Professor Julia Martin-Ortega
- Position: Professor
- Areas of expertise: environmental/ecological economics; nature human-relationships; values and valuation; ecosystem services; water resources
- Email: J.MartinOrtega@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 9.109 School of Earth and Environment
Profile
Julia's research aims to further the understanding of the relationships of society and individuals with ecosystems and how policy can best make use of this understanding for the sustainable management of water and land resources. She specializes in inter and transdisciplinary research approaches of impact-oriented nature. Graduated as Doctor in the University of Cordoba (Spain) in 2008, Julia joined the Sustainability Research Insitute in July 2015, after 5 years as senior researcher at The James Hutton Institute in Scotland.
Julia is Associate Director of water@leeds, one of the largest interdisciplinary centres for water research in any university in the world. She is also member of the Steering Comittee of the Leeds Social Sciences Institute. Julia is member of the Steering Committee of the Scottish Government’s Centre for Expertise in Waters, the Swedish Research Council Panel on General Governance and Sustainability and the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council Peer Review College. She is Academic Editor of the journal PLOSOne.
Julia is author of 59 ISI-indexed publications and >46 other peer reviewed publications, including the first monograph on water ecosystem services, Water Ecosystem Services: A Global Perspective published by Cambridge University Press.
Three main research lines guide Julia's work:
- How to assess the impacts of changes in water ecosystems on human welfare. Julia looks at the multiple values of water ecosystem services and how they can be assessed. This includes working with natural scientists to couple the understanding of ecosystem change with its social outcomes.
- How economic tools and principles can best be applied for sustainable water management. Julia looks to integrate outputs of hydrological modelling and stakeholder knowledge into the economic analysis of water management. Her work in this area has mostly taken place in the context of the European Water Framework Directive and in relation to Payments for Ecosystem Services in Latin America.
- How ecosystems degradation compromises the capacity of communities to use and enjoy them and how communities adapt to these changes. This includes work on ecosystem services-based approaches and scenario planning, which she has applied to various contexts in Europe, Latin America and Africa.
Julia has also recently started to engage with performance-based methods, like Forum Theater. Check here for an application to environmental goverance research.
Recent research projects include:
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Contract solutions for delivery of agri-environmental-climate public goods by EU agriculture (CONSOLE) – €5million funded by EU (2019-2022). Julia leads the economic valuation work of the UK case study.
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Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme (iCASP) - ~ £6million funded by NERC (2017 - 2022). Julia leads the socio-economic work and impact evaluation of iCASP.
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Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme (iCASP) - ~ £6million funded by NERC (2017 - 2022). Julia leads the socio-economic work and impact evaluation of iCASP.
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The role of Phosphorous in the Resilience and Sustainability of the UK food system - £1.51M funded by BBSRC, ESRC, NERC and the Scottish government (2018 - 2021). Julia leads the socio-economomic strand.
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Activating change on environmental governance through performance-based methods (PerformingChange) - £15k funded by ESRC Impact Accelaration Account (2019-2020). Principal Investigator.
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Economic benefits of peatland restoration: making the numbers count for policy in collaboration with The James Hutton Institute and the Scottish Rural Collague - funded by ESRC's Impact Acceleration Account (2016 - 2017).
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European Trainning and Research Network for environmental flow management (EuroFlow) ~€4M funded by the EU Marie Curie Actions for Innovative Training Networks (H2020) (2017 -2020).
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Understanding ecosystem stocks and tipping points in UK peatlands - ~£400k funded by NERC's Valuing Nature Programme (2016 - 2018). Julia co-leads the workpackage on socio-economic impacts.
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Applying ecosystem services-based approaches to water resource decision making: studying the risk of nature commodification in Mexico’s last free-flowing river in colaboration with ECOSUR in Mexico- £75k funded by the British Council Newton Fund Advanced Fellowship (2016- 2018). Principal Investigator.
Julia is also interested in disseminating scientific knowledge, producing materials like this video which explains the concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services in just 3 minutes! (a version in Spanish and with Mandarine subtitles also available).
Responsibilities
- Associate Director water@leeds
- CONSOLE
- iCASP - The Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme
- Securing biodiversity, functional integrity and ecosystem services in DRYing riVER networks
Qualifications
- PhD
- MSc
- MBA
Professional memberships
- European Association of Ecological Economics
- Natural Environment Research Council Peer Review College
Research groups and institutes
- Sustainability Research Institute
- Economics and Policy for Sustainability