2019

A paper by Bastian Siegmann et al. with contributions by Alexander Damm on The High-performance airborne imaging spectrometer HyPlant - from raw images to top-of-canopy reflectance and fluorescence products: Introduction of an automatized processing chain has been published in Remote Sensing.

Alex Damm participated in the second MC meeting of the COST action SENSECO, held in Costa Teguise, Lanzarote. Alex gave a talk in the WG3 session about An airborne based multi-sensor approach to reveal crop plant-water relations.

Bastian Bumann and Alex Damm participated in several FLEX related project meetings (i.e. AtmoFLEX, FLEXSense, PhotoFLEX) at ESRIN, Frascati, Italy.

We warmly welcome Jasmin Kesselring as new MSc student in our group. Jasmin will spend the next months to investigate how Earth observation approaches can be used to help farmers in reducing agricultural water losses. Jasmin is co-supervised by Eugenie Paul Limoges and Alex Damm.

Remika Gupana and Alex Damm participated in a fluorescence workshop organized by Institute of Space Sciences of Free University of Berlin in Germany. This workshop focused on the development of algorithms and applications of fluorescence in the aquatic environment. Alex gave a presentation about the upcoming FLEX mission while Remika gave an overview of the sun-induced fluorescence-related activities at UZH and Eawag.

We warmly welcome Alicia Hug as new MSc student in our group. Alicia will spend the next months to investigate how spectral data bases can advance and facilitate in situ radiometric measurements in optically complex waters. Alicia is co-supervised by Daniel Odermatt (Eawag) and Alex Damm.

We warmly welcome Bastian Buman as new IT specialist in our group. Bastian will implement the FLUOSPECCHIO data base and lots of ideas to advance ground and airborne based fluorescence retrievals. 

Remika Gupana conducted an experiment over the summer using the Eawag pond facility. Remika took radiometric measurements and water samples to understand phytoplankton sun-induced fluorescence (SIF) dynamics in a mesocosm set-up. This experiment aims to assess SIF emission changes throughout the day under natural illumination and semi-natural environment while controlling some parameters such as nutrients added to the system. Activities are related to the development of products for ESA's upcoming FLEX mission.

A paper by Subhajit Bandopadhya et al. with contributions by Alexander Damm on Hyplant-Derived Sun-Induced Fluorescence—A New Opportunity to Disentangle Complex Vegetation Signals from Diverse Vegetation Types has been published in Remote Sensing.

A paper on Remote Sensing of Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF) in Vegetation: 50 Years of Progress by G. Mohammed et al. with contributions by Alexander Damm has been published in Remote Sensing of Environment. Check this paper out, it is rather a compendium and will serve as reference document for many years!

Alex Damm visited the Swiss Science Launch organized by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences at the World Conference of Scientific Journalists in Lausanne and talked about Water Systems Research from Space. The left picture was kindly provided by C. Appenzeller.

Liv Fritsche, Joan Sturm Alex Damm joined ESA’s FLEXSense campaign in Grosseto, Italy. This large European remote sensing campaign is in support of the development of ESA's next Earth Explorer satellite mission Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX). The campaign comprised various experiments including a water stress experiment in agricultural crops. We acquired intensive ground data parallel overflights with airborne sensors to eventually assess how crop transpiration was affected by water stress.

The Arbeitskreis Ökosystemforschung by the GfÖ initiated a workshop to assess the impact of the 2018 drought on European forests. 30 scientists from universities and research institutions from Germany and Switzerland came together at the University of Basel to discuss the impacts of the 2018 events on European forests. Alex Damm contributed with insights from Earth observation data and tomography of gas exchange. Learn more about our discussions and conclusions here.

RSWS participated at ESA's Living Planet Symposium 2019 with two contributions: Remika Gupana presented her work on Retrieval of Sun-induced Fluorescence in Optically Complex Waters: A Cross Scale Comparison of Different Techniques Using Hyperspectral Measurements.

Alex Damm presented his work on Remote Sensing of Gas Exchange in Forest Ecosystems: A Tomographic Perspective.

A new paper by M. Pilar Cendrero-Mateo et al. with contributions by Alexander Damm on Sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence III: Benchmarking retrieval methods and sensor characteristics for proximal sensing has been published in Remote Sensing.

A new paper by Helge Aasen et al. with contributions by Alexander Damm on Sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence II: Review of passive measurement setups, protocols, and their application at the leaf to canopy level has been published in Remote Sensing.

A new paper by Daniela Braun et al. with contributions by Alexander Damm on Ecosystem service change caused by climatological and non‐climatological drivers: A Swiss case study has been published in Ecological Applications.

RSWS participated in the EGU General Assembly 2019 with two contributions: Eugenie Paul-Limoges presented her work on Partitioning evapotranspiration with concurrent eddy covariance measurements in a mixed forest.

Erfan Haghighi presented his work on Reconciling photosynthesis and hydraulic models to predict stomatal behavior under emerging environmental conditions. Thanks a lot for your hard work!

We recently upgraded the Oensingen test site with high resolution pointing spectrometer (FloX) continuously measuring sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence and other plant traits. With this, we contribute to the new SIF₄WUE project that aims to improve measurements of plant transpiration for sustainable agricultural water use .

The full RSWS group and our colleagues from Eawag participated in the International Network Meeting on Remote Sensing of Terrestrial and Aquatic Fluorescence, held between 5-8 March in Davos. The event was a great success and jointly organized by ESA, Eawag and UZH. Check out the final programme!

Eugenie Paul-Limoges won a PSC-Syngenta Fellowship. In the next one and a half years we will be collaborating with Nina Buchmann and Johan Six (both ETH) on "Improved measurements of plant transpiration for sustainable agricultural water use". Great success, congratulations!

A new paper by Daniel Kückenbrink et al. with contributions by Alexander Damm on Mapping the Irradiance Field of a Single Tree: Quantifying Vegetation-Induced Adjacency Effects has been published in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

A new paper by Simon Besnard et al. with contributions by Eugenie Paul-Limoges on the Memory effects of climate and vegetation affecting net ecosystem CO2 fluxes in global forests has been published in PlosOne.

Alexander Damm gave a talk entitled FLUOSPECCHIO: A spectral data base system in support of validation activities for the upcoming Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) mission at the 11th EARSeL Imaging Spectroscopy Workshop in Brno.