Research

For a full list of publications, see my CV.

My research focuses on the trade-offs that arise in the context of a transformation towards an environmentally sustainable management of agricultural landscapes in Germany and Europe. I am interested in understanding how the behaviour of individual agents and groups responds to policy interventions and how it translates into landscape-level provision of multiple environmental objectives. These include ecosystem services as well as above-ground and below-ground biodiversity. I am very much interested in the interactions and trade-offs among these multiple objectives, particularly under conditions of ongoing climate change.

I am convinced that societally relevant sustainability research requires a thorough understanding of the social–ecological systems that one studies. Since I am an environmental economist by training, I do not have all the required understanding and expertise on my own. Therefore, I actively strive to collaborate across disciplines – with agricultural scientists, landscape and soil ecologists, soil physicists, psychologists, geographers, legal scholars and ultimately, with the stakeholders who can provide less codified, but equally relevant, often tacit knowledge. Navigating these different perspectives is probably one of my major strengths as researcher.

Methodologically, I am a generalist and draw upon a broad toolbox of methods including quantitative and qualitative methods. Agent-based modelling is a particularly important element of that toolbox, as it is particularly well-suited to foster the understanding of the landscape-level effects of farmers‘ behaviour, technologies and incentives. Also, I have been working on economic valuation of ecosystem services and biodiversity, especially by means of stated preference methods such as discrete choice experiments (often in the form of deliberative monetary valuation). Furthermore, I consider interdisciplinary evidence synthesis as well as conceptual work highly important, given the availability of vast amounts of scattered evidence in environmental sciences.

In the following, I provide a brief overview about my main research foci, including the most representative publications.

  1. Agri-environmental policy & governance
  2. Farmers’ behaviour
  3. Economic valuation
  4. Genome editing, degrowth and other topics

Agri-environmental policy & governance

Ultimately, virtually all of the other topics addressed by my work lead to this one: the attempt to evaluate existing and possibly suggest new options for agri-environmental policy. This work started in the context of the BonaRes project and currently mainly happens in the junior research group AgriScape (see also the Projects page). In AgriScape and beyond, I address this topic both from a conceptual perspective and by applying agent-based modelling to study the effects of different policy scenarios. Together with colleagues from the UFZ, I developed an approach for aligning agent-based modelling with multi-objective land-use allocation to better understand the interplay of the biophysical potential of landscapes for multifunctionality and institutional, behavioural and economic factors that affect the feasibility of reaching this potential (Bartkowski et al. 2020). This approach is also the conceptual foundation of AgriScape. In the context of agent-based modelling, I am at a behaviourally rich representation of a broad set of interacting farm decisions that are relevant for multifunctionality. This follows my conviction that a purely adoption-oriented approach is likely to fall short of the complexity of farm decision-making.

Representative publications:

  • Huber, R., Bartkowski, B., Brown, C., El-Benni, N., Feil, J.-H., Grohmann, P., Joormann, I., Leonhardt, H., Mitter, H., Müller, B., 2024. Farm typologies for understanding farm systems and improving agricultural policy. Agricultural Systems 213: 103800. doi:10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103800
  • Paul, C., Bartkowski, B., Dönmez, C., Don, A., Mayer, S., Steffens, M., Weigl, S., Wiesmeier, M., Wolf, A., Helming, K., 2023. Carbon farming: Are soil carbon certificates a suitable tool for climate change mitigation? Journal of Environmental Management 330: 117142. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.117142
  • Bartkowski, B., Bartke, S., Hagemann, N., Hansjürgens, B., Schröter-Schlaack, C., 2021. Application of the governance disruptions framework to German agricultural soil policy. SOIL 7: 495–509. doi:10.5194/soil-7-495-2021
  • Bartkowski, B., Droste, N., Ließ, M., Sidemo-Holm, W., Weller, U., Brady, M.V., 2021. Payments by modelled results: a novel design for agri-environmental schemes. Land Use Policy 102: 105230. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105230 [PDF accepted version]
  • Bartkowski, B., Beckmann, M., Drechsler, M., Kaim, A., Liebelt, V., Müller, B., Witing, F., Strauch, M., 2020. Aligning agent-based modelling with multi-objective land-use allocation: Identification of policy gaps and feasible pathways to biophysically optimal landscapes. Frontiers in Environmental Science 8. doi:10.3389/fenvs.2020.00103

