Meet the Team

An Associate Professor of Physical Geography/Biogeography and Agriculture at the School of Land Use and Environmental Change (SLUEC), Dr. Mapili continues to apply his training in Resource Management and Environmental Studies from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Technology from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) through his supervision of student research aligned with the priorities of the FAI.

Dr. Mapili supervised the latest research on the Management of European Starlings in Abbotsford Blueberry Farms which won the 2020 UFV Community Service Research Award. The student research which was conducted by two classes of UFV students from January to September 2020 was directly under the direction of the FAI, and funded by the Blueberry Council of British Columbia. Dr. Mapili will continue research on finding solutions to environmental issues related to rural-urban conflict in agricultural production, including the issue on starling predation in blueberry farms, and the generation of agricultural waste. The primary goal is aligned with FAI’s priority of community resilience, to make enterprises that produce our food more competitive yet welcome in the communities of the Fraser Valley.

Dr. Mapili is continuing his research on lots in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) classified as unused, barren, and vacant in the Agricultural Land Use Inventory (ALUI) of the BC Ministry of Agriculture. The aim is to find out if these lots are modern refuge of biodiversity and contributor of ecosystem services or repositories of invasive species and pests. Exploratory research employing image analysis and GIS were conducted last year by two SLUEC students he supervised. This research is aligned with the FAI priority on food systems planning that integrated climate, biodiversity, and health.

An interdisciplinary research employing GIS that tracts the historical land use changes in Fraser Valley wetlands and the accompanying water quality interactions, is the latest student research that Dr. Mapili is co-supervising with senior researchers from three different departments and institutes. The study is aligned with FAI’s research priority of food security through agricultural land use policy.