@article{ReinermannGessnerAsametal.2019,
  author    = {Reinermann, Sophie and Gessner, Ursula and Asam, Sarah and Kuenzer, Claudia and Dech, Stefan},
  title     = {The Effect of Droughts on Vegetation Condition in Germany: An Analysis Based on Two Decades of Satellite Earth Observation Time Series and Crop Yield Statistics},
  series = {Remote Sensing},
  volume    = {11},
  journal   = {Remote Sensing},
  number    = {15},
  doi       = {10.3390/rs11151783},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-225165},
  pages     = {1783, 1-21},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Central Europe experienced several droughts in the recent past, such as in the year 2018, which was characterized by extremely low rainfall rates and high temperatures, resulting in substantial agricultural yield losses. Time series of satellite earth observation data enable the characterization of past drought events over large temporal and spatial scales. Within this study, Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) (MOD13Q1) 250 m time series were investigated for the vegetation periods of 2000 to 2018. The spatial and temporal development of vegetation in 2018 was compared to other dry and hot years in Europe, like the drought year 2003. Temporal and spatial inter- and intra-annual patterns of EVI anomalies were analyzed for all of Germany and for its cropland, forest, and grassland areas individually. While vegetation development in spring 2018 was above average, the summer months of 2018 showed negative anomalies in a similar magnitude as in 2003, which was particularly apparent within grassland and cropland areas in Germany. In contrast, the year 2003 showed negative anomalies during the entire growing season. The spatial pattern of vegetation status in 2018 showed high regional variation, with north-eastern Germany mainly affected in June, north-western parts in July, and western Germany in August. The temporal pattern of satellite-derived EVI deviances within the study period 2000-2018 were in good agreement with crop yield statistics for Germany. The study shows that the EVI deviation of the summer months of 2018 were among the most extreme in the study period compared to other years. The spatial pattern and temporal development of vegetation condition between the drought years differ.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Reinermann2023,
  author    = {Reinermann, Sophie},
  title     = {Earth Observation Time Series for Grassland Management Analyses - Development and large-scale Application of a Framework to detect Grassland Mowing Events in Germany},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-32273},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-322737},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {Grasslands shape many landscapes of the earth as they cover about one-third of its surface. They are home and provide livelihood for billions of people and are mainly used as source of forage for animals. However, grasslands fulfill many additional ecosystem functions next to fodder production, such as storage of carbon, water filtration, provision of habitats and cultural values. They play a role in climate change (mitigation) and in preserving biodiversity and ecosystem functions on a global scale. The degree to what these ecosystem functions are present within grassland ecosystems is largely determined by the management. Individual management practices and the use intensity influence the species composition as well as functions, like carbon storage, while higher use intensities (e.g. high mowing frequencies) usually show a negative impact. Especially in Central European countries, like in Germany, the determining influence of grassland management on its physiognomy and ecosystem functions leads to a large variability and small-scale alternations of grassland parcels. Large-scale information on the management and use intensity of grasslands is not available. Consequently, estimations of grassland ecosystem functions are challenging which, however, would be required for large-scale assessments of the status of grassland ecosystems and optimized management plans for the future. The topic of this thesis tackles this gap by investigating the major grassland management practice in Germany, which is mowing, for multiple years, in high spatial resolution and on a national scale. Earth Observation (EO) has the advantage of providing information of the earth's surface on multi-temporal time steps. An extensive literature review on the use of EO for grassland management and production analyses, which was part of this thesis, showed that in particular research on grasslands consisting of small parcels with a large variety of management and use intensity, like common in Central Europe, is underrepresented. Especially the launch of the Sentinel satellites in the recent past now enables the analyses of such grasslands due to their high spatial and temporal resolution. The literature review specifically on the investigation of grassland mowing events