Research Group "Conflicting Use of Land and Water"

In many developing countries, competition for water is intensifying at a rapid pace, leading to existential conflicts. By 2025, 2.8 billion people in 48 countries will be affected by water shortages, according to UN estimates. Forced internal migration and migration abroad exacerbate the situation for migrants or people in regions hosting refugees. Poor countries and populations are most at risk from environmental change. This includes, in particular, the approximately 2.1 billion small farmers worldwide, who produce more than 50% of the food for the global south and whose livelihoods are secured by agriculture.

Institutional management of water resources and the sustainable use of water in cultivation can alleviate problems. The work of this ZNF-research group, which began in 2016, focuses on the transdisciplinary development of multi-target strategies with particular attention to the model of socio-ecological systems and production units. The basis for this is three decades of scientific work on ecological and agronomic implications of various land use and cultivation systems and innovations in breeding.

The research group is a member of the group (C2) Sustainable Land-Use Scenarios: Soil, Biodiversity, Water, Food and Energy Security in the Excellence Cluster Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CliCCS).