Antonios Mouratidis

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki | AUTH · Department of Physical and Environmental Geography

In 2000, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) provided for the first time a global high-quality digital elevation model (DEM) at resolution levels of one and three arcseconds, using single-pass synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry. In January and February 2008, an extensive four-day kinematic global positioning system (GPS) (KGPS) c...

We describe the state of the art of scientific research on the earthquake cycle based on the analysis of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data acquired from satellite platforms. We examine the achievements and the main limitations of present SAR systems for the measurement and analysis of crustal deformation, and envision the foreseeable advances tha...

Using state-of-the-art InSAR techniques, namely Persistent Scatterers (PS) and Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) approaches, this paper contributes to open geotechnical questions in the area of Thessaloniki (Greece), from a remote sensing perspective. It also demonstrates the potential of these techniques for calibration purposes, with reference to the...

Floods are considered as one of the most important catastrophes, as they affect more population compared to any other natural disaster worldwide. Remote Sensing techniques provide safe and cost-effective tools for monitoring, mapping and assessing the evolution and damages caused by flood events. In the Balkans and in most countries of Eastern Euro...

LEOWorks is an Open Source image processing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software for educational purposes. It introduces Earth Observation techniques to users from secondary school to university level. LEOWorks bridges the gap between: a) the theory, data and overall content of the ESA Eduspace website for secondary schools and b) th...

The frequency of wildfires is increasing worldwide, contributing to a third of forest loss in the last two decades. Tracking burned area progression using traditional optical remote sensing is hindered by cloud and smoke coverage. Therefore, this research employs multi-temporal Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite data, which are not susceptibl...

Persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) has been proven to be a robust method for studying complex and dynamic phenomena such as ground displacement over time. Proper visualization of PSI measurements is both crucial and challenging from a cartographic standpoint. This study focuses on the development of an interactive cartographic web map applic...

Geological heritage or geoheritage is of at least equal significance to – and sometimes also interwoven with – cultural heritage. Hence, it holds the potential of scientific, educational, cultural, aesthetic, and touristic value. Nevertheless, geoheritage has not attracted the same level of attention as cultural heritage to date, especially regardi...

Project AltiZeus: O ακριβής υπολογισμός του υψομέτρου ενός βουνού έχει εξαιρετικό ενδιαφέρον από γεωλογικής απόψεως. Διαχρονικές μετρήσεις του υψομέτρου με πολύ καλή ακρίβεια (λίγων εκατοστών ή λίγων χιλιοστών) μπορούν να αναδείξουν καθιζήσεις ή ανυψώσεις του βουνού. Αυτή η πληροφορία μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί από τους επιστήμονες για την άντληση πλ...

Wildfires are one of the most significant threats to ecosystems and are increasing in frequency globally. The aim of this study is to monitor the evolution of selected wildfires in Greece that occurred during August 2021 using Sentinel-1 SAR data and unsupervised k-means clustering in Google Earth Engine. First, changes in time series after the sta...

In modern times, adult education is growing at a significant pace as many adults worldwide are actively involved in learning processes to update their knowledge and skills. In adult education, experiential learning plays a central role which renders learners active participants in the learning process. Educational field trips are part of experienti...

O ακριβής υπολογισμός του υψομέτρου ενός βουνού έχει εξαιρετικό ενδιαφέρον από γεωλογικής απόψεως. Διαχρονικές μετρήσεις του υψομέτρου με πολύ καλή ακρίβεια (λίγων εκατοστών ή λίγων χιλιοστών) μπορούν να αναδείξουν καθιζήσεις ή ανυψώσεις του βουνού. Αυτή η πληροφορία μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί από τους επιστήμονες για την άντληση πληροφοριών, για την...

With the increasing availability and diversity of satellite imagery, the multisensor fusion of data can more effectively address the improved monitoring of temporary water bodies. This study supports the attempt to apply well established methods to detect spatial and temporal changes in ephemeral shallow lakes in lowland karst terrain, as well as t...

The present study deals with the determination of Mount Olympus summit (Mytikas), exploiting modern observations such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and existing geodetic information. The last official Olympus height determination goes back 102 years by the Swiss surveyor M. Kurz. Since then, only unofficial measurement campaigns hav...

Several studies have focused on the ground displacement phenomena in the broader area of the Thessaloniki Plain, Greece. Although there is a general consensus on the diachronic occurrence of subsidence, there have been recent studies that also report considerable uplifts. In order to resolve some of these ambiguities and to further study and monito...

Surface motion is a complex, dynamic phenomenon that draws significant scientific attention. This study focuses on the development of a cartographic toolset for the visualization of space-borne Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) surface motion measurements. The entire archive of Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery over the broa...

