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prof.dr. M.K. van Aalst (Maarten)

Professor

About Me

Maarten van Aalst is Director General and Chief Science Officer of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and Permanent Representative of the Netherlands at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). He is full professor of Climate and Disaster Resilience at the University of Twente's Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), with several PhD students working on climate risk management across time and spatial scales.

Prof van Aalst is a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change and was Coordinating Lead Author at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change  (AR6, AR5 and SREX). He is a Trustee at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Before coming to KNMI in February 2023, Prof van Aalst was director of the International Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and held the Prinses Margriet Chair in Climate and Disaster Resilience at ITC. He was also adjoint Senior Research Scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University in New York, and worked on climate risk management with, among others, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, UNDP and OECD. He acted as expert on various bodies of UNFCCC, UNDRR and the UN Secretary General’s climate team. Prof van Aalst holds a PhD in atmospheric physics and chemistry from Utrecht University and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz.

Expertise

Earth & Environmental Sciences
# Climate
# Climate Change
# Financing
# Forecast
Social Sciences
# Climate
# Climate Change
# Red Cross
Business & Economics
# Climate

Organisations

Ancillary Activities

  • International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
    Member of Board of Trustees
  • IIED-Europe
    Supervisory Board
  • European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change
    Member
  • Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
    Director-General and Chief Science Officer
  • Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)
    Institute Advisory Committee (Instituutsadviesraad) NIOZ

Research

 

