Brian E Robinson

Associate Professor

McGill University

REaL Lab

Robinson Ecosystems & Livelihoods Lab

Our group investigates how people meet their needs through use of ecosystems and natural resources, and how policy and land rights mediate this relationship. The group is led by Brian E Robinson, an associate professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University, and a member of the Bieler School on the Environment. Our research methods draw from environmental and development economics, ecology, development geography, and geographic information sciences to answer policy-relevant questions.

For practicing inclusive science in the lab, see here.

For more details on Brian, see his CV here.

Interests

land systems
ecosystem services
policy evaluation
international development
spatial analysis

Education

PhD in Environment & Resources, 2011
University of Wisconsin-Madison
MEng in Water Resources, 2005
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MCP in Environmental Policy & Planning, 2005
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BSc in Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, 1999
Georgia Tech

The team

Graduate students

Gaëlle Mével

MSc student

Holly Cronin

PhD student

Xiang Zhang

PhD student

Yiyi Zhang

PhD student

Alumni

Alicia Cavanaugh

Analyst, National Institutes of Health (former postdoc)

Geoff J Wells

Senior Analyst, Dept of Industry, Science and Resources (AUS) (former postdoc)

Jesse Rieb

Data Scientist with NGA (former postdoc)

Luci Lu

Post doc at Jornada Experimental Range (former PhD student)

Marie C Dade

Lecturer in Urban Greening at U Melbourne (former postdoc)

Paola Fajardo

PhD student at University of Oxford (former RA)

Projects

Click a topic to also see past projects

ResNet: Sustainable & Resilient Ecosystems for Canada

ResNet’s mission is to support Canada’s capacity to monitor, model, and manage its working landscapes for the long-term shared health, prosperity and resilience for all Canadians through community-engaged research. My group is integrating communities into models to better account for how ecosystem service flows are captured by human beneficiaries on the landscape.

ResNet: Sustainable & Resilient Ecosystems for Canada

Sustainable Landscapes (MSSI)

Landscapes connect communities to the natural capital needed for the sustainable provision of ecosystem services like food, energy, clean water, and regulation of key processes like floods and climate. With support from the McGill Sustainability Systems Initiative, a community of researchers from across the social and natural sciences around landscape sustainability, as well as the next generation of student researchers, engaged stakeholders locally and nationally through a knowledge-to-action approaches linking science, engineering, and decision-making.

Sustainable Landscapes (MSSI)

Beijing Household Energy Transitions

The BHET project is assessing the health, environmental, and welfare impacts of a large-scale energy transition policy in peri-urban Beijing. Using the quasi-random rollout of this policy throughout villages in Beijing municipality, we are collecting detailed data on changes in household heating behavior, energy expenditures, indoor & outdoor air quality, air exposure, and other health metrics in over 1000 households in 50 villages over 4 years.

Beijing Household Energy Transitions

Natural Climate Solutions + Co-benefits

Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) are changes in land systems that primarily aim to mitigate climate change. NCS include wide range of practices & actions that sometimes correlate with other things society cares about - like biodiversity conservation or human well-being. To better direct policy and guide action on where and how to implement NCS, and in close collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, this project asks: How do various NCS pathways impact aspects of human well-being, biodiversity, and the environment?

Natural Climate Solutions + Co-benefits

Pathways to Equitable Healthy Cities

Pathways to equitable healthy cities is a global partnership that aims to improve population health, enhance health equity and ensure environmental sustainability in cities around the world through co-production of rigorous evidence with policy and civil society partners in cities in five countries. We use diverse data sources, especially emerging open and big data, and novel methods for data integration and visualisation to characterise cities dynamic social, physical and natural environments, people’s experiences of these environments, and their health.

Pathways to Equitable Healthy Cities

Grasslands & locust outbreaks

This project investigates feedbacks among locusts, livestock, nutrients and people. Current fieldwork focuses on understanding these relationships in Senegal, building on past work in China and Australia. We are investigating two overarching questions: (1) How do insect-nutrient relations and livestock grazing strategies interact to affect food security, and rangeland degradation? (2) How do property rights regimes affect the adaptive capacity of societies to respond to the linkages between overgrazing and locust outbreaks?

Grasslands & locust outbreaks

Ecosystem Service Dependency and Vulnerability

This project developed our understanding of the links between human welfare and ecosystem services by tracing rural welfare dependencies back to local ecosystems and land uses. We developed methods for capturing these dependencies through household surveys, land use data, and models of ecosystem service flows. Our primary collaborating partners were the Chinese Academy of Science and the Natural Capital Project.

Ecosystem Service Dependency and Vulnerability

Recent Publications

Ehsan Pashanejad, Ali Kharrazi, Zuelclady MF Araujo-Gutierrez, Brian E Robinson, Brian D Fath, Lael Parrott (2024). A functional connectivity approach for exploring interactions of multiple ecosystem services in the context of agricultural landscapes in the Canadian prairies. Ecosystem Services.

Charlotte H Chang, James T Erbaugh, Paola Fajardo, Luci Lu, István Molnár, Dávid Papp, Brian E Robinson, Kemen Austin, Susan Cook-Patton, Timm Kroeger, Others (2024). A global evidence map of human well-being and biodiversity co-benefits and trade-offs of natural climate solutions. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.00079.

Alicia Cavanaugh, Honor R Bixby, Saeesh Mangwani, Samuel Agyei-Mensah, Cynthia Azochiman Awuni, Jill C Baumgartner, George Owusu, Brian E Robinson (2024). From consumption to context: assessing poverty and inequality across diverse socio-ecological systems in Ghana. Environmental Research Communications.

Mira Word Ries, Chris Adriaansen, Shoki Aldobai, Kevin Berry, Amadou Bocar Bal, Maria Cecilia Catenaccio, Maria Marta Cigliano, Darron a Cullen, Ted Deveson, Aliou Diongue, Others (2024). Global perspectives and transdisciplinary opportunities for locust and grasshopper pest management and research.

See all publications

Contact

brian.e.robinson[AT]mcgill.ca
805 Sherbrooke St West, Montreal, QC H3A 0B9