revealed that most previous studies focused on small study areas, were exploratory, only used one sensor type and/or lacked a reference data set with a complete range of management options. Within this thesis a novel framework to detect grassland mowing events over large areas is presented which was applied and validated for the entire area of Germany for multiple years (2018-2021). The potential of both sensor types, optical (Sentinel-2) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) (Sentinel-1) was investigated regarding grassland mowing event detection. Eight EO parameters were investigated, namely the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), the backscatter intensity and the interferometric (InSAR) temporal coherence for both available polarization modes (VV and VH), and the polarimetric (PolSAR) decomposition parameters Entropy, K0 and K1. An extensive reference data set was generated based on daily images of webcams distributed in Germany which resulted in mowing information for grasslands with the entire possible range of mowing frequencies - from one to six in Germany - and in 1475 reference mowing events for the four years of interest. For the first time a observation-driven mowing detection approach including data from Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 and combining the two was developed, applied and validated on large scale. Based on a subset of the reference data (13 grassland parcels with 44 mowing events) from 2019 the EO parameters were investigated and the detection algorithm developed and parameterized. This analysis showed that a threshold-based change detection approach based on EVI captured grassland mowing events best, which only failed during periods of clouds. All SAR-based parameters showed a less consistent behavior to mowing events, with PolSAR Entropy and InSAR Coherence VH, however, revealing the highest potential among them. A second, combined approach based on EVI and a SARbased parameter was developed and tested for PolSAR Entropy and InSAR VH. To avoid additional false positive detections during periods in which mowing events are anyhow reliably detected using optical data, the SAR-based mowing detection was only initiated during long gaps within the optical time series (< 25 days). Application and validation of these approaches in a focus region revealed that only using EVI leads to the highest accuracies (F1-Score = 0.65) as combining this approach with SAR-based detection led to a strong increase in falsely detected mowing events resulting in a decrease of accuracies (EVI + PolSAR ENT F1-Score = 0.61; EVI + InSAR COH F1-Score = 0.61). The mowing detection algorithm based on EVI was applied for the entire area of Germany for the years 2018-2021. It was revealed that the largest share of grasslands with high mowing frequencies (at least four mowing events) can be found in southern/south-eastern Germany. Extensively used grassland (mown up to two times) is distributed within the entire country with larger shares in the center and north-eastern parts of Germany. These patterns stay constant in general, but small fluctuations between the years are visible. Early mown grasslands can be found in southern/south-eastern Germany - in line with high mowing frequency areas - but also in central-western parts. The years 2019 and 2020 revealed higher accuracies based on the 1475 mowing events of the multi-annual validation data set (F1-Scores of 0.64 and 0.63), 2018 and 2021 lower ones (F1-Score of 0.52 and 0.50). Based on this new, unprecedented data set, potential influencing factors on the mowing dynamics were investigated. Therefore, climate, topography, soil data and information on conservation schemes were related to mowing dynamics for the year 2020, which showed a high number of valid observations and detection accuracy. It was revealed that there are no strong linear relationships between the mowing frequency or the timing of the first mowing event and the investigated variables. However, it was found that for intensive grassland usage certain climatic and topographic conditions have to be fulfilled, while extensive grasslands appear on the entire spectrum of these variables. Further, higher mowing frequencies occur on soils with influence of ground water and lower mowing frequencies in protected areas. These results show the complex interplay between grassland mowing dynamics and external influences and highlight the challenges of policies aiming to protect grassland ecosystem functions and their need to be adapted to regional circumstances.},
  subject      = {Gr{\"u}nland},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Raue2004,
  author    = {Raue, Johannes Georg},
  title     = {Magmenfragmentation im bruchhaften Regime : ein neues Modell zur Energiebilanzierung am Beispiel der Phlegr{\"a}ischen Felder/Italien},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-8782},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2004},
