Jasper van Vliet is an Associate Professor in Land Use and Urban Development. The main aim of his research is to better understand land use change and urban development processes at scales ranging from local to global, as well as their social and environmental impacts. Methodologically, his work builds on a range of methodological approaches, including case studies, systematic reviews, spatial analysis, and land use modelling.
Jasper is program director of the Bachelor in Earth, Economics, and Sustainability, and teaches courses on GIS, Land use change, and Urban development. He regularly supervises related thesis projects at all levels.
Selected projects:
UNSEAL (2026-2028, Project coordinator) aims to advance our understanding of processes of soil unsealing in urban areas and to identify opportunities towards further unsealing and creation of new urban space for biodiversity. Additionally, we will explore opportunities towards unsealing in a co-design process with case study partners in Greece, Romania, Hungary, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. UNSEAL is funded under the European program Driving Urban Transitions, and include partners from all case study countries.
RUGBIS (2024-2028, PI) focuses on the sustainable densification of cities in the Global South. Sustainable densification here refers to an increase in population density or economic activities without a loss in associated ecosystem services. RUGBIS is funded by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, and conducted in collaboration with TU Delft.
My VIDI project 'Guiding human settlements towards sustainable development' (2019-2024, PI), explores various urban development processes in Eastern Africa. Specifically, we developed now methods to characterize urban areas beyond built-up land cover, and we analysed urbanisation beyond the spatial and demographic changes commonly studied. This is a personal grant project funded by NWO Netherlands Scientific Organization.
