HNE Eberswalde: Profile of Prof. Dr. Martin Welp

Prof. Dr. Martin Welp

Professorship in Socioeconomics and Communication

Contact
Mail	martin.welp(at)hnee.de
Phone	+49 3334 657-172
Location	Forest Campus \| Alfred-Möller-Straße 1 \| 16225 Eberswalde
Room	10.002
Office Hours	by arrangement
Website	Head of Degree Programme Global Change Management

Teaching area

Research areas

Research projects

2025–2028

SMALLPAK - Innovations for resilient smallholder production sys-tems in Punjab, Pakistan.
Smallholder farmers in Pakistan face a wide range of challenges: low yields, increasing climatic and other environmental stresses, high input prices, and volatile markets. Nevertheless, their needs and vulnerabilities are often neglected in agricultural policy, which prioritizes modernization approaches that primarily benefit larger agricultural holdings and enterprises. National agricultural research primarily focuses on technical innovations and pays limited attention to the specific challenges, perspectives, and local knowledge of smallholder farmers. SMALLPAK addresses this gap in current agricultural research and policy in Pakistan. The aim is to place smallholder agriculture more firmly at the centre and to promote integrative and transdisciplinary perspectives on agricultural and food systems in both research and practice.

2022–2028

KonKoop - Cooperation and Conflict in Eastern Europe: The Consequences of the Reconfiguration of Political, Economic, and Social Spaces since the End of the Cold War
In this project, we look at conflict and cooperation in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War. Nowhere else in the world have there been so many wars of secession – some of them unresolved to this day – and newly founded states. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is the latest shocking example. The research network will examine various conflict constellations and dynamics of cooperation in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Our focus as HNEE is to understand and explain natural resource conflicts with special focus on water.

2022–2024

Lokal Nachhaltig – Ehrenamtliche Kommunalpolitiker*innen als lokale Nachhaltigkeitsakteure
Socially acceptable climate and nature protection must also and above all be implemented at the local level. Therefore, the municipalities have a major task here. However, each municipality has its own individual potentials and obstacles. Therefore, we want to show the multitude of possibilities that help the local people and nature and thus also the global climate. In order to initiate and implement even more sustainable projects, we want to support people active in local politics on their way and learn from them. The findings should then be passed on to other municipalities via our platform.

2021–2025

VEGERA - Improving energy efficiency in the building sector through the use of renewable raw materials from agroforestry systems
The energy supply for building sector accounts for more than half of Uzbekistan’s primary energy consumption. There is great need to increase efficiency through improved insulation of houses and to substitute carbon-intensive building materials with locally available bio-based resources. Based on locally adapted building design, materials, and improved production methods, resource-saving alternatives will be developed that combine both traditional and modern construction using wood, agricultural residues, and clay. To demonstrate the advantages of such building systems we will build a model house in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent.

2019–2024

TRANSECT - Agrarian Transformations and Social-Ecological Complexities (Local Bioeconomy Scenarios in Central and South Asia)
TRANSECT investigates social-ecological effects and interdependencies of agrarian transformations in Central and South Asia. The project investigates how pathways towards a bioeconomy can be shaped in a more socially just and ecologically sustainable manner. With case studies in Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan, the research focuses on a region that has been subjected to vast agricultural interventions. Moreover, the growth of China’s bioeconomy sector and the progress of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ are expected to shape future agricultural developments in the region. The project provides in-depth analyses of local effects, opportunities, and risks of agricultural intensification and other transformation pathways. Furthermore, a practice-oriented and integrative methodology of analysis, scenario development and management of bioeconomic transformation processes will be developed.

2019–2022

OekoFlussPlan - Preservation of selected Ecosystem Services in the Riparian Areas of the Naryn River (Kyrgyzstan)
The overall goal of ÖkoFlussPlan is to preserve the alluvial forests along the Naryn River in Kyrgyzstan and to offer and implement sustainable solutions for the local population. For this purpose, the condition of the alluvial forests are being analysed in order to identify areas particularly worth protecting. In order to reduce utilisation pressure, alternatives are also being systematically developed for harvesting wood from alluvial forests.

2017–2019

eAgroforestry - Food security and livelihood improvement through agroforestry
Agroforestry systems have huge potential to increase food security and add additional income to rural communities, while reducing soil erosion and other land degradation. This applies also for the three partner countries of this project – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Against this background, the project had five main objectives: (1) Compile the knowledge from literature about the major agroforestry systems of Central Asia, which includes their development, positive and negative effects on yields, income, and resilience; (2) Investigate the products, their yields, value chains, and current as well as potential income from the main agroforestry tree species; (3) explore potential local and regional value chains based on wood and other products form those agroforestry systems; (4) investigate yields and income from major crops and livestock from inside versus outside of agroforestry systems; (5) investigate the perspective of land users on agroforestry

2016–2017

EcoCAR - Ecosystem Assessment and Capacity Building for Sustainable Management of Floodplains along the Central Asian Rivers Tarim (Xinjiang/China) and Naryn (Kyrgyzstan)
The project started and developed methods for the terrestrial and remotely sensed monitoring of riparian ecosystems and its most important stress indicators in two selected investigation areas at the Tarim (Xinjiang) and the Naryn (Kyrgyzstan). Based on this the potential of providing certain ecosystem services was predicted and suggestions for sustainable land use given. A special focus was on the integration and networking with and among local scientists, decision makers and students to build up the necessary capacities to use the methods developed within this project.

2015–2016

CDKN – Exploring innovative ways of financing for climate compatible development in Asian cities.
Research partners Germanwatch, the Vasudha Foundation, the Institute for Essential Service Reform, the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities and Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development assessed the climate finance needs and gaps for climate compatible development in second-tier cities across three countries; India, Indonesia and The Philippines. The team explored how current opportunities can be harnessed to meet the climate finance needs. Based on this assessment, the project developed recommendations for how funding from the Global Climate Fund (GCF) and other sources can be more accessible to cities, for example through the creation of Urban Implementing Entities. Or how funding can be used in order to incentivise the deployment of national or sub-national resources such as revenues from fees, local taxes or municipal bonds for urban climate compatible development projects.

2011–2015

SuMaRiO - Sustainable Management of River Oasis along the Tarim River /China
Our research aimed at a better understanding the role of urban and peri-urban vegetation in the socio-environmental systems of selected oasis cities. We conducted an ex-post analysis of the peri-urban Kökyar-Shelterbelt project in Aksu focusing on institutional and economic dimensions. These insights were combined with empirical results from a socioeconomic survey, semi-structured interviews and several stakeholder dialogues.

Academic career

2015–2027

Research Professorship

since 2006

Professorship in Socioeconomics and Communication

2000–2006

Senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Department of Global Change & Social Systems. Founding member and contact person of European Climate Forum (later renamed to Global Climate Forum)

1999–2000

Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Technology at the Darmstadt University of Technology.

Project work a.o. at the Cooperation and Consultancy Point for Environmental Questions (Technical University Berlin), European Forest Institute (Joensuu, Finland), Service Centre for Development Cooperation (Helsinki) and Coalition for Environment and
Development (Helsinki).

1998

Doctoral Thesis at the Technical University Berlin, Institute for Management in Environmental Planning. Funded by the Academy of Finland and the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation.

1993

Masters Degree at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, Department of Land Use Economics.