@article{RemelgadoSafiWegmann2020, author = {Remelgado, Ruben and Safi, Kamran and Wegmann, Martin}, title = {From ecology to remote sensing: using animals to map land cover}, series = {Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation}, volume = {6}, journal = {Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation}, number = {1}, doi = {10.1002/rse2.126}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-225200}, pages = {93-104}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Land cover is a key variable in monitoring applications and new processing technologies made deriving this information easier. Yet, classification algorithms remain dependent on samples collected on the field and field campaigns are limited by financial, infrastructural and political boundaries. Here, animal tracking data could be an asset. Looking at the land cover dependencies of animal behaviour, we can obtain land cover samples over places that are difficult to access. Following this premise, we evaluated the potential of animal movement data to map land cover. Specifically, we used 13 White Storks (Cicona cicona) individuals of the same population to map agriculture within three test regions distributed along their migratory track. The White Stork has adapted to foraging over agricultural lands, making it an ideal source of samples to map this land use. We applied a presence-absence modelling approach over a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series and validated our classifications, with high-resolution land cover information. Our results suggest White Stork movement is useful to map agriculture, however, we identified some limitations. We achieved high accuracies (F1-scores > 0.8) for two test regions, but observed poor results over one region. This can be explained by differences in land management practices. The animals preferred agriculture in every test region, but our data showed a biased distribution of training samples between irrigated and non-irrigated land. When both options occurred, the animals disregarded non-irrigated land leading to its misclassification as non-agriculture. Additionally, we found difference between the GPS observation dates and the harvest times for non-irrigated crops. Given the White Stork takes advantage of managed land to search for prey, the inactivity of these fields was the likely culprit of their underrepresentation. Including more species attracted to agriculture - with other land-use dependencies and observation times - can contribute to better results in similar applications.}, language = {en} } @article{Schwalb‐WillmannRemelgadoSafietal.2020, author = {Schwalb-Willmann, Jakob and Remelgado, Ruben and Safi, Kamran and Wegmann, Martin}, title = {moveVis: Animating movement trajectories in synchronicity with static or temporally dynamic environmental data in R}, series = {Methods in Ecology and Evolution}, volume = {11}, journal = {Methods in Ecology and Evolution}, number = {5}, doi = {10.1111/2041-210X.13374}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-214856}, pages = {664 -- 669}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Visualizing movement data is challenging: While traditional spatial data can be sufficiently displayed as two-dimensional plots or maps, movement trajectories require the representation of time in a third dimension. To address this, we present moveVis, an R package, which provides tools to animate movement trajectories, overlaying simultaneous uni- or multi-temporal raster imagery or vector data. moveVis automates the processing of movement and environmental data to turn such into an animation. This includes (a) the regularization of movement trajectories enforcing uniform time instances and intervals across all trajectories, (b) the frame-wise mapping of movement trajectories onto temporally static or dynamic environmental layers, (c) the addition of customizations, for example, map elements or colour scales and (d) the rendering of frames into an animation encoded as GIF or video file. moveVis is designed to display interactions and concurrencies of animal movement and environmental data. We present examples and use cases, ranging from data exploration to visualizing scientific findings. Static spatial plots of movement data disregard the temporal dimension that distinguishes movement from other spatial data. In contrast, animations allow to display relocation in both time and space. We deem animations a powerful way to visually explore movement data, frame analytical findings and display potential interactions with spatially continuous and temporally dynamic environmental covariates.}, language = {en} } @article{UlloaTorrealbaStahlmannWegmannetal.2020, author = {Ulloa-Torrealba, Yrneh and Stahlmann, Reinhold and Wegmann, Martin and Koellner, Thomas}, title = {Over 150 years of change: object-oriented analysis of historical land cover in the Main river catchment, Bavaria/Germany}, series = {Remote Sensing}, volume = {12}, journal = {Remote Sensing}, number = {24}, issn = {2072-4292}, doi = {10.3390/rs12244048}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-220029}, year = {2020}, abstract = {The monitoring of land cover and land use change is critical for assessing the provision of ecosystem services. One of the sources for long-term land cover change quantification is through the classification of historical and/or current maps. Little research has been done on historical maps using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA). This study applied an object-based classification using eCognition tool for analyzing the land cover based on historical maps in the Main river catchment, Upper Franconia, Germany. This allowed land use change analysis between the 1850s and 2015, a time span which covers the phase of industrialization of landscapes in central Europe. The results show a strong increase in urban area by 2600\%, a severe loss of cropland (-24\%), a moderate reduction in meadows (-4\%), and a small gain in forests (+4\%). The method proved useful for the application on historical maps due to the ability of the software to create semantic objects. The confusion matrix shows an overall accuracy of 82\% for the automatic classification compared to manual reclassification considering all 17 sample tiles. The minimum overall accuracy was 65\% for historical maps of poor quality and the maximum was 91\% for very high-quality ones. Although accuracy is between high and moderate, coarse land cover patterns in the past and trends in land cover change can be analyzed. We conclude that such long-term analysis of land cover is a prerequisite for quantifying long-term changes in ecosystem services.}, language = {en} }