  abstract  = {Die bruchhafte Fragmentation von h{\"o}herviskosem Magma ist ein bedeutender Prozess im explosiven Vulkanismus. Deren Fragmentationsenergie ist linear an die Entstehung neugebildeter Bruchfl{\"a}che gekoppelt. Aus diesem Grund ist es wichtig, die mechanische Energie der Schmelzefragmentation zu quantifizieren, um die physikalischen Vorg{\"a}nge w{\"a}hrend dieses vulkanologischen Vorgangs besser verstehen zu k{\"o}nnen. Deshalb war es das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit eine Kenngr{\"o}ße der Fragmentationsleistung von vulkanischen Schmelzen der Phlegr{\"a}ischen Felder (Neapel/Italien) zu definieren und somit ihren vulkanischen Ablagerungen spezifische Fragmentationsenergien zuzuweisen. Das Vulkangebiet der Phlegr{\"a}ischen Felder ist durch langanhaltenden explosiven Vulkanismus gekennzeichnet. Die bruchhaft entstandenen Feinaschen-Ablagerungen intermedi{\"a}rer Zusammensetzung bedecken ein Gebiet von ca. 1000 km2. Dieses Gebiet wird heute von ca. 2 Millionen Menschen bev{\"o}lkert. Diese Arbeit stellt eine Methodik vor, mit der die Fragmentationsenergie von solchen h{\"o}her-viskosen Schmelzen intermedi{\"a}rer Zusammensetzung durch Laborexperimente und Granulometrie der erzeugten Partikel ermittelt werden kann. Die Materialparameter der kritischen Schubspannung und des kritischen Scherstress wurden mit einem sogenannten Gasdruck-Fragmentations-Versuch (GFV) experimentell bestimmt. Ferner konnten durch den GFV Erkenntnisse {\"u}ber das Fragmentationsverhalten dieser Schmelzen unter verschiedenen treibenden Gasdr{\"u}cken gewonnen werden. Dieser spezielle Versuchsaufbau basiert auf Fragmentation von Schmelze durch Druckluft, die von unten in einen Tiegel geleitet wird. Ein individuell einstellbarer Gasdruckluftstoß f{\"u}hrt in der Schmelze zu einer Zunahme der Schubspannung und einem Druckaufbau, der vergleichbar mit der Kraftrampe eines Biegeversuchs ist. W{\"a}hrend dieser Zeit kommt es zur Mikrobruchbildung, die sich von der Schmelzeoberfl{\"a}che nach unten fortsetzt. Nach dem {\"U}berschreiten der Bruchgrenze relaxiert das Schmelzematerial durch Ausbildung von Spr{\"o}dbr{\"u}chen und wird nach oben ausgeworfen. Die Aufzeichnung der physikalischen Parameter und die optische Versuchs{\"u}berwachung erlaubten eine komplette Energiebilanzierung des Vorgangs. Die neugebildete Bruchfl{\"a}che der entstandenen Partikel wird durch Granulometrie und Anwendung der Methode von Brunnauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) bestimmt. Somit kann die Fragmentationsenergie auf die Bruchfl{\"a}che bezogen und als Materialparameter des kritischen Scherstresses ausgedr{\"u}ckt werden. Der GFV wurden durch normierte Laborexperimente an dem selben Schmelzematerial erg{\"a}nzt. Dabei dienten statische Biegeversuche unter Raumtemperatur zur {\"U}berpr{\"u}fung der {\"u}ber GFV bilanzierten Scherstresse. Die Rotationsviskosimetrie zeigte, dass der Materialparameter der Viskosit{\"a}t nicht geeignet ist, um R{\"u}ckschl{\"u}sse {\"u}ber Materialverhalten im bruchhaften Regime zu ziehen. Anschließend wurde einer definierten Tephraschicht der Phlegr{\"a}ischen Felder eine spezifische Fragmentationsenergie zugeordnet, indem die experimentellen Ergebnisse auf Felddaten bezogen wurden. Diese spezifische Energie von ca. 8*1010 kJ entspricht der Sprengkraft von ca. 20.000 Tonnen Trinitrotoluol (TNT). Die Qualit{\"a}t eines hazard assessment gef{\"a}hrdeter Vulkangebiete wie z.B. der Phlegr{\"a}ischen Felder wird durch die Kenntnis der Energieaufteilung w{\"a}hrend des Eruptionsprozesses (Fragmentationsenergie, Auswurfenergie etc.) wesentlich verbessert. Die Kenntnis der Energien dient beispielsweise der Skalierung ballistischer Modelle, mit deren Hilfe dichtbev{\"o}lkerte Zonen ausgewiesen werden k{\"o}nnen, die bei k{\"u}nftigen Eruptionen der Phlegr{\"a}ischen Felder durch den Niedergang von Pyroklastika bedroht sind.},
  subject      = {Phlegr{\"a}ische Felder},
  language  = {de}
}
@article{QamarAzmatAbbasetal.2018,
  author    = {Qamar, Muhammad Uzair and Azmat, Muhammad and Abbas, Azhar and Usman, Muhammad and Shahid, Muhammad Adnan and Khan, Zahid Mahmood},
  title     = {Water Pricing and Implementation Strategies for the Sustainability of an Irrigation System: A Case Study within the Command Area of the Rakh Branch Canal},
  series = {Water},
  volume    = {10},
  journal   = {Water},
  number    = {4, 509},
  doi       = {10.3390/w10040509},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-224711},
  pages     = {1-24},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {The command area of the Rakh branch canal grows wheat, sugarcane, and rice crops in abundance. The canal water, which is trivial for irrigating these crops, is conveyed to the farms through the network of canals and distributaries. For the maintenance of this vast infrastructure; the end users are charged on a seasonal basis. The present water charges are severely criticized for not being adequate to properly manage the entire infrastructure. We use the residual value to determine the value of the irrigation water and then based on the quantity of irrigation water supplied to farm land coupled with the infrastructure maintenance cost, full cost recovery figures are executed for the study area, and policy recommendations are made for the implementation of the full cost recovery system. The approach is unique in the sense that the pricings are based on the actual quantity of water conveyed to the field for irrigating crops. The results of our analysis showed that the canal water is severely under charged in the culturable command area of selected distributaries, thus negating the plan of having a self-sustainable irrigation system.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Pollinger2013,
  author    = {Pollinger, Felix},
  title     = {Bewertung und Auswirkungen der Simulationsg{\"u}te f{\"u}hrender Klimamoden in einem Multi-Modell Ensemble},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-97982},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {Der rezente und zuk{\"u}nftige Anstieg der atmosph{\"a}rischen Treibhausgaskonzentration bedeutet f{\"u}r das terrestrische Klimasystem einen grundlegenden Wandel, der f{\"u}r die globale Gesellschaft schwer zu bew{\"a}ltigende Aufgaben und Herausforderungen bereit h{\"a}lt. Eine effektive, r{\"u}hzeitige Anpassung an diesen Klimawandel profitiert dabei enorm von m{\"o}glichst genauen Absch{\"a}tzungen k{\"u}nftiger Klima{\"a}nderungen. Das geeignete Werkzeug hierf{\"u}r sind Gekoppelte Atmosph{\"a}re Ozean Modelle (AOGCMs). F{\"u}r solche Fragestellungen m{\"u}ssen allerdings weitreichende Annahmen {\"u}ber die zuk{\"u}nftigen klimarelevanten Randbedingungen getroffen werden. Individuelle Fehler dieser Klimamodelle, die aus der nicht perfekten Abbildung der realen Verh{\"a}ltnisse und Prozesse resultieren, erh{\"o}hen die Unsicherheit langfristiger Klimaprojektionen. So unterscheiden sich die Aussagen verschiedener AOGCMs im Hinblick auf den zuk{\"u}nftigen Klimawandel insbesondere bei regionaler Betrachtung, deutlich. Als Absicherung gegen Modellfehler werden {\"u}blicherweise die Ergebnisse mehrerer AOGCMs, eines Ensembles an Modellen, kombiniert. Um die Absch{\"a}tzung des Klimawandels zu pr{\"a}zisieren, wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit der Versuch unternommen, eine Bewertung der Modellperformance der 24 AOGCMs, die an der dritten Phase des Vergleichsprojekts f{\"u}r gekoppelte Modelle (CMIP3) teilgenommen haben, zu erstellen. Auf dieser Basis wird dann eine nummerische Gewichtung f{\"u}r die Kombination des Ensembles erstellt. Zun{\"a}chst werden die von den AOGCMs simulierten Klimatologien f{\"u}r einige grundlegende Klimaelemente mit den betreffenden klimatologien verschiedener Beobachtungsdatens{\"a}tze quantitativ abgeglichen. Ein wichtiger methodischer Aspekt hierbei ist, dass auch die Unsicherheit der Beobachtungen, konkret Unterschiede zwischen verschiedenen Datens{\"a}tzen, ber{\"u}cksichtigt werden. So zeigt sich, dass die Aussagen, die aus solchen Ans{\"a}tzen resultieren, von zu vielen Unsicherheiten in den Referenzdaten beeintr{\"a}chtigt werden, um generelle Aussagen zur Qualit{\"a}t von AOGCMs zu treffen. Die Nutzung der K{\"o}ppen-Geiger Klassifikation offenbart jedoch, dass die prinzipielle Verteilung der bekannten Klimatypen im kompletten CMIP3 in vergleichbar guter Qualit{\"a}t reproduziert wird. Als Bewertungskriterium wird daher hier die F{\"a}higkeit der AOGCMs die großskalige nat{\"u}rliche Klimavariabilit{\"a}t, konkret die hochkomplexe gekoppelte El Ni{\~n}o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), realistisch abzubilden herangezogen. Es kann anhand verschiedener Aspekte des ENSO-Ph{\"a}nomens gezeigt werden, dass nicht alle AOGCMs hierzu mit gleicher Realit{\"a}tsn{\"a}he in der Lage sind. Dies steht im Gegensatz zu den dominierenden Klimamoden der Außertropen, die modell{\"u}bergreifend {\"u}berzeugend repr{\"a}sentiert werden. Die wichtigsten Moden werden, in globaler Betrachtung, in verschiedenen Beobachtungsdaten {\"u}ber einen neuen Ansatz identifiziert. So k{\"o}nnen f{\"u}r einige bekannte Zirkulationsmuster neue Indexdefinitionen gewonnen werden, die sich sowohl als {\"a}quivalent zu den Standardverfahren erweisen und im Vergleich zu diesen zudem eine deutliche Reduzierung des Rechenaufwandes bedeuten. Andere bekannte Moden werden dagegen als weniger bedeutsame, regionale Zirkulationsmuster eingestuft. Die hier vorgestellte Methode zur Beurteilung der Simulation von ENSO ist in guter {\"U}bereinstimmung mit anderen Ans{\"a}tzen, ebenso die daraus folgende Bewertung der gesamten Performance der AOGCMs. Das Spektrum des Southern Oscillation-Index (SOI) stellt somit eine aussagekr{\"a}ftige Kenngr{\"o}ße der Modellqualit{\"a}t dar. Die Unterschiede in der F{\"a}higkeit, das ENSO-System abzubilden, erweisen sich als signifikante Unsicherheitsquelle im Hinblick auf die zuk{\"u}nftige Entwicklung einiger fundamentaler und bedeutsamer Klimagr{\"o}ßen, konkret der globalen Mitteltemperatur, des SOIs selbst, sowie des indischen Monsuns. Ebenso zeigen sich signifikante Unterschiede f{\"u}r regionale