Professor Dr. Ir. Pol Coppin, * 03/06/1953

Degrees

Ph.D. Forestry (University of Minnesota, USA, 1991)

Landbouwkundig Ingenieur Waters en Bossen (Universiteit Gent, Belgium, 1977) – M.Sc. equivalent

Chronological career overview

Since November 1995 (Belgium-USA)	Professor Geomatics and Forest Engineering (gewoon hoogleraar ruimtelijke dataverwerking), team leader Geomatics and Forest Engineering Research Group, head Laboratory for Forest, Nature and Landscape Research (since 1996), chair Department of Land Management (1998-2002), associate dean for education Faculty of Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences (since 1998), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Adjunct professor (non-salaried full professor) "Biometrics and Remote Sensing", Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University.
December 1991 until December 1995 (USA)	Professor "Biometrics and Remote Sensing" en Director "Spatial Data Analysis Laboratory", Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University.
October 1988 until November 1991 (USA)	NASA researcher, lecturer and doctoral fellow, Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota.
May 1986 until August 1988 (Nicaragua)	Team leader "Forest Resources Assessment Group". Employer Swedforest Consulting AB, Stockholm, Sweden, within the framework of a SIDA-financed development project (Swedish International Development Agency).
April 1984 until April 1986 (Philippines)	Deputy project leader and remote sensing / GIS expert in the "Philippine-German Forest Resources Inventory" project. Employer Deutsche Forstinventur Service Gmbh, Feldkirchen, Germany, within the framework of a GTZ-financed development project (Genossenschaft Technische Zusammenarbeit).
April 1982 until April 1984 (Myanmar)	Forest inventory, remote sensing and data processing expert in the UNDP/FAO project "National Forest Survey and Inventory of Burma". Employer Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO, Rome, Italia.
April 1981 until April 1982 (Belgium)	Belfotop/Eurosense coordinator for the IWONL researchj program "Application of remote sensing techniques in vegetation studies" plus some commercial responsibilities - in collaboration with the FLW / RUG (Prof. Dr. Ir. R. Goossens).
February 1980 until April 1981 (Italia)	Forest inventory, remote sensing and GIS expert, forest management division, FAO headquarters Rome. Employer Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO, Rome, Italia.
February 1978 until February 1980 (Bolivia)	Associate expert forest inventory and remote sensing in the UNDP/FAO project "Evaluación y manejo de los recursos forestales en Bolivia”. Employer Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FAO, Rome, Italia.
July 1977 until January 1978 (Belgium)	Assistant forest supervisor (salaried as laborer) Houtvesterij Oost Vlaanderen, Administratie Waters en Bossen, Belgian Government.
August 1971 until April 1972 (New Zealand)	Research Assistant, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Short term contracts and missions in:	South-Africa (yearly from 1997 on), USA (about yearly from 1993 on), Brazil (2002, 1997, 1994 and 1980), Senegal (1996), Mexico (1995), Sweden/Germany (1995 and 1988), Philippines (1992), Guinée Française (1988), Belgium (1984 and 1982), Sweden (1983 and 1981), Bolivia (1980), Peru (1978)

Currently operational externally-funded research projects

I) As research director

Consistent determination of LAI and quantification of the structure of vegetative canopies based on digital hemispherical photography. January 2001 until December 2004, NSF Belgium, EUR 260 997.

Describing biophysical and optical characteristics of forests through computer modeling and visualization. October 2001 until September 2005, Special Research Fund K.U.Leuven (OT/01/39), EUR 347 136.

Texture and change detection of forests. December 2001 until November 2005, PRODEX 6 Earth Observation, EUR 183 486.

Development of a fire risk assessment methodology, definition of a fire risk susceptibility map (GLOVEG 1), December 2001 until November 2004, OSTC Belgium / VGT, EURO 297 473.

Development of a re-greening index for monitoring vegetation regrowth after natural disaster (GLOVEG 2) December 2001 until November 2004, OSTC Belgium / VGT, EURO 297 472.

Data analysis in hyperspectral remote sensing (HYPERCRUNCH), December 2001 until November 2004, OSTC Belgium / STEREO, EURO 103 071.

Remote sensing of vitality of perennial plants. August 2002 until Juli 2003, OSTC Belgium / STEREO, EURO 24.860.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation effect in southern Africa: Dendrochronology and phenology of the miombo woodlands. January 2000 until December 2003, IWT Belgium, EURO 14 874.

