Dramatic changes in the earth’s natural systems present one of the greatest global challenges to how humans manage complex landscapes for climate stability, clean and abundant water, biodiversity, and peaceful and thriving societies. NRES’s world-renowned faculty meets these grand challenges at the nexus of science and policy head-on through core and interdisciplinary research in both the natural and social sciences. Our diversity of approaches in meeting multi-faceted problems runs the gamut, from the study of ecosystem responses to human-induced changes in water, habitats, species, forests, and soils; policy design that incorporates the need to manage lands more sustainably; and connections between a changing environment and human health.