Carlota Segura Garcia

Characterising the fire regimes of the Brazilian savannas under large-scale land-use expansion and climate change

Carlota is a DPhil candidate in the Environmental Research Doctoral Training Programme (NERC) researching the patterns of fire of the Brazilian savannas – the so-called Cerrado – and how these are being shaped by anthropogenic land uses and changes in the climate. She is interested in finding ways to characterise the heterogeneity of the fire dynamics, and understand how this heterogeneity has evolved over last three decades concomitant to a large-scale agricultural expansion. As well, she is looking at how the landscape mosaic – made up of different vegetation types, land uses and topography – shapes the occurrence of fires and their characteristics – such as size distribution, seasonality or frequency. She is working with remote sensing and geospatial data from various sources using geographical information systems (GIS), statistical analysis tools – with a preference for Bayesian statistics – and mathematical modelling. She is primarily using Python and R, as well as other open access software.

She is very interested in producing science that is open and reproducible. Hence, she is learning different tools and incorporating habits into her research pipeline to ensure she delivers accessible research. Carlota has a Physics degree from the University of Barcelona and an MSc in Complex Systems Modelling from King’s College London. Following her various interests, she has worked in humanitarian aid as a Data Analyst and Statistics intern for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and in econometric modelling working as an analyst for David Simmonds consultancy using Land-Use and Transport Interactions models. As well, she worked as a teaching assistant for the BSc of Mathematics in King’s College London. Carlota is open for sharing ideas and collaborating, so if interested please reach out to her via email carlota.seguragarcia@ouce.ox.ac.uk, Twitter (@CarlotaSegura_) or LinkedIn.