E-mail: david.bekaert@vito.be
Dr David Bekaert is an expert in synthetic aperture radar (SAR), InSAR time-series analysis, and Earth observation applications, with particular experience in ground deformation, land subsidence, and geohazards. He has contributed to the development and validation of products from Sentinel-1 and NISAR and has worked extensively on making satellite-derived information accessible and useful to a broad range of scientific and operational end users.
He is a Project Manager at VITO in Belgium, where he works on Copernicus Land Monitoring Service products derived from Earth observation data, and holds a guest collaborator position at the California Institute of technology in the USA. Prior to joining VITO, he spent nearly a decade at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he served as Project Scientist and Project Manager for the OPERA project, leading the development of analysis-ready satellite products for monitoring surface deformation and other Earth processes. He holds a PhD in geodesy and geophysics from the University of Leeds and degrees in aerospace engineering from Delft University of Technology.
Bibliography:
- Buzzanga B., Govorcin M., Kremer F., Schubert JE. , Bekaert DPS. , Schaeffer B. , Milillo P., Williams AJ. , Sanders BF. , Handwerger A., Staniewicz S., (2025) Satellite-based vertical land motion for infrastructure monitoring: a prototype roadmap in Greater Houston, Texas. Sci Rep 15, 17041. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-01970-8
- Govorcin M, Bekaert DPS, Hamlington BD, Sangha SS, and Sweet W (2025), Variable vertical land motion and its impacts on sea level rise projections, Science Advances 11, no. 5, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ads8163.
- Buzzanga B., Bekaert D.P.S. et al., (2023) ,Localized uplift, widespread subsidence, and implications for sea level rise in the New York City metropolitan area.Sci. Adv.9,eadi8259. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi8259
- Sweet, W.V., B.D. Hamlington, R.E. Kopp, C.P. Weaver, P.L. Barnard, D. Bekaert, W. Brooks, M. Craghan, G. Dusek, T. Frederikse, G. Garner, A.S. Genz, J.P. Krasting, E. Larour, D. Marcy, J.J. Marra, J. Obeysekera, M. Osler, M. Pendleton, D. Roman, L. Schmied, W. Veatch, K.D. White, and C. Zuzak, 2022: Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States: Updated Mean Projections and Extreme Water Level Probabilities Along U.S. Coastlines. NOAA Technical Report NOS 01. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Ocean Service, Silver Spring, MD, 111 pp. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/noaa-nos-techrpt01-global-regional-SLR-scenarios-US.pdf
- D.P.S. Bekaert, C.E. Jones, K. An, and MH. Huang (2018), Exploiting UAVSAR for a comprehensive analysis of subsidence in the Sacramento Delta, Remote sensing of environment 220 (2019): 124-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2018.10.023.