@phdthesis{Uereyen2022,
  author    = {{\"U}reyen, Soner},
  title     = {Multivariate Time Series for the Analysis of Land Surface Dynamics - Evaluating Trends and Drivers of Land Surface Variables for the Indo-Gangetic River Basins},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-29194},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-291941},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {The investigation of the Earth system and interplays between its components is of utmost importance to enhance the understanding of the impacts of global climate change on the Earth's land surface. In this context, Earth observation (EO) provides valuable long-term records covering an abundance of land surface variables and, thus, allowing for large-scale analyses to quantify and analyze land surface dynamics across various Earth system components. In view of this, the geographical entity of river basins was identified as particularly suitable for multivariate time series analyses of the land surface, as they naturally cover diverse spheres of the Earth. Many remote sensing missions with different characteristics are available to monitor and characterize the land surface. Yet, only a few spaceborne remote sensing missions enable the generation of spatio-temporally consistent time series with equidistant observations over large areas, such as the MODIS instrument. In order to summarize available remote sensing-based analyses of land surface dynamics in large river basins, a detailed literature review of 287 studies was performed and several research gaps were identified. In this regard, it was found that studies rarely analyzed an entire river basin, but rather focused on study areas at subbasin or regional scale. In addition, it was found that transboundary river basins remained understudied and that studies largely focused on selected riparian countries. Moreover, the analysis of environmental change was generally conducted using a single EO-based land surface variable, whereas a joint exploration of multivariate land surface variables across spheres was found to be rarely performed. To address these research gaps, a methodological framework enabling (1) the preprocessing and harmonization of multi-source time series as well as (2) the statistical analysis of a multivariate feature space was required. For development and testing of a methodological framework that is transferable in space and time, the transboundary river basins Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna (IGBM) in South Asia were selected as study area, having a size equivalent to around eight times the size of Germany. These basins largely depend on water resources from monsoon rainfall and High Mountain Asia which holds the largest ice mass outside the polar regions. In total, over 1.1 billion people live in this region and in parts largely depend on these water resources which are indispensable for the world's largest connected irrigated croplands and further domestic needs as well. With highly heterogeneous geographical settings, these river basins allow for a detailed analysis of the interplays between multiple spheres, including the anthroposphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere. In this thesis, land surface dynamics over the last two decades (December 2002 - November 2020) were analyzed using EO time series on vegetation condition, surface water area, and snow cover area being based on MODIS imagery, the DLR Global WaterPack and JRC Global Surface Water Layer, as well as the DLR Global SnowPack, respectively. These data were evaluated in combination with further climatic, hydrological, and anthropogenic variables to estimate their influence on the three EO land surface variables. The preprocessing and harmonization of the time series was conducted using the implemented framework. The resulting harmonized feature space was used to quantify and analyze land surface dynamics by means of several statistical time series analysis techniques which were integrated into the framework. In detail, these methods involved (1) the calculation of trends using the Mann-Kendall test in association with the Theil-Sen slope estimator, (2) the estimation of changes in phenological metrics using the Timesat tool, (3) the evaluation of driving variables using the causal discovery approach Peter and Clark Momentary Conditional Independence (PCMCI), and (4) additional correlation tests to analyze the human influence on vegetation condition and surface water area. These analyses were performed at annual and seasonal temporal scale and for diverse spatial units, including grids, river basins and subbasins, land cover and land use classes, as well as elevation-dependent zones. The trend analyses of vegetation condition mostly revealed significant positive trends. Irrigated and rainfed croplands were found to contribute most to these trends. The trend magnitudes were particularly high in arid and semi-arid regions. Considering surface water area, significant positive trends were obtained at annual scale. At grid scale, regional and seasonal clusters with significant negative trends were found as well. Trends for snow cover area mostly remained stable at annual scale, but significant negative trends were observed in parts of the river basins during distinct seasons. Negative trends were also found for the elevation-dependent zones, particularly at high altitudes. Also, retreats in the seasonal duration of snow cover area were found in parts of the river basins. Furthermore, for the first time, the application of the causal discovery algorithm on a multivariate feature space at seasonal temporal scale revealed direct and indirect links between EO land surface variables and respective drivers. In general, vegetation was constrained by water availability, surface water area was largely influenced by river discharge and indirectly by precipitation, and snow cover area was largely controlled by precipitation and temperature with spatial and temporal variations. Additional analyses pointed towards positive human influences on increasing trends in vegetation greenness. The investigation of trends and interplays across spheres provided new and valuable insights into the past state and the evolution of the land surface as well as on relevant climatic and hydrological driving variables. Besides the investigated river basins in South Asia, these findings are of great value also for other river basins and geographical regions.},
  subject      = {Multivariate Analyse},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{SchuesslerTalarico1991,
  author    = {Sch{\"u}ssler, Ulrich and Talarico, F.},
  title     = {Granulite facies rocks from the Ross orogenic belt, Northern-Victoria-Land, Antarctica},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-81889},
  year      = {1991},
  abstract  = {no abstract available},
  subject      = {Geographie},
  language  = {en}
}
@inproceedings{Sponholz1993,
  author    = {Sponholz, Barbara},
  title     = {Holocene fulgurite formation in the southern Central Sahara (Niger)},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-56584},
  year      = {1993},
  abstract  = {Fulgurites (= natural glasses formed by lightning strikes to the ground) are indicators of thunderstorms (e.g. Julien 1901). The distribution pattern of fulgurites in the study area (Grand Erg de Bilma and Erg de Tenere between 11.5°E and 16.5° and 18.5°N) shows decreasing fulgurite concentration from south to north. The fulgurite sites are concentrated in the area of fossil dune complexes, where they occur topographically above palaeolimnic deposits in mid-slope position of interdune depressions.},
  subject      = {Geographie},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Sponholz1994,
  author    = {Sponholz, Barbara},
  title     = {Silicate karst associated with lateritic formations (examples from eastern Niger)},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-53852},
  year      = {1994},
  abstract  = {Silicate and iron crust karst pits and sinkholes in eastern Niger are filled with reworked lateritic sediments or with unconsolidated palaeosoils and aeolian deposits. The fillings facies depend on the environmental conditions during deposition. Geomorphological and sedimentological studies on the karst fillings and the interpretation of various karst/filling associations allow an approach to the chronology of landscape development in eastern Niger plateaus.},
  subject      = {Geographie},
  language  = {en}
}