Christine Fürst is a Professor of Sustainable Landscape Development at Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. She is engaged as lead author in the regional assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Europe and Central Asia, is President (2015 – 2019) of the International Association for Landscape Ecology and contributes to the steering committee of the Ecosystem Service Partnership. She is member of the development team of the Future Earth Knowledge Action Network on Food-Energy-Water Nexus (2016 – 2017) and of the selection commission for the new steering board (2017/18).
Christine is by training a forest scientist (Diploma at Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich, 1998, Second State Exam 2000, Bavarian Forest Administration) and graduated later in the fields of soil sciences (Phd Dresden University of Technology, 2010) and modelling and impact assessment of land use/land cover changes (Habilitation + Venia Legendi in Natural Resource Management, University of Bonn, 2013).
Her work focuses on integrated modeling approaches for social-ecological systems, methods for environmental assessments and evaluation of ecosystem services as well as software-tools for facilitating public participation in spatial planning processes. Her regional research focus is in West-Africa, Latin America and Europe.
Research areas: ecosystem services, integrated land use planning, environmental impact assessment, participation methods, land use and land cover change modelling