Aida Bargués Tobella

Aida Bargués Tobella is a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). She received her PhD in the field of Soil Science from the Department of Forest Ecology and Management at SLU. In her PhD project, entitled ‘The importance of tree cover for water resources in semiarid West Africa’, she investigated the conditions under which increased tree cover can lead to both higher carbon storage and better adaptive capacity to climate change, particularly through enhanced groundwater recharge. Aida’s main research interest is on the use of trees to restore degraded lands through soil rehabilitation, with a focus on dryland sub-Saharan Africa. She is particularly interested in how changes in tree cover and land use in drylands affect the water cycle, and how trees can improve water availability in such water-limited environments. Aida is currently working on her Formas funded project ‘From trade-off to synergy: reevaluating how tree cover affects water resources in tropical African drylands’.