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Martin Behnisch
Professor Martin Behnisch is head of the 'Spatial Information and Modelling' research area at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER). Additionally, he holds a professorship in the same field at Dresden University of Technology (TUD). Since 2015, he has been an organiser of the International Land Use Symposium (ILUS). His key competencies are related to spatial data science, built environment and land system science, with extensive experience in leading and coordinating collaborative research projects.
He received his PhD (summa cum laude) from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, undertook a postdoc at ETH Zurich and has been a visiting scientist at Concordia University Montréal (Canada), Yonsei University (Korea) and Tianjin University (China). He has received and worked on DFG research grants.
Latest Commentaries
Remote Sensing for Urban Development Policies
At the 2026 Sustainable Buildings and Construction Summit Magnus Andersson, David Muthui & Reza Roodaki (Malmö University) argued that remote sensing should be a core evidence infrastructure for sustainable urban governance. Satellite derived and geospatial analysis can observe and monitor urban expansion, densification, land consumption, building form and material demand across jurisdictions and over time. A shift from two-dimensional to three-dimensional sensing and analysis provides new data to inform policies for housing, land-use efficiency, disaster exposure, public space, resource efficiency and resilient construction.
Disaster Reconstruction: Practitioner Insights Improve Outcomes
Regan Potangaroa (Auckland University of Technology - AUT), Kelvin Zuo (Massey University), Suzanne Wilkinson (AUT) explain why experience-led knowledge from the field, when triangulated with contemporaneous documentation, can constitute evidence for understanding post-disaster reconstruction systems. People working within reconstruction environments (engineers, builders, logisticians and community actors) provide crucial observations about how reconstruction systems function in practice, particularly supply chains, material flows, procurement and governance in post-disaster rebuilding. Integrating this knowledge can lead to better outcomes.