

About us
The Research Group of "Remote Sensing and Spatial Modelling" is part of the Institute of Landscape Ecology (ILOEK) [en] of the University of Münster (WWU) [en]. We study and teach the acquisition and analysis of spatio-temporal environmental dynamics in a board spectrum of landscape-ecological topics. We combine multi-scale remote sensing data with methods of spatial modelling in order to obtain continuous spatio-temporal information from limited ecological field samples.
The complexity of environmental systems requires the use of modelling strategies that take complex relationships into account. For this reason, we focus on the application of machine learning methods. In addition to their application for research questions in the context of landscape ecology, we also develop new modelling strategies for spatial and spatio-temporal data. Thus, the research group is at the interface between Geoinformatics and Landscape Ecology [en] and has the aim to contribute to an increase in knowledge in ecosystem research via satellite data processing, modelling and simulation.
Photos

1st place: Rieke Boelsen & Anna Böttger: Glacier retreat in the Ötztal Alps© Rieke Boelsen & Anna Böttger 2nd place: Franziska Wolf & Maya Aschenbach: Dynamics in the Wadden Sea - development of the outer sand "Norderoogsand"© Franziska Wolf & Maya Aschenbach 3rd place: Ferdinand Schicke & Andreas Struffert-Froböse: New Administrative Capital - An analysis of the rapid growth of a new capital for Egypt in the middle of the desert.© Ferdinand Schicke & Andreas Struffert-Froböse 4th place: Konstantin Helder & Vincent Flemming: Pine Gulch Fire (Colorado, USA – 2020)© Konstantin Helder & Vincent Flemming 5th place: Nikolas Lefering: The eruption of Tajogaite on La Palma (2021)© Nikolas Lefering 6th place: Denise Betha und Nicolas Nierling: Influence of bark beetles on the coniferous stands of the Middle Harz© Denise Betha & Nicolas Nierling Presentation of the course projects© Hanna Meyer Presentation of the course projects© Hanna Meyer
Winners of poster prizes in the bachelor course "Introduction to Remote Sensing"
As part of the course "Introduction to Remote Sensing" for landscape ecologists and geoinformaticians, the presentation of the course projects took place. We were impressed by the diversity and quality of the projects!
Winners of the poster award this year are:
1st place: Rieke Boelsen & Anna Böttger: Glacier retreat in the Ötztal Alps
2nd place: Franziska Wolf & Maya Aschenbach: Dynamics in the Wadden Sea - development of the outer sand "Norderoogsand"
3rd place: Ferdinand Schicke & Andreas Struffert-Froböse: New Administrative Capital - An analysis of the rapid growth of a new capital for Egypt in the middle of the desert.
4th place: Konstantin Helder & Vincent Flemming: Pine Gulch Fire (Colorado, USA – 2020)
5th place: Nikolas Lefering: The eruption of Tajogaite on La Palma (2021)
6th place: Denise Betha und Nicolas Nierling: Influence of bark beetles on the coniferous stands of the Middle Harz

ZEVEDI Podcast "Machine learning in environmental monitoring" mit Hanna Meyer

Drone mission in Namibia for vulture conservation

Congratulations!!!

New Publication in Global Ecology and Biogeography

Fieldwork in the Carbon4D project is completed
We're looking for a new team member!
We're looking for someone working with us on our upcoming project "BEyond - Learning from the Exploratories to make prediction beyond them: AI-based mapping and explanation of grassland biodiversity and ecosystem functions for entire landscape units”. The project is part of the Biodiversity Exploratories and will start 1st March 2023 or later. We're looking forward to interesting applications. Find the full description here: https://www.uni-muenster.de/Rektorat/Stellen/ausschreibungen/st_20221111_sk21.html

