My research journey started with grandiose questions about the world economy as a complex, open and far from thermodynamic equilibrium system, depending on increasing flows of matter and energy in his never ending fight against entropy, and devastating the earth natural environment as a side effect.
Very soon I learned the most important lesson (at least by now) in my academic career: I probably will not be able to change the world. The most ambitious goal I can aspire to, is to contribute with my tiny sand grain to make it a bit more understandable. Perhaps then, me or someone else could use these small insights to make a slightly better world.
This humble goal, thought, was, paraphrasing the Apollo 11 PR text, a very small step for mankind but a huge leap for me. From an academic perspective, the meaning was that research questions must be humble, achievable and focused.
Still, even if the research questions are highly focused, people live somewhere (mainly in cities), use several types of resources (among them, land and fossil fuels) and produce different kinds of waste (for example municipal or agricultural waste). All these activities are governed by institutions and rules (economics, regulation, government, etc.). Part of these activities leave strong spatial traces, both regarding the human environment (urban development and morphology) and the natural environment (land use interfaces, provision of ecosystem services, impacts on the local biodiversity, etc.).
My research topics revolve around the concepts highlighted in the last paragraph, using different combinations and weights. Each one of the following links is dedicated to a main theme that might be connected to one or more additional topics.
Urban ecosystem services and biodiversity (page under construction)
Urban dynamics models (page under construction)
Urban empirical analyses (page under construction)
Waste management (page under construction)
Environmental epidemiology (page under construction)