08/12/2025 - Edna Johanna Molina Bacca successfully defended her thesis: “The Role of Land and Natural Resources in Adapting Crop Production to Global Change.”
Edna successfully defended her doctoral thesis in Agricultural Sciences, in which she investigated how climate and socioeconomic change shape adaptation, adaptive capacity, and land-use dynamics in global crop production systems on different resolutions, under uncertainty, and different future development pathways.
Using the Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment (MAgPIE), Edna assessed the long-term impacts of climate change and socioeconomic development on cropland area, technological needs, land use, and management practices across a range of socioeconomic and climate scenarios. Her work highlights how rising greenhouse gas emissions and increasing agricultural demand amplify uncertainty in crop productivity and land-use responses, while intensifying pressure on water, soil, and other natural resources, particularly in regions already exposed to frequent extreme events.
Overall, her findings emphasize that agricultural adaptation is not only about intensification or technological change but also about sustainable natural resource management. By explicitly integrating natural resources as a dimension of adaptive capacity, Edna’s research provides important insights for conceiving resilient and environmentally sustainable agricultural systems under global change.
Publications:
- Molina Bacca, E. J., Stevanović, M., Bodirsky, B. L., Karstens, K., Chen, D. M.-C., Leip, D., Müller, C., Minoli, S., Heinke, J., Jägermeyr, J., Folberth, C., Iizumi, T., Jain, A. K., Liu, W., Okada, M., Smerald, A., Zabel, F., Lotze-Campen, H., & Popp, A. (2023).
Uncertainty in land-use adaptation persists despite crop model projections showing lower impacts under high warming. Communications Earth & Environment, 4, Article 284.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00941-z - Molina Bacca, E. J., Stevanović, M., Bodirsky, B. L., Doelman, J. C., Parsons Chini, L., Volkholz, J., Frieler, K., Reyer, C., Hurtt, G., Humpenöder, F., Karstens, K., Heinke, J., Müller, C., Dietrich, J. P., Lotze-Campen, H., Stehfest, E., & Popp, A. (2025).
Future land-use pattern projections and their differences within the ISIMIP3b framework. Earth System Dynamics, 16(3), 753–801.
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-753-2025 - Molina Bacca, E. J., Stevanović, M., Bodirsky, B. L., von Jeetze, P., Gloy, N., Beier, F., Karstens, K., Biess, B., Windisch, M., Heinke, J., Dietrich, J. P., Lotze-Campen, H., & Popp, A. (Under review).
Natural Resources as a Dimension of Adaptive Capacity Across Global Crop Production Areas. Manuscript in preparation, Submitted to One Earth.
