Alessandro Gimona

Senior Landscape Scientist
Information and Computational Sciences
T: +44 (0)344 928 5428 (*)
Alessandro is a senior Landscape Scientist. A spatial  ecologist and a geographer,  he has experience of both terrestrial and aquatic systems. He uses mechanistic and statistical modelling, as well as GIS and remote sensing technology, to answer research questions. Alessandro's research is about assessing the consequences of land use and climate change ### Active projects are on transformative land use change for #net zero, multiple landscape benefits and trade-offs, remote sensing of peatlands condition, mapping of key ecosystem services, and the development of interactive tools that facilitate decision and participation by experts and non experts. ### Interests: #EcosystemServices, #DigitalSoilMapping, #Forest carbon- #EO, #SpeciesDistributions, #Earth Observation, #LandUseChange, #SpatialPlanning, #Agent-Based Models ## For further updates and full publication list please see Alessandro's page on ResearchGate.

Research

Alessandro interests comprise:

  • Land use change scenarios
  • The spatial distribution of ecosystem services
  • GHG emissions from ecosystems
  • Digital soil mapping
  • Spatial planning for multi-functional landscapes
  • Species distribution at the continental, landscape
  • The interactions between climate change and landscape change
  • Interactive web tools for stakeholders engagement

Research methods comprise statistical and mechanistic spatial models and the use of GIS and remote sensing technology.

Publications

The following Publications have not yet been migrated to the James Hutton Institute's Pure service and relate to the research outputs from the two legacy organisations: The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute and The Scottish Crop Research Institute.

Journals

Books / chapters

  • Brown, I.; Poggio, L.; Gimona, A.; Castellazzi, M.S. (2011) Land capability classification to plan for a changing climate., In: Toth, G. & Nemeth, T. (eds.). Land Quality and Land Use Information – in the European Union. EUR – Scientific and Technical Research Series, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, pp289-296. ISBN 978-92-79-17601-2
  • Gimona, A.; Polhill, J.G.; Davies, B.B. (2011) Sinks, sustainability and conservation incentives., In: Sources, Sinks and Sustainability (eds. Liu, J., Hull, V., Morzillo, A., and Wiens, J). Cambridge University Press, Chapter 8, pp155-178.
  • Gimona, A. (2008) Rook., In: Birds of Scotland: A comprehensive and authoritative work guide to all Scottish species. SOC.
  • Gimona, A.; Geddes, A.; Elston, D.A. (2000) Localised areal disaggregation for linking agricultural census data to remotely sensed land cover data., In: Innovations in GIS: GIS and Geocomputation, 7, pp205-218.

Technical / contract reports

Conference papers

  • Brown, I.; Poggio, L.; Gimona, A.; Castellazzi, M.S. (2011) Land capability classification to plan for a changing climate., LQ2011 – Land Quality and Land Use Information, University of Pannonia, Keszthely, Hungary, 26-27 May 2011. Abstract.
  • Nijnik, M.; Gurung, A.B.; Soloviy, I.; Munoz-Rojas, J.; Gimona, A.; Niklova, M.; Miller, D.R.; Morris, S. (2010) Multi-functionality and sustainable future of forested mountain regions in Europe., International Workshop on Forestry Mountains and Multi-functionality, Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Aberdeen, 1 October 2010.
  • Polhill, J.G.; Gimona, A.; Gotts, N.M. (2010) Analysis of incentive schemes for biodiversity using a coupled agent-based model of land use change and species metacommunity model., Modelling for Environment’s Sake. International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 5-8 July 2010.
  • Polhill, J.G.; Jarvis, A.; Gimona, A.; Gotts, N.M. (2010) Adaptive control of landscape biodiversity., Modelling for Environment’s Sake, International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 5-8 July, 2010.
  • Castellazzi, M.S.; Joannon, A.; Brown, I.; Gimona, A.; Poggio, L. (2010) Developing a nested-scale landscape modelling framework for ecosystem services., International Conference on Integrative Landscape Modelling (LANDMOD2010), Montpellier, France, 3-5 February 2010.
  • Gimona, A.; Poggio, L.; Castellazzi, M.S.; Brown, I. (2009) Vulnerability of forest habitat networks to direct and indirect climate impacts., In: Ecological Networks: Science and Practice (Catchpole R. et.al.). Proceedings of the IALE UK Conference, 16th, Edinburgh University, 1-3 September 2009.
  • Polhill, J.G.; Gimona, A.; Davies, B.; Gotts, N.M.; McCracken, D.; Catalan, A.; Dury, G.; Decorps, D. (2008) A model for exploring human-natural system interactions in the context of agricultural biodiversity., European Social Simulation Association Conference, 5th, Brescia, Italy, September 2008.
  • Gimona, A. (2008) Policy incentives, land managers strategies and source-sink dynamics. The formation of community patterns at the landscape scale., Landscape Patterns and Ecosystem Processes, 2008 US-IALE Symposium, Madison, Wisconsin, 6-10 April 2008.
  • Gimona, A.; Polhill, J.G.; Davies, B.; Catalan, A.; Dury, G.; Teil, A. (2007) A stylised model of the influence of land use decisions on landscape and biodiversity patterns formation., British Ecological Society General Meeting, University of Glasgow, 10-12 September 2007.
  • Gimona, A.; Geddes, A.; Elston, D.A. (1999) Scaling down of geographic data for Scottish agricultural landscapes., IALE World Congress, Symposium “Heterogeneity in Landscapes: The Problems of Scale and Hierarchy in Modelling and Regionalization”. In Wiens, J. Proceedings of the IALE World Congress 1999, Snowmass, Colorado, USA.
  • Willems, G.P.A.; Gimona, A. and Van der Horst, D. (1999) The potential biodiversity benefits of farm woodlands: policy evaluation at the landscape level using GIS and multi-criteria analysis., In: Wiens, J. Proceedings of the IALE World Congress 1999, Snowmass, Colorado, USA.
  • van der Horst, D.; Gimona, A. and Willems, G.P.A. (1999) The role of farm woodlands in local biodiversity action plans., In: Heterogeneity in Landscape Ecology: Pattern and Scale. (Eds. M. Maudsley and E.J.P. Marshall ). Proceedings of the 8th Annual Conference of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (UK), IALE, Bristol.
  • Gimona, A.; Geddes, A.; Elston, D.A. (1999) Localised aerial interpolation for linking agricultural census data to remotely-sensed land cover data., Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 7th Annual Conference (GISRUK ’99), Department of Geography, University of Southampton, 14-16 April 1999, pp61-62.
  • Gimona, A.; Birnie, R.V.B. (1997) Integrating GIS, geostatistics, spatial simulation and decision tree analysis to model the spatial pattern of abundance of nesting rooks (Coruus Frugilegus) in Scotland, Geographical Information ’97: from research to application through cooperation., Volumes 1 and 2, Chapter 162, pp556-565.

