Research and teaching at the Chair focus on the application of economic knowledge to problems of environmental and resource management, in particular the preservation of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. Methods and approaches include, among others, ecological-economic modelling, the development of decision support software, as well as stakeholder interviews and choice experiments.

Dear Students, if you are interested in writing a Bachelor- or Masterthesis at our chair, you can now find a list of possible thesis topics at our homepage. You are also invited to discuss a topic of your choice with us. In case of further interest, please contact us during consultation hours.

Prof. Wätzold's next office hours: Tuesday, 29.4.25, 3.15 - 4.15 pm. Please contact Regina Kirsche (regina.kirsche(at)b-tu.de).

Just for clarification - you need to keep to the deadline and submit to the responsible office (not MY office). Make sure you follow all formal regulations, otherwise you will automatically fail.

• Publication: Menares-Barraza, E., Markova-Nenova, N., Sturm, A., Wätzold, F., & Birkhofer, K. Cost-Effective Conservation of Multiple Goals in Grasslands: Synergies and Trade-Offs. Available at SSRN 5206712.
• Publication: Cord, Anna F., Kevin Darras, Ryo Ogawa, Luc Barbaro, Charlotte Gerling, Maria Kernecker, Nonka Markova-Nenova, Gabriela Rodriguez-Barrera, Felix Zichner, and Frank Wätzold. (2025). Leveraging Passive Acoustic Monitoring for Result-Based Agri-Environmental Schemes: Opportunities, Challenges and next Steps. Biological Conservation 305:111042. ( Link)
• Publication: C. Gerling, M. Drechsler, K. Kadir, B. Kahlau, K. Keuler,  J. Leins, A. Sturm, F. Wätzold (2025): ClimeHop: An interactive app for teaching cost-effective biodiversity conservation under climate change. The Journal of Economic Education, 1-2.
• Publication: C. Gerling, M. Drechsler, K. Keuler, J. Leins, B. Schulz, A. Sturm, F. Wätzold (2025): Effektivität und Kosteneffizienz von Artenschutzmaßnahmen unter Klimawandel - das Beispiel der Sumpfschrecke (Stethophyma grossum) in Schleswig-Holstein. Natur und Landschaft, 100(1): 2-8. (Link)
• Publication: Hagemann, N., Gerling, C., Hölting, L., Kernecker, M., Markova-Nenova, N.N., Wätzold, F., Wendler, J., Cord, A.F. 2025. Improving result-based schemes for nature conservation in agricultural landscapes—challenges and best practices from selected European countries. Regional Environmental Change, 25(12). (Link) 
• Working Paper: Gerling, C., Wätzold, F. 2024. Citizens Support Expansion of Ground-Mounted Photovoltaics for Climate Mitigation, But Local Benefits for Biodiversity and People Matter. (Link) 
• Presentation: "Cost-effective biodiversity conservation under climate change" at "QARESS Symposium 2024" (Quantitative resilience-based management and sustainability for social-ecological systems) in Montpellier, France (3.12.24)
• Presentation: "Modelling policies for biodiversity conservation under climate change" at the seminar of Miguel Araújo's lab (26.11.24)
• Publication: Gerling, C., Drechsler, M.,  Leins, J., Sturm, A., Wätzold, F. 2025. Cost-effective policy instruments for biodiversity conservation under climate change – The need for flexibility. Ecological Economics, 227:108414. Link
• Publication: C. Gerling. 2024.  Biodiversität und Klimawandel. Mehr Flexibilität und Effizienz beim Artenschutz. Impulse Spezial. Link
• Publication: C. Gerling, O. Schöttker, J. Hearne (2024): The ‘Climate Adaptation Problem’ in Biodiversity Conservation: The Value of Spatial Flexibility in Land Purchase. Environmental and Resource Economics (Link:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10640-024-00932-4)
• Research Price: Charlotte Gerling received the Roman Herzog Research Award Social Market Economy (2nd place), endowed with €10,000, for her dissertation.
• Forschungspreis: Charlotte Gerling received the prize for the best dissertation of BTU 2023.
• Publication: Hütt, C., Isselstein, J., Komainda, M., Schöttker, O., Sturm, A. (2024): UAV LiDAR-based grassland biomass estimation for precision livestock management. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing 18 (1), 017502-017502. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.18.017502
• Preprint: Charlotte Gerling, Anna Bartczak, and Nick Hanley: Accounting for Risk in Species Conservation Programmes. Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4760451
• Paper and Conference Presentation: Schöttker, O., Sturm A., Wätzold, F. (2024): Virtuelles Zäunen und ökologische Wirkungen von Weidebewirtschaftung: Prototyp einer App zur Information der Öffentlichkeit. In C. Hoffmann et al. (2024): Biodiversität fördern durch digitale Landwirtschaft, Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI), Gesellschaft für Informatik, Bonn, 2024, pp. 401-405. (Link)
• Paper: Hecker, L.P., Sturm, A., Querhammer, L., Wätzold, F. (2024): Cost-effectiveness of state-dependent versus state-independent agri-environment schemes for biodiversity conservation, Ecological Economics 127, 108088. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.108088
• Paper accepted ElDidi, H. and De Petris, C. et al. (2024): "Getting Ahead of the Game: Experiential learning for groundwater governance in Ethiopia". International Journal of the Commons, 18(1), pp. 66–81. (Link)
• Working Paper: Sturm, A., Schöttker, O., Kadir, K., Wätzold, F. (2024): SMIBe–Konzept eines softwarebasiertes Mehrebenen-Informationssystem für Behörden zur digitalen Erfassung und Evaluierung von beweidungsbezogenen AUKM. MPRA Paper No. 119741. (Link)
• Poster presentation by Charlotte Gerling on the topic „Economics of climate adaptation for biodiversity conservation" at the status conference of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation on "Biodiversity and climate change - exploring synergies" in Berlin on the 7th of December, 2023.
• Workshop Presentation: Ahmed Shaqfa presented the topic "Cost-Benefit Analysis of Rangelands Restoration in Jordan: The Role of Using the Contour Ridge Method under Climate Change" at the international, DAAD-funded workshop "Nature-based Solutions for Landscape Restoration" (22.11.2023)

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