Prospective Graduate Students / Postdocs
This faculty member is currently not actively recruiting graduate students or Postdoctoral Fellows, but might consider co-supervision together with another faculty member.
Navin Ramankutty
Professor
Research Classification
Research Interests
Agriculture
Climate Changes and Impacts
Climate impacts
Environment and Society
Global food security
Land use change
Sustainable agriculture
Relevant Thesis-Based Degree Programs
Affiliations to Research Centres, Institutes & Clusters
Research Options
I am available and interested in collaborations (e.g. clusters, grants).
I am interested in and conduct interdisciplinary research.
Research Methodology
Geospatial analysis
Statistics
Earth observations
GIS
Modelling
Global data development
Great Supervisor Week Mentions
Each year graduate students are encouraged to give kudos to their supervisors through social media and our website as part of #GreatSupervisorWeek. Below are students who mentioned this supervisor since the initiative was started in 2017.
Supervisor appreciation week @UBC! Shoutout to @NRamankutty and @mKandlikar. Extremely proud and blessed to have not one, but TWO super supervisors. Awe-inspiringly smart giants whose shoulders I stand on. @ubcires @ubcSPPGA #GreatSupervisor
I'm one lucky #phd student to have TWO amazing supervisors who are equally kind, fiercely intelligent AND fun. @NRamankutty @HWittmanUBC my only complaint is how much you debate when we meet (just kidding, it’s great) #DoubleTrouble #greatsupervisor @IRES_UBC @ubcfarm @LiuInstituteUBC
Couldn't have said it better. @NRamankutty has been the best mentor I could ever have wished for (in addition to simply being one of the best human beings I have ever met). #GreatSupervisor #SupervisorAppreciationWeek
I could not ask for a better supervisor than @NRamankutty at @IRES_UBC. Extremely approachable and knowledgeable. Encourages us to venture out of our comfort zones. Most importantly, one of the nicest and kindest people I know. #GreatSupervisor #UBC #SupervisorAppreciationWeek
A little late on this, but I have to express my gratitude to Dr. Navin Ramankutty. He is a leader in thoughtful and aggressive inquisitiveness, as well as consideration and mindfulness of others. These values aren't easily communicable, but Navin seamlessly integrates them into his students' learning through their obvious and deliberate application to both his personal and professional endeavors.
My supervisor is great because he: (1) Cares about the wellbeing of his students, (2) always keeps a good sense of humor, (3) has high expectations of his students, (4) helps achieve those expectations by providing creative, timely and thoughtful feedback, (5) manages to be on top of every academic and teaching responsibility while at the same time taking care of a happy family, and (6) most importantly, he leads by example. Professor Ramankutty is a #GreatSupervisor.
Graduate Student Supervision
Doctoral Student Supervision
Dissertations completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest dissertations.
Indian agriculture in a changing climate: a statistical analysis (2022)
No abstract available.
Just in principle? : assessing the contributions of organic farming to socio-ecological sustainability in Canadian agriculture (2022)
No abstract available.
The role of small-scale farms in the global food system (2019)
Farms are becoming larger in high-income countries and smaller and more fragmented in low-income countries. This farm size transition has motivated recent international policy calls to combat inequities in the global food system and to promote more environmentally friendly production practices. This dissertation seeks to understand the impact of this transition on global food production, on the environment, and on small-scale farmers’ livelihoods. Each chapter aims to examine the underlying assumptions of these policy calls by testing the relationship between small-scale farms and key socio-ecological outcomes. Through creating a harmonized dataset across 55 countries, Chapter 2 estimates that 30-34% of the world’s food is produced by farms under 2 hectares in size and smaller farms producer a greater diversity of crop species than larger farms. Chapter 3’s meta-analysis synthesizes the past 50 years of empirical evidence on the relationships between farm size and several socio-ecological outcomes of farming systems (i.e., yield, biodiversity, resource-use efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and profitability). We found that smaller farms have higher yields and promote more non-crop biodiversity (across species at the farm and landscape scales) than larger farms. We found no relationship between farm size and resource-use efficiency, but smaller farms had a non-significant trend to lower greenhouse gas emissions per crop output than larger farms. Chapter 4 builds on this meta-analysis to investigate the relationship between farm size, productivity, and income using harmonized national sample surveys from 34 countries across the Global South. Our results highlight that while smaller farms are more productive than larger farms, they have lower per capita incomes. Critically, we also found that the current internationally agreed upon target of doubling small-scale farmer incomes is not aggressive enough to transition them out of poverty. Chapter 5 outlines pathways for the international community to identify and monitor small-scale food producers, which is a central hurdle to ensure governments keep their agreed upon commitments to support small-scale farmers. This dissertation makes several empirical contributions to the literature on the contribution of small farms to the global food system, and can help inform policy initiatives aimed to support small-scale farmers.
