2024-10-02, 12:40–13:00, Theatre Hall (Conference Center Laxenburg)
Satellite radar remote sensing utilizes long-wavelength energy that can penetrate clouds and is sensitive to changes in the physical structure of vegetation. These characteristics, in combination with the high spatial and temporal detail of new and near-future radar satellites, provide major opportunities for monitoring forest disturbances and regrowth dynamics.
We provide an overview of recent research activities on the use of radar remote sensing to monitor forest dynamics and present key results achieved in the Open-Earth-Monitor project. These include forest disturbance monitoring, monitoring of forest loss drivers and carbon, and assessments of selective logging intensity. We will highlight how the near-future availability of freely available multi-frequency radar data from Sentinel-1 (C-band), NISAR (L-band), and BIOMASS (P-band) will improve our ability to assess forest dynamics. We will also discuss our open-source initiatives aimed at facilitating the adoption of radar data and change detection approaches by both the scientific community and country stakeholders.
Open-Earth-Monitor Cyberinfrastructure (Grant agreement ID: 101059548)
Dr Johannes Reiche is assistant professor at the Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen University where he leads the radar remote sensing group and the RADD forest disturbance alert development. He obtained his PhD (2015) from Wageningen University and his MSc (2011) from the University of Jena. His research interest is on utilizing radar remote sensing to unravel human activities in and dynamics of forest ecosystems, with a strong focus on multi-sensor methods, near real-time change monitoring and characterisation of drivers, follow-up land use and commodities.