Farmers’ behaviour

To properly understand and model the effectiveness of policy options, one needs a comprehensive understanding of land-users‘ (e.g. farmers‘) decision making. I am particularly interested in rich and theory-based representations of human behaviour in agent-based models, e.g. by drawing upon social psychology theories (such as Christian Klöckner’s Comprehensive Action Determination Model). This also requires empirical investigations into farmers‘ behaviour with a broad range of methodological approaches (from qualitative interviews to discrete choice experiments).

Representative publications:

  • Will, M., Bartkowski, B., Schwarz, N., Wittstock, F., Grujić, N., Li, C., Ge, J., Ziv, G., Müller, B., 2025. From primary data to formalized decision-making: Open challenges and ways forward to inform representations of farmers‘ behaviour in agent-based models. Ecology & Society 29(4). doi:10.5751/ES-15400-290431
  • Bartkowski, B., Beckmann, M., Bednář, M., Biffi, S., Domingo, C., Mesaroš, M., Schüßler, C., Šarapatka, B., Tarčak, S., Václavík, T., Ziv, G., Wittstock, F., 2023. Adoption and potential of agri-environmental schemes in Europe: Cross-regional evidence from interviews with farmers. People and Nature 5(5): 1610–1621. doi:10.1002/pan3.10526
  • Bartkowski, B., Schüßler, C., Müller, B., 2022. Typologies of European farmers: approaches, methods and research gaps. Regional Environmental Change 22:43. doi:10.1007/s10113-022-01899-y
  • Gütschow, M., Bartkowski, B., Felipe-Lucia, M., 2021. Farmers’ action space to adopt sustainable practices: a study of arable farming in Saxony. Regional Environmental Change 21: 103. doi:10.1007/s10113-021-01848-1
  • Bartkowski, B., Bartke, S., 2018. Leverage points for governing agricultural soils: a review of empirical studies of European farmers’ decision-making. Sustainability 10(9): 3179. doi:10.3390/su10093179

Economic valuation

Economic valuation has been a major topic for me during my PhD thesis. While not central anymore, it still has much importance in my work. It has mainly focused on deliberative monetary valuation and discrete choice experiments applied to estimate public preferences of ecosystem services and biodiversity across different projects (e.g. AgriScape, BIOcean5D, ECO-N).

Representative publications:

  • Wanek, E., Bartkowski, B., Bourgeois-Gironde, S., Schaafsma, M., 2023. Deliberately vague or vaguely deliberative: A review of motivation and design choices in deliberative monetary valuation studies. Ecological Economics 208: 107820. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107820 [PDF accepted version]
  • Bartkowski, B., Massenberg, J.R., Lienhoop, N., 2022. Investigating preferences for soil-based ecosystem services. Q Open 2(2): qoac035. doi:10.1093/qopen/qoac035
  • Kaim, A., Bartkowski, B., Lienhoop, N., Schröter-Schlaack, C., Volk, M., Strauch, M., 2021. Combining biophysical optimization with economic preference analysis for agricultural land use allocation. Ecology & Society 26(1). doi:10.5751/ES-12116-260109
  • Schaafsma, M., Bartkowski, B., Lienhoop, N., 2018. Guidance for Deliberative Monetary Valuation studies. International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics 12(2–3): 267–323. doi:10.1561/101.00000103 [PDF accepted version]
  • Bartkowski, B., Lienhoop, N., 2018. Beyond Rationality, Towards Reasonableness: Enriching the Theoretical Foundation of Deliberative Monetary Valuation. Ecological Economics 143, 97–104. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.07.015 [PDF accepted version]
  • Klauer, B., Bartkowski, B., Manstetten, R., Petersen, T., 2017. Sustainability as a Fair Bequest: An Evaluation Challenge. Ecological Economics 141, 136–143. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.001 [PDF accepted version]
  • Bartkowski, B., 2017. Are diverse ecosystems more valuable? Economic value of biodiversity as result of uncertainty and spatial interactions in ecosystem service provision. Ecosystem Services 24, 50–57. doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.02.023 [PDF accepted version]

Genome editing, degrowth and other topics

In addition to the three main foci mentioned above, I tend to venture into other topics and fields from time to time, mostly in collaboration with colleagues and often with a rather conceptual perspective or in large, interdisciplinary teams. These ventures has so far included, among other things, the governance of genome editing, the relationship between degrowth and liberal democracy or the relevance of the social-ecological systems perspective for the analysis of wind erosion.

