Explanipedia

Countrywide digital surface models and vegetation height models from historical aerial images Open

Mauro Marty, Livia Piermattei, Lars T. Waser‬, Christian Ginzler · 2025

Historical aerial images, captured by film cameras in the previous century, are valuable resources for quantifying Earth's surface and landscape changes over time. In the post-war period, these images were often acquired to create topograp…

Bridging spatio-temporal gaps in ALS data using Landsat time series and forest disturbance-recovery metrics via multi-task neural networks Open

Saverio Francini, Costanza Borghi, Giovanni D’Amico, Lars T. Waser‬, Maciej Lisiewicz , et al. · 2025

Assessment of tree species specific phenology metrics from Sentinel-2 data to complement in situ monitoring Open

Tiziana L. Koch, Samuel Grubinger, Nicholas C. Coops, Alexander Damm, Felix Morsdorf , et al. · 2025

Monitoring tree phenology is key to understanding forest dynamics under climate change. Events like leaf unfolding and senescence affect ecosystem productivity, tree mortality, and species interactions. While in situ phenology observations…

Assessing Intraspecific Variation of Tree Species Based on Sentinel-2 Vegetation Indices Across Space and Time Open

Tiziana L. Koch, Martina L. Hobi, Felix Morsdorf, Alexander Damm, Dominique Weber , et al. · 2025

Forest ecosystems are vital for biodiversity, climate regulation, and ecosystem services. Their resilience depends not only on species diversity but also on intraspecific variation—the genetic and phenotypic differences within species—whic…

Toward a Collaborative Framework: Integrating Remote Sensing Research with Forestry Practice Open

Lars T. Waser‬, Nataliia Rehush, Hannes Horneber, Raffael Bienz, Krzysztof Stereńczak , et al. · 2025

There is an increasing demand for current and comprehensive forest information due to climate change, economic pressures, and sustainable forest management. Current remote sensing technologies and methodological advances in deep learning p…

Towards more flexible and improved European Forest Information and its governance structures Open

Gherardo Chirici, G.J. Nabuurs, Saverio Francini, Cornelius Senf, Rupert Seidl , et al. · 2025

Increasing pressures on forests in Europe are accompanied by a rapidly growing number of forest-related policy targets from the European Union (e.g. halting biodiversity loss and protecting 30% of the land, restoring 20% of EU land) as par…

Sentinel-2 vs. PlanetScope: Comparison and combination for tree species classification in two central European forest ecosystems Open

Ardalan Daryaei, Michael Lechner, Anna Iglseder, Lars T. Waser‬, Markus Immitzer · 2025

The increasing rate of species extinction and declining environmental conditions necessitate a comprehensive understanding of habitats, including tree species diversity, which is a critical factor influencing forest ecosystem functions. Tr…

Countrywide Digital Surface Models and Vegetation Height Models from Historical Aerial Images Open

Mauro Marty, Livia Piermattei, Lars T. Waser‬, Christian Ginzler · 2025

Historical aerial images, captured by film cameras in the previous century, are valuable resources for quantifying Earth’s surface and landscape changes over time. In the post-war period, these images were often acquired to create topograp…

Tree Crown Mortality and Defoliation Assessment in Temperate Forests Using Aerial Imagery and Deep Learning Open

Mirela Beloiu, E. P. Berger, Simon Ecke, Zhongyu Xia, Cécile Reichmuth , et al. · 2025

Detailed validation of large-scale Sentinel-2-based forest disturbance maps across Germany Open

Eike Reinosch, Julian Backa, Petra Adler, Janik Deutscher, Philipp Eisnecker , et al. · 2024

Monitoring forest areas with satellite data has become a vital tool to derive information on disturbances in European forests at large scales. An extensive validation of generated maps is essential to evaluate their potential and limitatio…

Four nationwide Digital Surface Models from airborne historical stereo-images Open

Christian Ginzler, Livia Piermattei, Mauro Marty, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2024

Historical aerial images, captured by film cameras in the previous century, have emerged as valuable resources for quantifying Earth's surface and landscape changes over time. In the post-war period, historical aerial images were often acq…

Characterization of forest edge structure from airborne laser scanning data Open

Moritz Bruggisser, Zuyuan Wang, Christian Ginzler, Clare Webster, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2024

Forest edges represent the transition zone (ecotone) between the forest interior and the surrounding open land. Due to their great ecological importance, the value of assessing the structure of forest edges has been recognized. In Switzerl…

Neue Fernerkundungstechnologien für die Umweltforschung und Praxis Open

Christian Ginzler, Iris Wehrli, Raffael Bienz, Petra Odorico, Reik Leiterer , et al. · 2023

Remote sensing in cantonal forest planning -canton of AargauRemote sensing data and products derived from them have long since found their way into forest planning in Aargau.In addition to contributing to the information available on backg…

Landesweite Datensätze zum Wald mittels Fernerkundung - der Beginn einer neuen Ära Open

Lars T. Waser‬, Christian Ginzler · 2023

Regelmässig erhobene, aktuelle Informationen zu verschiedenen Waldparametern auf landesweiter Ebene erfuhren in den letzten Jahren eine steigende praktische und wissenschaftliche Relevanz. Neueste Technologien aus der Fernerkundung und dem…

Evaluating resampled and fused Sentinel-2 data and machine-learning algorithms for mangrove mapping in the northern coast of Qeshm island, Iran Open

