Feedbacks between land use, biodiversity and human nutrition - Master thesis in socio-ecological studies

14.01.2025, Diplomarbeiten, Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten

The transformation of land for human activities is a major global-change driver that affects biodiversity and ecosystem productivity and tightly relates to population well-being. Around the world numerous policies promote the increase biodiversity (as well as crop and food diversity), yet the impact of these interventions in human health has not been studied thoroughly.

We propose to develop a conceptual representation of this socio-ecological system and to make a systematic review on land use, biodiversity and human nutrition studies in order to determine the nature and strength of interactions. We aim to do an exhaustive literature search for papers and grey literature that have reported interventions, programs, modelling, clinical and socio-ecological analyses including the three variables of interest. We will report on the number of studies, their type (practical/theoretical), the definitions and units of variables used, the scale of the studies, location, duration and qualitative conclusions reported. For a subset of the papers which report on quantitative measures, we will attempt a meta-analysis in order to explain the variability between results.
We hypothesize that education about nutrition and shifts to nutrition-sensitive agriculture could aid in reducing the environmental impact of agricultural activities on biodiversity, at least at local levels. Conversely, we hypothesize that an increase in biodiversity through interventions on how land use is managed will have a direct impact in communities profiting from the products of that land, which could potentially be measured through their overall health (e.g., nutritional parameters such as vitamins or incidence of diseases). We hypothesize also that the scale at which effects and responses are being studied will be key to understand how the system is functioning and the long-term effects of human nutrition in nature.
If you are interested in this thesis, please send an email with your CV and motivation to Dr. Alejandra Parreno, alejandra.parreno@tum.de

Kontakt: Alejandra.parreno@tum.de