Dr. Ulf Stein
Diplom-Ingenieur (Landscape Planning)
Coordinator Water Studies
Senior Fellow
- Team
- Topics
Dr. Ulf Stein is a Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute in Berlin, where he coordinates the Institute's work in the field of water. He joined Ecologic Institute in 2011, drawing on more than 10 years of professional experience in academic research and knowledge dissemination. His work focuses on the assessment and improvement of European Union (EU) and German water policies and the sustainable management of water resources, particularly with regard to environmental planning, climate change adaptation, aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as governance. Ulf Stein is a native German speaker, fluent in English and has knowledge of Spanish, Danish and Russian.
Ulf Stein has managed and participated in more than 20 projects including large-scale research projects for various European and national institutions. In addition, he was a member of the European Topic Centre on Inland Coastal and Marine waters (ETC-ICM) as well as the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC-BD) for several years. Ulf Stein is an experienced and passionate GIS analyst. Over the last decade, he has performed various geospatial analyses and supported the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive.
His current activities include the following projects:
Nature’s Integration in Cities’ Hydrologies, Ecologies and Societies (NICHES): Ulf Stein coordinates this three-year BiodivERsA and Water JPI project aimed at demonstrating that nature-based solutions can be utilized to sustainably transform cities by improving water retention capacities and mitigating the negative impacts of combined sewer overflow events on aquatic ecosystems.
Drought and Water-Use Conflicts in Germany (WADKlim): Ulf Stein coordinates this three-year Umweltbundesamt (UBA) project that provides an overview of the current water availability in Germany, as well as its future development under changing climatic conditions. It predicts emerging conflicts of use and develops possible solution strategies.
Sustainable Management of the Landscape Water Balance to Increase Climate Resilience (KliMaWerk): Within this BMBF project spanning three years, Ulf Stein investigates integrated measures and strategies to increase the hydrological and ecological resilience of landscapes affected by weather extremes. He leads a work package that co-creates coupled climate and land-use scenarios with stakeholders in the Lippe catchment.
Before joining Ecologic Institute, Dr. Ulf Stein worked as a junior researcher at the University of Kassel (Germany) for four years. He conducted research on several projects for the German Federal Environment Agency and the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) on practical issues of river restoration and flood protection. During this time, Dr. Ulf Stein also lectured at the University of Kassel in the subject areas of freshwater ecology, water resource management and geographic information systems (GIS), while mentoring students.
Prior to that, from 2002 to 2006, he worked as a landscape planner within the field of impact assessment, site investigation and nature management at the landscape architecture firm Faktorgruen.
In addition to his work for Ecologic Institute, Dr. Ulf Stein completed his PhD at the University of Kassel on the reference conditions of small siliceous mountain streams. His dissertation research was carried out at the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park.
Dr. Ulf Stein studied landscape planning and nature conservation at Leibniz University Hannover (Germany), the University of Guelph (Canada) and the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) with a focus on nature conservation, planning, and environmental management.