Matthias Baumann

Research interests

In my research I am interested in how land use is affected by changes in underlying socio-economic and political conditions and what this ultimately means for the global carbon cycle and biodiversity. My work is highly collaborative. Together with researchers from other disciplines, such as sociology, economy or ecology, we try to understand the patterns of land-use change that we observe, how this contributes to global warming or the biodiversity crisis, and how some land-use changes actually might offer opportunities to mitigate these problems. Regions, which suffered major socio-economic changes in the younger past, such as the countries of the former Soviet Union, are in my main focus, but the interaction with other researchers allows me to explore new ground in Central Africa, Latin America and Southern Europe as well. Remote sensing, GIS and statistical modeling approaches form the backbone of my work. With my research I hope to contribute to the Land-Use/Land-Cover science community with the ultimate goal to contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between humans and the environment.