Land-system science to support achieving the sustainable development goals

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on25 September 2015. All UN member states signed on to 17 goals with 169 targets that are intended to guide action towards ending poverty, protecting the environment, and ensuring that all people enjoy peace and justice before 2030 (United Nations,2015). Achieving the SDGs will require staying within the planetary boundaries for nutrient and hydrological cycles, biodiversity, ecosystem ser-vices, and, connected to all these, land use (Griggs et al.,2013). We envision the Journal of Land Use Science becoming a principal outlet for research on land use and sustainability, both to address the aims of the SDGs, and to evaluate critically what these actions mean for landscapes and the people who govern them.