The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) held a workshop in Santa Barbara January 25-27, 2001. The workshop brought together representatives of the disciplines interested in landscape change, drawn from both the investigative sciences, such as geography, and the design disciplines, such as landscape architecture. Its purposes were to promote the building of a collaborative research community; to develop a joint research agenda; and to facilitate the exchange of ideas. It addressed its major objectives in the context of four themes: information technologies, decision making, landscape perception and assessment, and environmental and social sciences. The workshop was structured as a series of plenary presentations, breakout discussions, and plenary discussion following the model developed since 1988 by the NCGIA. Findings of the workshop will be published in the form of a report, and other methods of disseminating findings will also be exploited.

The workshop was organized by a steering committee chaired by a geographer (Michael Goodchild, University of California Santa Barbara) and a landscape architect (Frederick Steiner, Arizona State University). Funding for the workshop was provided by the National Science Foundation and by Environmental Systems Research Institute.