IRI THESys
Prof. Kuemmerle’s team strives to better understand how land use change affects the environment and society. This includes assessments of spatial patterns and the underlying drivers of, for example, tropical deforestation, agricultural abandonment, or intensification of farming. Furthermore, the team studies how changes in land use affect the ecosystem services (e.g. food production or carbon storage) and biodiversity. As one focus the work group analyses trade-offs between use of resources and nature conservation, as well as how such trade-offs could be mitigated. The group also seeks to generate insights and records of high practical value for land use and nature conservation planning, and to assess the effectiveness of nature conservation measures. Prof. Kuemmerle’s regional focus is on Europe, the former Soviet Union and Latin America.
- the working group offers quantitative, spatially-explicit methods drawing from spatial ecology, geoinformatics, remote sensing, spatial statistics, econometrics, conservation planning, and wildlife biology
- equipment to carry out broad-scale surveys to gather primary data
- server and data storage infrastructure that allows for computationally demanding and/or big data projects
- different projects with environmental organisations
alta4
Geoinformatics AG
NGOs, authorities and global tech- and logistics companies
Prof. Hostert’s explores cutting-edge satellite data analysis. His main focus lies on questions regarding the global change, particularly large-scale mapping in agrarian- and forestry systems and near-nature ecological systems worldwide. He analyses the change of the earth’s surface through different methods, for example with machine learning, big data, time series analyses, hyperspectral and multisensor approaches, as well as multiscale analyses. Regional expertise of the team covers Germany, the mediterranean areas and South America, as well as Central Asia.
- satellite data analysis
- AI in remote sensing
- large-scale remote sensing analysis with big data approaches (particularly Sentinel-2, Landsat), funded through projects of the BMWi, BMBF, BMEL, as well as the EU
- scientific monitoring of satellite missions (Landsat Science Team, EnMAP ScientificAdvisory Group)
- satellite based mapping and land use analysis for NGOs, authorities and global tech- and logistics companies
German Association of Skiing Clubs, City of Aachen
The team of Christoph Schneider works on the impacts of climate and climate change in the field of urban climates and in the field of cryospheric sciences (anything related to snow and ice). His expertise comprises the downscaling of meteorological respectively climatological data for applications in high spatial resolution, for example for urban planning and construction schemes and also for the analysis of potential impacts of climate change on the level of city quarters and cities. Furthermore, such numerical and empirical-statistical procedures are applied to the projection of future water resources in glaciated catchments in high alpine environments worldwide. This also leads to applications regarding the future state of snow covers in mountain ranges which is especially important for questions of future prospects of snow sport tourism. In both fields of applications, the urban climatology and the cryospheric research, measurement strategies and data acquisition of relevant atmospheric variables for the projects are used besides theoretical modelling approaches and downscaling as outlined above.
- automatic weather stations
- turbulence stations
- devices for particulate matter and ultrafine particles
- mobile sensoring techniques for meteorological parameters
- measurement van as platform of mentioned instrumentation
- Study of the potential and feasibility for large solar power plants on the Iberian Peninsula and in Northern Africa for a large German solar power panel manufacturer (2005)
- Study of the projections of impacts of climate change on snow sport in German low moutain ranges for the German Association of Skiing Clubs and the German Federal Secretary of Research and Education (2008)
- Urban climate analysis for construction schemes for the City of Aachen (2006-2012)
- Climate change adaptation plans for cities in North Rhine-Westphalia (2014, 2015)