Patrick’s doctoral research has focused on extending the global land-system modelling framework MAgPIE (Model of Agricultural Production and its Impacts on the Environment) to assess how global land-system transformations affect the biosphere at a high level of detail.
A key component has been the coupling of MAgPIE with the Spatial Economic Allocation Landscape Simulator (SEALS) to derive fine-scale changes in pollination sufficiency and soil erosion, as well as area of habitat (AOH) changes across more than 27,000 vertebrate species at a high spatial and thematic resolution. Using this integrated land-system modelling framework, he quantified co-benefits and trade-offs of various land-system interventions across various facets of biosphere change, for example, by providing a nuanced assessment of how large-scale afforestation/reforestation for climate mitigation affects species that prefer forest, open, or mixed habitats.
The thesis provides important insights into the fundamental role of policy integration and targeted conservation planning at the global scale in reducing trade-offs between competing sustainability goals. It also emphasises that land-system transformations act differently upon various facets of the biosphere and highlights the need for dynamic and detailed modelling approaches to capture important non-linearities and specific components of biosphere change.
