Michael Obersteiner

Principal Research Scholar

Exploratory Modeling of Human-natural Systems Research Group

Advancing Systems Analysis Program

Biography

Michael Obersteiner is director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University. He first joined IIASA as part of the former Forestry Program in 1993. He was Program Director of the former IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program until June 2019, where he led and developed the ESM Program from its inception to an inter-disciplinary research cluster of over 100 staff. His background includes the fields of global terrestrial ecosystems and economics, having completed graduate studies both in Austria (BOKU University and the Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna) and abroad (Columbia University, New York, and the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk). His current research at IIASA stretches from modeling robust Earth system management and supporting the FABLE consortium, to economic stress-testing of supply chain networks.

Obersteiner has led large scale interdisciplinary research projects in the fields of integrated assessment of climate, energy, and land-use. He is the author of over 300 scientific papers covering a very wide range of science fields. He currently serves in the Climate Overshoot Commission and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)'s international resource panel. In addition, he is a lead convening author of two chapters of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and a steering member of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR)'s Global Assessment Report.

Last update: 28 NOV 2023

Publications

See, L. , Fritz, S. , McCallum, I. , Obersteiner, M. , & Bone, S. (2009). A cross-border deforestation index to understand underlying drivers of deforestation. In: XIII World Forestry Congress, 18-23 October 2009.

Fuss, S., Khabarov, N. , Szolgayova, J., & Obersteiner, M. (2009). The effects of climate policy on the energy technology mix: An integrated CVaR and Real Options Approach. In: Modeling Environment - Improving Technological Innovations under Uncertainty. Eds. Golub, A. & Markandya, A., London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-46376-8

Khabarov, N. , Bun, A., & Obersteiner, M. (2009). The value of observations for reduction of earthquake-induced loss of life on a global scale. In: Proceedings from the 33rd International Symposium on Remote Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE-33) "Sustaining the Millennium Development Goals", 4-8 May 2009.

Ermoliev, Y., Ermolieva, T., Fischer, G., Makowski, M. , Nilsson, S., & Obersteiner, M. (2008). Discounting, catastrophic risks management and vulnerability modeling. Mathematics and Computers in Simulation 79 (4) 917-924. 10.1016/j.matcom.2008.02.004.

Liu, J., Fritz, S. , Wesenbeeck, C.F.A. van, Fuchs, M., You, L., Obersteiner, M. , & Yang, H. (2008). A spatially explicit assessment of current and future hotspots of hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa in the context of global change. Global and Planetary Change 64 (3) 222-235. 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2008.09.007.