About HDGC

The Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change (HDGC) was formed in 1989 to help guide research in the United States on the interactions between human activity and global environmental change. Working in conjunction with the National Research Council's Committee on Global Change Research, the committee serves as a source of broad scientific expertise and judgment for setting agendas for research on human-environment interactions.

The committee has helped define human dimensions research as a coherent intellectual enterprise and continues to develop and refine the intellectual map of this field and to identify priority research areas. It has advised the National Science Foundation on the creation of a policy science program on global change issues and on modes of support for research in this area, which led NSF to support a collection of centers and research teams.

The committee is also working to develop the intellectual basis for progress in several discrete areas under its purview at the request of sponsors. This has included work on environmentally significant consumption (Environmental Protection Agency), on the use of remotely sensed data for social science research (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), and the human dimensions of seasonal-to-interannual climate variation (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration).

The committee's activities include:

In addition to advising the U.S. government, the committee serves as the U.S. National Committee to the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). It works in conjunction with other units of the National Research Council to advise the relevant government agencies on global change research. Core support for the committee’s activities comes from a consortium of the federal agencies involved in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and from the National Science Foundation.