Global change, driven by growing population densities and rising economic production levels, is increasingly placing pressure on scarce land resources involved in the production of food and other ecosystem products and services.
Adequate solutions to environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss, unsustainable food production systems, deforestation, overgrazing, landscape fragmentation, climate change, and the depletion and contamination of land and water resources require an integration of multiple perspectives and disciplines. Below you can read more about our highlighted themes of expertise and impact: Forestry, Agriculture and Environment.
Forestry research at NRS focuses on biodiversity conservation, climate change, carbon cycling, and sustainable management of forest and tree resources.
With a primary focus on:
Biodiversity conservation.
Climate change and carbon cycling.
Sustainable forests and tree resource management.
Our Department's work emphasizes innovative geospatial techniques and data management to support these goals, contributing to broader environmental and land use planning efforts and disaster risk reduction. The department's approach integrates the study of landscape processes with a strong consideration of human roles in the environment, aiming to provide practical solutions for natural resource management.
NRS research in Agriculture centres on the sustainable use of land resources, focusing on food security and agricultural resilience in the face of climate change.
Food production and food security in global agricultural systems.
Agroforestry systems.
Crop type and growth monitoring.
Livestock mapping and monitoring.
By integrating geospatial data with field observations, the Department develops innovative tools for precision farming, crop monitoring, food system resilience, and land use optimization. This research helps in improving agricultural practices, increasing productivity, and ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources, which is essential for supporting rural livelihoods and adapting to changing environmental conditions.
Research in the Environmental field at NRS addresses critical issues related to HEALTHY LANDSCAPES, climate change, and ecosystem services.
Environmental impact of land use and land use change assessments.
Restoration of degraded landscapes.
Risk assessment and monitoring.
The Department focuses on understanding landscape processes, particularly how they affect and are affected by human activities. Through advanced geospatial technologies, the team monitors environmental changes, assesses risks, and develops strategies for sustainable management. This is crucial in supporting livelihoods, resource conservation efforts, and creating actionable insights for policymakers, businesses, and civil society organisations to mitigate environmental challenges.
PhD Possibilities
By pursuing a PhD at the Natural Resources Department of ITC you will be able to develop research in a field you love, create societal impact and travel across the world to collect data.
Answer to these five questions:
If you would answer Yes to these five questions you may pass to the next step.
We want to get to know you! Contact one of our professors to talk about your research ideas at NRS or your motivation to start a PhD with us. Read their personal page to find out more.
Professor Wieteke Willemen's current research includes RS-based ecosystem service mapping and monitoring for resilient rural landscapes, impact assessments of integrated restoration, citizen science integration in impact research, and prioritization of investments in land degradation neutrality actions.
Professor Andrew Skidmore is a leading expert in spatial environmental resource dynamics, specializing in the use of satellite imagery and remote sensing technology to monitor global biodiversity. He has developed widely used tools for image processing, terrain modeling, and machine learning in the Earth sciences.
Professor Andy Nelson coordinates research, education, and capacity development projects related to food security and the environment. Through projects and mentoring 20 PhD candidates with fellow supervisors, Professor Nelson has helped develop RS-based methods to extract information on food production systems and the environment.
Dr. Roshanak Darvishzadeh's expertise lies in Earth and Planetary Sciences, with a focus on vegetation modeling, canopy investigation, and cartography. Dr. Darvishzadeh has contributed to research on estimating rice crop transplanting and harvest dates using Sentinel-1 data, and analyzing crop productivity under heat stress.
Dr. ir. Anton Vrieling's research and teaching activities concentrate on the application of satellite image time series for the understanding, mapping, and monitoring of dynamic natural resources.
Fill in the form and register your request for the idea you discussed with us in Step 1.
*IMPORTANT: Don't forget to select our research theme (FORAGES) while filling out the application.
What happens after applying for registration in the Graduate Programme depends upon your registration request in your application.
The ITC Faculty is a great international institution in remote sensing, ecological modelling and geoscience and provided us with expert guidance and navigation during our PhDs.
By simulating policy implementation with models in my PhD, I can assess and compare policies prior to their implementation. I chose to focus on Ethiopia because it is one of the most food-insecure countries in the world, and also because it is rich in agricultural and household data, and I have previous research experience from Ethiopia.
ITC fellows have published numerous high-level papers in my research field which achieved worldwide impact. Therefore [...] I present my work with the pride of belonging to ITC.
During my PhD, I used open-source biodiversity data to study macrofungal diversity and distribution in Europe. In Europe, especially nowadays, there is an increase of open-source data, for example from citizen science and even museums. That data has invaluable information about species distribution, and we have been able to gather it from 8 different European countries
Academic output
Contact
For research inquiries, please contact Wieteke Willemen