Heiko Balzter

• Director of Institute for Environmental Futures, University of Leicester

Heiko Balzter is Director of the Institute for Environmental Futures and Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Leicester. He leads the UKRI Strategic Programme Coordination Team on“Landscape Decisions” (£10.5 million) and is a member of the National Centre for Earth Observation. He holds the Royal Society's Wolfson Research Merit Award (2011), Royal Geographical Society's Cuthbert Peek Award 'for advancing geographical knowledge of human impact through earth observation' (2015) and Copernicus Masters 'Sustainable Living Award' (2017) for his work on deforestation monitoring. His 120 journal papers have been cited >7000 times (h-index=45; i10-index=112, Google Scholar).
Prof. Balzter is alternate UK representative on the GEO Programme Board and is leading the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service for the UK. He is involved in collaborative research funded by UK Research and Innovation, BEIS, the European Space Agency, the UK Space Agency and the Natural Environment Research Council. His research interests include Earth observation of the land surface and spatial-temporal patterns and processes. His forest research includes work on above-ground biomass, logging detection in near-real-time, fire monitoring and tree disease detection.
Before joining Leicester, he worked at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (1998-2006). He was Head of Department of Geography in Leicester from 2008-2011. He graduated with a Dr. (PhD) in 1998 and with a Dipl.-Ing. agr. (MSc) in 1994, both from Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany.

• –present Director of Institute for Environmental Futures, University of Leicester

• 1998 Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany, Dr. agr.

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