About IIASA
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an ALFAwetlands partner from Austria.
IIASA is a non-governmental, multi-national organization devoted to interdisciplinary, policy-oriented research focusing on selected aspects of environmental, economic, technological, and social issues in the context of global change. IIASA investigators perform interdisciplinary research that combines methods and models from the natural and social sciences in addressing areas of concern for all societies. IIASA is well-known for energy, agriculture, forestry, population, climate change, risk and vulnerability, adaptation and mitigation, technology, air pollution, land use, and mathematics.
IIASA´s role in the ALFAwetlands project
IIASA leads activities in ALFAwetlands’ Work Package 4. Its researchers apply biophysical and land-use optimization models across European landscapes to estimate ecosystem services in wetlands and other terrestrial land, including forests, grasslands, and cropland. The models will project Greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions and biomass-based products for a range of management and land-use options on peatlands and floodplains across Europe, pursuing experimentally proven ways of wetlands restoration, rewetting, management alternatives and other nature-based mitigation options. These ALFAwetlands solutions will be upscaled into an integrated Land use, land-use change & forestry (LULUCF) GHG modelling framework operated by IIASA to quantify the potential of European wetlands in mitigating climate change vis-à-vis contributions from other sectors of LULUCF.
Since the changing climate will pose challenges for peatlands and floodplains along with other terrestrial systems in the future, IIASA will project ecosystem services for an ensemble of climate change projections to bracket the possible range of impacts. Furthermore, IIASA participates in Work Package 5 by leading tasks related to assessing the socio-economic impacts of wetland restoration at the EU scale.
IIASA´s role in the ALFAwetlands project
Scientists from different disciplines create the ALFAwetlands team at IIASA, including agriculture, forestry, economics, geography, IT, and mathematics.
Dr. Juraj Balkovič, a senior research scholar with expertise in modelling agricultural systems and a specialist in soil science by education, coordinates the team. Juraj and his colleagues Dr. Rastislav Skalský and Dr. Christian Folberth, both agricultural modellers, are responsible for tasks related to cropland and grassland systems. Dr. Florian Kraxner, a research group leader, supervises aligning ALFAwetlands goals and activities with the overall IIASA research strategy.
Forestry specialist and ecosystem modellers Dr. Dmitry Shchepashchenko, Dr. Georg Kindermann, Dr. Colin Johnstone, Dr. Andrey Lessa Derci Augustynczik and Dr. Andre Nakhavali are responsible for tasks in Work Package 4 related to the assessment of ecosystem services in forests and tree-based systems. Dr. Dmitry Shchepashchenko, a senior research scholar, coordinates the forestry team. He and Dr. Georg Kindermann are prominent specialists in forest ecology, forest management and remote sensing. Dr. Colin Johnstone’s spheres of expertise include physics, mathematics, numerical modelling, software development, and machine learning. Dr. Andrey Lessa specializes in forest planning, economics, and biophysical modelling of forest ecosystem functioning, and Dr. Andre Nakhavali in terrestrial carbon and nutrient dynamics.
Economists and specialists in land-use modelling Dr. Andre Deppermann, Dr. Petr Havlík, Dr. Nicklas Forsell, and Ms. Vicky Fanqi Jia work in Work Package 4 and 5, taking over tasks related to the EU-scale scenario analysis, including modelling of GHG emissions and removals in LULUCF sector, and taking account of socio-economic and policy backgrounds.
Dr. Andre Deppermann, an agricultural economist by education, is a senior research scholar who leads the ALFAwetlands team in Work Package 5. He closely coordinates the ALFAwetlands tasks with a principal IIASA specialist in integrated modelling of natural resources Dr. Petr Havlík and an expert in GHG emission and reduction reporting, a forestry economics specialist, Dr. Nicklas Forsell. Ms. Vicky Fanqi Jia, a researcher with a background in geography and environmental management, complements the team with her expertise in climate change impacts and mitigation strategies.
We are pleased to be part of this interesting and important project!
Main photo: Researchers from International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). From left: Georg Kindermann, Rastislav Skalský, Dmitry Shchepashchenko, Juraj Balkovič, Andre Deppermann, Vicky Fanqi Jia, and Andre Nakhavali.