Two DPhil (PhD) positions are available on the programme "FLOURISHING-LANDSCAPES: Enhancing the social and ecological outcomes of nature-based solutions in tropical agricultural landscapes" led by the Nature-based Solutions Initiative, Department of Biology, University of Oxford. These DPhils are supervised by Prof. Nathalie Seddon, Dr. William Thompson and Dr. Jesus Aguirre Gutierrez.
DPhil 2: Integrating social and ecological data to inform landscape-scale decision-making for the design of nature-based solutions in West African agricultural landscapes
Background: We are facing a dual climate and biodiversity crisis, that also threatens livelihoods. Action must be taken, in a socially just way, to reduce emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere, as well as halting deforestation and restoring nature. Agroforestry, the deliberate inclusion of trees in cropping systems, and more broadly reforestation, have been identified as potentially powerful nature-based solutions to climate adaptation and biodiversity challenges1,2. However, many potential risks with reforestation strategies have also been identified, including, trade-offs with food security and biodiversity, as well as equity issues,4,5.
The FLOURISHING-LANDSCAPES programme will focus on West Africa, in rural areas where the highly fragmented remnants of the Guinean Forests are interspersed with agricultural production. In particular, cocoa is a leading crop produced in these landscapes and a key driver of deforestation, as well as forest and land degradation. In response to this, leading producer country governments (Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon), companies, NGOs and farmer organisations have been investing in supporting a transition to diversified agroforestry systems and restoring forest ecosystems, i.e. scaling up nature-based solutions. However, these interventions have so far had limited success, with unsustainable monoculture systems remaining dominant in the region, leaving farmers' livelihoods vulnerable to multiple shocks and stresses6.
Key gaps remain in the scientific and practitioner knowledge base around the effectiveness of nature-based solutions, such as agroforestry and reforestation, in tropical agricultural landscapes. These range from how perennial tree crops interact in mixtures with native tree species, to how changing land use patterns affect community food security and resilience at a landscape scale. Beyond effectiveness, there are important knowledge gaps around the equity implications of promoting these nature-based solutions and, therefore, how best they can be financed and scaled.
The FLOURISHING-LANDSCAPES programme aims to address these gaps via utilising a transdisciplinary research approach, co-generating knowledge with stakeholders, across multiple sectors connected to landscapes in the high forest zone of Ghana. In its first phase, these two DPhil projects will focus on evaluating how different farm and landscape-level configurations of agroforestry and reforestation impact social and ecological outcomes, such as food security and biodiversity, as well as forecasting future outcomes. This will involve a variety of research methods, such as drone and satellite remote sensing, ecological surveys and co-designing decision-making tools. These tools will feed into the ongoing, NERC funded, HARP toolkit project, led by the Nature-based Solutions Initiative, Department of Biology, University of Oxford.
DPhil 2: Integrating social and ecological data to inform landscape-scale decision-making for the design of nature-based solutions in West African agricultural landscapes
Research question: How does the landscape-scale configuration of nature-based solutions influence social and ecological outcomes in tropical agricultural landscapes?
This DPhil project will adopt an overall transdisciplinary research approach, integrating the needs of actors connected to the Ghanaian high forest zone landscapes, all the way along the knowledge co-generation process. The project will build beyond existing work in the cocoa value chains in West Africa, to better incorporate the multi-functional nature and needs of rural landscapes. The DPhil candidate will collect, analyse and integrate social and ecological data, to increase our understanding of landscape-scale social and ecological processes that influence outcomes of on- and off-farm nature-based solutions. This will lead to the development of an agroforestry and reforestation scenario evaluation tool, to simulate social and ecological outcomes of different landscape-scale configurations of these nature-based solutions .
Candidate requirements: We are seeking a DPhil candidate with interdisciplinary interests, spanning socio-economic and ecological research. The candidate will have a Masters degree in ecology, agricultural/development economics, environmental science or similar. The ideal candidate will have experience collecting socio-economic and ecological data in tropical agricultural landscapes, experience working with spatial data sets, as well as good coding skills in R or Python. Candidates from West Africa and underrepresented groups are particularly encouraged to apply.
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