View record
Master's Student Supervision
Theses completed in 2010 or later are listed below. Please note that there is a 6-12 month delay to add the latest theses.
A descriptive analysis of Mexico's crop species diversity (2022)
No abstract available.
Evaluating uncertainty in tropical forest loss between 1990 and 2010: an inter-comparison of different data sets (2018)
No abstract available.
Publications
- How can machine learning help in understanding the impact of climate change on crop yields? (2023)
Environmental Research Letters, - The missing markets link in global-to-local-to-global analyses of biodiversity and ecosystem services (2023)
Environmental Research Letters, - Functional connectivity of the world’s protected areas (2022)
Science, - On the relative importance of climatic and non-climatic factors in crop yield models (2022)
Climatic Change, - A review of global gridded cropping system data products (2021)
Environmental Research Letters, 16 (9), 093005 - Beyond productivism versus agroecology: lessons for sustainable food systems from Lovins’ soft path energy policies (2021)
Environmental Research Letters, 16 (9), 091003 - Global option space for organic agriculture is delimited by nitrogen availability (2021)
Nature Food, - Higher yields and more biodiversity on smaller farms (2021)
Nature Sustainability, - Land (2020)
, 195--202 - Livestock policy for sustainable development (2020)
Nature Food, - The global divide in data-driven farming (2020)
Nature Sustainability, - Leveraging total factor productivity growth for sustainable and resilient farming (2019)
Nature Sustainability, - Synchronized failure of global crop production (2019)
Nature Ecology & Evolution, - How much of the world's food do smallholders produce? (2018)
Global Food Security, 17, 64--72 - Increasing expansion of large-scale crop production onto deforested land in sub-Andean South America (2018)
Environmental Research Letters, 13 (8), 084021 - The challenge of feeding the world while conserving half the planet (2018)
Nature Sustainability, - Detection of cropland field parcels from Landsat imagery (2017)
Remote Sensing of Environment, 201, 165--180 - Many shades of gray—The context-dependent performance of organic agriculture (2017)
Science Advances, 3 (3) - Influence of extreme weather disasters on global crop production (2016)
Nature, 529 (7584), 84-87 - Investigating the effects of subgrid cell dynamic heterogeneity on the large-scale modeling of albedo in boreal forests (2016)
Earth Interactions, 20 (5) - A global assessment of the carbon cycle and temperature responses to major changes in future fire regime (2015)
Climatic Change, 133 (2), 179-192 - A global data set of the extent of irrigated land from 1900 to 2005 (2015)
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 19 (3), 1521-1545 - Carbon Cycling, Climate Regulation, and Disturbances in Canadian Forests: Scientific Principles for Management (2015)
Land, 4 (1), 83--118 - Cropland/pastureland dynamics and the slowdown of deforestation in Latin America (2015)
Environmental Research Letters, 10 (3) - How do weather and climate influence cropping area and intensity? (2015)
Global Food Security, 4, 46-50 - Improved global cropland data as an essential ingredient for food security (2015)
Global Food Security, 4, 37-45 - Urban agriculture and food security: A critique based on an assessment of urban land constraints (2015)
Global Food Security, 4, 8-15 - Urbanization and the loss of prime farmland: a case study in the Calgary–Edmonton corridor of Alberta (2015)
Regional Environmental Change, 15 (5), 881-893 - Direct human influence on atmospheric CO 2 seasonality from increased cropland productivity (2014)
Nature, 515 (7527), 398-401 - Global crop yield response to extreme heat stress under multiple climate change futures (2014)
Environmental Research Letters, 9 (3) - Global market integration increases likelihood that a future African Green Revolution could increase crop land use and CO2emissions (2014)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111 (38), 13799-13804 - Mapping Asian cropping intensity with MODIS (2014)
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 7 (8), 3373-3379 - Urban agriculture: A global analysis of the space constraint to meet urban vegetable demand (2014)
Environmental Research Letters, 9 (6) - Erratum: Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management (Nature (2012) 490 (254-257) DOI: 10.1038/nature11420) (2013)
Nature, 494 (7437) - Land sparing or land sharing: Context dependent (2013)
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 11 (4) - The need for improved maps of global Cropland (2013)
Eos, 94 (3), 31-32 - Can intensive farming save nature? (2012)
