Vicent Agustí Ribas Costa
Vicent Agustí Ribas Costa is from Ibiza, Spain and first began his work with the FPC as a visiting research scholar in 2022. Now, Vicent is enrolled in the PhD program in Advanced Forestry Research at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), focusing on "Modeling forest productivity via remote sensing under different management regimes." Vicent's PhD research is supported by the 'la Caixa' Foundation under an INPhINIT Retaining Fellowship, a predoctoral grant received in 2022. This grant funds his PhD at UPM for a total of three years. His research is divided into two focus areas:
In Study Case A, in collaboration with Dr. Rachel Cook (NCSU), Vicent is focused on loblolly pine plantations in the southeastern US. He aims to (1) generate a methodology to map site index across these plantations using USGS public LiDAR and (2) use that methodology to calculate site index across FPC member plantations, and then model site index using soils, climate and management practices. During a 3 month stay at the NCSU lab in Raleigh, NC this fall, Vicent has used his methodology to process over 1 million ha of plantation land. This methodology is currently in the process of being peer reviewed.
In Study Case B, Vicent is focusing on naturally regenerated Aleppo pine forests in the Mediterranean. Similar to Study Case A, he is generating a methodology to obtain site index but is using the public Spanish LiDAR acquisitions and a series of orthophotography.
Prior to his PhD, Vicent completed a Master’s degree at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), in Forest Engineering where he developed a methodology to calculate leaf area index using drone-based spherical photography. He completed his thesis during a 7-month stay at the University of Helsinki, in Finland, and a publication yielded from the research project can be found here. Vicent also completed a Bachelor's degree at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, in Forest and Environmental Engineering, and for his Bachelor thesis, he explored an ancient technique to produce pine tar from the Aleppo pine forests in Ibiza (published here).
After the conclusion of his PhD (approximately 2 years remaining), Vicent hopes to keep a leg inside academia, but is also eager to explore other options as well. With a background in engineering, careers in private engineering and environmental consulting are also of interest to Vicent.
Vicent in Wyoming, USA
Map produced by Vicent displaying the USGS LiDAR acquisitions. Utilizing this publicly available data is critical for Vicent’s project.
