LABORATORY OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY & ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT
School of Rural, Surveying & Geoinformatics Engineering (SRSGE)

Staff

Director

Maria Papadopoulou

Dr. Papadopoulou is Professor and Director of Laboratory of Physical Geography and Environmental Impacts at the School of Rural, Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering (SRSGE), National Technical University of Athens. Since 2017, she is Deputy Dean at the School of Rural, Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering (SRSGE), NTUA.

In June 2020, she was appointed as President of the Management Board of Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA) a Legal Entity of Private Law supervised by the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy. The aim of NECCA is to implement the policy set by the Ministry of Environment and Energy for (i) the management of protected areas in Greece, the conservation of biodiversity and (ii) the promotion and implementation of actions for sustainable development actions and climate change.

Prof. Papadopoulou currently serves as a member of the National Water Council and the National Committee on Climate Change. In April 2020, she won as part of the Sewers4COVID the 1st prize on Pan-European EUvsVirus Hackathon by introducing an Integrating sewer surveillance and machine learning for an early warning on pandemic outbreaks, emergency response and recovery decision making in a timely and cost-effective manner solution to support European and global community in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak

Prof. Papadopoulou graduated from the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Patras (1998) and she holds a Ph.D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of Vermont USA (2002). She served as post-doctoral associate in the Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete (2003-2007). Her principal research interests lie in the areas of subsurface water resources modeling and management, climate change adaptation, water and carbon footprint in agricultural and food industry sector, water-energy-food-climate Nexus. From 2007-2009, she has served as consultant in Ministry of Rural Development and Food responsible for the monitoring of projects funded by the EU in the framework of the Community Initiative LEADER +.  She has participates in many EU (H2020, LIFE), USA and national funded research projects. She has written more than 60 research papers in scientific journals and international conference proceedings. She serves as an independent evaluator EU-funded (FP7, H2020, PRIMA) and national projects, as reviewer in several scientific journals and she is member of national and international scientific societies.

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Teaching Associates

Dimitriou Dorothea

Holds a diploma in Rural and Surveying Engineer from NTUA, 1981.

Professional Engineer of topographic and photogrammetric maps, cadaster. Specialized in urban spatial planning as well as in plans for sustainable tourism development of areas, special environmental studies, and promotion of natural and cultural resources and landscapes.

Project manager of studies for the promotion, and content management of cultural, tourism resources, landscapes and destinations in the fields of culture and tourism.

Permanent member of the Laboratory Teaching Staff of the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering (SRSE) of National Technical University of Athens, in the final degree.

Has extensive experience in the applied teaching work in the undergraduate courses of the SRSE NTUA.

Specifically in the course “Geography and Spatial Analysis” for more than ten years. Also for more than thirty years, from their introduction to the SRSE until today, of the courses “Natural Geography and Environment”, “Applications in Natural Resources Management”, “Environmental Impact Assessment” and “Environmental Planning”.

Since its foundation, she is a Research Fellow of the Laboratory of Natural Geography and Environmental Impact Assessment, SRSE of the NTUA.

Since 2015, she is a special advisor for the designation of the Parrhasian Heritage Park area, as a Protected Landscape.

Leka Akrivi

Akrivi Leka holds a Diploma in Rural and Surveying Engineering from NTUA, 1998. She also holds a Master Degree in ‘Environment and Development’ (NTUA, 2000), a Master Degree in ‘Environmental Resource Management’ (Brandenburg Technical University, Germany, 2004) and a PhD from NTUA (2012) in Urban Sustainability (‘Environmental Sustainability in Urban Small and Medium-sized Coastal Cities – Approach to Environmental Indicators’). Since September 2007, she is lecturing at the Dept. of Geography and Regional Planning, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, NTUA in undergraduate and graduate level. Presently, she is a senior researcher at NTUA, while she also works as a freelancer in Surveying and Environmental Management Projects.

She owns a specific license for conducting Environmental Impact Assessment Projects (EIAP) in private and public sector (2003) and she is the author of a number of EIAPs’. She has participated in a number of national and international conferences, while also published her work in scientific national and international journals and conferences.

Research interests: Environmental Planning in Urban and Sub-urban level, Sustainable Urban and Regional Development and Policy, Environmental Policy, Development of Environmental Indicator Systems for monitoring and managing the quality of Urban and Sub-urban Environment, Resiliency in Urban and Sub Urban level, Climate Change Adaptation Planning.

Papakonstantinou Dimitris

He holds a PhD in Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and a Diploma of Rural and Surveying Engineering at the NTUA.

Since 1981 he has been a coordinator and professional engineer of topographic and photogrammetric surveys, cadaster surveys, spatial and development plans, environmental planning designs, promotion and protection of natural and cultural resources and management plans of protected areas.

He is a Consultant in the field of tourism for management of tourist and cultural resources and destinations, implementing new Information and Communication Technologies.

Permanent member, in the final degree, of Laboratory Teaching Staff of School of Rural and Surveying Engineering (SRSE) at NTUA. Teaches in the undergraduate courses “Natural Geography and Environment”, “Applications in Management of Natural Resources”, “Environmental Impact Assessment” and “Environmental Planning”.

