Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences

Research - Environmental Sciences

The research program of Environmental Sciences is designed to serve policy applications. The ultimate goal of environmental policy is to protect life processes in ecosystems, hence also promoting human well- being. Biological and, in particular, ecological research has a primary role in identifying vulnerable processes in nature. In addition, environmental policy must cope with economic and social realities, technological opportunities and culture-dependent priorities, even take into consideration international and national politics. This calls for inter-disciplinary research. Methodologies of such applied research in Environmental Sciences can be less demanding than those used in basic science. However, history of areas such as remote sensing describes cases where novel and sophisticated methodologies have been needed in order to solve practical problems. It is essential in environmental research to define the research problem in an ambitious and fruitful way. In this respect our science is no different from other devoted research.

Professor Pekka Kauppi and docent Anja Nygren

• Natural Resource Management and Local Livelihoods in Central America
  This research project analyzes the social, political, economic and ecological dynamis that affect natural natural resource management and local livelihood strategies in Central America. >> Read more and prof. Kauppi Webpage

Professor Pekka Kauppi and PhD Päivi Tikka

• Incentive methods for protecting private lands
  This project deals with nature conservation incentive policies on private lands, concentrating on their ecological and social effects.
  >> Read more and prof. Kauppi Webpage

Professori Pekka Kauppi, Ph.D. Audrey Mayer, FT Päivi Tikka, FM Leena Vihermaa & FT Tarmo Virtanen

• Testing the "boomerang hypothesis": The effects of wood harvests in northwest Russia on species abundance in Finland.
  

Dr. D. Johan Kotze, Dr. S. Lehvävirta and MA Christopher Stevens

• Urban Nature: the Aesthetic, Recreational and Ecological Aspects of Urban Greenspace Biodiversity
  This research consortium marries disciplines of aesthetics, psychology and ecology for the management and planning of urban greenspace, and consists of a philosophical and theoretical part, and an empirical and applied part. >> Read more

University Lecturer Martin Lodenius

• Heavy metals in the environment
  The project aims at studying heavy metals in the environment including emissions, spreading and biomonitoring, mobility in soil, uptake mechanisms and bioaccumulation and health risks. >> Read more
• Waste Prevention as business
  The aim of this project is to find out whether and on what conditions the Energy Savings Company concept could be used in producing waste prevention services to companies, particularly in paper and food industries. >> Read more

University Lecturer Sirkku Manninen

• APE (Air Pollution and Ecosystems group)
  We study structural and functional responses of northern European terrestrial ecosystems to air pollutants under the changing climate. >> Read more

Professor Jari Niemelä

• Urban Ecology
  The research focuses on various issues of urban ecology. Also biodiversity and conservation biology including the tropics (Madagascar) is addressed. >> Read more

Docent Petri Tapio

• The future of transport and environmental policy
  johdanto >> Read more

Docent Heikki Tervahattu

• Composition and origins of atmospheric aerosol particles
  The objective of studies is to produce new knowledge about the sources and composition of particulate air pollutants in order to improve air quality. >> Read more

PhD Päivi Tikka and PhD Ilmo Massa

• Nature Protection as Voluntary and Participatory Process
  johdanto >> Read more

MSc Vilja Varho

• Wind power policy and the future of wind power in Finland
  I study how Finnish wind power policy has been formed and what changes to this policy seem to be emerging, by analysing views of wind power policy actors, and the factors influencing these views. >> Read more

University Lecturer Tarmo Virtanen

• CARBO-North: Quantifying the carbon budget in Northern Russia
  CARBO-North aims at quantifying the carbon budget in Northern Russia across
  temporal and spatial scales. >> Read more: Tarmo Virtanen homepage and http://www.carbonorth.net/
  

D.Sc., Lic.Phil. Heinz-Rudolf Voigt

• Harmful substanses, a.o. heavy metals, and their effects upon the biota of the Baltic Sea (as benthofauna and fishes). Present prejects deal with a.o. concentrations of cadmium in flounder from Åland, heavy metal concentrations in the isopod Saduria entomon and its predator the four-horn sculpin in Finnish and Estonian marine waters, the condition and heavy metal concentrations of the eelpout from Finnish, Estonian and Latvian coastal waters, the health condition of the Baltic smelt, and the concentrations of mercury in costal fishes around the Baltic Sea (monitoring begun already in the late 1960:s). >> Read more