Research
Modelling Human-Environmental Interactions
Our working group
In the Working Group "Modelling Human-Environmental Interactions" we apply different tools and methods to understand how humans use the environment and which are the consequences of such usage. For example, we work in rural-agricultural regions where we study deforestation processes for the expansion of agriculture and how this may impact the wellbeing of people or the environment. We use quantitative and qualitative tools and cartography to represent interactions, perceptions, and impacts of the potential development of human activities on the environment. We also include the sustainable planning of regions and how political strategies contribute to this.
Topics we work on
- Global change and impacts on Socio-ecological land systems
- Land systems and SDGs
- Land-use changes and land conflicts (drivers and scenarios)
- Natural resource appropriation: wood and fiber, energy, minerals
- Land system experiments ( eg impacts of covid) and cross-boundary studies
- Nature based solutions for adapting to land-use changes
- Trade-offs and synergies of sustainable development approaches
- Influence of policies on socio-ecological land systems
Current project: Alto Paraná Atlantic forest
Thanks to the funding from the Freie Universität Berlin Spotlight funding program, we are currently engaged in rigorous fieldwork to gain a deeper understanding of the delicate equilibrium between human and ecological systems. We will collect information on the interactions between humans and nature via workshops and semi-structured interviews to actors living in agricultural systems. We will be updating our visit sites during our fieldwork to include some preliminary observations.