Conference posters / abstracts

  • Poggio, L.; Gimona, A.; Brown, I.; Castellazzi, M.S. (2011) Mapping spatio-temporal relationships between soil properties and remote sensing-derived information from Scotland., Pedometrics 2011, Trest Castle, Czech Republic, 30 August – 2 September 2011.
  • Poggio, L.; Gimona, A.; Brown, I.; Castellazzi, M.S. (2010) Land capability as a strategic tool for land use planning: present and future., Symposium 201 European Faculty of Land Use and Development, Szekesfehervar, Hungary, 30 September – 1 October 2010.
  • Poggio, L.; Gimona, A.; Brown, I.; Castellazzi, M.S. (2010) Land capability: present and future interactions of soil, vegetation, climate and land use., Research Colloquium, Institute of Terrestrial ecosystems, ETH Zurich (CH).
  • Poggio, L.; Gimona, A.; Brown, I.; Castellazzi, M.S. (2010) Uncertainty in the estimation of drought risk due to soil-climate interactions in Scotland., Accuracy 2010, University of Leicester, Leiscester, UK, 20-23 July 2010.
  • Long, D.G.; Hawes, C.; McCracken, D.; Polhill, G.; Gimona, A. (2009) Informing the development of measures to address lowland biodiversity concerns., Science-Policy-Success. Knowledge Scotland Conference and Workshop, Our Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh, 7-8 October 2009.
  • Lozada-Ellison, L.M.; Gimona, A.; van der Horst, D.; Schwarz, G. (2009) Social and ecological systems: the adaptive co-management approach and its application in Scotland., International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics, 8th, Transformation, Innovation and Adaptation for sustainability: Integrating Natural and Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 29 June to 2 July 2009.
  • Davies, B.; Polhill, G.; Gimona, A.; Catalan, A.; Izquierdo, L. (2007) Modelling the response of socio-ecological systems to changing land use policies: coupling metapopulations and agent-based approaches., ESEE 2007 Integrating Natural and Social Sciences for Sustainability: 7th International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics, UFZ – Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, 5-8 June 2007.
  • Polhill, J.G.; Gimona, A.; McCracken, D.; Davies, B. (2007) Exploring environmental policy with coupled natural and human system modelling., Making Scotland’s Rural Environment More Sustainable, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 25 June 2007.
  • Polhill, J.G.; Gimona, A.; Davies, B.; Catalan, A. (2007) Modelling the influences of policy and land management decisions on biodiversity: Considerations for coupling models., In: Framing Land Use Dynamics II. International Conference (eds. E. Addink, A. Barendregt, D. Ettema, D. Karssenberg, and T. de Nijs). Utrecht University, The Netherlands, 18-20 April 2007, pp153-154.
  • Burslem, D.F.R.P.; Illian, J.; Gimona, A.; Kassim, A.R.; Nor, N.S.M.; Ahmad, W.J.W. (2006) Does phylogeny contribute to contrasting spatial distributions on a Malaysian rain forest plot?, British Ecological Society, General Meeting, Oxford, 5-7 September 2006.
  • Gimona, A.; Polhill, J.G.; Izquierdo, L.; Davies, B.B. (2006) Integrating agent-based social simulation and biodiversity modelling., British Ecological Society, General Meeting, Oxford, 5-7 September 2006.
  • Gimona, A.; Fernandes, P.G.; Zwolinski, J. (2003) A geostatistical conditional simulation of acoustic survey data incorporating a generalised additive model for depth., Large Scale Fishery Independent Surveys: Looking to the Future by Learning from the Past, Symposium of the American Fisheries Society, 133rd, Quebec, 10-14 August 2003.
  • van der Horst, D.; Wynn, G.; Gimona, A. (2000) Spatial and temporal patterns in the uptake of an agri-environmental scheme., RGS-IBG Annual Conference, Brighton, January 2000.
  • Gimona, A.; Birnie, R.V.B. (1998) Construction and visualisation of a resource landscape for bird populations., European Meeting of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), 3-5 September 1998.

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