Lucas Alencar

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Bio

I graduated in Biological Sciences with an emphasis on Environmental Sciences at the Federal University of Pernambuco. I completed my Master’s Degree in Ecology at the National Institute of Amazonian Research, working with landscape ecology and deforestation patterns in the Amazon. I am interested in the areas of socioecology, landscape ecology, land use and land cover and sustainability. I am also interested in using tools such as R and geotechnologies. I’m currently doing my PhD at the Federal University of Pernambuco and working with land use and sustainability in the Caatinga. I am also a producer and commentator for the LaboratoryFM science education and dissemination program

Current research

• Sustainability and Development

In one of the chapters of my thesis I’m investigating the role of forest to promote socioeconomic development in municipalities at Caatinga Dry Forest, in the North-east of Brazil. Using longitudinal and cross-sectional analysis and a quasi-experimental approach, I could identify a quadratic relationship between forest cover and many development indices. Check some results below! It shows that municipalities with intermediate forest cover had better development indices than municipalities with extreme levels.

• Water-Energy-Food Nexus

In this research theme, we developed a food security index based on PCA approach and evaluated how it evolves over time in relation to forest cover. This result is already submitted to Land Use Policy and is another chapter of my thesis. It seems that food security also has a quadratic relationship with forest cover and that this relationship strengthened over time! I also produced a book chapter, with my supervisors and a colleague, showing how forests can affect water, energy and food security in Caatinga. This chapter will be published in a book about the Nexus research in Brazil by the Portal de Livros Abertos da USP.

• Land sciences

I’ve been working with land cover change since my mastery, but currently, I’m producing a paper with Adriana Manhães and other colleagues about the land structure of Caatinga and how to socially-just restore some million hectares of native vegetation for rural properties to comply with the Brazilian forest law.

Selected results

Panels a to f show the relationship between the percentage of native vegetation cover (NVC) and selected socioal-economic indicators for 1209 municipalities of the the Brazilian Caatinga biome

Food security respond to forest cover in a boom and bust pattern where insecurity is higher in both low and high deforeted areas