Current & ongoing projects
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Modeling ecosystem service benefits to local populations
In collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Science and the Natural Capital Project, and with Funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, this project explores how to use new ecosystem service modeling tools (eg, InVEST and RIOS) to better link the flow of ecosystem services to the beneficiaries that receive them. We ask what metrics best convey the utility beneficiaries receive from ecosystem services and how we can better represent livelihood changes at the local level.
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Linking grazing institutions, locust outbreaks and regional economies
This project will research the feedbacks among locusts, livestock, nutrients and people in China, Senegal, and Australia. These regions socio-politically disparate regions allow the opportunity to investigate two overarching questions: (1) How do insect-nutrient relations and livestock grazing strategies interact to affect food prices, food security, and rangeland degradation? (2) How do property rights regimes affect the adaptive capacity of societies to respond to the linkages between overgrazing and locust outbreaks?
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Measuring and mapping resource dependencies
This project aims to further our understanding of the links between human welfare and ecosystem services by tracing rural welfare dependencies back to local ecosystems and land uses. We will test new methods for capturing these dependencies through household surveys, land use data and models of ecosystem service flows.
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