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Sara Brogaard

Senior Lecturer

Research

Broadly speaking my research focuses on livelihoods in relation to land change processes and climate variability/change – hence often falling in the overlapping areas of this figure. Land use here is used synonymously with the wider “land change” concept incorporating changes in productivity through agricultural intensification processes as well as land degradation processes. I am also interested in related implications of policy aspects, such as climate change mitigation initiatives and rural reforms influencing both land use and livelihoods.

These research perspectives were at the centre of my PhD work on post reform land productivity and land degradation in Inner Mongolia, China, using a mixed methods approach, and the following postdoc research carried out at McGill University, Montreal.
Link to my thesis »

Land Use Change is the central focus of the LUsTT project (Land Use Today and Tomorrow) through which my present research is mainly funded. The aim of this project is to analyze the multiple natural and societal factors that determine land use as a basis for exploring alternative plausible land use futures and associated risks. The context is the multiple demands on land services illustrated by recent years price increases for a wide range of staple foods particularly cereals. As an example we study the role of an increasing demand for biofuels and related feedstock, regarded as a contested approach to reduce fossil fuel use, within the project. This work includes analyzing European /Swedish policies on renewable energy, focusing on impacts of EU initiated certification schemes for sustainable biofuels. Farmers’ perspectives of yield gaps, the latter applied to a case area in Cameroon, is another approach we apply in the regional African focus of the project while stakeholder dialogs for scenario processes for global land use modeling is also part of LUCSUS work.

The climate vulnerability aspects and the importance of building adaptive strategies in response to multiple stressors was emphasised in the work done in a SIDA funded project on Livelihoods and Climate Change Vulnerability in the Lake Victoria Basin – where fieldwork and workshop activities for awareness raising were important components of our work.

My previous experiences of integrating users´ aspects in research includes being the User Liaison Officer in a multidisciplinary EU 6th Framework Programme funded project SEAMLESS, which aimed at developing an integrated framework to assess ex-ante, agricultural and environmental policy options.

Teaching

My teaching reflects my interests in interdisciplinary aspects of land change processes and associated water resources and these are themes that I teach in the LUMES programme. Lund University Master’s Programme in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science.
I also teach natural resources and sustainabilityin the LUMID programme, Lund University Master Programme in International Development and Management.

Lake Finjasjon