DELTAS: Catalyzing action towards sustainability of deltaic systems with an integrated modeling framework for risk assessment
Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, Cartography
Human Geography
Final Report Abstract
University of Wuerzburg was involved in the DELTAS project component, Delta-DAT, with the aim to make relevant data on biophysical, social, and economic parameters available for the focus deltas. In this context University of Wuerzburg was 1. developing remote sensing methods for the derivation of area wide and spatial explicit geoinformation, 2. derived a range of different land surface parameters for the three focus deltas (Mekong River Delta (MRD), Amazon River Delta (ARD), and Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta (GBM)) that were provided to the research community as well to stakeholders in the region, and 3. used the parameters for own research on spatio-temporal pattern analyses to contribute towards the understanding of past, current, and future socio-ecological trends within the focus regions. A range of novel datasets where developed that have not yet existed before. These datasets provide spatial explicit geoinformation on parameters such as aquaculture and agricultural usage, land use intensification, mangrove habitats and forest types, water bodies, rivers and channel networks, urban centers and settlement expansion, flood frequency and coastal geomorphological changes. These datasets contributed towards the closure of numerous knowledge gaps and brought up new findings, particularly related to the topic of water and food security, such as: mapping and quantification of spatio-temporal patterns of seasonal inundation dynamics (extent, magnitude, timing) in the Mekong Delta. Better understanding of interrelationships between seasonal flooding patterns, dyke system heights, and cropping schemes in the Mekong Delta. Identification and quantification of long term land use intensification trends (e.g. long-term increase in harvest cycles per year), quantification of long-term urban land use, agriculture, and aquaculture expansion in the Deltas. In the field of remote sensing, new methods have been developed and tested to improve methods and algorithms for the application on larger scales and cloud prone regions. Furthermore, new methods have been tested to extend remote sensing towards new scientific areas and applications (e.g. coastal morphology). Recently, after the finalization of the DELTAS project first attempts have been made to further develop this chain towards a processing environment for Landsat and Sentinel-2 data and therefore towards providing a sustainable software development for further usage in new research application projects. Derived datasets on seasonal inundation dynamics, cropping patterns, land use and land cover information as well as the findings and results of multiple analyses where provided also to local stakeholders and where used by local planning and research institutions in the Mekong Delta (e.g. the Southern Institute of Water Resource Research, authorities associated to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development or the Ministry of Natural Resources).
Publications
- (2014) Earth observation satellite sensors for biodiversity monitoring: potentials and bottlenecks, Int. J. Remote Sens., 35(17-18), 6599-6647
Kuenzer, C., Ottinger, M., Wegmann, M., Guo, H., Wang, C., Zhang, J., Dech, S., and Wikelski, M.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2014.964349) - (2014), Earth observationbased coastal zone monitoring of the Yellow River Delta: Dynamics in China's second largest oil producing region over four decades, Appl. Geogr., 55, 92-107
Kuenzer, C., M. Ottinger, G. Liu, B. Sun, R. Baumhauer, and S. Dech
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2014.08.015) - (2015) Remote Sensing of River Delta Inundation: exploiting the Potential of coarse spatial Resolution, temporally-dense MODIS Time Series, Remote Sens., 7, 8516-8542
Kuenzer, C., I. Klein, T. Ullmann, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, R. Baumhauer, and S. Dech
(See online at https://doi.org/10.3390/rs70708516) - (2015) Results of the Global WaterPack: a novel product to assess inland water body dynamics on a daily basis, Remote Sensing Letters, 6(1), 78-87
Klein, I., A. Dietz, U. Gessner, S. Dech, and C. Kuenzer
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2014.1002945) - (2016) A Water Related Information System for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong Delta: Experiences of the German-Vietnamese WISDOM Project. In: Integrated Water Resources Management: Concept, Research and Implementation Springer. pp. 377-412
Kuenzer, C., Moder, F., Jaspersen, V., Ahrens, M., Fabritius, M., Funkenberg, T., Huth, J., Vo Khac, T., Trinh Thi, L., Lam Dao, N., Dech, S.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25071-7_15) - (2017) A semi-automated approach for the generation of a new land use and land cover product for Germany based on Landsat time-series and Lucas in-situ data. Remote Sensing Letters 8 (3), 244-253
Mack, B., Leinenkugel, P., Kuenzer, C., and Dech S.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2016.1249299)