Research Fellow of the Laboratory of Natural Geography and Environmental Impact Assessment of the SRSE at NTUA, since its establishment.

Since 2009 he has been a co-lecturer of the postgraduate course “Methods and Techniques of Environmental Impact Assessment – Special issues of Natural Resources Management” in the Postgraduate Program “Geoinformatics” of SRSE at NTUA.

He is the Scientific Director of the project for the institutionalization of the Parrhasian Heritage Park as a Protected Landscape area. He is a member of the Parrhasian Heritage Foundation, USA, of which he has been Vice President for the last three years.

His research interests are management of natural and cultural resources, management of protected areas, environmental planning, sustainable tourism development and new technologies, the impact on the environment of projects and programs. He publishes his work and participates in conferences.

Doctoral Candidates

Odysseas Sifounakis

Odysseas Sifounakis is an Agronomist (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, AUTh) specialized in Agricultural Engineering and Environment. He holds a BSc, MSc in Land Reclamation, Soil Science and Agricultural Engineering (AUTh) and an MSc in Hydrology (Utrecht University, NL). He is a PhD candidate and member of the Laboratory of Physical Geography and Environmental Impact and his research interest is focusing on the Assessment of the environmental impact of agriculture on a large scale and under climate change conditions, in collaboration with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research – Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), Germany. He has gained teaching experience by participating in the courses of “Physical Geography and Environment” and “Environmental Impact Assessment”. He is involved in European research and technology projects and participates as an evaluator and monitor in EC programs in the fields of Agriculture and Environment. He has worked on national projects aiming at the estimation of the GHG emissions from agriculture but, also, the abatement of certain air pollutants’ emissions.

In parallel, he is participating in interpretation and translation activities and has collaborated with the National Finnish Broadcasting Network. He is a member of the Geotechnical Chamber of Greece (GEOT.E.E).

He speaks English (C2), Dutch (B1) and French (A2).

Charchousi Despina

Despoina Charchousi obtained the Diploma in Civil Engineering and a Master of Sciences Degree in “Water Resources Science and Technology” from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Since 2015, she has participated in several European and national research projects implemented in NTUA. Since 2016, she is a PhD candidate at NTUA. Her dissertation title is “Assessment of Groundwater Footprint (GF) concept as an index for optimal groundwater resources management in regions affected by climate change in the Mediterranean”. Her research interests focus on sustainable management of water resources, climate change and its impacts on water resources, water footprint, multi-criteria analysis in environmental decision-making.

Kosmas Stampoulidis

I am a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography and Regional Planning – School of Rural, Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering (SRSGE) of the NTUA, in the thematic area: “Investigation of the Effects of Climatic Change on Wildfires’ Phenomenon by Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics (GIS) Methods – Management and Decision-Making Strategies for the Greek Territory”. I hold two Master of Science Degrees (MSc) at NTUA – “Environment and Development” and at the University of Piraeus – “e-Learning”. My main degree is at the “Department of Digital Systems” of the University of Piraeus. I am also graduated of the Hellenic Fire Officers School of the Hellenic Fire Academy and I serve in the Hellenic Fire Service in the Department of Informatics and Communications. My research interests are related to the observation and simulation of forest fire behavior, the impact of climate change on the natural and man-made environment, research for methods and techniques of environmental protection.

Graduate of the Department of Geology and Geoenvironment of the School of Sciences of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

PhD candidate of the School of Rural, Surveying and Geoinformatics Engineering (SRSGE) of the National Technical University of Athens.

Since 2015, he has been researching issues of geoenvironment, geological field research, geological mapping, geological hazard investigation, protection of natural and cultural heritage sites, management of protected areas.

Participates in the study group for the institutionalization of the Parrhasian Heritage Park as a Protected Landscape and in the activities of the Summer School of the Parrhasian Heritage Foundation.

Since 2019 as a PhD candidate, participates in the teaching work in the undergraduate classes in “Applications in Natural Resources Management” and “Environmental Impact Assessment”, SRSE at NTUA.

Research fellow of the Laboratory of Natural Geography and Environmental Impact of SRSE at NTUA.

Member of the Hellenic Geological Society and the Hellenic Society of Geographic Information Systems, HellasGI.

Research Associates

Papadopoulou Chrysa

Dr. Chrysaida-Aliki Papadopoulou is a Post-Doctoral researcher at the National Technical University of Athens. She received her Diploma in Rural and Surveying Engineering (2008), her MSc in Geoinformatics (2011) and her PhD from the National Technical University of Athens (2017). Her Doctoral thesis focuses on the development of a Decision Support System aiming at the management of spatial decisions through the incorporation of artificial intelligence and visualization methodologies. Since 2008 she works as a researcher and she has been involved in several National and EU projects. From 2008 to 2015 she was working as a teaching assistant at the National Technical University of Athens. She also works as a freelancer. Her research interests include: Spatial Decision Support Systems, Spatial planning and Sustainable Development, Smart Cities, GIS/web-GIS technologies, Geoinformatics, Spatial models, Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis and Artificial Intelligence. She has published several articles in international journals and conference proceedings. She speaks English, French and Italian.