YouTube video by Z_GIS Department of Geoinformatics

YouTube video by Z_GIS Department of Geoinformatics

Newswise — Dead branches of trees are by no means static but clearly move in the course of the day. Geoinformatics researchers at Heidelberg University tracked these movements in a study conducted in cooperation with the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI). With the help of an autonomously operating laser scanning system, the scientists mapped a specific forest plot at regular intervals. Using a specially developed tracking algorithm, they were able to quantify precisely even small branch movements, which are driven by changes in humidity. Their approach opens up new opportunities for automated monitoring, which could make it possible to assess tree health based on characteristic movement patterns. Trees appear static at first sight but are constantly adapting to influences from their environment and continually moving their branches in response. A systematic movement of dead tree branches had long been suspected but had not yet been quantitatively proven under real forest conditions. The 3D Geospatial Data Processing (3DGeo) research group at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Geography, led by Prof. Dr. Bernhard Höfle, has now explored this question in international cooperation with the FGI. Using terrestrial laser scanning, the scientists succeeded in automatically measuring the suspected movement in detail every hour over...

Channel • 13 followers • Science Hiring Channel is Dedicated to Science & Tech Job Seekers. Here you can find Jobs with Tech, Space, Medical, Agriculture, Pharmacy, Marine and other Scientific Jobs k...

Dead branches of trees are by no means static but clearly move in the course of the day. Geoinformatics researchers at Heidelberg University tracked these movements in a study conducted in…

Newswise — Dead branches of trees are by no means static but clearly move in the course of the day. Geoinformatics researchers at Heidelberg University tracked these movements in a study conducted in cooperation with the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI). With the help of an autonomously operating laser scanning system, the scientists mapped a specific forest plot at regular intervals. Using a specially developed tracking algorithm, they were able to quantify precisely even small branch movements, which are driven by changes in humidity. Their approach opens up new opportunities for automated monitoring, which could make it possible to assess tree health based on characteristic movement patterns. Trees appear static at first sight but are constantly adapting to influences from their environment and continually moving their branches in response. A systematic movement of dead tree branches had long been suspected but had not yet been quantitatively proven under real forest conditions. The 3D Geospatial Data Processing (3DGeo) research group at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Geography, led by Prof. Dr. Bernhard Höfle, has now explored this question in international cooperation with the FGI. Using terrestrial laser scanning, the scientists succeeded in automatically measuring the suspected movement in detail every hour over...

Newswise — Dead branches of trees are by no means static but clearly move in the course of the day. Geoinformatics researchers at Heidelberg University tracked these movements in a study conducted in cooperation with the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI). With the help of an autonomously operating laser scanning system, the scientists mapped a specific forest plot at regular intervals. Using a specially developed tracking algorithm, they were able to quantify precisely even small branch movements, which are driven by changes in humidity. Their approach opens up new opportunities for automated monitoring, which could make it possible to assess tree health based on characteristic movement patterns. Trees appear static at first sight but are constantly adapting to influences from their environment and continually moving their branches in response. A systematic movement of dead tree branches had long been suspected but had not yet been quantitatively proven under real forest conditions. The 3D Geospatial Data Processing (3DGeo) research group at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Geography, led by Prof. Dr. Bernhard Höfle, has now explored this question in international cooperation with the FGI. Using terrestrial laser scanning, the scientists succeeded in automatically measuring the suspected movement in detail every hour over...

When images of the catastrophic floods in Nepal began circulating on social media, the scale and apparent violence of the event immediately caught Kashmiri geoscientist Irfan Rashid’s attention, and he scrambled to look for the landscape behind the headlines. Rashid, Head of the Department of Geoinformatics at Kashmir University who spends much time in his lab and high-altitude landscapes studying glaciers and glacial hazards in Kashmir and Ladakh, began searching satellite archives for a glimpse of the source area “when I first became aware of the event through social media, particularly posts circulating on Instagram and X.” Rashid examined imagery from United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer, Planet and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel missions. It was not straightforward. Initially, Rashid told this writer, he was not very successful because much of the area was heavily cloud covered, while the timing of satellite overpasses was another constraint. “Fortunately, Landsat 9 had an overpass shortly after the event, and the imagery provided a much clearer view of the failure zone, on 26th August. This was particularly useful because it allowed to examine the area where the event appears to have originated in considerably greater detail,” Rashid said. Planet imagery and...

When images of the catastrophic floods in Nepal began circulating on social media, the scale and apparent violence of the event immediately caught Kashmiri geoscientist Irfan Rashid’s attention, and he scrambled to look for the landscape behind the headlines. Rashid, Head of the Department of Geoinformatics at Kashmir University who spends much time in his lab and high-altitude landscapes studying glaciers and glacial hazards in Kashmir and Ladakh, began searching satellite archives for a glimpse of the source area “when I first became aware of the event through social media, particularly posts circulating on Instagram and X.” Rashid examined imagery from United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer, Planet and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel missions. It was not straightforward. Initially, Rashid told this writer, he was not very successful because much of the area was heavily cloud covered, while the timing of satellite overpasses was another constraint. “Fortunately, Landsat 9 had an overpass shortly after the event, and the imagery provided a much clearer view of the failure zone, on 26th August. This was particularly useful because it allowed to examine the area where the event appears to have originated in considerably greater detail,” Rashid said. Planet imagery and...