Klima{\"a}nderungen zwischen zwei Teilensembles des CMIP3, die auf Grundlage der entwickelten Bewertungsfunktion eingeteilt werden. Jedoch sind diese Effekte im Allgemeinen nicht mit den Auswirkungen der anthropogenen Klima{\"a}nderungssignale im Multi-Modell Ensemble vergleichbar, die f{\"u}r die meisten Klimagr{\"o}ßen in einem robusten multivariaten Ansatz detektiert und quantifiziert werden k{\"o}nnen. Entsprechend sind die effektiven Klima{\"a}nderungen, die sich bei der Kombination aller Simulationen als grundlegende Aussage des CMIP3 unter den speziellen Randbedingungen ergeben nahezu unabh{\"a}ngig davon, ob alle L{\"a}ufe mit dem gleichen Einfluss ber{\"u}cksichtigt werden, oder ob die erstellte nummerische Gewichtung verwendet wird. Als eine wesentliche Begr{\"u}ndung hierf{\"u}r kann die Spannbreite der Entwicklung des ENSO-Systems identifiziert werden. Dies bedeutet gr{\"o}ßere Schwankungen in den Ergebnissen der Modelle mit funktionierendem ENSO, was den Stellenwert der nat{\"u}rlichen Variabilit{\"a}t als Unsicherheitsquelle in Fragen des Klimawandels unterstreicht. Sowohl bei Betrachtung der Teilensembles als auch der Gewichtung wirken sich dadurch gegenl{\"a}ufige Trends im SOI ausgleichend auf die Entwicklung anderer Klimagr{\"o}ßen aus, was insbesondere bei letzterem Vorgehen signifikante mittlere Effekte des Ansatzes, verglichen mit der Verwendung des {\"u}blichen arithmetischen Multi-Modell Mittelwert, verhindert.},
  subject      = {Modell},
  language  = {de}
}
@article{PhilippDietzUllmannetal.2023,
  author    = {Philipp, Marius and Dietz, Andreas and Ullmann, Tobias and Kuenzer, Claudia},
  title     = {A circum-Arctic monitoring framework for quantifying annual erosion rates of permafrost coasts},
  series = {Remote Sensing},
  volume    = {15},
  journal   = {Remote Sensing},
  number    = {3},
  issn      = {2072-4292},
  doi       = {10.3390/rs15030818},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-304447},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {This study demonstrates a circum-Arctic monitoring framework for quantifying annual change of permafrost-affected coasts at a spatial resolution of 10 m. Frequent cloud coverage and challenging lighting conditions, including polar night, limit the usability of optical data in Arctic regions. For this reason, Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) data in the form of annual median and standard deviation (sd) Sentinel-1 (S1) backscatter images covering the months June-September for the years 2017-2021 were computed. Annual composites for the year 2020 were hereby utilized as input for the generation of a high-quality coastline product via a Deep Learning (DL) workflow, covering 161,600 km of the Arctic coastline. The previously computed annual S1 composites for the years 2017 and 2021 were employed as input data for the Change Vector Analysis (CVA)-based coastal change investigation. The generated DL coastline product served hereby as a reference. Maximum erosion rates of up to 67 m per year could be observed based on 400 m coastline segments. Overall highest average annual erosion can be reported for the United States (Alaska) with 0.75 m per year, followed by Russia with 0.62 m per year. Out of all seas covered in this study, the Beaufort Sea featured the overall strongest average annual coastal erosion of 1.12 m. Several quality layers are provided for both the DL coastline product and the CVA-based coastal change analysis to assess the applicability and accuracy of the output products. The predicted coastal change rates show good agreement with findings published in previous literature. The proposed methods and data may act as a valuable tool for future analysis of permafrost loss and carbon emissions in Arctic coastal environments.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Philipp2023,
  author    = {Philipp, Marius Balthasar},
  title     = {Quantifying the Effects of Permafrost Degradation in Arctic Coastal Environments via Satellite Earth Observation},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-34563},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-345634},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {Permafrost degradation is observed all over the world as a consequence of climate change and the associated Arctic amplification, which has severe implications for the environment. Landslides, increased rates of surface deformation, rising likelihood of infrastructure damage, amplified coastal erosion rates, and the potential turnover of permafrost from a carbon sink to a carbon source are thereby exemplary implications linked to the thawing of frozen ground material. In this context, satellite earth observation is a potent tool for the identification and continuous monitoring of relevant processes and features on a cheap, long-term, spatially explicit, and operational basis as well as up to a circumpolar scale. A total of 325 articles published in 30 different international journals during the past two decades were investigated on the basis of studied