Land suitability assessment for food security planning in SADC. December 2000 until February 2004, AWI Flanders (BIL00/34), EURO 99 182.

II) As research co-director

Afforestation management in north-western Europe: Influence on carbon sequestration, nitrate leaching and groundwater recharge (AFFOREST). March 2000 until February 2004, EC Fifth Framework, EUR 298 378.

Development of integral qualitative indicators for the ecological aspects of sustainable forest management, May 2003 until April 2007, AMINAL Flanders, EURO 285 000.

 

Pubications

I) Peer-reviewed publications in international journals

P.R. Coppin, N. Lust. 1980. Growth and development of stands of Corsican Pine (Pinus nigra Arn. calabrica Schn.) on coarse sands. Silva Gandavensis 47:1-20.

P.R. Coppin, N. Lust. 1983. The structure of stands of Corsican Pine (Pinus nigra Arn. calabrica Schn.) on coarse sands. Silva Gandavensis 49:19-45.

P.R. Coppin, R.E. Goossens, W.M. Dewispelaere. 1986. Thematic mapping of the Flemish forest cover using aerial photography. Silva Gandavensis 51:123-149.

M.E. Bauer, T.E. Burk, A.R. Ek, P.R. Coppin, S.D. Lime, T.A. Walsh, D.K. Walters. 1994. Satellite inventory of Minnesota forest resources. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 60:287-298.

P.R. Coppin, M.E. Bauer. 1994. Processing of multitemporal Landsat TM imagery to optimize extraction of forest cover change features. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 32:918-927.

P.R. Coppin, N. Lust. 1994. The stand concept in today's forest resource management. Silva Gandavensis 59: 69-78.

P.R. Coppin. 1994. Multitemporal Landsat TM data for stand-based management in northern US forest ecosystems. Silva Gandavensis 59:79-95.

P.R. Coppin, M.E. Bauer. 1995. The potential contribution of pixel-based canopy change information to stand-based forest management in the northern U.S. Journal of Environmental Management 44:69-82.

P.R. Coppin, L.P. Queen. 1995. GIS and forest management: bringing data layers up to standard. The Compiler 13:30-37.

P.R. Coppin, M.E. Bauer. 1996. Digital change detection in forest ecosystems with remote sensing imagery. Remote Sensing Reviews 13:207-234.

M. Hermy, P. Van den Bremt, G. Tack, P. Coppin, H. Gulinck. 1996. De ontwikkeling van de kennis van de flora van het Bos t'Ename (O.-Vl.). Dumortiera 64-65:35-44.

P. Coppin, H. Gulinck, M. Hermy. 1996. Low-cost revision of forest maps in low-relief terrain using small-format aerial photography and GIS. Forest and Landscape Research 1(4):367-379.

A. Gillespie, W. Rawlins, W.L. Mills, P.R. Coppin, N. Olsson, C. Fries, P.O. Backstrom, E. Agestam, T. Magnusson. 1998. Teaching across cultures: a model for international education in the natural resources. Journal of Forestry 96(2):20-24.

O. Honnay, M. Hermy, P. Coppin, 1998. Effects of area, age and diversity of forest patches in Belgium on plant species richness, and implications for conservation and reforestation. Biological Conservation 87(1):73-84.

O. Honnay, M. Hermy, P. Coppin. 1998. Nested plant communities in deciduous forest fragments: species relaxation or nested habitats ? Oikos 84(1):119-129.

O. Honnay, M. Hermy, P. Coppin. 1999. Impact of habitat quality on forest plant species colonization. Forest Ecology and Management 115:157-170.

J. Casaer, M. Hermy, R. Verhagen, P. Coppin. 1999. Appropriateness of the linear correction method for GPS positional fixes in wildlife studies. Wildlife Biology 5(2):15-18.

J. Casaer, M. Hermy, P. Coppin, R. Verhagen. 1999. Analyzing space use patterns by Thiessen polygon and triangulated irregular network interpolation: a non parametric method for processing telemetric animal fixes. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 13(5):499-511.

Th. Kleynhans, P. Coppin, L. Queen. 1999. Geographic information system concepts for land management. Development Southern Africa 16(3):519-530.

P. Sigrist, P. Coppin, M. Hermy. 1999. Impact of forest canopy on quality and accuracy of GPS measurements. International Journal of Remote Sensing 20(18):3595-3610.

