Langezijds

prof.dr. M. Kuffer (Monika)

ITC-PGM
BMS-TPS-CSTM
Langezijds 1301
m.kuffer@utwente.nl
+31534874301
Business card

Monika Kuffer is working as a Professor at the Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS) as well as at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC, University of Twente). My research focuses on sustainable development (SDGs), in particular poverty (deprivation), living quality, and economic development in urban/rural environments using remote sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and AI-based methods. I co-chair an international network on deprivation area mapping IDEAMAPS and (co) lead several research projects on urban deprivation and environment, e.g., IDEAtlas,  SPACE4ALL, IDEAMAPS Ecosystem, and ONEKANA. I am the project director of two NUFFIC-funded training grants (IDeAMapSudan - Capacity strengthening for gender-responsive and sustainable urban development and DATA4HUMANRIGHTS, Nigeria). I am a Steering Committee Member of the Joint Urban Remote Sensing Event (JURSE), the Dutch representative of the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSeL), SIG chair for Developing Countries, and a member of the Steering Committee: EO for Sustainable Cities and Communities Toolkit.

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Expertise

  • Earth and Planetary Sciences

    • Metropolitan Area
    • Datum
    • Area
    • Cartography
    • Earth
    • Observation
    • Image
    • Investigation

Organisations

Ancillary activities

  • University of LiverpoolAdvisoy Board Member Imago

Monika Kuffer received her PhD from the University of Twente (NL) and one MSc in Human Geographer (TU Munich), and a second MSc in Geographic Information Science (University of London). She is working as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC, University of Twente). Her main research foci are urban remote sensing, monitoring deprived areas (e.g., slums), and analyzing urban form and dynamics with remote sensing, spatial statistics, and spatial metrics. Her research is driven by providing spatial information to support planning and decision-making processes in complex cities, toward inclusive, livable, and sustainable cities.

Publications

Jump to: 2025 | 2024

2025

FRAME-PRO: Framework for the responsible and accountable mapping of deprived urban areas (2025)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Oluoch, I. O.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036565974Foreword to the Special Issue“Exploring the Potential of Urban Remote Sensing” (2025)IEEE Journal of selected topics in applied earth observations and remote sensing (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Chrysoulakis, N., Somarakis, G., Kuffer, M., Mallet, C. & Taubenböck, H.https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2025.3559018Using comparative approaches to model deprivation in Antananarivo, Madagascar: A multidimensional analysis using principal components analysis and weighting system across meso and macro scales (2025)Habitat International, 159. Article 103359 (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Ramiaramanana, F. N., Teller, J., Sliuzas, R. & Kuffer, M.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103359Data Are Power: Addressing the Power Imbalance Around Community Data with the Open-Access Data4HumanRights Curriculum (2025)Societies, 15(2). Article 29. Kuffer, M., Thomson, D. R., Wakonyo, D., Kimani, N. W., Kohli-Poll Jonker, D., Okoko, E., Toheeb, R., Akinmuyiwa, B., Zanna, M., Imole, D. & Maki, A.https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15020029Toward 3D hedonic price model for vertically developed cities using street view images and machine learning methods (2025)Habitat International, 156. Article 103288. Ying, Y., Dai, S., Koeva, M., Kuffer, M., Persello, C., Zhou, W. & Zevenbergen, J.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2025.103288

