GLASSNET’s impact on key stakeholders will make a difference in achieving the SDGs. Our network has the potential to provide decision makers from a wide-array of areas with the data needed to properly assess actions that will affect the environment, the economy and local communities.
Learn more about GLASSNETFeatured Researcher
Dr. Chaudhary is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering and Management at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur since December 2018. His areas of research include Environmental Management, Biodiversity Conservation, One Health and Sustainability Data Analytics. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed scientific articles in international journals (including Nature and The Lancet) fetching over 12,000 citations so far and has presented research in more than 50 international conferences and media outlets around the globe. He has won several prestigious research awards from organizations such as Swiss National Science Foundation, European Commission, US EPA, IIASA etc.
His work focuses on leveraging tools such as environmental impact assessment (EIA), life cycle assessment (LCA), geographic information systems (GIS) along with statistical data analysis and mathematical models to develop quantitative methods that enable measuring the impact and sustainability of everyday products and human activities through multiple indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions, species extinction, environmental pollution, and loss of ecosystem services. These indicators are then linked with inventory and socio-economic data to measure the production, consumption, and trade footprints of countries and ESG performance of businesses in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and infrastructure. Results from such analysis can inform policy makers and stakeholders in designing interventions to make progress towards multiple SDGs.
Featured Research
Recent Developments and Challenges in Projecting the Impact of Crop Productivity Growth on Biodiversity Considering Market-Mediated Effects
Abhishek Chaudhary and Thomas Hertel
The effect of an increase in crop productivity (output per unit of inputs) on biodiversity is hitherto poorly understood. This is because increased productivity of a crop in particular regions leads to increased profit that can encourage expansion of its cultivated area causing land use change and ultimately biodiversity loss, a phenomenon also known as “Jevons paradox” or the “rebound effect”. Modeling such consequences in an interconnected and globalized world considering such rebound effects is challenging. Here, we discuss the use of computable general equilibrium (CGE) and other economic models in combination with ecological models to project consequences of crop productivity improvements for biodiversity globally. While these economic models have the advantage of taking into account market-mediated responses, resource constraints, endogenous price responses, and dynamic bilateral patterns of trade, there remain a number of important research and data gaps in these models which must be addressed to improve their performance in assessment of the link between local crop productivity changes and global biodiversity. To this end, we call for breaking the silos and building interdisciplinary networks across the globe to facilitate data sharing and knowledge exchange in order to improve global-to-local-to-global analysis of land, biodiversity, and ecosystem sustainability.
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New GLASSNET tools on MyGeoHub advance international, interdisciplinary research
Two new climate, land-use, and agricultural data tools developed by GLASSNET team members have recently been added to the online platform MyGeoHub (mygeohub.org), allowing researchers across domains to easily access the data they need to assess progress towards meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
GLASSNET, a five-year, NSF-funded project, is a global collaboration—a network of networks—aimed at understanding global drivers of local sustainability challenges, as well as the regional, national, and global consequences of local responses to these stresses. The intent of the GLASSNET network is to provide decision-makers from a wide array of areas with the data and models needed to properly assess actions that will affect the environment, the economy, and local communities. Although the different teams within the GLASSNET group hail from different fields, they all recognize that we live on a changing planet with limited water and land resources and that achieving global SDGs is of the utmost importance. They also recognize a major impediment to reaching these goals is the traditional isolation of scientific domains and the difficulty researchers have in communicating across different fields.
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