Steve Walsh, PhD

swalsh@email.unc.edu

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Dr. Walsh’s research explores questions about social and ecological vulnerability, resilience, and sustainability in diverse settings. His research focuses on three main areas:

1. Human-Environment Interactions – relationships between environment and population with particular emphasis on the linkages between deforestation, agro-forestry systems, urbanization, tourism, population demographics and socio-economic patterns, household livelihoods, land use/land cover change, social-ecological vulnerability, and island sustainability
2.  Coupled Human-Natural Systems – the integration of people, place, and environment considered through the lens of Complexity Theory in which nonlinear relationships, feedback mechanisms, emergent behavior, and complex adaptive systems are examined using multi-agent based models and spatial and statistical analyses. The goal is to understand pattern-process relations within the context of a dynamic environment, evolving characteristics of multiple agents, interaction mechanisms, rules of behavior, and scenarios of change
3. Geographic Methods – remote sensing, GIS & spatial analysis, and modeling approaches within the context of landscape characterization and representation of social and biophysical systems with particular emphasis on the use of spatial models for landscape characterization and simulation of the drivers of land use/land cover change.

Research Projects

• Beaches in the Galápagos
• High Resolution, Commercial Satellite Imagery for Island Studies
• Modeling Fisheries in the Galápagos Islands
• Synthesis of Drivers, Patterns, and Trajectories of LCLUC in Island Ecosystems, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Agriculture, Wildlife, and Land Use in the Galápagos

Publications

• Sampedro, C., Pizzitutti, F., Quiroga, D., Walsh, S.J., Mena, C.F. (2018). Food Supply System Dynamics in the Galapagos Islands: Agriculture, Livestock, and Imports. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 33(1):1-5.
• Pizzitutti, F., Walsh, S.J., Rindfuss, R.R., Reck, G., Quiroga, D., Tippett, R., Mena, C.F. (2017). Scenario planning for tourism management: A participatory and system dynamics model applied to the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 25(8): 1117-1137.
• Walsh, S.J. and Mena, C.F. (2016). Interactions of social, terrestrial, and marine sub-systems in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. Sackler Colloquium on Coupled Human and Environmental Systems (Social Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Sustainability Science), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(51): 14536-14543.
• Walsh, S.J., Carter, R.W., Quiroga, D., Mena, C.F. (2014). Examining Threats to Iconic National Parks through Modeling Global Change, Biocomplexity, and Human Dynamics. The George Wright Forum, A Special Issue on “Global Change and the World’s Iconic Protected Areas,” (P. Eagles & P.A. Taylor), 31(3): 311-323.
• Carter, R.W., Walsh, S.J., Jacobson, C., Miller, M.L. (2014). Socio-Economic Challenges in Managing Iconic National Parks. The George Wright Forum, A Special Issue on “Global Change and the World’s Iconic Protected Areas,” (P. Eagles & P.A. Taylor), 31(3): 245-255.
• Miller, M.L., Carter, R.W., Walsh, S.J., Peake, S. (2014). A Conceptual Model for Studying Global Change, Tourism and the Sustainability of Iconic National Parks. The George Wright Forum, A Special Issue on “Global Change and the World’s Iconic Protected Areas,” (P. Eagles & P.A. Taylor), 31(3): 256-269.
• Pizzitutti, F., Mena, C.F., Walsh, S.J (2014). Modeling Tourism in the Galapagos Islands: An Agent-Based Model Approach. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 17(1): 1-25.