Jan Staes

Staes Jan is working as an assistant at the Ecosystem Management Research Group since 2002 and coordinated several projects on Ecosystem Services and Climate Adaptation. He recently defended his PhD, entitled: “Application Of Ecosystems Services For Integrated Land, Soil And Water Management”. Jan Staes was involved in the application and execution of many research projects on Ecosystem Services, such as BEES “BElgium Ecosystem Services: A vision for society–nature interactions”; ECOFRESH: “ECOsystem services of FRESHwater systems” and ESSENSE “Mapping regulating Ecosystem Services using remote SENSing imagery”. Jan Staes was the main researcher from ECOBE in the strategic basic research project CcASPAR “climate change and changes in spatial structures in Flanders” (2009-2013). In this project, Jan Staes was able to research on the development of Ecosystem based Adaptation concepts, linking ecosystem services to spatial planning and climate adaptation. Since 2009, Jan Staes has also been a major force behind the application for a large ES-research project ECOPLAN “Planning for Ecosystem Services”. In June 2012, the Flemish government agency for Innovation by Science and Technology – “Strategic Basic Research Projects” granted a 4-year, +300 MM research project on ecosystem services after a positive review by international experts and a broad support by the Flemish Policy end-users. ECOPLAN aims to develop spatially explicit information and tools for the assessment of ecosystem services and the evaluation of functional ecosystems as a cost-efficient and multi-purpose strategy to improve environmental quality. The project started in January 2013. Since then, Jan Staes is coordinating this research project.

Key tasks in LANDMARK

LANDMARK coordinator for WP4, application of the concept of Functional Land Management. Development of spatial explicit scenario assessment tools for soil functions at EU-level.