Rapid Eye South Africa

The project is linked to the the DFG collaborative research centre "Resilience, Collapse and Reorganisation in Social-Ecological Systems of East- and South Africa’s Savannahs". Die overall objective is to better understand spatio-temporal pattern of vegetation in grassland systems in South Africa, to detect gradients of management, to identify overgrazing and land degradation and to quantify the contribution of degraded grassland including bush encroachment. We aim to combine remote sensing sensors of different spatial resolution.

Evaluation of RapidEye data aims at (1) detecting size and pattern of the sacrifice zones of high stocking density (mainly around water holes) with the help of object based classification (definiens developer), (2) correlation of biomass and soil cover with corresponding values of RapidEye images and pixel based classification of classes of biomass and/or vegetation, (3) determination of heterogeneity of vegetation within field and farms (local scale) and finally (4) determination of heterogeneity within MODIS pixels which falls within a plot including aggregation of RapidEye classes to bigger units. 

Brüser, K., H. Feilhauer, A. Linstädter, J. Schellberg, R.J. Oomen, J.C. Ruppert, F. Ewert, 2014. Discrimination and characterization of management systems in semi-arid rangelands of South Africa using RapidEye time series. International Journal of Remote Sensing 35, 5, 1653-1673. DOI:10.1080/01431161.2014.882028.

Brüser, K., J. Schellberg, F. Ewert, 2011. Fernerkundungsbasierte Analyse raum-zeitlicher Vegetationsmuster Südafrikanischen Weidelands. Arbeitskreis Fernerkundung, 29/30 September 2011, Würzburg, Germany. => zum Poster  => zum Tagungsbeitrag

Brüser, K., J. Schellberg, R. Oomen, J. Ruppert, A. Linstädter, F. Ewert, 2011. Remote sensing based analysis of spatio-temporal vegetation patterns in South African rangeland at different scales, Tropentag, 5-7 Oktober 2011, Bonn, Germany.  => zum Tagungsbeitrag