A new International Geographical Union Commission on Geography of Future Earth: Coupled Human Earth Systems for Sustainability (IGU-GFE) has been formally established recently. IGU-GFE will be under the direction, as chair, of Academician Bojie Fu from China. The new commission will initially focus on human-land systems and its interfaces with the coast, the ocean and the atmosphere. It aims to promote wider analysis and innovative thinking about global land sustainability through the bridging and synthesis of physical geography, human geography, ecology, hydrology, atmospheric, climate and social sciences. It will provide a platform for communication among geographers globally with the aim of promoting research and innovation in relation to sustainability. The new commission aims at promoting and facilitating the following six thematic areas:

 (1)    Fundamentals of Geography for Future Earth, and especially new theories and hypothesis on coupled human-earth systems for sustainability;

(2)    Open and inclusive platforms for Geospatial Big Data and observations of coupled human-earth systems;

(3)    Integrated Earth system models to deepen our understanding of complex Earth systems and human dynamics across different scales;

(4)    Linkages and dynamic analysis among ecological process, services, and human wellbeing;

(5)    Human Contributions and Responses to global climate/environmental changes and sustainability;

(6)    Evaluation tools for sustainable development, multi-scale sustainability evaluation, and sustainable scenarios for transformative development pathways.

The commission aims to support the purpose of IGU to promote Geography through initiating and coordinating geographical research and teaching around the world. We will endeavor to collaborate with global scholars in the field of ecological services & human needs, natural and anthropogenic processes, human-earth systems dynamics and modelling, sustainability evaluation and sustainable development solutions. Listed tasks are to be planned and implemented in the future under the guidance of IGU:

(1)    To hold regular conference and thematic workshops on relative topics, such as propose a session at the Quebec Regional Conference, host the annual conference on Geography for Future Earth;

(2)    To carry out experiments of natural and human processes at typical regions in the world. This tends to set experimental sites in different continents and countries;

(3)    To jointly educate students and exchange scholars among the member universities and institutes, to focus on developing sustainable development solutions at national and global scale;

(4)    To jointly organize professional scientific investigation and apply for international projects and do research of different case areas in the world;

(5)    To jointly promote scientific program at global scale, write high quality scientific papers and books, and release academic reports on Geography for Future Earth.