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 10 (9) - Carbon emissions from land use and land-cover change (2012)
Biogeosciences, 9 (12), 5125-5142 - Closing yield gaps through nutrient and water management (2012)
Nature, 490 (7419), 254-257 - Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture (2012)
Nature, 484 (7397), 229-232 - Mapping crop types, irrigated areas, and cropping intensities in heterogeneous landscapes of southern india using multi-temporal medium-resolution imagery: Implications for assessing water use in agriculture (2012)
Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 78 (8), 815-827 - Recent patterns of crop yield growth and stagnation (2012)
Nature Communications, 3 - Agronomic phosphorus imbalances across the world's croplands (2011)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108 (7), 3086-3091 - Climate variability and crop production in Tanzania (2011)
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 151 (4), 449-460 - Climate volatility and poverty vulnerability in Tanzania (2011)
Global Environmental Change, 21 (1), 46-55 - Diagnosing the uncertainty and detectability of emission reductions for REDD + under current capabilities: An example for Panama (2011)
Environmental Research Letters, 6 (2) - Solutions for a cultivated planet (2011)
Nature, 478 (7369), 337-342 - Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000 (2010)
Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19 (5), 589-606 - Characterizing the spatial patterns of global fertilizer application and manure production (2010)
Earth Interactions, 14 (2) - Crop planting dates: An analysis of global patterns (2010)
Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19 (5), 607-620 - Interactions between nitrogen deposition, land cover conversion, and climate change determine the contemporary carbon balance of Europe (2010)
Biogeosciences, 7 (9), 2749-2764 - Mind the gap: How do climate and agricultural management explain the 'yield gap' of croplands around the world? (2010)
Global Ecology and Biogeography, 19 (6), 769-782 - MODIS Collection 5 global land cover: Algorithm refinements and characterization of new datasets (2010)
Remote Sensing of Environment, 114 (1), 168-182 - Prevailing myths about agricultural abandonment and forest regrowth in the United States (2010)
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100 (3), 502-512 - The role of pasture and soybean in deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon (2010)
Environmental Research Letters, 5 (2) - Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s (2010)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107 (38), 16732-16737 - Global agricultural land use data for climate change analysis (2009)
Economic Analysis of Land Use in Global Climate Change Policy, , 33-48 - Producer and consumer responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production - a perspective from the Brazilian Amazon (2009)
Environmental Research Letters, 4 (4) - Carbon payback times for crop-based biofuel expansion in the tropics: The effects of changing yield and technology (2008)
Environmental Research Letters, 3 (3) - Farming the planet: 1. Geographic distribution of global agricultural lands in the year 2000 (2008)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 22 (1) - Farming the planet: 2. Geographic distribution of crop areas, yields, physiological types, and net primary production in the year 2000 (2008)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 22 (1) - Land-use change and global food production (2008)
Land Use and Soil Resources, , 23-40 - Putting people in the map: Anthropogenic biomes of the world (2008)
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 6 (8), 439-447 - Abrupt changes in rainfall during the twentieth century (2007)
Geophysical Research Letters, 34 (6) - Amazonia revealed: Forest degradation and loss of ecosystem goods and services in the Amazon Basin (2007)
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 5 (1), 25-32 - Biogeophysical effects of land use on climate: Model simulations of radiative forcing and large-scale temperature change (2007)
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 142 (2-4), 216-233 - Challenges to estimating carbon emissions from tropical deforestation (2007)
Global Change Biology, 13 (1), 51-66 - From Miami to Madison: Investigating the relationship between climate and terrestrial net primary production (2007)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 21 (3) - Global agricultural land-use data for integrated assessment modeling (2007)
Human-Induced Climate Change: An Interdisciplinary Assessment, , 252-265 - Global trends in visibility: Implications for dust sources (2007)
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 7 (12), 3309-3339 - Modeling the hydrological impact of land-use change in West Africa (2007)
