Environmental Economics, Resource Economics, Behaviour Economics, Social Security/ Health Economics, Sustainability, Development Economics
Modelling natural resource production and use for assessment of sustainability.
I am a data scientist employing a variety of ecoinformatic tools to understand and improve the sustainability of complex social-ecological systems. I am also working to apply Science and Technology Studies to my modeling processes in order to make social-ecological system management more just. I prefer to work collaboratively with communities on modeling, both teaching mapping and modeling skills as well as analyzing and synthesizing community-held data as appropriate. At the same time, I look for ways to create space for qualitative and other forms of knowledge to reside alongside quantitative analysis. Recent projects include: 1) studying Californian forest dynamics using Bayesian statistical models and object-based image analysis (datasets included forest inventories and historical aerial photographs); 2) indigenous mapping and community-based modeling of agro-pastoral systems in rural Zimbabwe (methods included GPS/GIS, agent-based modeling and social network analysis).
The Global Resource Observatory (GRO)
The Global Resource Observatory is largest single research project being undertaken at the GSI, it investigates how the scarcity of finite resources will impact global social and political fragility in the short term. The ambitious three year project, funded by the Dawe Charitable Trust, will enable short term decision making to account for ecological and financial constraints of a finite planet.
GRO will include an open source multidimensional model able to quantify the likely short term interactions of the human economy with the carrying capacity of the planet and key scarce resources. The model will enable exploration of the complex interconnections between the resource availability and human development, and provides projections over the next 5 years.
Data and scenarios will be geographically mapped to show the current and future balance and distribution of resources across and within countries. The GRO tool will, for the first time, enable the widespread integration of the implications of depleting key resource into all levels of policy and business decision-making.
My research interests stand between natural resource management and ecological economics. The aim of my PhD project responds to the increasing demand for cross-disciplinary agent-based models that examine the disjunction between economic growth and more sustainable use of natural resources.
My research attempts to test the effectiveness of different governance and economic frameworks on managing natural resources sustainably at both regional and national levels. The goal is to simulate how communities and institutions manage the commons in complex socio-ecological systems through several case-studies, e.g. rainforest management in Australia. It is hoped that the models will highlight which combination of variables lead to positive trends in both economic and environmental indicators, which could stimulate more sustainable practices by governments, private sectors and civil society.
I am a Ph.D. student studying the interactions between external regulations and social norms in natural resource management and international development. In particular, I am looking to use mixed methods research, including ethnographic research, field experiments, and agent-based computational models to explore the sustainability of market-based interventions and their possible perverse outcomes.
I am Colombian with passion for social impact. I believe that change starts at the individual, community, local and then global level. I have set my goal in making a better experience to whatever challenges I encounter and monetary systems and governance models is what concerns me at the time.
In my path to understanding and reflecting about these issues I have found my way through “Reflexive Modeling”. Models are just limited abstractions of reality and is part of our job as researchers to dig in the stories behind our models and learn to engage in a dialogue between both worlds.
Technology empowers us to act locally, autonomously and in decentralized ways and my research objective is to, in a global context, find ways to govern, communicate and scale the impact of alternative monetary models. This with a special focus on achieving a more inclusive and community owned financial system.
As a Ph.D. fellow for the Agenda 2030 Graduate School, I expect to identify challenges and conflicting elements in the sustainability agenda, contribute with new perspectives, and create solutions for the challenges ahead
I obtained a PhD in database information theory from the University of the West of Scotland in 2015, and have been a researcher at the James Hutton Institute ever since. My areas of research are agent-based-modelling (ABM), data curation, effective use of infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and semantic information representation and extraction using formal structures such as computerised ontologies, relational databases and any other structured or semi-structured data representations. I primarily deal with social and agricultural models and was originally taken on in the role of knowledge engineer in order to create the ontology for the H2020 project, Green Lifestyles, Alternative Models and Upscaling Regional Sustainability (GLAMURS). Subsequent work, for the Scottish Government has involved the use of IaaS, more commonly referred to as the “cloud” to create rapidly deployable and cheap alternatives to in-house high-performance computing for both ABM and Geographical Information System models.
It is the mixture of skills and interests involving modelling, data organisation and computing infrastructure expertise that I believe will be highly apposite in the duties associated with being a member of the CoMSES executive. Moreover, prior to joining academia, I spent about 25 years as a developer in commercial IT, in the agricultural, entertainment and banking sectors, and feel that such practical experience can only benefit the CoMSES network.
Eric has graduate degrees in urban planning and policy and sociology and an undergraduate degree in biology. He has worked on multiple collaborative and interdisciplinary projects and is skilled at engaging communities and other stakeholders. He is adept at qualitative research and has earned a Certificate in Geospatial Analysis and Visualization, demonstrating proficiency in Adobe Suite, ArcGIS, agent-based modeling and system dynamics modeling. He is currently writing manuscripts for publication based on his work on motivating energy retrofit decisions, energy-related urban planning, municipal decision-making on infrastructure investments, and other work on resilience and sustainability.
Conducts urban planning and policy research on energy efficiency, environmental, and infrastructure decision making.