LASEG's research projects reflect the breadth of our expertise and broad-ranging interests: from indigenous peoples' knowledge and biodiversity conservation policies, to environmental history and climate change adaptation. You can find out more about our ongoing and past projects below, among others.
Severe droughts reduce river navigability and isolate communities in the Brazilian Amazon. The most recent drought, in 2023, afflicted more than half a million people in the Brazilian Amazon basin, making it one of the most severe droughts ever recorded. The drought was accompanied by enormous fish kills and the deaths of hundreds of river dolphins, all caused by extremely high air and water temperatures and low water levels in large areas. Tens of thousands of remote rural settlers along rivers were completely cut off from urban hubs and adjacent towns for weeks or months.
With over half of the world’s population using social media, the BIG-5 project explores how people connect with nature through five of the largest social media platforms. The project introduces the concept of Digital Relational Values (DRVs), which are positive values shaped within online communities through indirect experiences of nature. By studying these values across different landscapes, social media networks, and languages in Europe, the BIG-5 project aims to understand how these digital interactions can support a more sustainable future.
Using systematic ethnobiological place-based data collection in a unique research site in the Bolivian Amazon with an untapped wealth of baseline information, this project will rigorously assess the processes through which Indigenous knowledge systems change over time, and measure different ecological impacts associated with such changes.
En España, el cambio climático presenta importantes desafíos, riesgos e impactos que exigen la adaptación y mitigación. Las soluciones basadas en la naturaleza (SBN) son clave para enfrentar estos desafíos debido a su capacidad para proporcionar múltiples beneficios ecológicos, sociales y económicos. Sin embargo, aún no se dispone de un sistema nacional de catalogación de las SBN que contemple las particularidades del territorio, lo que dificulta la implementación del PNACC. Por tanto, el proyecto E:SBN propone la creación de un sistema de identificación, clasificación y catalogación de las SBN en España, que promueva la planificación coherente y maximice su eficacia.
CONDJUST is an ambitious five year project that seeks to contribute to a new field of enquiry: Conservation Data Justice. It tackles novel topics in Data Justice and apply them to the remote sensing, models and data used to create global maps of conservation priorities; it explores the epistemic communities producing these maps, their policy reach and the governance of this research in the conservation community.
This project aims to enrich ethnobiology’s field-based ethos with a global analytical focus, connecting on-the-ground realities with the higher spheres of international decision-making.
The research explores how a female-led collective of sheep farmers in Tuscany adapts to ecological and structural changes by promoting coexistence with wolves through livestock guarding dogs. Using feminist political ecology, it examines gendered experiences of change and the farmers’ identities as pastoralists and nature stewards. It also analyzes their alliance with conservation NGOs, highlighting the complexities of collaboration and the transformative dynamics involving wolves, guarding dogs, and wolf-dog hybrids in fostering coexistence.
NICHES will demonstrate the capacity of nature-based solutions to mitigate stormwater runoff, flooding and sewer overflow events and highlight transformation pathways to deliver this potential. The project will simultaneously enhance social-ecological qualities and ecosystem services at source and in receiving water bodies.
This study aims to empirically test a novel model for assessing the resilience of IPLC’s health care system taking a social-ecological lens. It addresses the current need to better understand how Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities' health care systems could adapt to current and future global change.
Research into existing initiatives of sustainable food procurement in Spain
Bringing indigenous and local knowledge to climate change policy.
The INTERLACE project aims to empower and equip European and CELAC cities to effectively restore and rehabilitate (peri)urban ecosystems towards more liveable, resilient and inclusive cities. The ...
How do payments for ecosystem services affect conservation motivations and land-use behaviour? How do local institutions, including land tenure and collective action, moderate the effect of payments on motivations and forest cover?
Un índice de vulnerabilidad socio-ambiental para apoyar en el diseño de nuevas políticas de desarrollo rural en España
The project will research and develop a ‘living heritage’ approach to conservation, promoting the ‘protection through use’ of upland environments and adjacent rural areas.
The project aims to improve the understanding of the commons in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona to contribute to better promote collaboration between local governments and community-led ...
Understanding the role of cultural expressions, arts and multimedia in upholding transformations in water-related conflicts
What is the contribution of Ecosystem Services to the creation of sustainable, just and resilient cities? An environmental justice perspective
Exploring the possibilities of a paradigmatic pastoral common of Montenegro and its natural and cultural ‘heritage’ values
Research, innovation and social responsibility framed around the concept of telecoupling.
How knowledge about urban water supply was codified and transmitted during Barcelona's Little Ice Age (1300-1850 AD)
How do communities work together to adapt to sea-level rise? Do the collective actions they initiate and engage in produce fair outcomes?
Communal governance systems for the sustainability of cultural land use practices securing biodiversity
Spearheading heritization procedures for conserving and supporting pastoral ICCAs in Mwanda-Marungu, Taita hills, Kenya
Studying the performance of Hispano-Moroccan pastoral commons and their natural and cultural ‘heritage’ values
Local and global approaches to sustainable territory management in the Arganeraie Biosphere Reserve, Morocco
ENABLE aims to advance knowledge of how to design and implement green and blue Infrastructure in a way that maximizes its potential to deliver numerous social and environmental benefits
Synthesizing the effects of agricultural intensification on ecosystem services and poverty alleviation.
Examining the performance of nature-based solutions in cities to respond to urban sustainability challenges
Identifying the socio-ecological dynamics of agroecosystems, agrobiodiversity and anthropised landscapes of the Mediterranean
Parsing out debates over ecosystem services and poverty
In-depth ethnographical description and eco-anthropological analysis of the customary-based management system of pastoral resources among the Wahehe, agropastoral group of Iringa region, Tanzania
Analyzing the implementation of habitat banking in Spain and the UK, and controversies over this policy at EU level.
This project evaluated citizen science as a tool to increase and diversify participation in traditional ecological knowledge conservation.
Advancing co-management research through a systematic review and case study research, the dissertation shows that co-management can indeed deliver positive social and ecological outcomes and it highlights the importance of social equity and social diversity in delivering such outcomes.
Investigating the effects of REDD+ policies and pilot projects on forest governance, livelihoods and conflict
The main goal of this project was to map and assess ecosystem services in the Province of Barcelona and integrate them in the existing decision-support tool SITxell (Territorial Information System for the Open Spaces Network of the Barcelona Province)
Advancing insights in tradeoffs and synergies between biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and ecosystem service values for improved integrated biodiversity policy
A cross-cultural analysis of the returns of Local Environmental Knowledge in three indigenous societies
Investigating the effectiveness of community-based conservation through a co-enquiry approach
Market-based conservation and ecosystem services, from concepts to implementation.
Developing and analysing the implementation of a REDD+ pilot project in Tanzania
The effects of roads on indigenous people’s well-being and use of natural resources. A natural experiment in lowland Bolivia
A longitudinal study to examine how market exposure and modernization affect the well-being of a highly autarkic population, the Tsimane' in the Bolivian Amazon
