Darren Grafius

Background

Darren received his PhD in Geography from the University of Iowa, where his research focused on the landscape ecology of mountain treelines in the western United States. He studied the carbon dynamics of the ecotone and its linkages with climate change, with particular attention given to the complex interactions of different factors and how the importance of various relationships change with the scale of investigation.

More recently, Darren was an environmental modeller on the NERC-funded ''Fragments, Functions, Flows and Urban Ecosystem Services'' (F3UES) project where he worked to combine the wealth of data emerging from the project into a unified framework and develop new tools for mapping and understanding ecosystem service provision in urban landscapes. Overall he is drawn to research topics that concern human-environment interaction, social and environmental adaptation to global change, and that take a broad and interdisciplinary view.

Current activities

Dr Darren Grafius is a Visiting Fellow with the Complex Systems Research Centre.   Previously he worked as a Research Fellow  on the ''ICIF'' research project exploring the opportunities and risks presented by interdependencies in complex infrastructure networks. His primary focus in this role was research and publication around the growing importance of viewing infrastructure as a ''system of systems'', and understanding the complex and interconnected nature of various networks. Interdependency creates risks such as cascade failures that are well-documented but incompletely understood. Even less explored are the potential benefits to human society provided by these interconnections, and the ways in which natural systems can inspire resilient design in artificial ones.

Publications

• Articles in journals
• Conference papers

Articles In Journals

• Nor AN, Corstanje R, Harris JA, Grafius DR & Siriwardena GM (2017) Ecological connectivity networks in rapidly expanding cities, Heliyon, 3 (6).
• Grafius DR, Corstanje R, Siriwardena GM, Plummer KE & Harris JA (2017) A bird’s eye view: using circuit theory to study urban landscape connectivity for birds, Landscape Ecology, 32 (9) 1771-1787.
• Grafius D, Corstanje R, Warren P, Evans K, Hancock S & Harris J (2016) The impact of land use/land cover scale on modelling urban ecosystem services, Landscape Ecology, 31 (7) 1509-1522.
• Corstanje R, Grafius DR, Zawadzka J, Moreira Barradas J, Vince G, Ivanoff D & Pietro K (2016) A datamining approach to identifying spatial patterns of phosphorus forms in the Stormwater Treatment Areas in the Everglades, US, Ecological Engineering, 97 567-576.
• Grafius D & Malanson G (2015) Biomass distributions in dwarf tree, krummholz, and tundra vegetation in the alpine treeline ecotone, Physical Geography, 36 (4) 337-352.
• Grafius DR, Malanson GP & Weiss D (2012) Secondary controls of alpine treeline elevations in the Western USA, Physical Geography, 33 (2) 146-164.
• Grafius D & Malanson G (2009) Precipitation and temperature estimation error at alpine treeline ecotones using the mountain climate simulator model (MT-CLIM), Physical Geography, 30 (4) 285-307.

Conference Papers

• Grafius D, Varga L & Jude S (2017) Infrastructure Interdependencies: opportunities from complexity. In: Valuing Infrastructure Conference: Valuing the Infrastructure of Cities, Regions and Nations, Leeds, 26-27 April 2017.
• Varga L, Grafius D & Jude S (2017) Interdependencies: a Janusian notion. In: Infrastructure Grand Challenges: Exhibition and Networking Forum, Institute of Civil Engineers, London, 21 February 2017.
• Grafius D, Varga L & Jude S (2017) Infrastructure: opportunities from interdependencies. In: 3rd International Conference on Urban Sustainability & Resilience, Bloomsbury, London, 13-14 June 2017.