"Energy and Land: A Regional Environmental Perspective on the Industrial Revolution"

Fridolin Krausmann is a research fellow and lecturer in the Department of Social Ecology at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Austrian Universities, Vienna. He received a PhD in Ecology from the University of Vienna in 2001 and participated in a two year advanced study program on Culture and the Environment with the Humanities Faculty of the University of Vienna in 1996 and 1997. Since his 1995 master's thesis on the potential contribution and ecological impacts of renewable energy in Austria he has worked on numerous research projects focusing on land use, energy, and the interaction between humans and the environment. With his research he has contributed to the development of methods and tools for monitoring nature-society interactions, including energy and material flow analysis, the ecological footprint, and human appropriation of net primary production. In recent years he expanded his perspective to include historical times and has been studying the transformation of the socioeconomic energy system during the industrial revolution and it's relation to changes in land use and land cover.

While most of his research during the last years has focused on the national and European level, he is currently expanding his view to include the local and regional levels. He uses three Austrian villages in different agro-ecological zones as case studies to analyze and model the land use system in the early 19th and late 20th centuries. He is interested in the sustainability problems of pre-industrial agriculture and changes in the land use system that occurred during the industrialization of agriculture. His research contributes to ongoing discussions in environmental and agricultural history. Among other issues he addresses soil fertility and nutrient management, agricultural productivity, the role of livestock in pre-industrial agriculture and the exploitation of forest resources.

Fridolin Krausmann
Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Austrian Universities
Department of Social Ecology
Schottenfeldgasse 29; A-1070 Vienna, Austria
Tel.: ++43-1-5224000-401
Fax.: ++43-1-5224000-477

E-mail: fridolin.krausmann@univie.ac.at

Public Presentation: "Energy and Land: New Perspectives on the Industrial Revolution"
Tuesday, September 17, 2002 3:00 p.m., Charter Hall 217

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