Environment and Society in Developing Countries. Ideas for Master s and PhD projects

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Environment and Society in Developing Countries

Ideas for Master’s and PhD projects

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Institut for Geografi og Geologi

Ex ante Criteria!

1) Experience?

2) Interest?

3) Relevance?

4) Practicability?

1) Time (fieldwork and analysis) 2) ’Research infrastrucure’

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Assessment of land system resilience and climate robustness in the agricultural frontline of Sahel (LaSyRe-Sahel)

- the triple exposure of local livelihood strategies and food provision to climate change, population pressure and globalization

New Danida projekt in Burkina Faso/Niger/Senegal – 2009-2013 Excellent chances for master-students to link up

Themes:

• regional land use changes

• transformation of livelihoods

• Responses to climate

• Responses to globalization

• Human-environment – models

Projekt leader:

Anette Reenberg

What could you deal with:

• Issues within the mentioned themes

• Issues related to migration

• Investigation of ’land grab’ in the Sahel

• and many other things…

We collaborate with

Anthropologists (i WATERWORLD) Lokal partners in the Sahel

Global Land Project (www.globallandproject.org)

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CLIVET - Impacts of climate change on water resources

and agriculture and adaptation strategies in Tanzania

• New research project funded by FFU, 2009-2014 (GEUS/DMI/IGG-TBT)

• Aim of WP3 in which IGG takes part: To analyse climate change impacts and devising adaptation options in the agricultural sector in Tanzania, including:

• adaptive strategies in the face of slow climate trends

• adaptive strategies related to large scale infrastructural interventions

• interaction between bio-energy production, climate change and land use

Themes for MSc-projects:

• Environmental consequences of agricultural expansion into seasonal flooded plains

• Socioeconomic aspects of land use changes related to the seasonal flooded plains – impact on food security, income generation, conflicts over land

• Impact of short and long term climate variability on the utilization of wetlands

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’Transition of shifting cultivation systems in developing countries’

Global project with a focus on the humid and sub-humid tropics - Where is shifting cultivation still practised?

- How many people depend on shifting cultivation?

- How fast is it being transformed to other land use types?

- Which consequences do these transformations have for livelihoods and environement?

- Focus on Vietnam, Laos, Tanzania, Brazil and Mexico, but other countries can be included

- Contact: Ole Mertz, Kjeld Rasmussen, Torben Birch-Thomsen

Possible new project: SEA-REDD – Reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Southeast Asia

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Institut for Geografi og Geologi Department of Geography & Geology

Linear trend analysis 1982-2007 (GIMMS NDVI data)

The temporal trend in Greeness

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Institut for Geografi og Geologi Department of Geography & Geology

Earth Observation of changes in Vegetation at decadal time scale

• Earth Observation based NPP/Carbon modelling

• Earth Observation based drought Early Warning systems of Africa

• Exploring global Land degradation from Satellite (rainfall/vegetation variability)

• Impacts and effects of long term climate variability (30 years) of the African continent – what can we learn from Earth Observation data?

• Earth Observation based changes in global scale growing season length and phenology cycles – implications for carbon source/sink debate

• What does Earth Observation based changes in greenness mean?

Linking long term time series analysis with high spatial resolution data

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Youth and employment: the role of entrepreneurship in African economies (YEMP)

• New four year project (2009-2013) in collaboration with CBS linking into focus of Danida’s recent Africa Commission

• Aim: Analyse role of entrepreneurship in generating youth employment in African countries

• Angles: Perspectives of youth, enterprises and institutions

• Location: Urban and rural areas of Ghana, Uganda and Zambia

• Questions include:

• What types of employment do young people obtain and how do they become entrepreneurs?

• Which types of enterprises employ young people and which enterprises do young people establish?

• How can institutions best support youth entrepreneurship?

• Contact: Kate Gough and Torben Birch-Thomsen

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Immigration of high-skilled labour from Asia to Denmark

Prospective research :

Focus on the increasing demand for high-skilled labor in relation to globalization and the related focus on knowledge economies, and also demographic changes in relation to ageing of the population

In that respect Denmark is developing policies and practices directed

towards attracting high-skilled labor from EU and non-EU countries pointing towards Denmark’s position in the ‘new’ labor migration regimes

Immigration from non-EU countries is planned to stem from in particular Asian growth economies, such as China and India – societies that among other things are known for their high levels of education within science and technology

How does the international competition for talent impact on development in the global South) (’brain drain – brain gain’)

How and with what results is higher education becoming internationalized – the role of ’mobile talents’ and immigration

Are you interested, contact: Jytte Agergaard: [email protected] / 3532 2567

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Centre for Sustainable Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (SASMin)

Research and consultancy unit with staff from IGG & GEUS

Focus on small-scale mining; the livelihood source for more than 50 Mill Africans Partners in Ghana and Tanzania

Possibilities for students to conduct project work:

* Rocks for crops * The gold chain * Building materials * Salt * Replacing mercury

sasmin.ku.dk

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Agricultural Growth and Poverty Pockets (AGROPOP) (2011-2014)

- Identify poverty pockets in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

- Areas dominated by either rice, cocoa, fresh fruit, fruits for processing

- Map and examine nodes, actors, governance and institutions in GVCs

• Production, purchasing, processing, exporting

- Appraise the impact from infrastructure and dispersed industry - Identify barriers to entry and upgrading (qualitative data)

- Generate and test hypotheses (quantitative data) - Cumulative studies (similar sequence)

- Explain differentiation (farmers, firms) and poverty pockets

• Inclusion/exclusion

Contact: Niels Fold ([email protected])