Elisabeth Krueger is an Assistant Professor at the Department for Ecosystem and Landscape Dynamics (ELD), Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) in UvA’s Faculty of Natural Sciences. As an interdisciplinary scientist, she also contributes to research at the Governance and Inclusive Development group (GID) at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG).

Elisabeth teaches in the Master Earth Sciences programme, where she coordinates the Human-Environment Interactions (HEI) course, served as coordinator of the Environmental Management track from 2023-2025 and is currently coordinator of the Science for Sustainability Minor. In the new Master programme Complex Systems and Policy, she serves on the Examinations Board and coordinates and teaches in the Challenge-Based course on food, health, and sustainability. She also teaches the second-year Bachelor courses Water Management and Water Governance of Aquatic Resources and Environments in the Bachelor programme Future Planet Studies. Elisabeth currently supervises several Master theses and PhD projects (see ‘Research’ for more information).

She is a member of UvA’s Sustainability Platform (USP), SEVEN, and Do More for Water, and actively participates in seminars and workshops of the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) and the POLDER Center. She is also an initiator of the Earth Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (ERSI) and a member of the Society for Social-Ecological Systems (SocSES). Her own research group at UvA (Social-Environmental Systems group) is a shared learning environment in which graduate, undergraduate, and PostDoc researchers share their work in progress and learn from each other by giving and receiving feedback. She co-chairs the IBED research group on Human-Environment Interactions, a group of faculty members and their PhD/PostDoc researchers working on further developing concepts, methods and research projects on the theme of Human-Environment Interactions. She also initiated the Urban Water Group, which involves multiple UvA groups at IBED and the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, in which PhD, PostDoc and faculty members share their work related to urban water research.

Elisabeth has a background in environmental hydrology (MSc, University of Freiburg, Germany), and a PhD (Purdue University, USA), during which she developed an integrated framework investigating urban water supply security in cities across the world, and analysed their resilience, sustainability and dynamics driven by the interaction of biophysical and human systems. During her Postdoc at the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University, she worked on the governance of urban sustainability transformations and on understanding human perceptions and behaviour in resource-constrained and resource-abundant environments.

She spent six years working in the strategic development of international relations and interdisciplinary water research at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ in Germany, and one year working in an environmental NGO in France (Alsace) coordinating non-governmental stakeholders along the Rhine River.

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Elisabeth’s research is focused on understanding mechanisms and dynamics of complex adaptive systems, in particular urban-rural water systems, food production systems, and the mechanisms of sustainability transformations. She uses a Social-Ecological-Technological Systems (SETS) lens to study the resilience and sustainability of human-environment interactions across scales, how they are mediated by physical infrastructure and social institutions, and the outcomes of these relationships for ecosystem health and human wellbeing.

Recent projects:

Blueprint for an Integrated Glocal Water Security Assessment: In this project, we develop a comprehensive framework and systematic methodology (blueprint) for quantifying multi-dimensional water security, mapping legal institutions, hydro-climatic conditions, and infrastructural development to promote better water governance from local to national scales. Presented in a global atlas, this Glocal Blueprint will inform policymakers, researchers, and civil society about the conditions within which managers can operate to ensure water security. Funding for this project comes from UvA’s Sustainability Platform (IP Theme Sustainable Prosperity). The project is a collaboration between IBED (Dr. Elisabeth Krueger) and GID (Prof. Joyeeta Gupta). The work is led by PostDoc Dr. Andrea Müller.

Ways of Water – Overcoming conflicting sustainability pathways in the Port of Amsterdam (WoWPoA): In the WoWPoA project, we are investigating the role of social actors and their power relationships, as well as physical infrastructure in shaping the sustainability (read: balance between socio-economic development and ecological health) in the Port of Amsterdam. Using the port’s energy transition from a fossil fuel to a renewables/hydrogen hub as a case study, we aim to understand causal mechanisms that have led to historical, and are leading to current, path dependencies. We use interviews and participatory workshop methods with all relevant actors in the port-city area to develop causal loop diagrams and models that 1) reflect current trends and 2) allow identifying leverage points that can support collective action and governance innovations for a more sustainable and adaptive port-city transition. Funding for this project comes from UvA’s Sustainability Platform (IP Theme Sustainable Prosperity). The project is a collaboration between IBED (Dr. Elisabeth Krueger), the Urban Planning group at GPIO-FMG (Dr. Jannes Willems, Prof. Maria Kaika), the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB, Dr. Mark van der Veen), and the Faculty of Law (FdR, Prof. Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh). The work is led by PostDoc: Vacancy (former PostDoc: Felipe Ancapi Bucci).

