Research

Land change research

Human land use is the principal driver of land change and has lead to degradation and losses of ecosystem structures and services across the globe. Spatially explicit and interdisciplinary research is urgently needed to better understand the human-environment system and the consequences of land change for human-wellbeing and biodiversity. Our research focuses on studying land change at landscape to regional scales. We use remote sensing data to monitor changes, and geospatial information technologies in combination with spatial modeling to assess the underlying determinants of change and for scenario development. Among the many consequences of land change for the earth system, the Geomatics Department is particularly interested in assessing the impact of land change on biodiversity. Our projects currently focus on two regions where broad-scale politics and socioeconomics have strong impact on land management: Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Basin.

Central and Eastern Europe experienced drastic changes in political, economic and societal structures following the breakdown of the Soviet Empire in 1990, and the enlargement of the European Union in 2004. This has lead to marked land cover changes and has altered landscape fragmentation. In several projects across Eastern Europe, the Geomatics Department quantifies these changes at the landscape scale and assesses their consequences for ecosystems and biodiversity.

Global environmental change results in an increasing threat of land degradation and desertification in the Mediterranean Basin. The region has a long history of land use, and today land management is largely determined by EU policy. Understanding this complex system, and separating long-term developments from year-to-year climate dynamics is challenging. We use time-series analysis of satellite images, complemented by field surveys and spatial modelling, to assess the underlying processes of land degradation and its environmental consequences, and to contribute to policy relevant recommendations for land managers.

Urban ecology

An increasing number of people live in urban areas and by 2007 the majority of the world’s population will be concentrated in cities. The environmental conditions of urban areas result in unique ecological structures and processes, which in turn have important feedbacks on the people living in cities. Furthermore, urban agglomerations interact with their surrounding areas, and megacities display ecological footprints at a regional scale. Thus, there is a growing need to monitor the human-environment systems in urban areas and to asses the impact of cities on the surrounding ecosystems. Our research interest lies in investigating how remote sensing can contribute to these questions at fine to broad scales in dynamically growing and shrinking cities.

New remote sensing sensors and novel ways to analyze these data are required for the highly heterogeneous urban environments. Berlin and its hinterland serve as a laboratory to explore and validate these new approaches, and serves as a demonstration site for other urban areas worldwide. At fine scales, we use data from very-high resolution sensors (e.g. Quickbird, HRSC), and hyperspectral data (e.g. HyMap) for varying urban ecological applications, for instance to derive parameters for urban climate and hydrology models, and for human health applications. At the regional scale, the Geomatics Department uses time-series analysis of medium-resolution data (e.g. Landsat, SPOT) to monitor urban change. Spatial models serve as a means to link changes to their socio-economic determinants, to model urban growth and shrinkage. Our megacity research currently focuses on applying these approaches in Dhaka, Bangladesh.