Journal of Hydrology, 337 (3-4), 258-268 - Our share of the planetary pie (2007)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104 (31), 12585-12586 - Biogeophysical effects of historical land cover changes simulated by six Earth system models of intermediate complexity (2006)
Climate Dynamics, 26 (6), 587-600 - Feedbacks between agriculture and climate: An illustration of the potential unintended consequences of human land use activities (2006)
Global and Planetary Change, 54 (1-2), 79-93 - Modeling global and regional net primary production under elevated atmospheric CO2: On a potential source of uncertainty (2006)
Earth Interactions, 10 (2) - Root-water-uptake based upon a new water stress reduction and an asymptotic root distribution function (2006)
Earth Interactions, 10 (14) - A synthesis of information on rapid land-cover change for the period 1981-2000 (2005)
BioScience, 55 (2), 115-124 - Global consequences of land use (2005)
Science, 309 (5734), 570-574 - Investigation of hydrological variability in West Africa using land surface models (2005)
Journal of Climate, 18 (16), 3173-3188 - Trends and variability in U.S. Corn yields over the twentieth century (2005)
Earth Interactions, 9 (1) - Geographic distribution of major crops across the world (2004)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 18 (1) - Land cover change over the last three centuries due to human activities: The availability of new global data sets (2004)
GeoJournal, 61 (4), 335-344 - Reconciling apparent inconsistencies in estimates of terrestrial CO2 sources and sinks (2003)
Tellus, Series B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 55 (2), 345-363 - Evaluation of terrestrial carbon cycle models with atmospheric CO2 measurements: Results from transient simulations considering increasing CO2, climate, and land-use effects (2002)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 16 (4), 39-1 - Long-term variations of climate and carbon fluxes over the Amazon basin (2002)
Geophysical Research Letters, 29 (9), 33-1 - People on the land: Changes in global population and croplands during the 20th century (2002)
Ambio, 31 (3), 251-257 - Physiology on a landscape scale: Plant-animal interactions (2002)
Integrative and Comparative Biology, 42 (3), 431-453 - The global distribution of cultivable lands: Current patterns and sensitivity to possible climate change (2002)
Global Ecology and Biogeography, 11 (5), 377-392 - Carbon balance of the terrestrial biosphere in the twentieth century: Analyses of CO2, climate and land use effects with four process-based ecosytem models (2001)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 15 (1), 183-206 - Global response of terrestrial ecosystem structure and function to CO2 and climate change: Results from six dynamic global vegetation models (2001)
Global Change Biology, 7 (4), 357-373 - Calculating climate effects on birds and mammals: Impacts on biodiversity, conservation, population parameters, and global community structure (2000)
American Zoologist, 40 (4), 597-630 - Temperature oscillations in the north atlantic [1] (multiple letters) (2000)
Science, 289 (5479), 547-548 - Testing the performance of a dynamic global ecosystem model: Water balance, carbon balance, and vegetation structure (2000)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 14 (3), 795-825 - Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992 (1999)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 13 (4), 997-1027 - Estimating historical changes in land cover North American croplands from 1850 to 1992 (1999)
Global Ecology and Biogeography, 8 (5), 381-396 - Characterizing patterns of global land use: An analysis of global croplands data (1998)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 12 (4), 667-685 - An integrated biosphere model of land surface processes, terrestrial carbon balance, and vegetation dynamics (1996)
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 10 (4), 603-628 - Is the recently reported 65- to 70-year surface-temperature oscillation the result of climatic noise? (1995)
Journal of Geophysical Research, 100 (D7) - Is the recently reported 65-and 70-year surface-temperature oscillation the result of climatic noise? (1995)
Journal of Geophysical Research, 100 (D7) - An oscillation in the global climate system of period 65-70 years (1994)
Nature, 367 (6465), 723-726 - Implications for global warming of intercycle solar irradiance variations (1992)
Nature, 360 (6402), 330-333
Current Students & Alumni
This is a small sample of students and/or alumni that have been supervised by this researcher. It is not meant as a comprehensive list.
Membership Status
Member of G+PS
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