2024

The interplay between uncertainties, transferability & policymaking in remote sensing-based slum mapping (2024)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente. Pratomo, J.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036564168AI perceives like a local: predicting citizen deprivation perception using satellite imagery (2024)npj Urban Sustainability, 4(1). Article 20. Abascal, A., Vanhuysse, S., Grippa, T., Rodriguez-Carreño, I., Georganos, S., Wang, J., Kuffer, M., Martinez-Diez, P., Santamaria-Varas, M. & Wolff, E.https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-024-00156-x3D property valuation in vertical cities (2024)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC). Ying, Y.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036562515Do informal settlements contribute to sprawl in Sub-Saharan African cities? (2024)Sustainable Cities and Society, 113. Article 105663. Kolowa, T. J., Daams, M. N. & Kuffer, M.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2024.105663Diagnostics of urban flooding in Nairobi (2024)[Book/Report › Report]. Zenodo. Trento Oliveira, L., Kuffer, M., Belgiu, M. & Dijkstra, A. M.https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14650088Feature-guided deep learning model for mapping deprived areas (2024)In 2024 International Conference on Machine Intelligence for GeoAnalytics and Remote Sensing, MIGARS 2024. IEEE. Filho, P. S., Tareke, B., Persello, C., Kuffer, M., Maretto, R., Abascal, A., Wang, J. & MacHado, R.https://doi.org/10.1109/MIGARS61408.2024.10544988Monitoring, trends and impacts of light pollution (2024)Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 5(6), 417-430. Linares Arroyo, H., Abascal, A., Degen, T., Aubé, M., Espey, B. R., Gyuk, G., Hölker, F., Jechow, A., Kuffer, M., Sánchez de Miguel, A., Simoneau, A., Walczak, K. & Kyba, C. C. M.https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00555-9Detection of Unmonitored Graveyards in VHR Satellite Data Using Fully Convolutional Networks (2024)In Urban Inequalities from Space: Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World (pp. 167-188) (Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing; Vol. 26). Springer. Debray, H., Kuffer, M., Klaufus, C., Persello, C., Wurm, M., Taubenböck, H. & Pfeffer, K.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49183-2_9Introduction (2024)In Urban Inequalities from Space : Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World (pp. 1-9) (Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing). Springer. Georganos, S. & Kuffer, M.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49183-2Making Urban Slum Population Visible: Citizens and Satellites to Reinforce Slum Censuses (2024)In Urban Inequalities from Space: Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World (pp. 287-302) (Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing; Vol. 26). Springer. Abascal, A., Georganos, S., Kuffer, M., Vanhuysse, S., Thomson, D., Wang, J., Manyasi, L., Otunga, D. M., Ochieng, B., Ochieng, T., Klinnert, J. & Wolff, E.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49183-2_14Putting the Invisible on the Map: Low-Cost Earth Observation for Mapping and Characterizing Deprived Urban Areas (Slums) (2024)In Urban Inequalities from Space: Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World (pp. 119-137) (Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing; Vol. 26). Springer. Vanhuysse, S., Kuffer, M., Georganos, S., Wang, J., Abascal, A., Grippa, T. & Wolff, E.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49183-2_7Urban and Peri-Urban? Investigation of the Location of Informal Settlements Using Two Databases (2024)In Urban Inequalities from Space: Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World (pp. 77-98) ( Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing; Vol. 26). Samper, J., Kuffer, M. & Boanada-Fuchs, A.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49183-2_5Towards a scalable and transferable approach to map deprived areas using Sentinel-2 images and machine learning (2024)Computers, environment and urban systems, 109, 102075. Article 102075. Owusu, M., Nair, A., Jafari, A., Thomson, D., Kuffer, M. & Engstrom, R.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2024.102075A Global Estimate of the Size and Location of Informal Settlements (2024)Urban Science, 8(1). Article 18. Boanada-Fuchs, A., Kuffer, M. & Samper, J.https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci8010018Heat exposure of deprivation through air temperature modelling (2024)In IGARSS 2024 : 2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 1156-1159) (Proceedings International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS); Vol. 2024). IEEE. Abascal, A., Wang, J., Kuffer, M., Georganos, S. & Vanhuysse, S.https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS53475.2024.10640489IDEAMAPS: Modelling sub-domains of deprivation with EO and AI (2024)In IGARSS 2024 : 2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 1562-1566). Article 10642494. IEEE. Kuffer, M., Abascal, A., Engstrom, R., Thomson, D. R., Tregonning, G., Shonowo, A., Zhao, Q., Porto de Albuquerque, J., Elias, P., Onyambu, F. C. & Kabaria, C.https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS53475.2024.10642494Introduction (2024)In Urban Inequalities from Space: Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World (pp. 1-9) (Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing; Vol. 26). Springer International Publishing. Georganos, S. & Kuffer, M.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49183-2_1Large area mapping of urban deprivation from Sentinel-2 and Google Open Buildings using deep learning (2024)In IGARSS 2024 : 2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 1567-1570) (Proceedings International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS); Vol. 2024). IEEE. Engstrom, R., Owusu, M., Hanna, M., Jafari, A., Thomson, D. R. & Kuffer, M.https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS53475.2024.10640635ONEKANA: Modelling thermal inequalities in African cities (2024)In IGARSS 2024 : 2024 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 1571-1575) (International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS)). IEEE. Vanhuysse, S., Abascal, A., Georganos, S., Wang, J. & Kuffer, M.https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS53475.2024.10641265Preface (2024)In Urban Inequalities from Space : Earth Observation Applications in the Majority World (Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing). Springer. Kuffer, M. & Georganos, S.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49183-2

Research profiles

Ongoing research projects on Earth Observation and mapping deprived urban areas: 

The IDEAMAPS Network is developing and maintaining an Integrated DEprived Area MAPping System (IDEAMAPS) that leverages the strengths of our current silo-ed approaches to “slum” area mapping.
More info: https://ideamapsnetwork.org/

ACCOUNT (Accounting for the unaccounted) is developing a machine-learning based framework for estimating the population of invisible spaces in support of the SDG Slum Indicator.
More info: https://slummap.net/index.php/account/ 

The SLUMAP project (Remote Sensing for Slum Mapping and Characterization in sub-Saharan African Cities) is a two-year research project (2019-2021) funded by the STEREO-III programme of the Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO).
More info: http://slumap.ulb.be/ 

IDEAMAPSUDAN (Integrated Deprivation Area Mapping System for Displacement Durable Solutions and socioeconomic reconstruction in Khartoum, Sudan) is implementing a training project in Sudan on Capacity strengthening for gender-responsive and sustainable urban development.
More info: https://slummap.net/index.php/projects-overview/ 

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