Environmental Change Initiative (ND-ECI)

Overview
Our world is in peril. Global warming, climate change, and alterations to land, water and air all threaten human and environmental welfare. The problems are urgent and solutions are needed now. At the Environmental Change Initiative (ND-ECI), over 50 researchers have come together from almost every discipline to find these solutions. We work hand-in-hand with partners to do research that matters to society, answering the most critical environmental questions of our time:
We call it “Science Serving Society”
With new intellectual resources, novel infrastructure and cutting edge tools, ND-ECI provides support to spearhead innovative research. We are exploring approaches to help people and ecosystems adapt to climate change, mitigate the effects of land use change, predict species occurrences in a shifting world and improve water quality.
ND-ECI researchers from science, engineering, social science and other disciplines work with policymakers, corporations, resource managers and the nonprofit community to pursue research that is translational. Our goal is to provide solutions that minimize the trade-offs between human welfare and environmental health where trade-offs are unavoidable, and to discover win-win solutions where they are possible.
The Environmental Change Initiative is one of several investments made by Notre Dame Research in recent years to advance the scope, excellence and visibility of the University’s research enterprise.