Our research group focuses on developing integrated solutions for environmental sustainability and climate resilience. We combine an ensemble of interdisciplinary approaches from different fields including forestry and soil science, geography, environmental science, ecology, economics, and thermodynamics to address some of the most pressing challenges posed by climate change and land use dynamics.
Here are the research directions that we currently work on:
We have conducted land use dynamics simulation and obtained global land use and land cover maps at a 1 km resolution for historical periods and various future warming scenarios (Nature Scientific Data, 2023, 10: 748.). By combining the integrated assessment model with cellular automata tools, we obtained land use demands for global 235 river-basin regions and downscaled the land use to a 1km resolution to capture the spatial heterogeneity under the combined effects of anthropogenic activities and climate change.
We are currently combining crop distribution models and remote sensing data to obtain spatially-explicit cropland maps. Our next step is to combine machine learning algorithms and complexity models to realize the optimized simulation of crop pattern evolution.
Soil erosion modelling: Based on remote sensing data and the dynamic spatially-explicit land use datasets developed by our group, we are working on estimating the spatiotemporal dynamics of high-precision soil erosion patterns at global/regional scales. Through this, we seek to support efficient strategies for monitoring and mitigation of large-scale soil erosion.
Forest carbon stock modelling: We also conduct modelling and analysis of spatial dynamics of forest carbon stock. Through this, we seek to investigate how forests can be managed and conserved to optimize their function in carbon dioxide sequestration, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation.
Thermodynamics-based ecosystem service valuation: Moreover, we extend the thermodynamic approach to realize a unified valuation of various kinds of ecosystem services and produce the ecosystem service maps at different spatial scales. This enables us to reveal the dynamics of ecosystem service value from a thermodynamic perspective.
Our objective is to simulate climate extreme events and synergize agent-based models to examine the dynamics of how sudden extreme events impact the economic system, specifically focusing on how production losses ripple through the supply chain network. We aim to uncover the intricate cascading effects that ripple across the supply chains of diverse regions and sectors in the aftermaths of extreme disaster. Our analysis seeks to evaluate the potential impacts of a range of climate policies, adaptation approaches, and mitigation strategies. Through this, we aim to further explore how various adaptive measures can enhance the resilience of the economic system.
We are currently combining big data with econometric tools to examine the socio-economic costs of climate change. Through this, we aim to analyze how climate change may impact on the economic productivity and other factors.
We examine how the environmental impacts are related to human’s production and consumption patterns by using multi-region input-output analysis. We combine spatially-explicit environmental impacts developed by our group and analyze how these impacts are linked with the global supply network and how the changing consumption patterns and evolving trade network may influence on the environmental forcing.