Lennart Olsson

Lennart Olsson is Professor of Geography at Lund University and was the founding Director of LUCSUS from the inception in 2000 until August 2016. Lennart was also the Coordinator for a Linnaeus programme, LUCID, sponsored by The Swedish Research Council Formas for the period 2008-2018. In 2023, Lennart was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant (PERENNIAL) for research on the future of agriculture by transitioning to novel perennial grains.

Lennart holds a Ph.D. in Physical Geography Lund University (1986) specialising in desertification and particularly the use of GIS, remote sensing and spatial modelling to study the interaction of nature and society in semi-arid Africa.

His current research fields include human-nature interactions in the context of land degradation, climate change and food security in Africa and globally. His current research focuses on the politics of climate change in the context of poverty and food security. He also has a strong interest in theoretical and methodological development in the context of interdisciplinarity and sustainability science. He has had research positions in Australia, USA and Hong Kong. He participated in several international assignments and was Lead Author on the IPCC report on Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF (2002 – 2003) and Lead Author on the GEO-4 Global Environmental Outlook. More recently, he was Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) for the chapter on Livelihoods and Poverty and a Cross Chapter Box on Heat Waves and Heat Stress in the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, Working Group II (2011 – 2014), and CLA on the chapter on Land Degradation on the IPCC Special Report on Land (SRCCL), 2017 – 2019). Since 2019, he is a member of the Board of Directors of The Land Institute, KS USA. 

Google Scholar profile and full publication list at:
https://scholar.google.se/citations?user=LfQd2nQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao