Publications

Sebastian Luckeneder. 2025. Spatial data approaches for assessing the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of mining activities. Doctoral thesis. Institute for Ecological Economics. WU Research.

The growing human population, economic expansion, urbanisation, and rising affluence have driven global resource consumption to unprecedented levels. Metals and minerals have experienced particularly rapid growth, and mining activities are projected to intensify due to higher demand in emerging economies, the global energy transition, and declining ore grades. While mining increasingly encroaches on vulnerable ecosystems, syst...

Stephan Lutter, Victor Maus, Sebastian Luckeneder, Michael Tost. 2025. Increasing Water Use in Global Copper Production Threatens Freshwater Availability. Ecological Economic Papers. https://doi.org/10.57938/441b6e21-b914-4565-a2af-623f78ed92c6

Water input in copper mining varies substantially across sites worldwide, with implications for local sustainable resource management. We quantify water use in global copper mining at unprecedented spatial resolution, using machine learning to estimate site-level water withdrawal and identify geographic hotspots of pressure on water resources. Results reveal that global water intensity is two-fold higher than previously known....

Sebastian Luckeneder, Victor Maus, Juliana Siqueira-Gay, Tamás Krisztin, Michael Kuhn. 2025. Forest loss and uncertain economic gains from industrial and garimpo mining in Brazilian municipalities. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61930-8

Environmental and social risks in mining regions often juxtapose promises of local economic growth. Brazil, a major global mineral supplier and conservation leader, has pursued resource-led development despite mining’s threat to its forests. Yet, the efficacy of this development strategy is uncertain. In this study, we examine mining’s contribution to deforestation and regional economic growth in Brazil. For garimpo mining con...

Stefan Giljum, Victor Maus, Laura Sonter, Sebastian Luckeneder, Tim Werner, Stephan Lutter, Julia Gershenzon, Megan J. Cole, Juliana Siqueira-Gay, Anthony Bebbington. 2025. Metal mining is a global driver of environmental change. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00683-w

Global metal extraction is increasing, owing to rising mineral demands from infrastructure development and the growing need for metal-intensive renewable energy technologies to mitigate climate change and phase out coal mining. However, extraction of metal ores also drives impacts on land use, water resources and biodiversity. In this Review, we evaluate mining trends of 47 metal ores between 1970 and 2022 and explore the envi...

Valentin Seidler, Edson C. Utazi, Amelia B. Finaret, Sebastian Luckeneder, Gregor Zens, Maksym Bodarenko, Abigail W. Smith, Sarah E. K. Bradley, Andrew J. Tatem, Patrick Webb. 2025. Subnational variations in the quality of household survey data in sub-Saharan Africa. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58776-5

Nationally representative household surveys collect geocoded data that are vital to tackling health and other development challenges in sub-Saharan Africa. Scholars and practitioners generally assume uniform data quality but subnational variation of errors in household data has never been investigated at high spatial resolution. Here, we explore within-country variation in the quality of most recent household surveys for 35 Af...