Geographical Society, which declares the 2020-2030 decade as a period of promoting and facilitating geography and all other aspects of geoscience. A set of initiatives is planned to happen in order to outline the social importance of geography and to optimize the approach of geographic science to school and to university education. A special aspect of the Geo Decade’s message is to strengthening the cooperation between geography, business, and to government. The upcoming international conference is the first big science forum incorporated in the 2020-2030 geographical decade.
Geography of the 21st century is expected to facilitate the development of human capital and the knowledge society; to offer place-specific solutions for sustainable regional development and utilization of the Earth’s natural and human capital to improve social wellbeing. The approaching a new decade of the current century is a time for reviewing completed achievements, for setting reasonable goals, and for facing new challenges. It is an opportunity to look into the future and to outline the prospects for geographic science, education, and practice.
Having that in mind, IGC “Geo Decade 2020-2030” will assign a special place for ecosystem services between the Interdisciplinary Studies topic. There will be two sessions devoted to ES – major one and another one for the young ecosystem services specialists. The organisers of the sessions aim to bring together researchers from different disciplines to discuss techniques for spatial modelling and mapping ecosystem services as well as their application in decision making and considering the future development of the ecosystems and their services in a constantly changing world. We invite presentations from researchers and practitioners to share their experience in different spatial aspects of ecosystem services including:
- New findings, opinions and case studies about the relationship between ES, wellbeing and public health during pandemic times;
- Hypotheses, prognoses and modelling approaches of the future development of ecosystems and ES in a world with a growing number of diseases and pandemics;
- Mapping and assessment of ecosystem services based on field observations, remote sensing data and spatial proxy methods ;
- Modelling approaches for generation of spatial data and elaboration of ES maps;
- Social and economical approaches for ecosystem services mapping and assessment;
- Mapping of ecosystems and assessment of ecosystems condition;
- Good practices in application of ecosystem services maps in policy and decision making;
- Stakeholder involvement in the development of sustainable management of natural resources;
- Local and regional studies on ecosystem services from South-East European countries.
The major ES session is co-organised by the Working group of landscape ecology and ecosystem services at the Bulgarian Geographical Society and the Bulgarian National Network at Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) with the support of South-East European chapter of the ESP.
Official languages of the Conference are English, Russian and Bulgarian.
The deadline for abstract submission is 30th June, but it will be prolonged. More information coming soon.