Multifunctional Urban Quaywalls: This project assesses new quaywall designs to serve multiple functions in the city of Amsterdam, as over 600km of the historical quaywalls require renewal. In the workpackage “Biodiverse Urban Waterfronts” of the project we are investigating what determines the aquatic biodiversity in the greater Amsterdam water system (from the agriculturally dominated urban hinterlands to Amsterdam’s port area and North Sea Canal). Intense human uses, low structural variability of the canal walls and low temporal variability of water flows limit the suitability of these water canals as species’ habitat. The goal is to identify measures in the re-construction process of the walls that will enhance biodiversity and ecosystem health by providing ecological niches and connectivity throughout the city and along the gradient from rural hinterlands to the North Sea. Funding for this project comes from the Nationale Groeifonds (Dutch National Growth Fund). The project is a collaboration between, among others, the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Studies (AMS), the Municipality of Amsterdam, Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and the University of Amsterdam (work package lead: Dr. Harm van der Geest). The work at UvA is led by PhD candidate Max Verweg.

Related to this project and with the help of several Master students, we are investigating how the health of the water system is linked to its land-based environment, as well as human uses of the space across the land-water transects by and perceptions of people in Amsterdam’s water system.

PhD projects:

Dynamics of human-water interactions in intermittent urban water supply systems: To better understand human adaptation to intermittent water systems (IWS) in urban environments and the implications this has on (unequal) water insecurity and resulting policy interventions, PhD candidate Shreyas Gadge is investigating the dynamics of human-water interactions in intermittent urban water supply systems. Shreyas first develops a standardized statistical method using household survey data to extract groups of households that are characteristic of each city and then derives these groups’ typical adaptive strategies to IWS. He then develops models that capture the dynamics of water supply, adaptive strategies, and outcomes of their interaction on human wellbeing. Collecting additional survey and interview data in a case study city helps to better understand the mechanisms that lead households to choose certain adaptive strategies over others, and to derive threshold values that determine switches in adaptive strategies. This allows the further development of the model and testing of interventions to increase the wellbeing of urban residents according to the needs in different household clusters. This work is funded by my UvA startup funding.

Spatial and temporal social-ecological dynamics of Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) in Ghana: PhD candidate Docia Agyapong is investigating the mechanisms driving ASGM in Ghana, its social-ecological impacts, and potential policy interventions that could mitigate its negative impacts or help communities choose more sustainable pathways. She first reviews the current literature based on the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impacts-Response (DPSIR) framework to provide an overview of what is known about the DPSIR elements related to ASGM worldwide. She then zooms in on Ghana’s flourishing ASGM sector and uses satellite imagery to understand the spatio-temporal development of ASGM in the country. Further zooming in on watersheds that are experiencing the most dynamic changes around ASGM to investigate its ecological impacts across hydrological gradients, and to elicit people’s experiences with, livelihood responses to, and potential community interventions addressing ASGM challenges. Finally, she develops a model that captures the social-ecological feedback mechanisms and allows developing scenarios that simulate the possible outcomes of policy interventions to address ASGM challenges. This work is funded by: Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions COFUND.

External PhD projects:

Climate change, land degradation, population growth and rising pollution are threatening the Resilience of Water Utilities. In this project, PhD candidate Bernice Ephraim-Armoo investigates the practices that allow water utilities in Ghana and Kenya to continue functioning in resource-constrained environments and experiencing growing pressures (main supervisor: Prof. Klaas Schwarz, IHE-Delft and UvA-FMG).

To evaluate long-term historical changes in meteorological, hydrological and vegetation drought characteristics and their socio-economic impacts, PhD candidate Katlego Mpothapo is integrating drought indices and social-ecological systems theory to analyse Long-term drought impacts on communities of the Lowveld region of Mpumalanga Province, South Africa (main supervisor: Prof. Fhumulani Mathivha, University of Limpopo, South Africa).

Integrating co-evolutionary models with human behaviour: Elisabeth serves as mentor for PhD candidate Hannah Prawitz, who studies conceptualizations of human-environment feedbacks across levels and scales and develops models to analyse the role of higher levels of social organization on social-ecological dynamics in the adoption of regenerative agriculture (main supervisors: Prof. Ricarda Winkelmann, Max-Planck-Institute for Geoanthropology and Dr. Jonathan Donges, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PIK, Germany).

Investigating the role of legislation and its implementation through source-, use-, and end-of-pipe solutions, PhD candidate Sophia Hildebrandt investigates the efficacy of these measures and the resulting long-term trajectories of river water quality in Germany using P as an indicator pollutant (main supervisor: Prof. Dietrich Borchardt, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ, and TU Dresden, Germany).

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