Eric Koomen

Eric Koomen is associate professor at the Department of Spatial Economics of the VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. His research interests include land-use change analysis, spatial modelling and policy support. In the past 15 years he managed many research projects related to these topics in the Netherlands and abroad. Eric has edited or co-authored three books and published numerous papers in scientific and applied journals and books. He teaches courses on 'Land-use change' and 'Imaging and Assessing Landscapes' in the Earth sciences and Economics programme. In addition he is tutor for 'GIS and Environmental Impact Assessment' in the UNIGIS MSc programme and coordinator of the 'Urban Environment Lab' at Amsterdam University Collega. Furthermore, he is a regular supervisor of BSc and MSc theses and co-supervisor of several PhD candidates.

Eric graduated in Physical Geography and got his first working experience with GIS at the nature conservation section of a water company. Subsequently he worked as a GIS-adviser at the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Water Management where he focussed on the use of GIS for environmental impact assessment. He managed projects for impact assessment, data collection and data construction. His work also involved the adaptation and construction of GIS-tools. In the past few years Eric worked part-time at the Geodan Next Company where he managed projects for regional authorities that inform planners about likely spatial developments, their potential impacts and possible policy alternatives.

He is editorial board member of: Computers, Environment and Urban Systems (since 2015) and Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy (since 2017).

Spatial data analysis; land-use change analysis and modelling; policy support.

• Coordinator and main tutor of ‘Land-use change’ and ‘Imaging and Assessing landscapes’ in the Earth and Economics programme at VU University Amsterdam.
• Coordinator and main tutor of ‘Urban environment lab’ at Amsterdam University College.
• Coordinator and main tutor of ‘GIS and Environmental Impact Assessment’ in the postgraduate UNIGIS-course (UNIGIS website).
• Tutor in several other courses including: 'Aarde en Economie' and 'Geographic Information Systems'.
• Supervisor of BSc and MSc theses (overview of theses supervised in our group).
• Co-supervisor of PhD research on: the interrelationships between accessibility and land-use change; understanding and simulating agricultural land-use patterns; analysing and modelling urban development; and more.
• Curriculum development and training workshops on Geographic Information Science worldwide (e.g. Kenya, Bhutan, South Asia).

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