K. Nackaerts, P. Coppin, B. Muys, M. Hermy. 2000. Sampling methodology for LAI measurements with LAI-2000 in small forest stands. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 101(2000):247-250.

J. Stuckens, P. Coppin, M. Bauer. 2000. Integrating contextual information with per-pixel classification for improved land cover classification. Remote Sensing of Environment 71(3):282-296

H. Gulinck, H. Dufourmont, P. Coppin, M. Hermy. 2000. Landscape research, landscape policy and earth observation. International Journal of Remote Sensing 21(13&14):2541-2554.

K. Vaesen, S. Gilliams. K. Nackaerts, P. Coppin. 2001. Ground-measured spectral signatures as indicators of ground cover and leaf area index : the case of paddy rice. Field Crops Research 69:13-25.

P. Coppin, K. Nackaerts, L. Queen, K. Brewer. 2001. Operational monitoring of green biomass change for forest management. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 67(5):603-611.

E. Michels, K. Cottenie, L. Neys, K. De Gelas, P. Coppin, L. De Meester. 2001. Geographic and genetic distances among zooplankton populations in a set of interconnected ponds: a plea for using GIS modelling of the effective geographical distance. Molecular Ecology 10:1929-1938.

V. Trouet, K. Haneca, P. Coppin, H. Beeckman. 2001. Tree ring analysis of Brachystegia spiciformis Benth. and Isoberlinia tomentosa (Harms) Craib et Staff. : evaluation of the ENSO signal in the miombo woodland of eastern Africa. IAWA Journal 22 (4):385-399.

S. Lettens, B. Muys, R. Ceulemans, E. Moons, J. Garcia, P. Coppin. 2003. Energy budget and greenhouse gas balance evaluation of sustainable coppice systems for electricity production. Biomass and Bioenergy 24:179-197

P.R. Coppin, I.G. Jonckheere, E.F. Lambin, 2003. Digital change detection in ecosystem monitoring: a review. International Journal of Remote Sensing 24:

M. S. Salama, J. Monbaliu, P. Coppin. 2003. Atmospheric correction of AVHRR imagery. In publication “International Journal of Remote Sensing”

K. Vaesen, K. Nackaerts, B. Muys, P. Coppin. 2003. Performance of a modified Change Vector Analysis approach in forest change detection. In publication “International Journal of Remote Sensing”.

K. Vaesen, K. Nackaerts, I. Lizarraga, B. Muys, P. Coppin. 2003. Use of metatruth image concept to assess forest change detection accuracy at pixel level. In publication “International Journal of Remote Sensing”.

I. Jonckheere, S. Fleck, K. Nackaerts, B. Muys P. Coppin, M. Weiss, F. Baret. 2003. Review of methods for in-situ leaf area index determination, Part I: Theories, techniques and instruments. In publication “Agricultural and Forest Meteorology”

M. Weiss, F. Baret, G.J.Smith, I. Jonckheere, P. Coppin. 2003. Review of methods for in-situ leaf area index determination, Part II: Estimation of LAI, errors and sampling. In publication “Agricultural and Forest Meteorology”

II) International congress and symposia publications

P.R. Coppin, B.P De Roover, W.M. Dewispelaere, R.E. Goossens 1983. Inventory of Flemish forests using medium-scale CIR photography and CIR orthophotoplans as base for a forest management data bank. In Proceedings of the EARSeL/ESA Symposium on Remote Sensing for Environmental Studies, April 26-29, 1983, Brussels, Belgium, pag. 249-255.

P.R. Coppin, M.E. Bauer. 1992. Optimization of the information content of multispectral Landsat TM data sets for monitoring forest cover disturbance. In Proceedings of the 1992 IGARSS Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, May 26-29, 1992, Houston Texas, USA, pag. 983-985.

P.R. Coppin, M.E. Bauer. 1993. The change component in multitemporal Landsat TM images: its potential for forest management. In Proceedings of the Twelfth Pecora Memorial Symposium, August 24-26, 1993, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA, pag. 168-175.

P.R. Coppin. 1994. Digital change detection in forest ecosystems: where are we and where are we going? (invited paper en sluitingstoespraak sessie over "Renewable Resources") In Proceedings of the ISPRS/IUFRO Resource and Environmental Monitoring Symposium ECO-RIO'94, September 26-30, 1994, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pag.367-380.

C. Leppert, P.R. Coppin, A Gillespie. 1994. Digital elevation models as input parameters to ecological classification schemes for forested landscapes. In Proceedings ERDAS User's Group Meeting 1994, Junbe 14-15, 1994, Columbus, Ohio, USA, pag. 13-26.

