
National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics

The National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics, or NCED, is an NSF Science and Technology Center- a collaborative
partnership among educational, research, and public/private entities that aims to create new knowledge of significant benefit to society. 
Its mission is to understand the dynamics of the coupled processes that shape the Earth’s surface—physical, biological, geochemical, and anthropogenic—and how they will respond to climate, land use, and management change. NCED is headquartered at the University of Minnesota's Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory.
Research.
NCED is building interdisciplinary Earth-surface science by integrating elements of geomorphology, ecology, hydrology, sedimentary geology, engineering, economics, and geochemistry. It is creating a predictive Earth-surface science by integrating the advances and approaches of theory, laboratory experiments, numerical modeling, and fieldwork
NCED research is unified by a focus on channel networks and their surroundings. The center's three research initiatives (“Integrated Programs”) approach channel networks from a source-to-sink perspective, looking at watersheds (Watersheds), individual stream
reaches (Streams), and depositional systems (Deltas).
Institutions.
Institutions that are home to NCED principal investigators who participate directly with NCED include: