Research
Our research projects cover ecological land use and land management processes, especially those relating to the form and function of forests and woodlands.
Research themes include plant-pollination processes, forest and landscape restoration, and ecological functions in landscape mosaics. We are also interested in decision-making processes that shape environmental outcomes. Recent work in Scotland is pursuing systems orientated approaches by which land-based climate mitigation can be delivered at scale. This includes consideration of integrated land management, wood-based bio-economies, and innovative financing instruments - explored through participatory engagement across public, private, and non-governmental actors.
More information on research at the Ecosystem Management Group:
Ongoing Research projects
CHILANTRA: Effects of rapid urbanization on landscape patterns and greenness
The project focuses on addressing urban challenges arising from global climate change and demographic shifts through a land system science approach. It explores the complex interactions between urbanization and vegetation, aiming to develop sustainable and inclusive urban green space planning strategies. By integrating climate, demographic, environmental, policy, and vegetation remote sensing data, the project bridges the gap between nature and cities. Special emphasis is placed on the dynamic interplay between natural spaces and the climate-society-ecology nexus, considering the needs of climate-vulnerable populations and non-human stakeholders. The project focuses on Switzerland, China, and a global scale, offering a multi-dimensional perspective on green urbanization.
Internal collaborators: Jaboury Ghazoul, Fritz Kleinschroth, Yuyang Chang
Duration: 2022-2025
Partners: external page Leibniz University Hannover
Funder: ETH Zurich, Swiss Scholarship Programme
Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Restored Landscapes
Upland regions of Scotland have one of the most extensive organic-rich soils in Europe and thereby store huge amounts of carbon. A substantial interest in forest restoration schemes to mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon recently drives tree-planting schemes in these landscapes.This project will explore the effect of afforestation on organic-rich soils in the Scottish Highlands. Afforestation through woodland planting is one such way for Scotland to achieve its net zero emission target. However, the impact of this woodland establishment on soil biota and structure, and consequently on soil greenhouse gas fluxes are largely unknown and could potentially undermine the benefits of biomass accumulation in aboveground woody vegetation.
We will take a holistic approach and assess (a)biotic drivers of greenhouse gas fluxes and seasonality, as well as understanding how vegetation change through woodland restoration affects carbon and nitrogen cycling and subsequent emissions from soils.
Internal collaborators: Jaboury Ghazoul, Alexandra Werner, Erika Soans
Duration: 2022-2028
Partners:
Funder: ETH Zurich
Cross-scale plant-pollinator network dynamics
This project aims to understand the effect of land use change in shaping the structure of plant-pollinator interaction networks in the coffee agroforestry of India. Using a combination of advanced landscape mapping, observational studies, pollen metabarcoding, and eDNA approaches, we aim to understand how the plant-pollinator network dynamics are affected by local and landscape level transitions in the land use. Also, the plausible causal pathways affecting the structure of plant pollinator interaction networks are assessed. The outcomes of this work can inform better land management strategies to restore biodiversity, ecosystem productivity and resilience, and sustainable agricultural production.
Internal Collabrorators: Jaboury Ghazoul, Rama Harihara, Daisy Farrokh
Duration: 2024-2028
Partners: College of Forestry Ponnampet, Ashoka Trust For Research In Ecology And The Environmen, University of Zurich
Funder: Swiss National Science Foundation
external page re flect: Visualising Daylight Management in River Restoration
In this project, we are developing and modelling visual scenarios for daylight management in ecological restoration of streams and rivers in Scotland and Switzerland. We develop new tools to show people how streams will look like after restoration in different contexts and over time. Such tools will enable everyone, from local residents to government officials, to better understand what restoration outcomes might look like given different decisions and management scenarios. Through an iterative engagement mediated by visualisation processes, we aim to foster more effective and participatory engagement on issues of river restoration and management to ensure that our streams and rivers are healthy and attractive.
Internal collaborators: Xuezhu Zhai, Jaboury Ghazoul, Fritz Kleinschroth, Anne Dray
Duration: 2024-2027
Partners: Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), Ostschweizer Fachhochschule, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Entsorgung und Recycling Zürich
Funder: Velux Stiftung
external page MainWood: Mainstreaming Wood Construction
MainWood is an interdiciplinary scientific consortium based in Switzerland, that rethinks the future of wood production and construction - from climate impacts and ecology to wood products innovation and architecture (and everything in between). This research offers an essential scientific base towards the transition to sustainable cities and bioeconomies, in Switzerland and beyond.
Internal collaborators: Jaboury Ghazoul, Giacomo Vaccario, Maaike Goedkoop
Duration: 2023-2026
Partners:
external page Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)
external page Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa)
external page École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Funder: ETH board
external page ScotScape: Negotiating Landscape Transitions
The project aims to investigate various landscape options that foster the revitalization of rivers in Tayside, Scotland. The well-being of local communities is closely tied to the quality of rivers, which, in turn, is linked to the provision of ecosystem services. Revitalising rivers and watersheds poses a formidable challenge, especially given the complex social and ecological arrangements across landscapes. This requires cooperation among a diverse array of stakeholders, with often conflicting interests. The project seeks to comprehend these conflicting perspectives and worldviews to foster mutual understanding and inspire collaborative efforts. To facilitate this collaboration, we employ a proven method: Strategy Games. These games are models of the socio-ecological system, crafted to simplify complexities, enabling players with divergent interests to explore and discuss alternative landscape scenarios and strategies.
Internal Collaborators: Jaboury Ghazoul and Ivan Novotny
Duration: 2023-2026
Partners: Partners: Bioregioning Tayside; external page River Ericht Conservation and Restoration Initiative
Funding: ETH Zurich
external page PAPPUS: Plants and People in Urban Green Spaces
The goal of the project PAPPUS is to understand how decision-makers affect plant assemblages present in different Urban Green Spaces (UGS), and how their decisions affect the ecological and human benefits that can be realized from UGS in a changing climate. The originality of PAPPUS lies in the strong integration of social, ecological, and climatological theories and methods, together with its use of a mechanistic and predictive modelling approach to assess societal preferences and management practices related to vegetation in different UGS and their effects on biodiversity, microclimate, and human benefits.
Internal Collaborators: Sebastian Ruile, Marco Moretti (WSL) and Jaboury Ghazoul
Duration: 2023-2027
Partners: external page Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)
Funder: external page Swiss National Science Foundation
Planning a prosperous forest-infrastructure-matrix (seed project)
Roads and railways lines are expanding rapidly in the country of Lao PDR, and it remains unclear who wins and who loses from this development. This project explores the benefits and tradeoffs from infrastructure development for local communities, who need the forests and trees to sustain their lifelyhood.
Internal collaborators: Fritz Kleinschroth
Duration: 2022-2024
Partners: external page Laotian Forestry Research Centercall; external page Tree Diversity for Resilient Landscapes at the Alliance of Biodiversity and CIATcall
Funder: ETH for Development (ETH4D)
external page PoshBee: Impact Of Agrochemicals On The Health And Reproduction Of The Solitary Wild Osmia Bicornis Bees
(Jaboury Ghazoul and Janine Schwarz)
Understanding how agrochemicals and other stressors affect Osmia bicornis under laboratory and semi-field conditions.
PhD thesis: Impacts of potentially interacting stressors on the solitary model bee species Osmia bicornis under laboratory and semi-field conditions Schwarz, Janine Melanie (2022)
Duration: 2018-2023
Funding: Horizon 2020 programme Research and Innovation under grant agreement No 773921 (via WBF-Agroscope)
Enhancing Biodiversity & Resilience in Agriculture
(Jaboury Ghazoul and Anne Dray)
This project's objective is to embed biodiversity and resilience thinking in intensive arable systems, to consolidate existing knowledge relating to farm and landscape practices to enhance biodiversity and resilience in intensive soy, maize, and wheat production systems.
Duration: 2021-2022
Partners:
ETH World Food System
external page International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Funded by:
external page Bayer AG
Focus Forests
(Anne Dray, Claude Garcia and Fritz Kleinschroth)
Duration: 2020-2022
Partner (and Funded by):
external page Forest Stewardship Council
external page OPAL - Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes
(Jaboury Ghazoul, Anne Dray, John Garcia, and Claude Garcia)
Rapid expansion of oil palm can have detrimental impacts on the environment, food security, and rural livelihoods, yet also provides opportunities for poverty alleviation among marginal rural communities. Our work uses field research and participatory scenario development to explore how oil palm expansion across landscapes can be more effectively managed in Indonesia, Cameroon and Colombia.
PhD thesis: Improving Conservation Perspectives of Land-Use Change Policies in the Tropics Garcia Ulloa, John Alejandro (2016)
Duration: 2015-2021
Partners:
external page École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
external page World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
external page Center forInternational Forestry Research (CIFOR)
external page French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD)
external page Institut Pertanian Bogor (Indonesia)
external page Pontifica Universidad Javeriana (Colombia)
external page Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL)
Funded by:
external page Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development (r4d programme)
external page Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft
external page Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
external page Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
external page Luc Hoffmann Institute
DAFNE: Decision Analytic Framework to explore the water-energy-food Nexus in complex transboundary water resource systems of fast developing countries.
