MSc defense by Belen Villacis

Belen will defend her M.Sc. thesis “Spatio-temporal patterns of urban expansion among main biomes in Ecuador using LULC data from 1990-2018” on Wednesday 8th of September, 2pm. From the abstract: “Over the past decades, the world has experienced an accelerated increase in the number of urban areas due to the population growth. According to the United Nations World Population Prospects 2019 report, the world population reached 7.7 billion by mid-2019, having added one billion people since 2007 and two billion since 1994. In addition, current projections indicate that the global population could increase to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.9 billion in 2100. In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean region, its urban population increased about 240% between 1970-2000. According to the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences Ecuador (FLACSO), 3.4 million inhabitants, which represented about 2% of the total population of Latin America, lived in Ecuador in 1950. Currently, Ecuador is in eighth place with approximately 17.4 million inhabitants (INEC, 2020), which indicates a considerable increase in its population since 1950. This reality creates many environmental, social, and economic challenges to overcome. Therefore, the goal of this thesis is to analyze the spatio-temporal patterns of urban expansion among main biomes in Ecuador using LULC data from 1990-2018. This allows to define the urban areas and understand their behavior, needs, and challenges during the urbanization process. Indeed, remote sensing data, GIS techniques, and statistical analysis were the essential components to achieve this objective.”

first supervisor Dr. Michael Thiel