Publications

Recent
Jaime, C., Coughlan de Perez, E. , Aalst, M. V., & Easton-Calabria, E. (2024). Beyond the forecast: knowledge gaps to anticipate disasters in armed conflict areas with high forced displacement. Environmental research letters, 19(2), 1-13. Article 023001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad2023
Simpson, N. P., Williams, P. A., Mach, K. J., Berrang-Ford, L., Biesbroek, R. , Haasnoot, M., Segnon, A. C., Campbell, D., Musah-Surugu, J. I., Joe, E. T., Nunbogu, A. M., Sabour, S., Meyer, A. L. S., Andrews, T. M., Singh, C., Siders, A. R., Lawrence, J. , van Aalst, M., Trisos, C. H., & The Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative Team (2023). Adaptation to compound climate risks: A systematic global stocktake. iScience, 26(2), Article 105926. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.105926
Tradowsky, J. S., Philip, S. Y., Kreienkamp, F., Kew, S. F., Lorenz, P. , Arrighi, J., Bettmann, T., Caluwaerts, S., Chan, S. C., De Cruz, L., de Vries, H., Demuth, N., Ferrone, A., Fischer, E. M., Fowler, H. J., Goergen, K., Heinrich, D., Henrichs, Y., Kaspar, F., ... Wanders, N. (2023). Attribution of the heavy rainfall events leading to severe flooding in Western Europe during July 2021. Climatic change, 176(7), Article 90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03502-7
Pereira Marghidan, C. , van Aalst, M. K. , Blanford, J. I., Marrufo, T., & Maure, G. (2023). Extreme heat alerts and impacts across Mozambique 2016 - 2022: Gathering evidence from media articles. In P. van Oosterom, H. Ploeger, A. Mansourian, R. Lemmens, & B. van Loenen (Eds.), 26th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science “Spatial data for design” (Vol. 4, pp. 1-13). Article 11 (AGILE: GIScience Series). Copernicus. https://doi.org/10.5194/agile-giss-4-11-2023
Pereira Marghidan, C. , van Aalst, M. , Blanford, J. I., Guigma, K., Pinto, I., Maure, G., & Marrufo, T. (2023). Heatwaves in Mozambique 1983–2016: Characteristics, trends and city-level summaries using high-resolution CHIRTS-daily. Weather and climate extremes, 40, Article 100565. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2023.100565
Harrington, L. J., Wolski, P., Pinto, I., Ramarosandratana, A. M., Barimalala, R., vautard, R., Philip, S., Kew, S., Singh, R., Heinrich, D. , Arrighi, J., Raju, E., Thalheimer, L., Razanakoto, T. , van Aalst, M., Li, S., Bonnet, R., Yang, W., Otto, F., & Oldenborgh, G. J. V. (2022). Limited role of climate change in extreme low rainfall associated with southern Madagascar food insecurity, 2019-21. Environmental Research: Climate, Article 021003. https://doi.org/10.1088/2752-5295/aca695
Kruczkiewicz, A., Cian, F., Monasterolo, I., Di Baldassarre, G., Caldas, A., Royz, M., Glasscoe, M., Ranger, N. , & van Aalst, M. (2022). Multiform flood risk in a rapidly changing world: what we do not do, what we should and why it matters. Environmental research letters, 17(8), Article 081001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac7ed9
Martin, M. A., Boakye, E. A., Boyd, E., Broadgate, W., Bustamante, M., Canadell, J. G., Carr, E. R., Chu, E. K., Cleugh, H., Csevár, S., Daoudy, M., De Bremond, A., Dhimal, M., Ebi, K. L., Edwards, C., Fuss, S., Girardin, M. P., Glavovic, B., Hebden, S., ... Zhao, Z. J. (2022). Ten new insights in climate science 2022. Global Sustainability, 5, Article e20. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2022.17
Philip, S. Y., Kew, S. F., Van Oldenborgh, G. J., Anslow, F. S., Seneviratne, S. I., Vautard, R., Coumou, D., Ebi, K. L. , Arrighi, J., Singh, R. , van Aalst, M., Pereira Marghidan, C., Wehner, M., Yang, W., Li, S., Schumacher, D. L., Hauser, M., Bonnet, R., Luu, L. N., ... Otto, F. E. L. (2022). Rapid attribution analysis of the extraordinary heat wave on the Pacific coast of the US and Canada in June 2021. Earth System Dynamics, 13(4), 1689-1713. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1689-2022
Coughlan de Perez, E., Stephens, E. , van Aalst, M., Bazo, J., Fournier-Tombs, E., Funk, S., Hess, J. J., Ranger, N., & Lowe, R. (2022). Epidemiological versus meteorological forecasts: Best practice for linking models to policymaking. International Journal of Forecasting, 38(2), 521-526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2021.08.003
Zaitchik, B. F., Omumbo, J., Lowe, R. , van Aalst, M., Anderson, L. O., Fischer, E., Norman, C., Robbins, J., Barciela, R., Trtanj, J., Von Borries, R., & Luterbacher, J. (2022). Planning for compound hazards during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of climate information systems. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 103(3), 704-709. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0215.1
Jaime, C., Coughlan de Perez, E. , van Aalst, M., Raju, E., & Sheaffer, A. (2022). What was known: Weather forecast availability and communication in conflict-affected countries. International journal of disaster risk reduction, 83, Article 103421. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2022.103421
Pereira Marghidan, C. , Blanford, J. I. , van Aalst, M. K., Guigma, K., Maure, G., Pinto, I. , Arrighi, J., & Marrufo, T. (2022). Assessing the spatio-temporal distribution of extreme heat events in Mozambique using the CHIRTS temperature dataset for 1983-2016.. Paper presented at 30th Annual Geographical Information Science Research UK, GISRUK 2022, Liverpool, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6408101
O'Neill, B. , van Aalst, M. K., Zaiton Ibrahim, Z., Berrang Ford, L., Bhadwal, S., Buhaug, H., Diaz, D., Frieler, F., Garschagen, M., Magnan, A., Midgley, G., Mirzabaev, A., Thomas, A., & Warren, R. (2022). Key Risks across Sectors and Regions. In H.-O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E. S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, & B. Rama (Eds.), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 2411-2538). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009325844.025
Reckien, D. , & van Aalst, M. K. (2022). Summary for Policymakers. In H.-O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E. S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenberg, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, & B. Rama (Eds.), Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 3-33). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009325844.001
Tozier De La Poterie, A., Clatworthy, Y., Easton-calabria, E., Coughlan De Perez, E., Lux, S. , & Van Aalst, M. (2022). Managing multiple hazards: lessons from anticipatory humanitarian action for climate disasters during COVID-19. Climate and development, 14(4), 374-388. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.1927659
GAMI, Berrang-Ford, L., Siders, A. R., Lesnikowski, A., Fischer, A. P., Callaghan, M. W., Haddaway, N. R., Mach, K. J., Araos, M., Shah, M. A. R., Wannewitz, M., Doshi, D., Leiter, T., Matavel, C., Musah-Surugu, J. I., Wong-Parodi, G., Antwi-Agyei, P., Ajibade, I., Chauhan, N. , ... Lwasa, S. (2021). A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change. Nature climate change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01170-y
Other Contributions

 

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Courses Academic Year  2023/2024

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.
 

Courses Academic Year  2022/2023

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Internationally recognised expert on climate and disaster risk and resilience. Active in science, policy and practice, from early warning systems to global climate negotiations.

Director General of KNMI. Full professor in Climate and Disaster Resilience at ITC, University of Twente. Member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change.

Former director of the international Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Co-founder of the World Weather Attribution consortium.

 

Tweets

Contact Details

+31534893151  (secretary)
 
 

Visiting Address

University of Twente
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation
Langezijds (building no. 19)
Hallenweg 8
7522NH  Enschede
The Netherlands

Mailing Address

University of Twente
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation
Langezijds
P.O. Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands

Organisations

Social Media

University of Twente Drienerlolaan 5
7522 NB Enschede
+31 (0)53 489 9111
info@utwente.nl
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