W. Carpenter, P.R. Coppin, N. Moody. 1996. Detection and quantification of green biomass change in aspen-dominated ecosystems in the upper Great Lakes. In SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2818 Multispectral Imaging for Terrestrial Applications, August 8-9, 1996, Denver, Colorado, USA, pag. 19-29.

P. Sigrist, P.R. Coppin, B. Van Gelder. 1996. Comparison of GPS receivers for ground accuracy assessment of remotely sensed images. In SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2818 Multispectral Imaging for Terrestrial Applications, August 8-9, 1996, Denver, Colorado, USA, pag. 215-223.

P.R. Coppin, M. E. Bauer, H. Gulinck, M. Hermy. 1997. Forest ecosystem monitoring from space: state of the art. In Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Application of Remote Sensing in European Forest Monitoring, October 14-16, 1996, Vienna, Austria, pag. 263-292.

P. Sigrist, P.R. Coppin, B. Van Gelder. 1997. Quantitative assessment of forest canopy condition impact on sub-canopy GPS data collection. In ACSM-ASPRS Proceedings Vol. 2 Geospatial Information Age, April 7-10, 1997, Seattle, Washington, USA, pag. 210-219.

J.Casaer, M. Hermy, R. Verhagen, P. Coppin. 1998. Analysing habitat utilization by Thiessen polygon and triangulated irregular network interpolation. In Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Symposium on Biotelemetry, April 6-11, 1997, Marburg, Germany, pag. 435-440.

K. Nackaerts, P. Coppin. 1998. Modelling variability and scale integration of LAI measurements. In Proceedings of the Conference on Integrated Tools for Natural Resources Inventories in the 21st Century, August 16-20, 1998, Boise, Idaho, U.S.A., pag. 392-398.

K. Nackaerts, P. Coppin. 1998. Indirect leaf area index estimation using LICOR LAI-2000 measurements and Monte Carlo techniques. In Proceedings of the International Workshop on Forest Ecosystem Modeling, Up-Scaling and Remote Sensing, September 21-25, 1998, Antwerp, Belgium, pag. 201-212.

K. Nackaerts, P. Coppin. 1999. Operational monitoring of green biomass change for forest management. In Proceedings of the IUFRO’99 Conference on Remote Sensing and Forest Monitoring, June 1-3, 1999, Rogow, Poland, pag. 355-370.

K. Nackaerts, S. Sterckx, P. Coppin. 1999. Fractal dimension as correction factor for stand-level indirect Leaf Area Index measurements. In Proceedings of the EOS/SPIE Symposium on Remote Sensing, September 20-24, 1999, Firenze, Italia, pag. 80-89.

K. Nackaerts, T. Wagendorp, P. Coppin, B. Muys, R. Gombeer. 1999. A correction of indirect LAI measurements for a non-random distribution of needles on shoots. In Proceedings of the ISSSR Symposium, October 31 -November 4, 1999, Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A., CD-Rom.

K. Vaesen, K. Nackaerts, S. Gilliams, P. Coppin. 2000. Impact of change indicator - change detection algorithm selection on overall change detection accuracy in forest cover monitoring. In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Geospatial Information in Agriculture and Forestry, January 10-12, 2000, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, U.S.A., pag. 339-345.

K. Vaesen, K. Nackaerts, I. Lizarraga, P. Coppin. 2000. Modeling local accuracy in forest monitoring based on change class purity and landscape metrics. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Spatial Accuracy Assessment in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, July 12-14, 2000, Amsterdam, Netherlands, pag. 671-674.

T. Wagendorp, B. Muys, P. Coppin. 2001. Ecosystem exergy as indicator of land use impact in LCA. In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Advances in Energy Studies, May 23-27, 2000, Porto Venere, Italia, pag. 275-284.

B. Muys, T. Wagendorp, P. Coppin. 2001. Ecosystem exergy as indicator of land use impact in LCA. In Proceedings of the Midterm Workshop of COSTE9 Section on LCA on Forestry and Forest Products EUR 19858, March 27-29, 2000, Espoo, Finland, pag. 211-220.

Coppin, E. Lambin, I. Jonckheere, B. Muys. 2002. Digital change detection methods in natural ecosystem monitoring : a review. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on the Analysis of Multi-temporal Remote Sensing Images MULTITEMP-2001, September 13-14, 2001, Trento, Italia, pag. 3-36.

