Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences - Earth Observation Lab

Education

student group on a boat in BrazilYou plan to focus on Earth Observation?

Here you find all information needed to structure your studies with a focus on Earth Observation: course descriptions, and good practice examples of theses or MAPs from previous courses.

 

News

Graph with pictures - Grassland fractional cover time series for selected LUCAS plots for the year 2018 Multidecadal grassland fractional time series

We implemented a multisensor spectral unmixing approach to retrieve multidecadal (i.e., 1984 to 2021) fractional cover time series of green vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation, and soil for Germany's permanent grasslands from the Landsat and Sentinel-2 archives. The paper contributes to our research in quantifying drought effects in Central European grasslands. The open-access article is available for reading here.

Graph showing burned area by years since deforestation and land tenure.Brazilian Amazon - alarming deforestation and fires escalation

A new study conducted in Pará sheds light on the alarming escalation of deforestation and fires in the Brazilian Amazon between 2014 and 2020. Employing quasi-experimental methods, the research examined the effects of Presidents Rousseff, Temer, and Bolsonaro on these environmental changes across various land-tenure and farm systems. The findings reveal a nearly fourfold increase in deforestation, particularly during Bolsonaro's term in undesignated areas, conservation units, and medium-sized farms. Burning expanded across all tenure types, with the most significant rise observed in agrarian settlements, conservation units, and medium to large farms. Find more out in  our publication.

Map of Wesermarsch area in Germany showing drought impacts on grasslands in purple, blue, and yellow color gradients.Drought monitoring of Central European grasslands

We developed a generalized approach for monitoring drought impacts on grasslands with Sentinel-2 time series and regression-based unmixing models. We found severe and long-lasting drought impacts between 2017 and 2021. Drought effects on the vegetation followed general meteorological patterns but also varied with environmental and land management characteristics of grasslands. Find out more in our publication.

Title and Logo of the EnMap ProjectUpdated Science Plan for EnMap online

The Science Plan describes the scientific background, applications, and activities of the Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) imaging spectroscopy mission. The update reflects the excellent science happened since the publication of the last Science Plan in 2016. Discover the content of the Science Plan 2022 online here.