Research

Research Interests

My research interests lie in the application of economic and engineering tools to support decision-making related to environmental problems and the reduction of human environmental impacts. Some examples are biodiversity conservation, land-use change, forestry, and climate change. Because of the nature of the problems I am interested in, interdisciplinarity is necessary to improve proposed solutions and even to understand the problems we intend to tackle. I am interested in collaborations and interdisciplinary research. Some examples of the tools I work with are detailed next.

Optimization

I am interested in using optimization models where the objective function goes beyond maximizing profits or minimizing financial costs. I am interested in questions where the objective considers biodiversity and the environmental impacts of our decisions. This includes optimal reserve selection, forestry models, and land use allocation where biodiversity impacts are considered, among others. I use linear programming (LP), non-linear programming (NLP), multiobjective optimization, among others.

Also, I am interested in improving how uncertainty is modeled and managed in these optimization models.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool to assess the environmental impacts of products and services. I am interested in both the application and the improvement of the tool.

I have worked with both process-based LCA and Input-Output LCA (also called EEIO) to assess environmental impacts of biofuels and biochemicals.

Economics

Environmental problems are always framed in our economic system. Because if this reason, it is necessary and useful to incorporate economic tools and economic modeling. I am interested in the integration of economic and ecologic models, and economic and optimization models. Examples of this are Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) used in climate change policy, integration of partial and general equilibrium models with biodiversity models, forestry models, and the General Equilibrium Ecosystems Model (GEEM).

Also, I am interested in using empirical approaches, such as econometrics, that are data-driven and complement the prospective approaches.

*Photos taken by me in my beautiful country Colombia.

Publications

Azuero-Pedraza, C. G., & Thomas, V. M. (2024). Incorporating biodiversity impacts in land use decisions. Ecological Modelling, 497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2024.110852

Azuero-Pedraza, C. G., Lauri, P., Lessa-Derci-Augustynczik, A., & Thomas, V. M. (2024). Managing forests for biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Environmental Science & Technology, 58, 9175-9186. doi:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c07163

Azuero-Pedraza, C. G., Thomas, V. M., & Ingwersen, W. W. (2022). Incorporating New Technologies in EEIO Models. Applied Sciences, 12(14). https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/14/7016

Work in Progress

Azuero-Pedraza, C.G. , Mansi, G., Drouet, L. Improving the representation of biodiversity in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). [Preprint available]

Azuero-Pedraza, C.G. & Thomas, V.M. Insights on where to produce biomass for bioenergy considering biodiversity.

Aleluia, L., Azuero-Pedraza, C.G., Drouet, L., Rodriguez-Pardo, C. Wetland restoration as a CDR technology. Methane emissions, carbon sequestration and biodiversity.

Gomez-Mahecha, J.A., Azuero-Pedraza, C.G. The cost of excluding coal from a carbon tax: The Colombian case.

On the news

Blog article about my research project "Integrating biodiversity conservation into forest management decisions" at the YSSP program at IIASA.

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