environmental foci, remote sensing platforms, sensor combinations, applied spatio-temporal resolutions, and study locations in an extensive review on past achievements, current trends, as well as future potentials and challenges of satellite earth observation for permafrost related analyses. The development of analysed environmental subjects, utilized sensors and platforms, and the number of annually published articles over time are addressed in detail. Studies linked to atmospheric features and processes, such as the release of greenhouse gas emissions, appear to be strongly under-represented. Investigations on the spatial distribution of study locations revealed distinct study clusters across the Arctic. At the same time, large sections of the continuous permafrost domain are only poorly covered and remain to be investigated in detail. A general trend towards increasing attention in satellite earth observation of permafrost and related processes and features was observed. The overall amount of published articles hereby more than doubled since the year 2015. New sources of satellite data, such as the Sentinel satellites and the Methane Remote Sensing LiDAR Mission (Merlin), as well as novel methodological approaches, such as data fusion and deep learning, will thereby likely improve our understanding of the thermal state and distribution of permafrost, and the effects of its degradation. Furthermore, cloud-based big data processing platforms (e.g. Google Earth Engine (GEE)) will further enable sophisticated and long-term analyses on increasingly larger scales and at high spatial resolutions. In this thesis, a specific focus was put on Arctic permafrost coasts, which feature increasing vulnerability to environmental parameters, such as the thawing of frozen ground, and are therefore associated with amplified erosion rates. In particular, a novel monitoring framework for quantifying Arctic coastal erosion rates within the permafrost domain at high spatial resolution and on a circum-Arctic scale is presented within this thesis. Challenging illumination conditions and frequent cloud cover restrict the applicability of optical satellite imagery in Arctic regions. In order to overcome these limitations, Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) data derived from Sentinel-1 (S1), which is largely independent from sun illumination and weather conditions, was utilized. Annual SAR composites covering the months June-September were combined with a Deep Learning (DL) framework and a Change Vector Analysis (CVA) approach to generate both a high-quality and circum-Arctic coastline product as well as a coastal change product that highlights areas of erosion and build-up. Annual composites in the form of standard deviation (sd) and median backscatter were computed and used as inputs for both the DL framework and the CVA coastal change quantification. The final DL-based coastline product covered a total of 161,600 km of Arctic coastline and featured a median accuracy of ±6.3 m to the manually digitized reference data. Annual coastal change quantification between 2017-2021 indicated erosion rates of up to 67 m per year for some areas based on 400 m coastal segments. In total, 12.24\% of the investigated coastline featured an average erosion rate of 3.8 m per year, which corresponds to 17.83 km2 of annually eroded land area. Multiple quality layers associated to both products, the generated DL-coastline and the coastal change rates, are provided on a pixel basis to further assess the accuracy and applicability of the proposed data, methods, and products. Lastly, the extracted circum-Arctic erosion rates were utilized as a basis in an experimental framework for estimating the amount of permafrost and carbon loss as a result of eroding permafrost coastlines. Information on permafrost fraction, Active Layer Thickness (ALT), soil carbon content, and surface elevation were thereby combined with the aforementioned erosion rates. While the proposed experimental framework provides a valuable outline for quantifying the volume loss of frozen ground and carbon release, extensive validation of the utilized environmental products and resulting volume loss numbers based on 200 m segments are necessary. Furthermore, data of higher spatial resolution and information of carbon content for deeper soil depths are required for more accurate estimates.},
  subject      = {Dauerfrostboden},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Philipp2003,
  author    = {Philipp, Andreas},
  title     = {Zirkulationsdynamische Telekonnektivit{\"a}t des Sommerniederschlags im s{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}rischen Afrika},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-8106},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2003},
