REFLECTIONS ON IGCP AND THE FUTURE

Throughout its 40-year history, the International Geoscience Program (IGCP) has been a valuable international effort, focusing geoscientists' attention worldwide on many important questions, and fostering international and especially north-south cooperation and collaboration. Future international scientific issues that IGCP might profitably address within its five thematic emphases (Earth Resources, Global Change and Evolution, Geohazards, Hydrogeology, and Geodynamics) might include:

1. Global groundwater sustainability and overdraft; (Earth Resources; Hydrogeology). 2. Global climate change, sea level rise and its geologic and social consequences on regions and populations; (Geohazards, Global Change, Earth Resources); 2. Geoscience factors involved in sustainable development (Earth Resources, Geohazards, Hydrogeology); 3. Amalgamation and breakup of Rodinia and earlier supercontinents (Geodynamics); 4. From Panthalassa to the Pacific (Geodynamics); 5. Women's roles in geosciences (Earth Resources); 6. Global tectonic history and deep Earth seismic structure (Geodynamics); 7. Geoscience aspects of population and sustainability (Earth Resources). The US should resume its contributions to UNESCO to help finance IGCP activities.