Inés Santé Riveira

Inés Santé Riveira is a Professor in the Department of Agroforestry Engineering at the University of Santiago de Compostela, specializing in Cartographic Engineering, Geodesy and Photogrammetry. She also serves as the General Director of Rural Development and the Galician Rural Development Agency in the Department of Rural Environment of the Government of Galicia since September 17, 2020. Previously, she held the position of Director of the Institute of Territorial Studies of the Galician Government from 2015 to 2018.

Dr. Santé Riveira earned her PhD in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Santiago de Compostela with an Extraordinary Doctorate Award. Her doctoral thesis focused on rural land use planning methodology and spatial decision support systems. She graduated with honors, and her Final Degree Project on GIS and Web technologies for rural engineering received the CEL Business Initiative Award.

Her research spans territorial planning, spatial decision support systems, Web-GIS technologies, Public Participation GIS, and various planning models including multicriteria analysis and cellular automata. She has participated in 93 research projects and co-authored over 60 research papers published in international journals, along with seven books and nine book chapters on GIS and territorial planning.

Dr. Santé Riveira's publications demonstrate a consistent focus on applying advanced spatial analysis techniques to real-world planning problems, with particular emphasis on rural land use, sustainable development, and participatory approaches. Her work bridges theoretical advancements in spatial modeling with practical applications in territorial management.

• Landscape and Urban Planning Award (2009-2011) for highly cited article on cellular automata models
• CEL Business Initiative Award for research projects
• Extraordinary Doctorate Award

She has served as a reviewer for more than 10 prestigious journals including International Journal of Geographical Information Systems and Landscape and Urban Planning. As Director of the Institute for Territorial Studies, she led the development of the Catalogue of Landscapes of Galicia, which received international recognition from the Council of Europe. Dr. Santé Riveira is also a member of the Territory Laboratory (LaboraTe) research group at USC.