Assistant Professor Geospatial analysis of sensor and citizen science data for nature-inclusive societies

New technologies allow for widespread measurements to monitor the role of nature in society. Examples are on-the-ground sensors to measure the cooling effect of vegetation, apps to collect environmental or crop growth data, wearables to track physical activities, and social media analyses of geo-tagged posts to understand societal preferences and behaviour. These sensor technologies and the citizen science in which they are often used, deliver a wealth of information to help describe human-nature relations. The selection of measurement sites, observation times, data analysis and integration for system understanding, however, is still a bottleneck. The development of spatial statistical methods is needed to deal with the different quality levels of multiple data sources and to analyse, explore, and integrate the different spatial processes (point process, areal process and geostatistical process) in space and time. This position aims to improve the way we analyse sensor data and integrate data in other spatially and temporally explicit information sources, to establish the processes that affect nature and society.

You will develop a clear research direction, and educational profile, by bridging and connecting to ongoing activities at the faculty, and bring nature-inclusive societal changes through science-for-impact work. You will address urgent social-ecological challenges based on your knowledge of modern spatial statistics and good knowledge of spatial-temporal data, data quality, and data collection, applicable to diverse sensor and citizen science data.

You will also enhance the understanding of spatial-temporal dynamics of ecosystem services, nature’s contributions to people, and their driving factors, will lead and contribute to research proposals for different funding agencies, and will contribute to our MSc programmes, co-supervise PhD candidates, and work with our e-learning specialists to develop online educational materials.

You will be actively involved in ongoing geo-citizen science initiatives and actively contribute to the network and ambitions of the Netherlands sector of Earth and Environmental Sciences. A start-up package including funding for a PhD candidate and a small research budget, might be available for this position.

Your position will be an appointment at the department of Natural Resources Science (NRS) in close collaboration with the Department of Earth Observation Science (EOS). There will be connections with all other departments in the faculty.

The department of Natural Resources (NRS) is one of ITC’s six scientific departments. Natural resources are crucial to maintain the well-being of societies. Sustainable management of natural resources balances the needs of people and the environment. It avoids the depletion, degradation, and destruction of ecosystems, prevents biodiversity loss and soil erosion, and mitigates the impacts of climate change. We aim to have a positive impact on natural resources management. We do this by empowering society to effectively use insights from geo-information and Earth observation technologies for sustainable management of the environment. The outcome is an increased understanding of the processes that affect the availability, stability, quality, and sustainability of natural resources, which in turn enables their preservation, sustainable use, development, or restoration. Our academic outputs and activities focus on developing both the means and the measurements that are essential to monitor trends, track changes, and enable action to sustain biologically diverse environments and productive agricultural systems. The department is composed of 28 academic and support staff, 32 PhD candidates and 13 guest researchers.

The mission of the department of Earth Observation Science (EOS) is to gain and disseminate scientific knowledge in earth observation. This knowledge is applied in the development of tools to help good governance and wise and sustainable use of natural resources in developing countries and emerging economies. The department deals with earth observation technology for problem-solving. Problem-solving means primarily the identification of solutions for large-volume producers of geo-information and the identification of solutions for application domains.