Dr. Floortje Van Der Hilst

Biography

Floortje van der Hilst is a full professor specializing in Sustainable Land Use, holding the chair within the Energy & Resources section of the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University. Her research addresses the challenges in achieving sustainable land use management amidst intensifying competing demands. Van der Hilst is particularly interested in exploring potential synergies and trade-offs related to sustainability objectives. To tackle the complexity of sustainable land use, she adopts an integrated, interdisciplinary approach that analyzes the entire land system, considering the diverse and complex drivers of land-use change along with their interrelated environmental and socio-economic impacts. Her work links local and global scales and employs quantitative spatiotemporal modeling across various geographical scales, combining scenario-based approaches with optimization techniques. Through her research, she aims to generate actionable insights that focus on policy-relevant issues, connecting global trends with local realities, and engaging local stakeholders to inform context-sensitive land-use strategies. Additionally, van der Hilst serves as a Lead Author for the Seventh Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and chairs Task 45 at the International Energy Agency (IEA) focusing on bioenergy sustainability and the bioeconomy.

Research Interests

Experience