Active microwave remote sensing of the Amazon forest region

The Amazon rainforest is among the most vital ecosystems on earth, holding about a quarter of the global terrestrial carbon sink. Since 2005, three 100-year return period droughts have occurred, the likes of which have the potential to turn the forest from a carbon sink to a source – meaning disastrous consequences for the planet. Monitoring of...

Overcoming the Paradox of Plenty: Resource Extraction and Urbanism in the Venezuelan Guayana

The ‘resource curse’, a term coined by Richard Auty in 1993, refers to the paradox that the abundance of natural resources tends to have adverse effects in a country’s economic, social and political well-being (Ross, 2015). This correlation has also led many to refer to this phenomenon as the ‘paradox of plenty’. When a country depends...