High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! 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. NCED's 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, landuse,and management change. NCED is headquartered at the University of Minnesota's Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory.