I began my academic journey as a positivist geographer, focusing on land-use and land-cover changes through mapping and remote sensing. This approach helped me understand physical changes in landscapes and provided a solid foundation for some of my future work.
For my PhD (awarded in 2014), I analysed landscape changes in northern Croatia during the post-socialist period. As my research progressed, I realised that physical data alone could not fully explain these changes. I introduced a questionnaire survey to my PhD, which revealed that attitudes, beliefs, and socio-cultural factors were important contributing factors in land-use decisions and land-cover changes. This was a turning point in my work as I recognised that human behaviour and perception are essential not only for understanding social dynamics but also environmental ones.
Building on this, my subsequent research increasingly focused on the human component of landscape change. I found that demographic shifts during post-socialism influenced land-use changes, contributing to the creation of more fire-prone landscapes. The study of post-socialism led me to examine other broad, indirect drivers of societal and environmental change, such as neoliberal capitalism and globalisation, which brought a stronger focus on social and environmental justice within sustainability.
The inclusion of social factors led me to adopt more social-science-based methods in my research, such as questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups. I developed skills in questionnaire design and improved my interview and focus group techniques to better understand human experiences and behaviours. This also sparked an interest in the theoretical aspects of knowledge production, particularly the concepts of situatedness and positionality. Drawing from postmodernist theory, I began to critically examine how research is shaped by the researcher’s social, cultural, and political background. This led me to incorporate discourse analysis in my research, allowing me to explore how language constructs and reflects social and environmental issues.
As my research became more interdisciplinary, I started collaborating with natural scientists, particularly ecologists. While ecologists bring valuable expertise in understanding human role in environmental change, my contribution goes beyond measuring quantifiable impacts, and focuses on the experiences of communities and the broader socio-political context. These collaborations have expanded my research into topics such as mangrove resource use, (urban) biodiversity conservation, and climate change, all while maintaining a focus on sustainability and equitable environmental management.
Current and future research
My current research encompasses several interconnected themes focused on enhancing environmental resilience and promoting social equity. A project funded by the SWDTP in collaboration with Natural England (PhD starting in Sept 2025), investigates how land managers outside protected areas can implement adaptive, biodiversity-focused plans to foster climate resilience. Another project, funded by Bournemouth University (PhD starting in Sept 2025), explores the barriers to adopting climate-resilient, wildlife-friendly gardening practices in private UK gardens, aiming to assess their impact on urban biodiversity and identify strategies to encourage broader adoption.
Looking ahead, I plan to explore cultural ecosystem services provided by urban green spaces, particularly in the context of green prescribing and social and environmental justice, and how inequitable access to these spaces affects health and well-being.
As a member of the Resilient Rules project (funded by the European Research Council’s Horizon Europe program), I contribute to research on common-pool resource management. This project explores how institutional diversity in agricultural systems supports long-term resilience in the face of global environmental changes.
Selected publications
Boakes, Z., Stafford, R., Bramer, I., Cvitanović, M., & Hardouin, E. A. (2024). The importance of urban areas in supporting vulnerable and endangered mammals. Urban Ecosystems, 27(3), 883–894. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-023-01492-z
Cvitanović, M., Blackburn, G. A., & Rudbeck Jepsen, M. (2016). Characteristics and drivers of forest cover change in the post-socialist era in Croatia: evidence from a mixed-methods approach. Regional Environmental Change, 16(6), 1751–1763. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-0928-0
Cvitanović, M., Lučev, I., Fürst-Bjeliš, B., Borčić, L. S., Horvat, S., & Valožić, L. (2017). Analyzing post-socialist grassland conversion in a traditional agricultural landscape – Case study Croatia. Journal of Rural Studies, 51, 53–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.01.008
Hamza, A. J., Esteves ,Luciana S., Cvitanović ,Marin, & and Kairo, J. G. (2023). Sustainable natural resource management must recognise community diversity. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 30(7), 727–744. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2023.2192006
Slavuj Borčić, L., Cvitanović, M., & Lukić, A. (2016). Cultivating alternative spaces – Zagreb’s community gardens in transition: From socialist to post-socialist perspective. Geoforum, 77, 51–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.10.010