(Fritz Kleinschroth)
Seeking to understand how dam construction is affecting land cover and ecosystem services in the Zambezi basin in southeastern Africa.
Duration:
2016-2020
Partners:
external page Politecnico Di Milano
ICRE8 Research Center
external page KU Leuven, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
external page University of Aberdeen
external page University of Osnabrück
external page International Water Management Institute (IWMI)
external page African Collaborative Center for Earth System Science (ACCESS)
external page University of Zambia
external page Eduardo Mondlane University
external page Addis Ababa University Water Land Resource Center
external page Vista Remote Sensing in Geosciences GMBH
external page ATEC-3D LTD
external page European Institute for Participatory Media
Funded by:
Horizon 2020 programme Water 2015 of the European Union, GA no. 690268.
MOCA: Managing Trade-Offs in Coffee Agroforests
(Jaboury Ghazoul and Maike Nesper)
In the pursuit of short-term productivity, traditionally shaded coffee plantations are being intensified and converted to more open sun coffee systems. This project aims to understand how shade tree density and diversity management on organic and conventional farms can contribute to more sustainable and resilient coffee production systems.
Duration: 2012-2017
Partners:
external page Shivamogga University of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences
external page Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
external page French Agricultural Research Centre for InternationalDevelopment (CIRAD)
Funder: ETH World Food System (WFS)
external page Landscapes as Carbon Sinks
(Jaboury Ghazoul and Nicole Ponta)
Landscapes as Carbon Sinks, funded by EIT through Climate KIC, is exploring options for the systemic transformation of land use sectors to substantially contribute to Scotland’s 2045 net-zero carbon target. The initiative brings together research, policy development, business innovation, access to financial investment, and land management expertise to co-design and deliver low-carbon economies and landscapes. Landscapes as Carbon Sinks is led by Jaboury Ghazoul, and is a collaboration between ETH Zurich and the University of Edinburgh, drawing on expertise from partners that includes the Scottish Government, a range of public and private actors in Scotland, and academic partners in Europe.
Opportunities And Challenges For Scaling Up Forest Restoration
(Daniella Schweizer)
The projects analyzed the perceptions of a variety of actors across scales engaged in forest and landscape restoration (FLR) on the implementation of FLR principles, the challenges faced, and promising strategies employed. Despite great variation in project socioeconomic and environmental context, we found similar challenges in the implementation of a landscape scale project. Namely, issues of governance and short term project duration were commonly mentioned. To this end, actors are seeking to create a market economy around restored landscapes to attain sustainability of their actions and to further involve government support in the form of legislations and incentives that foster restoration.
- Beyond oil palm: Perceptions among local communities of environmental change (Nur Hasanah)
- Modeling biodiversity in dynamic landscape mosaics (Natalia Ocampo-Penuela)
- Better gardens: Soil quality, biodiversity and social value of urban gardens (David Frey)
- Modeling agroforestry pollination services in fragmented forest landscapes (Charlotte Pavageau)
- Download Managing trade-offs in coffee agroforests (PDF, 1.1 MB) (Maike Nesper)
- Interactions among water stress and micro-topography affecting growth and survival of dipterocarp seedlings (James Margrove)
- Modeling biodiversity in dynamic landscape mosaics (Ainhoa Magrach)
- Genetic structure in Bornean tropical forests (Claire Tito de Morais)
- Seed dispersal and spatial distribution of dipterocarps (James Smith)
- Demographic and genetic processes underlying regeneration in coco-de-mer (Emma Morgan)
- Interactive effects of CO2 and light conditions on drought resistance of conifer species during early growth (Christoph Bachofen)
- Biodiversity and climate change: a risk analysis (Josephine Haase)
- Gene flow and niche partitioning of pollinators as a mechanism for species coexistence in important timber species of the Dipterocarps of Sabah (Chris Kettle)
- Synergies between fragmentation and habitat patch degradation: implications for species and population viability (Sascha Ismail)
- The effect of fragmentation in urban habitats (Sonja Braaker)
- Ecosystem connectivity of fragmented habitats in agricultural areas of the Swiss plateau (Daniela Keller)
- Modelling land use for decision support in the context of biofuel expansion (Janice Lee)
- Conservation of sacred grove forests: an ecosystem services approach (Smitha Krishnan)
- Adaptation to local site conditions and phenotypic plasticity may favour peripheral high altitude populations in terms of response to expected future climate change scenarios (Esther Frei)
- Genetic diversity, differentiation and gene flow in low central vs. upper peripheral plant populations in the Alps (Thomas Hahn)
- Disruption of local adaptation in plant populations via pollen immigration (Philippe Matter)