The Merton Initiative: Towards a Global Observing System for the Human Environment

Integration with observations of human drivers, responses, and interactions with the environment, together with behavioral and decision-oriented understanding is critical to the future of Earth System Science.  Current observing networks were, for the most part, not designed to couple natural or biogeophysical observations with social and human networks and methodologies. Achieving an appropriate level of integration across platforms and domains will require overcoming several significant and often compounding issues associated with scale, scope, location, and data compatibility.