At IRI THESys, we conduct scientific research into the dynamics of human-environment relations. Against the backdrop of climate change, researchers pay particular attention to the intersections between land use practices and issues of water/energy use and governance. This includes research on food-fuel-fibre production, resource extraction and biodiversity management as well as investigations into the relationship between urban centres and their regional and global hinterlands as connected through technical, economic and regulatory infrastructures.
THESys Projects
PhD Projects
Network Projects
THESys Projects
PhD Projects
Problem-constitution in agricultural policy-making: the case of preventive soil protection
Problem-constitution in agricultural policy-making: the case of preventive soil protection
PhD Project
Katharina undertakes her PhD project as a research associate in the project SoilAssist with the Coordination Unit Climate, Soil Biodiversity at Thünen Institute. The project is concerned with the constitution of soil health as a policy problem in Germany and the EU.
As agricultural soils provide a long list of social, economic and environmental functions to society, political decision-makers in Germany and the EU discuss soil health as a policy-problem. These debates are an expression of the complex interplay of diverse socio-economic and ecological factors.
In a cumulative dissertation, Katharina therefore inquires which political, scientific and practiced understandings of soil health are discussed in the process of constituting soil health as a policy problem. She draws on the example of soil compaction to illustrate issues regarding soil degradation and related preventive protection.
The aims of the research project consist in (1) assessing the role of sciences in the politics of knowledge dynamics within German policy-making, (2) unpacking the institutionalisation of soil health as a discourse in EU policy making and (3) deriving socio-economic factors that determine decision-making in agricultural management.
Header image credit: Maike Weise (TI-AT)
Solarizing irrigation in India
Inclusive bioeconomy development
Network Projects
THESys Projects
PhD Projects
Network Projects
Thinking with Rivers for Environmental Peacebuilding
Project leaders: Denisse Roca-Servat, Laura Betancur Alarcón, Ana María Arbeláez, Xiomara Mendoza, Holmedo Peláez Grisales, J. Sebastian Silva
CliWaC
Project leaders: Britta Tietjen, Uwe Ulbrich, Jörg Niewöhner, Christoph Schneider, Birgit Kleinschmit, Dieter Scherer