The 8th MAIRS SSC meeting was hold in Guangzhou Baiyun Hotel, China from March 25-26, 2013 with local hosted by South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (SCSIO), Chinese Academy of Sciences.

About 35 participants attend this meeting including MAIRS SSC members and observers from related international committee. The current MAIRS SSC chair is Prof. Michael Manton from Monash University of Australia and members represent both natural scientists and social scientists. Observers from Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), ICSU Regional Office for the Asia and the Pacific, International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), World Climate Research Programme(WCRP),and scientists and engineers from Guangzhou Urban Planning Institute and Sun Yat-Sen University were also involved in this 2-day meeting.

The process report of MAIRS for the year 2012 was presented by Dr. Ailikun, director of MAIRS-IPO, and followed by invited talks from Dr. Ghassem Asrar, director of WCRP, Prof. Dongxiao WANG, deputy director of SCSIO. MAIRS 4 research study areas, urban, mountain, modeling and dryland, were summarized and highlighted. The future action of MAIRS program is deliberated. It is agreed that new version of MAIRS Science plan will be drafted after meeting by research group leaders in 2013 and will be released to public in 2014. The topics on "Linkage with Southeast Asia Linkage with Southeast Asia”, "Future Earth in Asia" and "MAIRS Open Sciences Conference 2014" were also discussed.

Members and observers are satisfied with the implementation and process of MAIRS program with the guideline of the first version of “MAIRS Science Plan” and 2014 will be an important year for MAIRS with the transition to "Future Earth” and MAIRS first Open Science Conference next April in Beijing.