Applied Remote Sensing and GIS Integration for Catchment Model Parameterization (ARSGISIP)

Project Leader: Dr. Klaus Steinnocher

The project is addressing environmental challenges for sustainable land and water resources management throughout Europe. The objective is to promote the application of remote sensing techniques and GIS integration in representative European regions by demonstrating and verifying the cost-effective implementation of EO data for the parameterisation of hydrological, erosion and solute transport models. The project is jointly carried out in transnational collaboration by seven Research End User Teams (RETs) from research organisations and agencies dealing with environmental problems. Three major climatic regions are covered in the project: cold boreal (Finland, Norway, Sweden), humid temperate (France, Germany, Austria) and mediterranean (France, Italy). All RETs will apply standard remote sensing techniques of optical and microwave data according to their respective end user’s requirements. Results obtained will contribute towards a methodological pool comprised in the Idealised European Catchment.

Work of the first year of the project concentrated on the generation of data bases, identification of parameters and processing of satellite imagery and can be summarised as the problem definition and data gathering phase. EO data, cartographic data and results of field investigations were stored in Geographic Information Systems of the test areas. Much effort was given to communication with end users, in order to get full understanding of their requirements and of the models they intend to use. Based on this information systems analyses of the catchments under investigation was performed. Multispectral optical and SAR data were pre-processed and classified, including comparison of different pre-processing techniques and classification procedures. With respect to the potential of remote sensing and GIS integration for model parameterisation first classification results obtained in the ARSGISIP project are considered quite promising.
Work of the second project year can be summarised as the classification and map preparation phase. A GIS has been built up by each RET with a DEM, georeferenced remote sensing data, topographic information, and results of field campaigns performed during the year. Time differentiated classification of land cover, agricultural crops, grassland dynamics, forest type, canopy development, and classification of runoff and nutrient source areas have almost been finalised; only some minor works will be done at the beginning of next year with satellite data acquired at the end of 1999; results with single and multitemporal satellite imagery are satisfactory with fairly high accuracy. General characteristics of the land use pattern and crop distribution are clearly visible in each classification, but with characteristic differences between the various data sets. The analysis of temporal profiles of radar data indicate that routine mapping of major crop types should be possible with radar data alone and that crop rotation could be monitored. Thematic maps have been produced from the GIS coverages and were delivered to the end users comprising land cover, agricultural crops, forest types, LAI, preliminary derived surface temperature and pigment concentration in reservoirs, lithology, soils, and infiltration. The hydrological, solute transport and erosion models are in the parameterization and verification stage, first modelling results are considered promising.

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