Studentinformatie

MSc thesis subject: Food security versus climate change mitigation (avoiding deforestation)

There are often competing demands on the land use sector in many tropical developing countries. On the one hand countries seek to enhance food security (demand for agricultural land), while on the other hand avoiding deforestation and reforestation is beneficial for climate change mitigation goals proposed by countries in their NDCs (=contributions to the Paris climate agreement).

Both objectives, food security and climate change mitigation, often compete with each other but little is known how and where, and how to minimize the trade-offs.

For this study, existing global/national (spatial) datasets on agriculture, crop yield gaps, forest cover etc...can be used to analyse competing demands and where they occur. In addition, different scenarios can be explored that minimize the trade-offs between these 2 objectives. Focus countries will be Ethiopia and/or Indonesia.

Objectives

  • Analysis of national goals regarding food security and climate change mitigation
  • Asses competing demands on land in light of these goals
  • Explore and assess different scenario’s to minimize trade-offs

Literature

Requirements

  • GIS software knowledge and/or R

Theme(s): Modelling & visualisation, Integrated Land Monitoring