  • Bartkowski, B., Baaken, M., Nagpal, M., Sodoge, J., de Brito, M.M., in press. What constitutes sustainable agriculture for different audiences in Germany? A comparative analysis of large-scale text data. People and Nature. doi:10.1002/pan3.70003
  • Eisenhauer, N., Frank, K., Weigelt, A., Bartkowski, B., Beugnon, R., Liebal, K., Mahecha, M., Quaas, M., Al-Halbouni, D., Bastos, A., Bohn, F.J., de Brito, M.M., Denzler, J., Feilhauer, H., Fischer, R., Fritsche, I., Guimaraes-Steinicke, C., Hänsel, M., Haun, D.B.M., Herrmann, H., Huth, A., Kalesse-Los, H., Koetter, M., Kolleck, N., Krause, M., Kretschmer, M., Leitão, P.J., Masson, T., Mora, K., Müller, B., Peng, J., Pöhlker, M.L., Ratzke, L., Reichstein, M., Richter, S., Rüger, N., Sánchez-Parra, B., Shadaydeh, M., Sippel, S., Tegen, I., Thrän, D., Umlauft, J., Wendisch, M., Wolf, K., Wirth, C., Zacher, H., Zaehle, S., Quaas, J., 2024. A belowground perspective on the nexus between biodiversity change, climate change, and human well-being. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment 3, e212108. doi:10.1002/sae2.12108
  • Bartkowski, B., Schepanski, K., Bredenbeck, S., Müller, B., 2023. Wind erosion in European agricultural landscapes: More than physics. People and Nature 5(1):34–44. doi:10.1002/pan3.10418
  • D’Amato, D., Bartkowski, B., Droste, N., 2020. Reviewing the interface of bioeconomy and ecosystem service research. Ambio. doi:10.1007/s13280-020-01374-0
  • Baum, C.M., Bartkowski, B., 2020. It’s not all about funding: Fostering interdisciplinary collaborations in sustainability research from a European perspective. Energy Research & Social Science 70: 101723. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2020.101723 [PDF accepted version]
  • Schaafsma, M., Bartkowski, B., 2020. Synergies and trade-offs between ecosystem services, in: Leal Filho, W., Gökçin Özuyar, P., Pace, P.J., Marisa Azul, A., Londero Brandli, L., Wall, T. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Life on Land. Springer, Cham. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71065-5_117-1
  • Bartkowski, B., Baum, C.M., 2019. Dealing with rejection: An application of the exit–voice framework to genome-edited food. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology 7. doi:10.3389/fbioe.2019.00057
  • Strunz, S., Bartkowski, B., 2018. Degrowth, the project of modernity, and liberal democracy. Journal of Cleaner Production 196, 1158–1168. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.06.148 [PDF accepted version]
  • Cord, A.F., Bartkowski, B., Beckmann, M., Dittrich, A., Hermans-Neumann, K., Kaim, A., Lienhoop, N., Locher-Krause, K., Priess, J., Schröter-Schlaack, C., Schwarz, N., Seppelt, R., Strauch, M., Václavík, T., Volk, M., 2017. Towards systematic analyses of ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies: Main concepts, methods and the road ahead. Ecosystem Services 28, Part C, 264–272. doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.07.012

P.S. I am a firm believer in the principles of open science. Most of my publications are published open access; for the few paywalled exceptions, I provide accepted version PDFs where publisher policy allows. For all inaccessible publications, feel free to contact me. Wherever possible, I share code and data, usually on GitHub.