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Dissertation
Geospatial crop yield modeling for climate change risk transfer, impact assessment, and adaptation strategies
(2023)
Changing climate and weather patterns increase the pressure on food production systems worldwide, significantly impacting livelihoods and economies at various scales. Understanding and adapting/mitigating climate change are essential to cope with the adverse effects of climate change. Biophysical crop modeling offers a unique way to assess the pros and cons of different adaptation strategies because they integrate physical and biological principles to simulate the use and allocation of captured resources mechanistically. ...
Dissertation
Market-driven harvesting of non-timber forest products and the governance of communal forests in the south-east lowveld of Zimbabwe.
(2023-07)
Despite forests providing a wide range of important products and services for much of Zimbabwe’s population, natural forests are threatened by deforestation. The highest rates of deforestation occur in communal forests. Communal forest resources in Zimbabwe show evidence of increased degradation and signs of a breakdown of local institutions for resources management. These signs of a breakdown of local institutions are coupled with evidence of a lack of any emerging alternative institutions for conservation of forest ...
Dissertation
Lignocellulosic biorefinery with a thermo-biological pretreatment concept
(2023)
There is great interest, not only in technologically advanced societies, in developing innovative sources of raw materials, especially lignocellulosic biomasses such as cereal straw, which do not interfere with food production. In Germany, 4 – 9 million tons of cereal straw, mainly wheat, are utilized annually, corresponding to an energy potential of 57 – 129 PJ/a. Lignocellulose, found in plant cell walls, consists of hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin, and it requires complex fractionation to enable its polymers ...
Dissertation
Drivers for Fostering Agroforestry Systems in Temperate and Mediterranean Climates: Past, Present, and Future
(2024)
Traditional multifunctional agroforestry landscapes provide not only food but also support biodiversity and provide a multitude of ecosystem services. However, such landscapes have been frequently lost in the last decades. Given the multiple global challenges that have emerged from an industrial model of agriculture, agroforestry as a concept based on multifunctionality is increasingly regarded as key for sustainable food production systems of the future. To guide future land management and policies, past land-use ...