  abstract  = {Die Arbeit befasst sich mit den durch Telekonnektionen etablierten Zusammenh{\"a}ngen zwischen der globalen troposph{\"a}rischen Zirkulation der Atmosph{\"a}re und der sommerlichen Niederschlagsvariabilit{\"a}t im s{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}rischen Afrika auf interannueller Zeitskala. Ziel der Arbeit ist die Erfassung maßgeblicher Telekonnektionen sowie deren {\"U}berpr{\"u}fung hinsichtlich kausal nachvollziehbarer zirkulationsdynamischer Erkl{\"a}rungsmodelle, die - {\"u}ber formalstatistische Signifikanzkriterien hinausgehend - eine Beurteilung der Fernkopplungen in Hinblick auf ihre Bedeutung f{\"u}r den Niederschlag im s{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}rischen Afrika gestattet. Die hierzu durchgef{\"u}hrten Arbeitsschritte umfassen im Wesentlichen: i.) hauptkomponentenbasierte Regionalisierung des Niederschlags im s{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}rischen Afrika, ii.) Entwurf einer sog. multisaisonalen Analysemethode zur Ermittlung der intrasaisonalen Persistenz der Kopplungen, iii.) intensive Nutzung und Weiterentwicklung bivariater Techniken der Telekonnektionsanalyse, iv.) Anwendung und Ergebnisvergleich verschiedener multivariater Methoden (SFPCA, CCA, SVD), v.) Neuentwicklung einer dreistufigen Methodenkombination zur Extraktion sog. Hauptkopplungsmodi, vi.) zirkulationsdynamische Analyse der Hauptkopplungsmodi hinsichtlich plausibler Kopplungsmechanismen. F{\"u}r acht Hauptkopplungsmodi konnten Erkl{\"a}rungsmodelle f{\"u}r den Transport von Anomaliesignalen zwischen den jeweils involvierten Telekonnektionszentren des globalen Druckfeldes und den korrelierten Niederschlagsschwankungen in den Regionen des s{\"u}dlichen Afrikas aufgezeigt werden, die sich sowohl hinsichtlich der r{\"a}umlichen Verteilung der Zentren als auch prozessual in vier Hauptgruppen zusammenfassen lassen: 1.) ENSO-Telekonnektionen: Das pazifische ENSO-System stellt sich als dominierender Modus hinsichtlich der Telekonnektionen des s{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}rischen Niederschlags in Afrika dar. W{\"a}hrend eine positive Abh{\"a}ngigkeit des fr{\"u}hsommerlichen Niederschlags in Ostafrika durch Variationen der tropischen Walkerzirkulation des Indischen Ozeans etabliert wird, werden die insgesamt st{\"a}rksten Kopplungen im s{\"u}dwestlichen Kontinetalbereich im Sp{\"a}tsommer festgestellt. Als Kopplungsmechanismus wird hier eine h{\"o}henkonvergente Str{\"o}mungskonfiguration {\"u}ber dem S{\"u}dostatlantik und S{\"u}dafrika erkannt, die {\"u}ber Anomalieimpulse der Walkerzirkulation des Atlantiks mit den pazifischen ENSO-Anomalien verkn{\"u}pft ist. 2.) Wellendynamik der s{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}rischen Westwinddrift: Zwei Hauptkopplungsmodi beschreiben die Einbindung der H{\"o}hentrogaktivit{\"a}t {\"u}ber dem s{\"u}dlichen Afrika in Telekonnektionsmuster der S{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}re. Beide beeinflussen die Niederschlagsvariabilit{\"a}t im S{\"u}den Afrikas durch die Modifikation von H{\"o}hentroglagen {\"u}ber der S{\"u}dostk{\"u}ste S{\"u}dafrikas, die in ihrem westlichen R{\"u}ckseitenbereich konvektionshemmend wirken und einen Impuls zu anomal trockenen Verh{\"a}ltnissen in den betroffenen Niederschlagsregionen aus{\"u}ben. 3.) Auftrittsh{\"a}ufigkeit und Intensit{\"a}t tropischer Zyklonen im s{\"u}dwestlichen Indischen Ozean: Die auf saisonaler Zeitskala mit tropischen Zyklonen assoziierten großskaligen Zirkulationsanomalien {\"u}berwiegen bzw. kompensieren Effekte der Niederschlagserh{\"o}hung durch Starkregenereignisse im s{\"u}d{\"o}stlichen Afrika. Sowohl eine Verlagerung des Hauptkonvektionsgebietes als auch die Auswirkungen auf die Luftmassenadvektion {\"u}ber dem Subkontinent verursachen tendenziell trockenere Verh{\"a}ltnisse in Regionen des s{\"u}d{\"o}stlichen und zentralen s{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}rischen Afrikas bei verst{\"a}rkter Zyklonalaktivit{\"a}t im Sp{\"a}tsommer. 4.) Telekonnektionen mit der Zirkulation der subtropischen und mittleren Breiten der Nordhemisph{\"a}re: Vier Hauptkopplungsmodi repr{\"a}sentieren Zusammenh{\"a}nge v.a. der fr{\"u}hsommerlichen Niederschlagsvariabilit{\"a}t in Ostafrika. Die Schl{\"u}sselrolle bei der prozessualen Verzahnung der außertropischen Zirkulation mit innertropischen Konvektionsanomalien nimmt die H{\"o}henstr{\"o}mung im Bereich des Subtropenjetstreams {\"u}ber S{\"u}dwestasien ein, welche mit der Variabilit{\"a}t der Meridionalstr{\"o}mung im hochtroposph{\"a}rischen Str{\"o}mungsast der Hadleyzelle {\"u}ber Nordostafrika verkn{\"u}ft ist. Diese wiederum ist mittels Horizontaldivergenzanomalien an die Konvektionst{\"a}tigkeit {\"u}ber dem {\"a}quatornahen Ostafrika gekoppelt. ; Neben Telekonnektionen des s{\"u}dafrikanischen Niederschlags bez{\"u}glich der atmosph{\"a}rischen Zirkulation wurden Zusammenh{\"a}nge mit der Variabilit{\"a}t der Meeresoberfl{\"a}chentemperaturen untersucht. Bis auf das ENSO-System und den sog. Dipolmodus im Indischen Ozean, konnten keine weiteren bedeutenden, auf der interannuellen Zeitskala wirksamen ozeanischen Einfl{\"u}sse auf die Atmosph{\"a}re festgestellt werden, die zur weiteren Erkl{\"a}rung von Niederschlagstelekonnektionen beitragen. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit lassen den Einsatz der Methoden bei der Analyse zeitversetzter Telekonnektionen im Rahmen prognostischer Modellierung der telekonnektiv beeinflussten Niederschlagsvariabilit{\"a}t im s{\"u}dhemisph{\"a}rischen Afrika als aussichtsreich erscheinen.},
