James (J.T.) Erbaugh

Within environmental governance and policy, I contribute to three specific content areas. First, I use causal inference methods to understand trade-offs in centralized and decentralized resource management. Second, I use spatial data and political theory to consider the justice implications of global forest restoration for indigenous people and local communities. And third, I analyze climate vulnerabilities for local populations to provide information about climate-smart, community-driven conservation and development. Assessing the exposure, sensitivity, and capacity to adapt to a changing climate requires localized data. Advances in the availability of spatial, census, and survey data have made the analysis of local climate vulnerability and adaptation options possible.