> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://lss-lab.kankyo.tohoku.ac.jp/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Research

> Our research agenda and three core themes: land system dynamics and telecoupled interactions; social–ecological interactions and sustainability; environmental change and human well-being.

## Research agenda

**Advancing theory and spatial thinking to better understand social–ecological systems, promote land
system sustainability, and improve human well-being.**

Our work is quantitative and spatially explicit. We combine satellite Earth observation, geospatial
data science, spatial statistics, land-system modelling, and deep learning, and we work from local
to global scales.

<Frame caption="The lab's research agenda and three core research themes.">
  <img src="https://mintcdn.com/tohoku-university-land-system-sustainability-lab/zaS5X8Non7A7hSQr/images/research-agenda.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=zaS5X8Non7A7hSQr&q=85&s=738f12a701e394ceca04b849e0cbcd0f" alt="Diagram of the Land System Sustainability Lab research agenda, showing three core research themes: advancing theory and methods, understanding social–ecological systems, and assessing human well-being, each with example topics." width="2000" height="1125" data-path="images/research-agenda.png" />
</Frame>

## Core research themes

The three themes share methods and data, and they overlap deliberately: the theory and methods
developed under Theme 1 support the social–ecological analysis in Theme 2, which in turn underpins
the well-being assessments in Theme 3.

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Theme 1 · Advance theory and methods" icon="compass" href="/en/research/land-system-dynamics">
    Land system dynamics and telecoupled interactions — forest transition theory, land-use
    displacement, nexus approaches, and Geo-AI.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Theme 2 · Understand social–ecological systems" icon="leaf" href="/en/research/social-ecological-systems">
    Interactions between social and ecological processes, and what they mean for sustainability.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Theme 3 · Assess human well-being" icon="users" href="/en/research/human-wellbeing">
    How environmental change and social–ecological dynamics shape human well-being across
    spatiotemporal scales.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

Keywords: geospatial science · land system science · sustainability science · biodiversity · climate

[How we work with data and methods →](/en/research/methods)