Global palm oil production has more than tripled in the past two decades, following rapidly increasing demand owed to its uses as both a food commodity and in many industrial applications. The palm oil boom has contributed to a transformation of landscapes and livelihoods in Southeast Asia at unprecedented scales. The vast majority of the production expansion happened in Indonesia, where oil palm plantations cover a staggering 15 million hectares of land today. Tropical countries in Latin America and Africa have been following suit by continuously increasing their investments in oil palm in recent years. This trend is unlikely to stop since the global demand for palm oil is expected to keep rising in the next decades. In the light of these developments, studying the drivers and consequences of this transformation process is now more important than ever.

My work as a part of the CRC 990 focuses on the spatial patterns and associated socioeconomic aspects of oil palm expansion and land use change. By leveraging large data sources such as satellite imagery, and combining them with localized socioeconomic data, I aim to improve understanding of the spatial patterns of landscape transformations over time and how they interact with policies and social factors.

For more information about me, please visit https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/643198.html