The Landscape Detectives constantly change and evolve, so it’s not so easy to keep the list of people updated, but here are some of the current members presented:
Dr. Lina Eklund, who initiated the Landscape Detectives, is an associate senior lecturer at the dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences (MGEO) at Lund University, Sweden. Her area of interest is in the Middle East, primarily Israel/Palestine, Iraq and Syria, where she explores the issue of climate security, including climate induced migration and armed conflict, using earth observations, spatial analysis and sometimes qualitative methods. She also studies the environmental impacts of armed conflict, and is particularly interested in land use/land cover change and fire dynamics. She is the main supervisor for our PhD students Annie Lin, and Lovisa Rosenquist Ohlsson, and some of our bachelor and masters students. She is associated with MGEO, the Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in a Changing Climate (BECC).
Annie Lin is one of our PhD students, currently on her 3rd year, associated with MGEO and CMES. Her research interests encompass remote sensing and pyrogeography, particularly concerning vegetation fire, land cover and land use change, and its relationship with conflicts, with a specific focus on the Middle Eastern regions. In other words, she’s fire at making maps. She also has experience with spatial analysis and social media. You can read more on her website.
Lovisa Rosenquist Ohlsson is our second PhD student, and just started her 3rd year. She is associated with MGEO and CMES, with her research focusing on climate-related hazards and adaptation in the Middle East. She works specifically with displaced populations (refugees and IDPs), and areas hosting these. Her background is mainly in physical geography, spatial analysis and remote sensing, although she has experience with fieldwork in remote, urban, boreal, arctic, tundra, and open environments as well.
Dr. Purnendu Sardar is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at MGEO and CMES. His research focuses on studying vegetation and land-use changes in the Middle East using remote sensing techniques. He holds a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Dhanbad, where he conducted research on the impact of climate change on the mangrove ecosystems of Sundarbans. Following his PhD, Dr. Sardar worked in the climate-action industry, leading a team of geospatial experts to execute large-scale agroforestry projects in India. Additionally, he has served as a geospatial consultant for international companies. He is also interested in understanding conflicts, land-use changes and ecological processes at landscape level using geospatial tools.