Research

Global human population is expected to continue to grow over the next four decades. The ensuing demands for water, food and energy are expected to intensify land-use conflicts, contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions, and exacerbate threats to natural ecosystems and wildlife. It is therefore imperative that we develop ways to balance our growing consumptive needs with environmental protection.

In our research, we frame the issues of food security, rural development, carbon emissions and biodiversity loss to groundings in ecological and economic theory. By adopting a holistic “systems approach”, we assess the environmental and socioeconomic implications of pursuing alternative land-use and development options that reflect various societal priorities including food and biofuel production, carbon storage and sequestration, conservation of forests, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and economic development.

By evaluating the tradeoffs among these partially competing priorities through spatially-explicit scenario analyses, we develop land-use decision-support tools for policymakers in developing countries to reconcile these objectives on the bases of the biophysical, socioeconomic, and technical constraints and considerations within individual societies and landscapes.

Main objectives of our research

1. To develop spatially-explicit computer models for assessing the implications and tradeoffs of alternative land-use and development scenarios in tropical developing countries with regards to: i) food and biofuel production, ii) carbon storage and sequestration, iii) conservation of forests, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and iv) economic development.
2. To contextualize these models for individual developing countries (and for sub-national units) by seeking feedback, through a participatory approach, on scenario development and model outcomes from key stakeholders. Stakeholders may include government officials (e.g. Indonesian Ministry of Forestry), major environmental non-governmental organizations (e.g. WWF), research institutions (e.g. Center for International Forestry Research), agribusiness corporations (e.g. Musim Mas Group Plantations), and local villagers and smallholder farmers. I will target Indonesia and Colombia as pilot case studies to capitalize on my research experience and ties to research collaborators in these countries.
3. To build upon the contextualized models to develop land-use decision-support tools for national and sub-national level policymakers to reconcile the societal priorities of economic development and environmental protection on the bases of the biophysical, socioeconomic, and technical constraints and considerations within societies and landscapes.
4. To create user-friendly, interactive interfaces for these decision-support tools to facilitate the dissemination of tools to policymakers, environmental groups, local villagers, educators, students, and the general public. My ultimate goal is to make my tools available to all segments of society: from the village farmer who has to decide how to develop his/her land in the coming year, to the minister of agriculture who needs to make science-based development decisions that would affect the lives of millions of his constituents.
5. Geographic foci: The developing tropics, with special interest in Southeast Asia (Indonesia) and Latin America (Colombia), and with the possibility of extending the scope to Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo).