Prof Richard Aspinall

Professor Richard Aspinall joined the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in September 2006 from Arizona State University where he held the position of Professor and Chair of the School of Geographical Sciences from 2004.

Professor Aspinall previously worked at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute between 1987 and 1997 on a wide variety of land use topics.

Research Interests

Professor Aspinall's research addresses the interdisciplinary aspects of land use and related change - particularly in rural areas - and set within the context of sustainable development. This has included a particular focus on an understanding of coupled natural and human systems. The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute is the largest organisation in Europe undertaking interdisciplinary research of this type.

His research interests are in environmental geography, land use systems, landscape ecology, GISystems and GIScience, remote sensing, and quantitative geography and he is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Land Project (GLP).

Richard's highlighted publications

• Cost effective solutions for climate change mitigation, adaptation and long-term sustainability: the ecosystems approach., Munang, R.M.; Rivington, M.; Aspinall, R.; Liu, J., (2009) UN General Assembly, New York, 22nd September 2009; United Nations Environmental Programme Brief, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Seventh and Eighth Sessions of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Co-operative Action (AWG-LCA); 15th Conference of the Parties Meeting, Copenhagen.

• Climate change and ecosystem management: the "Win-Win-Win" link between mitigation, adaptation and sustainability., Munang, R.M.; Rivington, M.; Aspinall, R.; Smith, P.; Liu, J.; Thiaw, I., (2009) UN General Assembly, New York, 22nd September 2009; United Nations Environmental Programme Brief, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Seventh and Eighth Sessions of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Co-operative Action (AWG-LCA); 15th Conference of the Parties Meeting, Copenhagen.

• United Nations Environmental Programme - Climate change and ecosystem management: the "Win-Win-Win" link between mitigation, adaptation and sustainability. A scoping paper., Munang, R.M.; Rivington, M.; Aspinall, R.; Smith, P.; Liu, J.; Thiaw, I., (2009) UN General Assembly, New York, 22nd September 2009; United Nations Environmental Programme Brief, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Seventh and Eighth Sessions of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Co-operative Action (AWG-LCA); 15th Conference of the Parties Meeting, Copenhagen.

Richard's most recent publications

• Modelling biodiversity in landscape: habitat modelling., Aspinall, R., (2010) International Conference on Integrative Landscape Modelling (LANDMOD2010), Montpellier, France, 2-5 February 2010.

• Challenges for environmental modeling., Aspinall, R., (2009) In: Representing, Modeling, and Visualizing the Natural Environment, GISRUK 2007 Conference, Maynooth, Ireland. Innovations in GIS Series, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, pp137-146.

• Global Land Project: Major scientific questions for coupled modeling of land systems., Aspinall, R., (2009) In: NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Regional Aspects of Climate-Terrestrial-Hydrologic Interactions in Non-boreal Eastern Europe, Odessa, UKRAINE, 23-28 August 2008. Nato Science for Peace and Security Series C - Environmental Security, Springer, pp135-142.

• Lessons learned and prospects for agent-based modelling of land use effects on ecosystem processes and services., Aspinall, R.; Polhill, G., (2009) GLP Symposium on Agent Based Modelling of Land Use Effects on Ecosystem Processes and Services, US-IALE Symposium, Snowbird, Utah, 12-16 April 2009.

• Calculations on the back of a climate envelope: addressing the geography of species distributions., Aspinall, R.J.; Miller, J.A.; Franklin, J., (2009) Letter to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the paper: Beale, C., Lennon, J. and Gimona, A. (2008) Opening the climate envelope reveals no macroscale associations with climate in European birds. PNAS, 105, 14908-14912.

• Necessary but not sufficient: Tools for analysing multi-scale integrated eco-social systems., Blackstock, K.L.; Matthews, K.M.; Buchan, K.; Miller, D.G.; Aspinall, R.; Rivington, M., (2009) World IMACS / MODSIM Congress, 18th, Cairns, Australia, 13-17 July 2009.

• Changing land use in rural Scotland - drivers and decision makers., Miller, D.R.; Schwarz, G.; Sutherland, L.A.; Morrice, J.; Aspinall, R.; Barnes, A.; Blackstock, K.L.; Buchan, K.; Donnelly, D.; Hawes, C.; McCrum, G.; McKenzie, B.; Matthews, K.; Miller, D.; Renwick, A.; Smith, M.; Squire, G.; Toma, L., (2009) Rural Land Use Study Project 1. Scottish Government Social Research.

• Rural land use study 1: Drivers and decision-making., Miller, D.R.; Schwarz, G.; Sutherland, L.A.; Morrice, J.G.; Aspinall, R.J.; Barnes, A.; Blackstock, K.L.; Buchan, K.; Donnelly, D.; Hawes, C.; McCrum, G.; Matthews, K.; Miller, D.; Renwick, A.; Smith, M.; Squire, G.;Toma, L., (2009) Research Findings No.8. RERAD, Scottish Government, November 2009, pp4.

• Rural land use study 1: Drivers and decision-making., Miller, D.R.; Schwarz, G.; Sutherland, L.A.; Morrice, J.G.; Aspinall, R.J.; Barnes, A.; Blackstock, K.L.; Buchan, K.; Donnelly, D.; Hawes, C.; McCrum, G.; Mckenzie, B.; Matthews, K.; Miller, D.; Renwick, A.; Smith, M.; Squire, G.; Toma, L., (2009) Final Report, RERAD, Scottish Government, November 2009, pp156.

• Integrated modelling of natural and social systems in land change science PREFACE., Milne, E.; Aspinall, R.J.; Veldkamp,T.A., (2009) Landscape Ecology, 24, 1145-1147.