A01 – RurbanAgroforestry: Effects of tree-based agriculture on ecosystem services supply, distribution, and access in a rurban environment

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Tobias Plieninger; Professor Dr. Michael Wachendorf; Dr. Jayan Wijesingha, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Ecology of Land Use
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 548312187

Project A01 aims to investigate the potential of tree-based agriculture to promote sustainable rurbanity in urbanising regions of Morocco, serving as a social-ecological model system. By combining biophysical and sociocultural data at various scales, the project aims to provide a novel understanding of the impact of tree-based agricultural development on ecosystem service supply, distribution, and access, and its contribution to the formation of rurbanity. Furthermore, the project seeks to examine how tree-based agriculture has transformed the rurban landscape using remote sensing and field-level data. The project intends to develop a more comprehensive conceptualisation of multifunctional agricultural landscapes in rurban environments through this analysis of the social-ecological context and spatial-temporal dynamics. The project will begin by identifying and mapping the social-ecological systems of rapidly transitioning tree-based agriculture in ruban contexts. The project will then monitor changes in rurban land use and land cover from 2005 to the present, exploring the links between these spatio-temporal dynamics and social-ecological factors. Finally, the project will quantify a range of ecosystem services provided by different arrangements of tree-based agriculture to local stakeholders, covering monospecific as well as diverse agroforestry systems, and considering factors such as gender, economic status, and other intersectional aspects of ecosystem service management.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5903: Sustainable Rurbanity - Resources, Society, and Regulatory Systems
• International Connection: Morocco
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Andreas Christian Braun
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Kenza Ait El Kadi; Professor Dr. Taha Lahrech