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

• Seufert, V., and Ramankutty, N., Many shades of gray—The context-dependent performance of organic agriculture​, Science Advances, 3(3), doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1602638, 2017
• Seufert, V., Ramankutty, N., and Mayerhofer, T., What is this thing called organic? – How organic farming is codified in regulations, Food Policy, 68, 10-20, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2016.12.009, 2017.
• 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.

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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

March 10, 2017
"Many shades of gray—The context-dependent performance of organic agriculture​"- the latest research out of the LUGE lab has just been published in Science Advances. An opinion piece is also available on The Conversation.

January 10, 2017
"What is this thing called organic?"- the latest publication from the LUGE group is now available online. 

December 19th, 2016
​Congratulations to Jordan, who has successfully defended his PhD thesis: 'The Changing Scale of Agriculture in Latin America'

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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More archived LUGE news here!

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