Short-Term Scientific Mission
Agroforestry is a promising approach to tackle global land use issues. Combining trees with crops or livestock can increase the resilience of agricultural landscapes, while reconciling competing demands for land use.
Valeska Maria Volckens Climate change-induced increases in the magnitude and frequency of extreme hydro-meteorological events pose risks to the productivity and sustainability of farming systems. Resilience-enhancing strategies may enable farming systems to better cope to such threats. A farming system’s resilience entails its ability to maintain both ecosystem and socio-economic functions during a shock. This STSM, led by Guy Low (Agriculture and Food Business Management), will collaborate with the Department of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University which is highly competent in weather risk management, climate change economics, and agricultural insurance. This project will directly contribute to a pipeline of research papers that will assess the economic resilience of farming systems to weather shocks and climate extremes in Germany, the US, and worldwide. This STSM will thus also establish an intellectual link for future collaborations on farming system resilience under an uncertain future climate.
Guy Low Our project addresses the escalating wildfire threat in the Cross Timbers, USA – a region with historically fire-resilient ancient forests now increasingly compromised by encroaching eastern redcedars, vegetation shifts, fragmented land ownership, and climate change.
José Ortega How do tropical trees survive drought? This STSM brings together researchers from the University of Göttingen and IIT Bombay to find answers in the Western Ghats—one of the worlds most biodiverse and climate-sensitive regions. Over a three-week field campaign in Nethravali Wildlife Sanctuary, we will measure key hydraulic traits in dominant and endemic tree species to better understand how they cope with heat and water stress. These traits are rarely studied in tropical Asia but are critical for predicting climate resilience. By combining field data with IIT Bombay’s modeling expertise, we aim to build a comparative framework of species-level drought strategies. The project will feed into global trait databases, lead to a joint publication, and lay the groundwork for future research proposals, while also offering valuable experience to early-career scientists focused on forest resilience in a changing world.
Sharat PaligiShort-Termin Scientific Missions
2025
Investigating Agroforestry Farmers’ Personal Values and Sustainable Business Models – A Country Comparison of Germany and the UK
Nevertheless, agroforestry is implemented very cautiously. Instead of assuming that farmers plant trees for the "right price", we are the first to investigate personal values and innovative Sustainable Business Models to explain why and how agroforestry is included in British and German farming portfolios.
A scientific investigation into these topics is important because the successful realisation of both countries' ambitious political objectives depends largely on the interest of farmers in implementing and expanding agroforestry. This approach is intended to help political decision-makers create effective incentives to encourage farmers to adopt agroforestry and thus achieve the political goals.
As the UK is advanced in modern agroforestry, Germany could potentially learn from the country comparison regarding levers for implementation to create more resilient landscapes.
Contact Details:
E-Mail: valeska.volckens@uni-goettingen.de
Phone: +49-551-39-26766
The economic resilience of farming systems to weather shocks and climate extremes
Contact Details:
E-Mail: guy.low@uni-goettingen.de
Phone: +49-551-39-27985
Wildfire resilience loss in the Cross Timbers: A high-resolution risk assessment using digital forestry
As part of a scientific mission in Stillwater, we will conduct an intensive field campaign to collect detailed physiological information on trees and ultra-high-resolution remote sensing data. This effort will yield precise, tree-level 3D biomass information, forming the basis for a novel methodology to spatially estimate forest attributes using advanced digital forest models.
By integrating the resulting dataset into a suitable fire model, we aim to enhance fire prediction capabilities to support the management and conservation of ancient forests. Our work will lay a crucial foundation for small-scale fire modeling and provide a high-precision fire risk assessment tool tailored to fragmented, privately owned landscapes.
Contact Details:
E-Mail: josemaria.ortegaballadares@uni-goettingen.de
Phone: +49-551-39-23761
Thomas Hay
E-Mail: thomas.hay@uni-goettingen.de
Phone: +49-551-39-23466
Bridging data gaps in tree hydraulics: insights from a global biodiversity hotspot
Contact Details:
E-Mail: sharathshyamappa.paligi@uni-goettingen.de
