Dr. Ellen Banzhaf

PhD - Senior Scientist

Department of Urban and Environmental Sociology
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
Permoserstr. 15
04318 Leipzig, Germany

phone: ++49 341 6025 1738
Dr. Ellen Banzhaf

Dr. Ellen Banzhaf


Research Areas


Quantitative analyses of spatial and temporal dynamics in urban regions and detection of urban structures by remote sensing techniques. Monitoring and change detection of land-use/land-cover (LULC) in the interdisciplinary field of urban transformation studies. Deriving urban structures and further spatial indicators to understand processes of spatial dynamics and linkage to socio-demographic and socio-economic parameters in neighbourhoods, cities and urban regions. Regional, national and international contexts are taken into account. Research in urban resilience has a strong focus on nature-based solutions.

  • Monitoring urban land use and land cover at various scales from urban regions to neighbourhoods;
  • Analysing impacts of land-use dynamics and population development as drivers for urban transformations;
  • Investigating urban structures, especially their urban ecological and socio-economic parameters, for resilient urban development paths;
  • Linking quantitative and qualitative information for equitable nature-based solutions;
  • Continued development of interactive walkable floor maps as science-policy ínterface.

Current project


Completed projects

POF III: Urban Transformations - sustainable urban development towards resource efficiency, quality of life and resilience 

EnRoute - Enhancing Resilience of Urban Ecosystems through Green Infrastructure 

Monitoring of Commercial and Residential Brownfields in the City of Leipzig (COREBRO) - Potentials to renaturalize and to revitalize urban brownfield 

Evaluating Environmental and Life Quality to analyse Urban Vulnerability in Santiago de Chile (EnvLifeQual) 2011 - 2013 

Project "Risk Habitat Megacity" - sub-project Land-Use Management 

Urban land use conflicts and options 

Mega-Trend Urbanisation: Vulnerability and Environmental Risks 

Urban Green Network 

Shrinking Cities - Leipzig 


 Publications

 see Scopus 

and directly here:

2026 (2)

2025 (2)

2024 (11)

2023 (3)

2022 (7)

2021 (2)

2020 (5)

2019 (3)

2018 (5)

2017 (5)

2016 (3)