Welcome to the Land Use and Global Environment (LUGE) Research Group at the University of British Columbia
 We study linkages between human land use, global environmental change, and food security

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• Sample publications

• Lesk, C., Rowhani, P., and Ramankutty, N., Influence of extreme weather disasters on global crop production, Nature, 529(7584), 84-87, doi:10.1038/nature16467, 2016.  
  
• Landry, J.-S., Matthews, H. D. and Ramankutty, N., A global assessment of the carbon cycle and temperature responses to major changes in future fire regime, Climatic Change, doi: 10.1007/s10584-015-1461-8, 2015.
• Graesser, J., Aide, T. M., Grau, H. R., & Ramankutty, N., Cropland/pastureland dynamics and the slowdown of deforestation in Latin America, Environmental Research Letters, 10(3), doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/10/3/034017, 2015.
• Landry, J-S and N. Ramankutty, Carbon Cycling, Climate Regulation, and Disturbances in Canadian Forests: Scientific Principles for Management, Land, 4(1), 83-118, 2015.

• Gray, J. M., S. Frolking, E. A. Kort, D. K. Ray, C. J. Kucharik, N. Ramankutty and M. A. Friedl, Direct human influence on atmospheric CO2 seasonality from increased cropland productivity, Nature 515(7527): 398-401, 2014.
• Martellozzo, F., J-S Landry, D. Plouffe, V. Seufert, P. Rowhani and N. Ramankutty, Urban agriculture: a global analysis of the space constraint to meet urban vegetable demand, Environmental Research Letters, 9(6), doi:10.1088/1748-9326/9/6/064025, 2014.
• Seufert, V., N. Ramankutty, and J. A. Foley, Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture, Nature, advance online publication, 2012.
• Foley, J. A., N. Ramankutty, et al., Solutions for a cultivated planet, Nature, 478(7369), 337-342, 2011.
• Ellis, E. C., and N. Ramankutty, Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world, Front. Ecol. Environ., 6(8), 439-447, 2008.
• Ramankutty, N., H. K. Gibbs, F. Achard, R. DeFries, J. A. Foley, and R. A. Houghton, Challenges to estimating carbon emissions from tropical deforestation, Glob. Change Biol., 13, 51-66; doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2006.01272.x, 2007.

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UBC affiliations

Liu Institute for Global Issues

Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability

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McGill affiliations

Sustainability, Science and Society program

Global Environmental and Climate Change Centre (GEC3)

Earth System Science (ESS)

Geographies of Asia

Photo credit: Thomas Fox

News

June 6,2016
The most recent grads from the Ramankutty and Rhemtulla labs

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February 1, 2016
Another successfully defended PhD! Big congratulations to Verena, who successfully defended her thesis examining the contribution of organic agriculture to sustainable food security. ​

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January 6, 2016
A paper led by Corey Lesk, who was an undergraduate research assistant for Navin during his McGill days, has just been published in Nature. Using reported extreme weather disasters from 1964-2007, the authors examined the effects these events have had on crop production at the global scale. Amongst their findings, they show the negative impact that drought and extreme heat events have had on agricultural production in the recent past, and that these events have a greater impact in developed countries. The paper is already receiving a lot of coverage in the press (McGill,UBC,New York Times). Congratulations Corey, Pedram, and Navin!

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October 27, 2015
Navin was recently invited to discuss agriculture in the context of climate change on TVOs The Agenda. You can watch the interview here.

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May 12th, 2015
The first PhD out of the LUGE group, congrats to Jean-Sébastien for successfully defending! A very proud day for Navin as well, as it is his first PhD student to defend.  ​​

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May 13th, 2015
Jordan's latest work on mapping recent cropland and pasture trends in Latin America has been featured by UBC news

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April 12th, 2015
Congratulations to Thomas for successfully completing his MSc! You will be missed by the LUGE team, and we all wish you the best of luck in your next adventure!

More archived LUGE news here!

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