Christian Folberth profile picture

Christian Folberth

Senior Research Scholar

Agriculture, Forestry, and Ecosystem Services Research Group

Biodiversity and Natural Resources

Biography

Christian Folberth joined IIASA's Ecosystem Services and Management Program as a Research Scholar in November 2013. He received his BSc in Horticultural Sciences and MSc in Environmental Planning and Engineering Ecology from Technical University of Munich. For the latter, he investigated factors influencing the degradation of pesticides in soil samples under laboratory conditions and a method for estimating the bioavailability of pesticides in soils.

Subsequently, he conducted a PhD research project at the Swiss Federal institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) and ETH Zurich. The thesis dealt with large-scale modeling of climate change impacts on global crop yields, regionalization of the crop model for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and the assessment of different management practices for elevating yields and adapting to climate change in SSA. Additional research projects included climate change impacts on biofuel production in the USA, unbalanced fertilizer application in SSA, and the participation in the Intersectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP).

Dr. Folberth's research interests include bio-physical agricultural modeling, climate change impacts on agricultural production, and environmental quality related to agricultural production.

Last update: 19 NOV 2013

Publications

Carr, T.W., Balkovič, J. , Dodds, P.E., Folberth, C. , & Skalský, R. (2021). The impact of water erosion on global maize and wheat productivity. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 322 e107655. 10.1016/j.agee.2021.107655.

Jägermeyr, J., Müller, C., Ruane, A.C., Elliott, J., Balkovič, J. , Castillo, O., Faye, B., Foster, I., Folberth, C. , Franke, J.A., Fuchs, K., Guarin, J.R., Heinke, J., Hoogenboom, G., Iizumi, T., Jain, A.K., Kelly, D., Khabarov, N. , Lange, S., Lin, T.-S., Liu, W., Mialyk, O., Minoli, S., Moyer, El.J., Okada, M., Phillips, M., Porter, C., Rabin, S.S., Scheer, C., Schneider, J.M., Schyns, J.F., Skalský, R. , Smerald, A., Stella, T., Stephens, H., Webber, H., Zabel, F., & Rosenzweig, C. (2021). Climate impacts on global agriculture emerge earlier in new generation of climate and crop models. Nature Food 2 873-885. 10.1038/s43016-021-00400-y.

Zhang, X., Yao, G., Vishwakarma, S., Dalin, C., Komarek, A.M., Kanter, D.R., Davis, K.F., Pfeifer, K., Zhao, J., Zou, T., D'Odorico, P., Folberth, C. , Rodriguez, F.G., Fanzo, J., Rosa, L., Dennison, W., Musumba, M., Heyman, A., & Davidson, E.A. (2021). Quantitative assessment of agricultural sustainability reveals divergent priorities among nations. One Earth 4 (9) 1262-1277. 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.08.015.

Franke, J.A., Müller, C., Minoli, S., Elliott, J., Folberth, C. , Gardner, C., Hank, T., Izaurralde, R.C., Jägermeyr, J., Jones, C.D., Liu, W., Olin, S., Pugh, T.A.M., Ruane, A.C., Stephens, H., Zabel, F., & Moyer, E.J. (2021). Agricultural breadbaskets shift poleward given adaptive farmer behavior under climate change. Global Change Biology 28 167-181. 10.1111/gcb.15868.