School of Earth and Environment
Untitled Document

Luuk Fleskens Dr Luuk Fleskens

Lecturer: Environmental Change

Telephone number: +44(0) 113 34 35279
Email address: l.fleskens@leeds.ac.uk
Room: 9.102

Water Harvesting for Rainfed Africa: investing in dryland agriculture for growth and resilience (WAHARA)

Desertification Mitigation and Remediation of Land (DESIRE)

Africa College Partnership

Catastrophic shifts in drylands: how can we prevent ecosystem degradation

Transforming water scarcity through trading

Biography

I am interested in assessing the impacts of environmental change, and particularly how land and water management interventions can increase resilience of agro-ecosystems. Using integrated environmental models and participatory methods I consider impact in both physical and economic terms, at different scales, and taking into account diverging socio-cultural perceptions of various stakeholders. This ranges from a farmer who, based on his or her perceived benefits and constraints decides to adopt or not to adopt technologies, to environmental policy-making where the objective of equitable and sustainable resource use and rural development is easier claimed than reached. I am also interested in the role science can play to bring together stakeholders at different levels and to resolve conflicts of interest.

My lectureship is funded through Africa College, a cross-faculty University of Leeds partnership with external partners to improve food security in Africa. I bring a wealth of field experience to this position: prior to joining SRI I have worked as a technical advisor for capacity building of research on soil and water conservation in Eritrea, in different researcher and lecturer positions at Wageningen University, and as a consultant for a wide range of organizations and projects in Mozambique. Recent consultancy experiences include a study prioritizing rural public works interventions for IFDC in Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern Congo DRC and on including environmental conservation in an integrated environmental health project for AMREF in Kenya. Previous research projects while at Wageningen University focused on water harvesting in Northern Africa and Central Asia and on the future of olive plantation systems in Southern Europe.

Qualifications

  • MSc Tropical Land Use (1997)
  • PhD Production Ecology and Resource Conservation (2007), Wageningen University

Research Interests

  • Sustainable land management
  • land degradation
  • water harvesting
  • integrated environmental modelling
  • participatory processes
  • farmer decision-making

Current research projects

  • CASCADE (2012-2016, funding by EU FP7), on catastrophic shifts in Mediterranean drylands and development of management schemes for sustainable resource use and conservation of ecosystem services.
  • WAHARA (2011-2016, funding by EU FP7), on water harvesting for rainfed Africa to enhance food production and resilience, with study sites in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tunisia and Zambia.
  • Transforming water scarcity through trading (2011-2014, funding by EPSRC), looking at market opportunities to enhance distributed water storage in the UK and developing country context.
  • DESIRE (2007-2012, funding by EU FP6), a large research project on promising alternative land use and management conservation strategies in sixteen degradation and desertification hotspots around the world.

Current PhD student supervision

  • Ms Sarah Lebel - Water harvesting for rainfed Africa: system sustainability under climate change  (Co-supervised with Prof Piers Forster and Dr Brian Irvine; funded by University of Leeds FIRS studentship, 2011-2014).
  • Mr Thomas Swinscoe - Transforming water scarcity through trading: agricultural water use and farm economics (Co-supervised with Prof John Barrett; funded by EPSRC studentship, 2011-2014).
  • Ms Uzma Aslam - Assessing the scope of PES in relation to GHG emissions in agri-ecosystems (Co-supervised with Prof Mette Termansen; funded by Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan, 2009-2013).
  • Mr Doan Nainggolan - Integrated models for evaluating spatial and temporal land use complexity in degradation-prone agroecosystem in southeastern Spain (Co-supervised with Prof Mette Termansen; funded by University of Leeds ORS, DESIRE, and Aarhus University, 2007-2011).

Academic CV (pdf file)

Publications