  subject      = {S{\"u}dafrika},
  language  = {de}
}
@article{PaethPollinger2019,
  author    = {Paeth, Heiko and Pollinger, Felix},
  title     = {Changes in mean flow and atmospheric wave activity in the North Atlantic sector},
  series = {Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society},
  volume    = {145},
  journal   = {Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society},
  number    = {725},
  doi       = {10.1002/qj.3660},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-208079},
  pages     = {3801-3818},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {In recent years, the midlatitudes are characterized by more intense heatwaves in summer and sometimes severe cold spells in winter that might emanate from changes in atmospheric circulation, including synoptic-scale and planetary wave activity in the midlatitudes. In this study, we investigate the heat and momentum exchange between the mean flow and atmospheric waves in the North Atlantic sector and adjacent continents by means of the physically consistent Eliassen-Palm flux diagnostics applied to reanalysis and forced climate model data. In the long-term mean, momentum is transferred from the mean flow to atmospheric waves in the northwest Atlantic region, where cyclogenesis prevails. Further downstream over Europe, eddy fluxes return momentum to the mean flow, sustaining the jet stream against friction. A global climate model is able to reproduce this pattern with high accuracy. Atmospheric variability related to atmospheric wave activity is much more expressed at the intraseasonal rather than the interannual time-scale. Over the last 40 years, reanalyses reveal a northward shift of the jet stream and a weakening of intraseasonal weather variability related to synoptic-scale and planetary wave activity. This pertains to the winter and summer seasons, especially over central Europe, and correlates with changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation as well as regional temperature and precipitation. A very similar phenomenon is found in a climate model simulation with business-as-usual scenario, suggesting an anthropogenic trigger in the weakening of intraseasonal weather variability in the midlatitudes.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{OttingerBachoferHuthetal.2021,
  author    = {Ottinger, Marco and Bachofer, Felix and Huth, Juliane and Kuenzer, Claudia},
  title     = {Mapping aquaculture ponds for the coastal zone of Asia with Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 time series},
  series = {Remote Sensing},
  volume    = {14},
  journal   = {Remote Sensing},
  number    = {1},
  issn      = {2072-4292},
  doi       = {10.3390/rs14010153},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-252207},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Asia dominates the world's aquaculture sector, generating almost 90 percent of its total annual global production. Fish, shrimp, and mollusks are mainly farmed in land-based pond aquaculture systems and serve as a primary protein source for millions of people. The total production and area occupied for pond aquaculture has expanded rapidly in coastal regions in Asia since the early 1990s. The growth of aquaculture was mainly boosted by an increasing demand for fish and seafood from a growing world population. The aquaculture sector generates income and employment, contributes to food security, and has become a billion-dollar industry with high socio-economic value, but has also led to severe environmental degradation. In this regard, geospatial information on aquaculture can support the management of this growing food sector for the sustainable development of coastal ecosystems, resources, and human health. With free and open access to the rapidly growing volume of data from the Copernicus Sentinel missions as well as machine learning algorithms and cloud computing services, we extracted coastal aquaculture at a continental scale. We present a multi-sensor approach that utilizes Earth observation time series data for the mapping of pond aquaculture within the entire Asian coastal zone, defined as the onshore area up to 200 km from the coastline. In this research, we developed an object-based framework to detect and extract aquaculture at a single-pond level based on temporal features derived from high-spatial-resolution SAR and optical satellite data acquired from the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites. In a second step, we performed spatial and statistical data analyses of the Earth-observation-derived aquaculture dataset to investigate spatial distribution and identify production hotspots at various administrative units at regional, national, and sub-national scale.},
  language  = {en}
}