ERA - Exploring Regional Alternatives

In the ERA program we explore alternative regional futures. Our objective is to broaden the range of perspectives about what is possible in the pursuit of sustainable and fair development. We do this through analysis that stimulates new ways of thinking and by facilitating deliberation around alternative goals, visions and strategies. Our place-based approach has been explicitly multi-scale embedding our work at more local levels within northern Thailand inside larger regional, national and international contexts. We cooperate with and contribute to several international scientific networks to review and synthesize state-of-the-knowledge related to regional and global environmental changes and their implications for sustainable development. 

Earth System Governance

USER is contributing to a new initiative of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change that aims to foster international collaborative research on governance. The Earth System Governance project focuses on the analytical problems of agency, architecture, adaptiveness, accountability and allocation. USER is committed to supporting the project as part of a global alliance of ESG Research Centres. Our initial focus will be on the problem of adaptiveness. For further information see: www.earthsystemgovernance.org

MAIRS: Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study

	The Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study (MAIRS) seeks an integrated understanding of human-environment coupled system in Monsoon Asia. During 2007-8 contributions from USER to MAIRS are expected primarily under theme 4 on Urbanization. To find out more about MAIRS see: www.mairs-essp.org
	Critical States provides transboundary "state-of-the-science" reviews, case studies, and assessments of issues in the environmental change-development nexus in Monsoon Southeast Asia, including: governance and institutional challenges, urbanization, climate change, as well as land, energy and water use.

SARCS Integrated Study

The SARCS Integrated Study was a very ambitious attempt to provide a framework for the research programmes and assessment activities that could help understand how global environmental change will unfold in the Southeast Asia region. It considers both the contributions of changes in the region to global cycles as well as the impacts of changes elsewhere for development within the region. The Integrated Study Science Plan was developed by SARCS (The Southeast Asian Regional Committee for START) to help guide its own research programme development. It was recongnized from the beginning that such an endeavour was well beyond the capabilities of a single institution, but require contributions from many projects and networks. Over time some of these networks have arisen while others have not, and priorities have shifted, but in many ways the original vision of the Plan remains an important milestone for thinking about change in the region.

Ping Alternatives

The Ping sub-program is a long-term effort to contribute to an integrated study of the Upper Ping River Basin in northern Thailand. As such it draws on many other programs, in particular U-TURN for urban oriented work, and M-POWER for watershed and basin management studies.

The overall objective of this project is to explore the resilience of ecological, economic and social systems in the Ping River Basin with the aim of improving strategies for building and maintaining adaptive capacity. The study involves a combination of synthesis, modelling and participatory assessment activities. Northern Thailand is a critical area for a number of regional sustainable development issues. The mountainous landscape still has relatively high forest cover and is home to very diverse cultural mixture of long-term residents and more recent migrants and settlers. It contains the upper reaches of most of the major watersheds feeding into the Chao Phraya River system, including the largest of these, the Ping River Basin.