I. Jonckheere, K. Nackaerts, B. Muys, P. Coppin. 2002. Consistent determination of leaf area index in forest stands based on hemispherical photography by means of the Kodak/Nikon DCS 6660 digital camera. In Proceedings of the 29th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment, April 8-10, 2002, Buenos Aires, Argentina, pag.

V. Trouet, I. Bauwens, H. Beeckman, P. Coppin. 2002. Modelling Net Primary Production of the miombo woodlands in Zambia. In Proceedings of the 29^th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment, April 8-10, 2002, Buenos Aires, Argentina, pag.

V. Trouet, P. Coppin, H. Beeckman.. 2002. Integrating remote sensing and tree ring analysis for climate research in Southern Africa. In Abstracts of the 6^th International Conference on Dendrochronology, August 22-27, 2002, Québec City, Canada, pag. 357-359

J. Verbesselt, S. Fleck, P. Coppin. 2002. Estimation of fuel moisture content towards fire risk assessment: a review. In Proceedings of the 6^th International Conference on Forest Fire Research (Millpress Science), November 18-23, 2002, Luso, Coimbra, Portugal, pag. 55-67

S. Sterckx, P. Coppin, S. Debacker, W. Debruyn, S. Fleck, P. Kempeneers, K. Meuleman, I. Reusen, P. Scheunders. 2003. Band reduction techniques for stress detection in orchards. In Proceedings of the Conference on Spectral remote Sensing of Vegetation, December 3-5, 2002, Las Vegas, U.S.A., pag.

V. Trouet, P. Coppin, H. Beeckman. 2003. Dendroclimatological potential of the miombo woodland in Zambia. In Proceedings of TRACE 2003, Tree Rings in Archaeology, Climatology and Ecology, May 1-3, 2003, Utrecht, Netherlands, pag.

S. Sterckx, P. Coppin, S. Debacker, W. Debruyn, P. Kempeneers, K. Meuleman, K. Nackaerts, I. Reusen, P. Scheunders. 2003. Information extraction techniques for monitoring stress symptoms in orchards. In Proceedings of the 3^rd EARSEL workshop on Imaging Spectroscopy, May 13-16, 2003, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany

K.Meuleman, P. Coppin, S. Debacker. W. Debruyn, S. Fleck, K. Nackaerts, P. Scheunders, S. Sterckx. 2003. Optimal hyperspectral indicators for stress detection in orchards. In Proceedings of the 3^rd EARSEL workshop on Imaging Spectroscopy, May 13-16, 2003, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany

J. Verbesselt, S. Lhermitte, K. Nackaerts, S. Fleck, P. Coppin, E. Lambin, D. Van Speybroeck.. 2003. Collection of ancillary data for the monitoring of vegetation condition in the North-Eastern part of South Africa. In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Remote Sensing and GIS applications to Forest Fire Management: Innovative concepts and methods in fire danger estimation (EARSEL), June 2-6, 2003, Gent, Belgium, pag. 249-250

K. Nackaerts, S. Fleck, B. Muys, P. Coppin. 2003. What have quantitative change indicators and fractal dimension in common ? In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on the Analysis of Multi-temporal Remote Sensing Images MULTITEMP-2003, July 16-18, 2003, Ispra, Italia

P. Coppin. 2003. Handling of, and information extraction from, multitemporal imagery: a vegetation monitoring persp In Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on the Analysis of Multi-temporal Remote Sensing Images MULTITEMP-2003, July 16-18, 2003, Ispra, Italia

D. Biliouris, K. Vom Berge, S. Fleck, K. Nackaerts, Ph. Dutre, B. Muys, Y. Willems, P. Coppin. 2003. ClabSpeG: a compact laboratory spectro-goniometer system enabling rapid and complete BRDF assessments of forest element. In Proceedings of the 2003 IGARSS Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, July 21-25, 2003, Toulouse, France

J. Verbesselt, S. Lhermitte, K. Nackaerts, S. Fleck, P. Coppin, E. Lambin, D. Van Speybroeck. 2003. Collection of ancillary data for the monitoring of vegetation condition in the northeastern part of South Africa. In

D. Van der Zande, K. Nackaerts, S. Fleck, P. Coppin. 2002. Modelling of vegetation structure using a laser system. In Proceedings of the ScandLaser 2003 Workshop, September 2-4, 2003, Umeå, Sweden

III) Books