Thesis subject

MSc thesis topic: From croplands to urban: land cover change in the Netherlands

This MSc topic will use the Land Use Database of the Netherlands to investigate land use changes in the Netherlands.

The wildland-urban interface (WUI) is defined as the area where houses meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland vegetation (Radeloff et al. 2005). The cropland-urban interface (CUI) is defined as the area where houses meet or interface with croplands. A detailed spatial assessment of the WUI in the United States indicated that it is those areas that are especially susceptible to human-environmental conflicts. In this study we will investigate how the WUI and CUI have changed in the last ten years. We will also investigate where we can find hotspots of urbanization and rewilding.

Relevance to research/projects at GRS or other groups

This project is part of the beginnings of a collaboration between Dr. Kirsten de Beurs and Dr. Martha Bakker from Land Use Planning.

Objectives and Research questions

  • How have the croplands in the Netherlands changed in the last ten years?
  • Where can we find hotspots of urbanization and rewilding?
  • What other changes can be found?
  • How have the wildland urban interface and the cropland urban interface areas changed in the last ten years?

Requirements

  • At least Intro to Remote Sensing
  • Experience or interest in the processing of raster datasets
  • Geoscripting

Literature and information

  • Hazeu, Gerard W. "Operational land cover and land use mapping in the Netherlands." Land Use and Land Cover Mapping in Europe: Practices & Trends (2014): 283-296.
  • https://lgn.nl/
  • Hazeu, G., Schuiling, R., Thomas, D., Vittek, M., Storm, M., & Bulens, J. D. (2023). Landelijk Grondgebruiksbestand Nederland 2021 (LGN2021): achtergronden, methodiek en validatie.
  • Radeloff, V. C., Hammer, R. B., Stewart, S. I., Fried, J. S., Holcomb, S. S., & McKeefry, J. F. (2005). The wildland–urban interface in the United States. Ecological applications, 15(3), 799-805.
  • Bar-Massada, A., Alcasena, F., Schug, F., & Radeloff, V. C. (2023). The wildland–urban interface in Europe: Spatial patterns and associations with socioeconomic and demographic variables. Landscape and Urban Planning, 235, 104759.

Expected reading list before starting the thesis research

  • See above.

Theme(s): Human – space interaction