Agricultural Economic Modeller
Policy, Innovation and Behaviour Change
Land Economy, Environment and Behaviour Change
Research interests
As an ecologist and an ecological economist, I am interested in:
- conservation behaviour and its socio-economic determinants,
- valuation of ecosystem services,
- sustainable forestry and agriculture (both in developed and developing countries),
- ecological quality indicators,
- spider ecology, and
- environmental education.
Recent work has focused on the role of knowledge in biodiversity conservation behaviour and socio-economic determinants of water saving behaviour in the European Union, as well as an assessment of the environmental values and attitudes of undergraduates in agro-environmental studies in SRUC.
Other recent work includes catchment-level modelling of smallholder farms as part of research on Malawi on the impact of the adoption of conservation agriculture and agroforestry on watershed services (in the context of climate change adaptation), and on the potential for the creation of a watershed ecosystem services market that could finance the switch to these more sustainable practices.
I have previously done ecological research on spiders as potential bioindicators of heavy metal soil pollution in agrosystems (MSc dissertation, 2010; impact assessment study and report for Portuguese NGO, 2011) and assisted research on the provision of ecosystem services by riparian forest strips in oil palm plantations in Sabah, Borneo (SAFE Project, 2012).