A. Soffianian, Neda Bihamta Toosi, Ali Asgarian, Hervé Regnauld, Sima Fakheran , et al. · 2023

Mangrove forests, as an essential component of the coastal zones in tropical and subtropical areas, provide a wide range of goods and ecosystem services that play a vital role in ecology. Mangroves are globally threatened, disappearing, an…

Can historical black and white images be used to map changes of tree-line? Open

Zuyuan Wang, Yuanyuan Gui, Wei Li, Birgit Eben, Lars T. Waser‬ , et al. · 2023

Tree-line shifts are evident signs of various aspects of global climatic changes. Remote sensing techniques and aerial imageries are typically used to assess the changes of tree-line in mountainous areas over the past years mostly based on…

Automated detection of countrywide forest cover and forest gaps using alpha shape Open

Marius Rüetschi, Livia Piermattei, Mauro Marty, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2023

This work aims to develop a highly automated workflow for generating a forest cover map and detecting forest gaps at the countrywide level (i.e. Switzerland) using the alpha shape approach (Edelsbrunner et al. 1983).Forest provides society…

Countrywide characterization of forest edge structure from airborne laser scanning data Open

Moritz Bruggisser, Zuyuan Wang, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2023

Forest edges represent the transition zone between the open country side and the forest interior. Ideally, the edge zone consists of a shrub belt (vegetation height < 4 m) and a shelterbelt with a distinct height gradient towards the fores…

Mapping tree species composition in a Caspian temperate mixed forest based on spectral-temporal metrics and machine learning Open

Vahid Nasiri, Mirela Beloiu, Ali Asghar Darvishsefat, Verena C. Griess, Carmen Maftei , et al. · 2022

Assessing Changes in Mountain Treeline Ecotones over 30 Years Using CNNs and Historical Aerial Images Open

Zuyuan Wang, Christian Ginzler, Birgit Eben, Nataliia Rehush, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2022

Historical black-and-white (B&W) aerial images have been recognized as an important source of information for assessing vegetation dynamics. However, the use of these images is limited by the lack of multispectral information, as well as b…

Increasing the broad-leaved tree fraction in European forests mitigates hot temperature extremes Open

Jonas Schwaab, Édouard L. Davin, Ronny Meier, Matthias Haeni, Anke Duguay-Tetzlaff , et al. · 2022

Forests influence climate through a myriad of chemical, physical and biological processes and are an essential lever in the efforts to counter climate change. The majority of studies investigating potential climate benefits from forests ha…

Mapping disturbance in mangrove ecosystems: Incorporating landscape metrics and PCA-based spatial analysis Open

Neda Bihamta Toosi, A. Soffianian, Sima Fakheran, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2022

Countrywide mapping of shrub forest using multi-sensor data and bias correction techniques Open

Marius Rüetschi, Dominique Weber, Tiziana L. Koch, Lars T. Waser‬, David Small , et al. · 2021

Mapping dominant leaf type based on combined Sentinel-1/-2 data – Challenges for mountainous countries Open

Lars T. Waser‬, Marius Rüetschi, Achilleas Psomas, David Small, Nataliia Rehush · 2021

Advances in Remote Sensing for Global Forest Monitoring Open

Erkki Tomppo, Jaan Praks, Guangxing Wang, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2021

The topics of the book cover forest parameter estimation, methods to assess land cover and change, forest disturbances and degradation, and forest soil drought estimations. Airborne laser scanner data, aerial images, as well as data from p…

Countrywide mapping of trees outside forests based on remote sensing data in Switzerland Open

Eylül Malkoç, Marius Rüetschi, Christian Ginzler, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2021

Although trees growing outside forests are less perceived in relation to those inside forests, they are also valuable and serve various functions. The biophysical thresholds of Trees Outside Forests (TOF) were recently defined and standard…

Wide-area shrub forest map based on multi-sensor data and active learning Open

Marius Rüetschi, Dominique Weber, Tiziana L. Koch, David Small, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2021

<p>In the past few decades, the occurrence of shrub forest dominated by the two species Green alder (Alnus viridis) and Dwarf mountain pine (Pinus mugo) has increased in the Swiss Alps. Up-to-date and area-wide information on its dis…

The identification of meaningful variables from Sentinel-2 time series data for effective tree species classification Open

Tiziana L. Koch, Marius Rüetschi, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2021

<p>Sentinel-2 time series provide large amounts of data and information which can be easily used to classify tree species with machine learning algorithms. In addition to the original Sentinel-2 bands, further data such as indices, p…

Editorial Summary, Remote Sensing Special Issue “Advances in Remote Sensing for Global Forest Monitoring” Open

Erkki Tomppo, Guangxing Wang, Jaan Praks, Ronald E. McRoberts, Lars T. Waser‬ · 2021

The need for timely, spatially, and thematically accurate information regarding forests is increasing because of the key role of forests in the global carbon balance and sustainable social, economic, ecological, and cultural development [.…

European Wide Forest Classification Based on Sentinel-1 Data Open

Alena Dostálová, Mait Lang, Jānis Ivanovs, Lars T. Waser‬, Wolfgang Wagner · 2021

The constellation of two Sentinel-1 satellites provides an unprecedented coverage of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data at high spatial (20 m) and temporal (2 to 6 days over Europe) resolution. The availability of dense time series enable…

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