Lars Hein, a researcher at the Environmental Systems Analysis Group, has won an 800,000-euro European Research Grant. His research proposal and fourteen others have been selected out of more than four hundred proposals.
Hein is involved in ecosystem services. He wants to raise the economic value of ecosystems to the same level as landscaping. 'To do this, I need to create spatial models, as the value is influenced by landscape developments. There are hardly any existing methods to do this.' Hein also wants to analyze ecosystem services over time, in relation to climate change and adaptation measures.
He will bestow his European grant on three PhD students, each of whom will research into a specific case, these cases being: the Dutch river area where water drainage will rise in the coming years, the temperature increase in the north of Norway, and the rapid change in land use due to oil palm cultivation in Kalimantan.
'This grant will stand me in good stead in the next five years.' / Albert Sikkema
The above article was written by the editorial staff of Resource, the bi-weekly newspaper for Wageningen University and Research centre. For more information, contact the press and science information officer of Wageningen UR, e-mail: pers.communicatie@wur.nl or the editorial staff of Resource, e-mail: resource@wur.nl. See the archived articles at resource.wur.nl