I mainly work on the understanding the dynamics of land systems and rural development. I employ wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods including system thinking (e.g., resilience theory, land-use transition theory), agent-based models, system dynamics, Bayesian network, and spatial econometrics. I am particularly interested the geographic regions experiencing fast socioeconomic and land system transformations, such as China, SE Asia, northern Argentina, and Africa.
Themes
Telecoupling of land use systems, Land governance, Land change trade-offs for ecosystem services and biodiversity , Land management systems, Urban-rural interactions, Land use and conflict
In a new paper in Ambio, the authors use firm- and actor-level interview and spatial data from transnational agriculture and forestry investments in Southern and Eastern Africa to distinguish four types of locations preferred by investors with varied skillsets and market reach (i.e., track record), across gradients of resource frontiers and agglomeration economies. They find that investors with extensive track records are more likely to expand the land use frontier, but likely to better survive the high transaction costs of the pre-commercial frontier, and point to the risks of promoting overly simplistic narratives.