Paola Beatriz

Ovando Pol

Paola is an Environmental Economist, with a PhD awarded by the University of Alcalá in 2011 (with honors). She has joined the Institute of Public Goods and Policies in November 2021 as Research Associate Professor (Científica Titular).

From 2018 to 2021 Paola was a Research Leader and Macaulay Development Trust Fellow in Natural Capital Accounting, at the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Department in the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland (UK).

From 2016 to 2018 she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Environmental Social Sciences (Environmental Economics cluster) of the Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology).

From 2014 to 2016 a Marie Curie Intra-European Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and The Environment of the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, with the project FORESTA FORest conservation and EcoSysTem Accounting.

After completing her PhD Paola was part of the research staff of the project RECAMAN: Total income and capital of Andalusian Forestland at the IPP-CSIC.

Paola’s principal research contribution and interests focus on two research fields: (i) the economic valuation of ecosystem services and natural capital, and their integration into ecosystem accounting and decision making frameworks; and (ii) the development of integrated economic and environmental models to better understand land use and management decisions and their environmental and socioeconomic consequences. The main objective of her research is to help the design of more effective spatially targeted environmental and rural development strategies.

Paola´s contribution to the field of natural capital accounting has been recognized beyond Academia, through her involvement in the Steering Group for TEEB-Agrifood framework in 7 countries implemented by the Coalition of Capitals, the project Irish Natural Capital Accounting for Sustainable Environments, the Sustainable Land Use group of the Scottish Forum on Natural Capital and the Steering Committee on the Scottish Natural Capital Accounts.

Paola has contributed to numerous national and international research projects, and most recently to EUH2020. FirEUrisk Developing A Holistic, Risk-Wise Strategy for European Wildfire Management y EU H2020 FRAMEwork: Farmer clusters for realising agrobiodiversity management across Europe.

Paola has over 45 peer reviewed publications in scientific journals and book chapters (see the CV attached).