Carbon-4D project meeting

Joint excursion/workshop of the Earth Observation Network

OpenGeoHub Summer School

"Qualität globaler Umweltkarten auf dem Prüfstand"
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Poster by Katharina Küpers und Ariane Rehn© Katharina Küpers und Ariane Rehn Poster by Fynn Riepe© Fynn Riepe Poster by Daniel Dabelstein und Florian Stegmann © Daniel Dabelstein und Florian Stegmann Poster by Viktoria Mosch und Damian Stickdorn © Viktoria Mosch und Damian Stickdorn Poster by Robert Schmitz und Hendrik Lüning © Robert Schmitz und Hendrik Lüning Poster by Jessica Groß und Helena Kunkis © Jessica Groß und Helena Kunkis
Winners of poster prizes in the bachelor course "Introduction to Remote Sensing"
As part of the course "Introduction to Remote Sensing" for landscape ecologists and geoinformaticians, the presentation of the course projects took place this week.We were impressed by the diversity and quality of the projects!
Winners of the poster award this year are:
1st place: Viktoria Mosch and Damian Stickdorn (heavy rainfall event in the Berchtesgadener Land)
2nd place: Fynn Riepe (Land use changes around the ancient city of Doliche / Dülük since 1992)
3rd place: Jessica Groß and Helena Kunkis (Destruction of peat swamp forests on Borneo in Sebangau National Park)
4th place: Robert Schmitz and Hendrik Lüning (volcanic eruption on La Palma)
5th place: Daniel Dabelstein and Florian Stegmann (impact of the Dos Bocas oil refinery, built in 2018, on the mangrove forest in the Mexican state of Tabasco)
6th place: Katharina Küpers and Ariane Rehn (Black Summer in New South Wales - vegetation loss due to 2019/2020 fires).
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After two years of remote conferences, this year we were happy to finally participate in person again. We had inspiring sessions and meetings at the ESA Living Planet Symposium in Bonn along with great discussion at our poster contributions from the Carbon4D and Uebersat Projects. Model transferability, along with utilizing cloud computing in openEO, was also part of a poster at the International Symposium of Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry in Nice.
New publication in Nature Communications
The recent wave of published global maps of ecological variables has caused as much excitement as it has received criticism. In our new publication "Machine learning-based global maps of ecological variables and the challenge of assessing them", we look into the data and methods mostly used for creating these maps, and discuss whether the quality of predicted values can be assessed, globally and locally.
Meyer H, Pebesma E. 2022. ‘Machine learning-based global maps of ecological variables and the challenge of assessing them.’ Nature Communications 13.
Link to the paper
New publication in Methods in Ecology & Evolution
In a new publication "Nearest neighbour distance matching Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation for map validation" led by our former master student Carles Mila, we propose a new cross-validation method that considers the geographical prediction space of spatial prediction models to obtain better accuracy estimates.
Mila C, Mateu J, Pebesma E, Meyer H. 2022. ‘Nearest neighbour distance matching leave-one-out cross-validation for map validation.’ Methods in Ecology and Evolution n/a.
Link to the paper [en]

Study project Amtsvenn - The UAS-field season 2022 has been successfully started
Fieldwork in the snowy Fichtelgebirge
Measurements in the Carbon4D project are in full swing and will continue until the end of 2022. Every week, the team from the University of Bayreuth takes 3 cores in the study area to quantify the mineralization of soil organic carbon. Each month, the team from the University of Münster relocates all profile probes to measure soil temperature and moisture. In the picture gallery you can see some impressions of the field work in the snowy Fichtelgebirge. More information can be found on the project page [en].
Photos

Drilling a hole for the installation of a profile probe.© Maiken Baumberger Drilling a hole for a profile probe.© Linda Adorf Taking a drill core to quantify soil organic carbon mineralization.© Maiken Baumberger Equipment for the installation of a profile probe.© Maiken Baumberger Knocking down a soil sampling corer to determine the soil texture.© Maiken Baumberger Measurement of soil respiration with a soil respiration chamber.© Maiken Baumberger Profile probe for measuring soil temperature and soil moisture.© Maiken Baumberger Profile probe for measuring soil temperature and soil moisture.© Maiken Baumberger

New Publication in the project Antarctic Science Platform
More News...
Older news can be found in the archive [en] of the Remote Sensing and Spatial Modelling Research Group.