The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency ( - abbr. PBL) is a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 research institute

Research institute

A research institute is an establishment endowed for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research...

 that advises the Dutch government on environmental policy

Environmental policy

Environmental policy is any [course of] action deliberately taken [or not taken] to manage human activities with a view to prevent, reduce, or mitigate harmful effects on nature and natural resources, and ensuring that man-made changes to the environment do not have harmful effects on...

 and regional planning

Regional planning

Regional planning deals with the efficient placement of land use activities, infrastructure, and settlement growth across a larger area of land than an individual city or town. The related field of urban planning deals with the specific issues of city planning...

 issues. The research fields include sustainable development

Sustainable development

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...

, energy

Energy

In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

 and climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

, biodiversity

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

, transport

Transport

Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...

, land use

Land use

Land use is the human use of land. Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements. It has also been defined as "the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover...

, and air quality. It is one of three applied policy research institutes of the Dutch government, the other two being Centraal Planbureau

CPB (Netherlands)

The CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis is an independent Dutch government agency founded in 1945 by Jan Tinbergen. It is located in The Hague....

 (CPB), and Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (SCP). Since October 2008 Maarten Hajer

Maarten Hajer

Maarten A. Hajer is a Dutch political scientist and urban and regional planner. Since 1998, he has been a professor of Public Policy at the University of Amsterdam. Since 1 October 2008, he has been Director of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency .Hajer is the author of many scientific...

 is director of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

The PBL was created on May 15, 2008 by merging the Netherlands Environmental Agency (MNP) with the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research (RPB). The English name for the new organization was borrowed from the MNP, which was part of the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment

Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment

The Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment , is a Dutch research institute that is an independent agency of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport....

 (RIVM) until May 1, 2005. It is currently an agency of the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment

Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (Netherlands)

The Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment was a Dutch ministry. It was responsible for policies on public housing, spatial planning, the environment and the housing of national government agencies...

 (VROM, Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening en Milieubeheer).

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency is located in Bilthoven and The Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

and employs approximately 300 people.