Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences - Applied Geoinformation Science

Projects

Ongoing research projects

  • Superdiversity (DFG 2017-2019)
  • FORLand (DFG)

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  • Summer school on Public Health and Applied Geoinformatics (since 2008)

Dengue, obesity, avian influenza, allergies - all these health outcomes have in common that they are heavily influenced by the social and biophysical environment. To address research at the interface between health and spatial sciences, particularly applied geoinformatics, we offer a joint international summer school with the University of Bielefeld, Public Health Faculty (Prof. A. Krämer) since 2008.

 

Former research projects

  • Carbiocial (BMBF, 2011-2016)                                        

Carbon sequestration, biodiversity and social structures in Southern Amazonia: models and implementations of carbon-optimized land management strategies

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  • Urban Climate and Heat Stress (UCaHS) (DFG Forschergruppe, 2012-2016)

The DFG Research Unit addresses the complex scientific questions related to heat stress in mid-latitude cities by a multi- and interdisciplinary approach involving climatologists, geographers and hydrologists, physicians, architects, physicists and engineers, urban planners and social scientists. The causal chains spanning from climate modifications by urban regions to out- and indoor heat stress hazards will be analysed in detail, and scenario-based projections of future heat-stress hazards considering urban climate change as well as urban development paths will be computed for the example of Berlin. Heat-stress risks will be studied by available observational data, in particular for specifically vulnerable groups of senior people or patients in hospitals.

The Geoinformation Science lab will contribute to the research group by developing and applying a spatio-temporal modelling approach for urban vulnerability.

more information on "Urban Vulnerability"

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  • Urban Ecology (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg III, 2010-2012)

Recent progress in the field of Informatics has lead to visions how to use new self-organizing networks for advanced information systems. These networks function without central administration all nodes are able to adapt themselves to new environments autonomously and independently.
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  • Metrik (DFG-Graduiertenkolleg II, 2011-2016)

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  • Datalyze Solutions (BMBF-EXIST, 2011-2012)

    The team Datalyze Solutions develops efficient solutions for webbased visualisation and analysis of geodata in business and administrations.

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  • A spatio-temporal risk model of Dengue Disease in Malaysia (Malaysian Ministry of Health, 2010-2015)

Dengue disease is one of the most rapidly spreading infectious diseases world-wide and up to now no immunization is available. The aim of this project is to assess and model the spatio-temporal risk index of Dengue disease in Malaysia. In a first step we identify spatio-temporal patterns of Dengue disease and extract the influencing factors...
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  • Data integration and data mining of large spatial datasets to develop a health risk model (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Fakultätspreis, 2011)

The analysis of urban health and the underlying environmental and socio-economic factors has become one of the most pressing topics in this century. The amount of available data has rapidly grown within the last years and is very diverse and heterogeneous regarding its temporal and spatial dimensions as well as in terms of data format, quality, and semantics...
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  • Environmental justice in Germany? A spatial approach to study social inequalities in living environments (Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, 2009-2011)

The distribution of environmental pollution and social status has been studied for quite some time in the English-speaking countries. In Germany, however, the concept has only recently gained attention. We study inequalities in Germany and in particular in Berlin including environmental pollution and environmental resources, or in other words, ecosystem services...
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  • Modeling cropland dynamics in Romania - a comparison of logistic regressions and neural networks (2009)

Cropland change is the dominating land use change process in Romania, the second largest new member state of the European Union. This project investigates cropland dynamics in Arges County, Romania, in cooperation IAMO and in continuation of a project of the junior research group “Postsocialist Land Reforms and Land Use”.
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  • Using domain-specific languages for modification and reuse of a well-established cellular automata model to model urban growth (DFG-GRK METRIK I, 2009-2010)

Sophisticated computer-based land use modeling seems to be state of the art in land system science, however, very often well-established models such as the cellular automata urban land development model SLEUTH have been developed for a specific aim, study area, data availability and are technology bound. A transfer to another system is frequently limited by the black box character of a model and exploring an established model in its complexity is a very time- and cost-intensive effort for environmental and land system scientists...
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  • Angewandte Fernerkundung zu umweltplanerischen Fragestellungen (BMBF, 2008-2009)

German-Korean exchange in science and technology

  • Linking urban land use characteristics and mental illness - a spatio-temporal analysis

Urban living environments can directly or indirectly influence mental health by psychological distress. The aim of this project is analyse the spatial patterns of observed mental illness and the characteristics of the respective living environments.
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  • Spatial cluster analysis and geographically weighted regression - exploring patterns and underlying processes of social and health characteristics in urban areas

Processes and characteristics of urban areas at the human-environment interface, such as social segregation or health disparities, depend on a diverse set of socio-demographic, economic and environmental factors. Due to the heterogeneity of urban areas, one can assume that strength and direction of influence of these factors vary over space. Geostastical techniques allow detecting spatial clustering on a global city-wide and local level to explore the spatial distribution of social and health phenomena...
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  • Support Vector Machines for modeling urban growth in Greater Tirana, Albania

The urban area of greater Tirana, Albania has faced dramatic changes in terms of area and population. With the collapse of the soviet system land management strategies have significantly changed from strictly restricted urban growth to extensive urbanization with large shares of unregulated land development. It is particularly demography and migration patterns which have significantly altered the city and the whole country...
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Research Collaborations and additional projects

  • Development of a Master program on rural development in cooperation with the Hanoi University Vietnam (DAAD)
  • SERIDAR (European Commission)

Sociedad rural, economía y recursos naturales – Integrando competencias en el desarrollo rural

  • Spatio-temporal monitoring and modeling of land changes in Albania and Kosovo

Albania and Kosovo face large and broad-scale changes in land use following the collapse of the socialist system. Little is known about the spatial patterns, the underlying causes and the impacts on the human environment system. This research in cooperation with the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO) focuses on land change processes in Albania and Kosovo on a regional scale.
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