Vilímek, V., Novotný, J., Mouratidis, A. (2022): Editorial. AUC Geographica 57(2), 87 https://doi.org/10.14712/23361980.2022.14

The study introduces an efficient methodology to perform the transformations between station coordinate and velocity solutions where either minimum or redundant datum constraints have been imposed employing the estimated state vector and the covariance matrix thereof. The analytical methodology presented herein facilitates the datum alignment of la...

We describe two different solutions to the transformation between the official geodetic datum of Greece, the Hellenic Geodetic Reference System of 1987 (HGRS1987), and a historic, but still used version of the Old Greek Datum (GR-Datum) called the ‘Old Bessel’ datum. The Old Greek Datum, the previous officially accepted datum in Greece, consists of...

This study deals with a local incidence angle correction method, i.e., the land cover-specific local incidence angle correction (LC-SLIAC), based on the linear relationship between the backscatter values and the local incidence angle (LIA) for a given land cover type in the monitored area. Using the combination of CORINE Land Cover and Hansen et al...

One of he most common problems of the daily surveying/geodetic/cartographic practice is reliable transformation between two geodetic reference systems. There are plenty of well-known transformation’s models (e.g. 3D Helmert transdformation, 2D silimilarity transformaton, etc) applied for this purpose. Transformation scope is to optimally absorb the...

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-021-00592-8

Following the M7.0 earthquake that struck the Greek island of Samos and Turkey's western coast, causing extensive damage and casualties, we combined existing knowledge geodatabases concerning historical seismicity and rupture zones with seismological and geodetic measurements as well as with modelling and in situ observations, to provide an assessm...

Covering an area of approximately 97 km2 and with a maximum depth of 58 m, Lake Trichonis is the largest and one of the deepest natural lakes in Greece. As such, it constitutes an important ecosystem and freshwater reserve at the regional scale, whose qualitative and quantitative properties ought to be monitored. Depth is a crucial parameter, as it...

Methana volcanic area is situated at the southwest part of Saronic Gulf and at the eastern edge of the Aegean Volcanic arc. Near the coast, human activity (fish farming and tourism) has resulted in an increase in nutrients, mainly nitrates and phosphates, which are associated with the phenomenon of eutrophication. Within a distance from the shore,...

With new Earth Observation (EO) and Geoinformation (GI) data sources increasingly becoming available, evermore new skills for data collection, processing, analysis and application are required. They are needed not only from scientists, but also from practitioners working in businesses, public and private EO*GI and related sectors. Aligning the cont...

Erythropotamos is a tributary of river Evros and during the last decade its drainage basin flooded many times, causing extensive damage on properties. In order to assess flood susceptibility in the aforementioned study area, the inundated areas of floods that occurred in 2010, 2017 and 2018 were initially delineated with the aid of SAR (Synthetic A...

Moschopoulos, G., Demirtzoglou, N., Mouratidis, A., Perperidou, D.-G, Ampatzidis D. (2020). Transforming the old map series of the Greek Ministry of Agriculture to the modern geodetic reference system. Coordinates. 27-31 The transformation of the old map sheets series of the Greek State remains a recurring issue. The main problem lies in the tran...

Body of Knowledge, Earth Observation, Geoinformation, Skills definition, Market/User Uptake

In this study, a remote sensing-based method of mapping and predicting fish spatial distribution in inland waters is developed. A combination of Earth Observation data, in-situ measurements, and hydroacoustics is used to relate fish biomass distribution and water-quality parameters along the longitudinal transect of thě Rímov Reservoir (Czech Repub...

Subsidence phenomena have been observed and confirmed for several decades in the broader coastal area of Sindos-Kalohori, located at the west of the city of Thessaloniki, Greece. The area is part of a 2500-year old plain, occupying about 2000 square kilometers that are drained by four rivers, two of which form extensive deltas. The reasons for the...

We present an integrated study of subsurface and surficial karst landforms to unravel the uplift history of karst landscape in a tectonically‐active area. To this end, we apply a multidisciplinary approach by combining cave geomorphology and Th/U dating of speleothems with remote sensing plus geophysical imaging of surface landforms. We use as an e...

Digital elevation models (DEMs) are a widely used form of topographic information, with some of the most popular being the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) DEM and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model (ASTER GDEM). These two sources of topographical information are the main constit...

Volcanic history of Santorini over recent years records a seismo-volcanic unrest in 2011–12 with a non-eruptive behavior. The volcano deformation state following the unrest was investigated through multi-sensor Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) time series. We focused on the analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1, Radarsat-2 and TerraSAR-X...

The purpose of this study is the exploitation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite data for land cover monitoring. The properties of the recorded radar data heavily depend on the type of land cover, season and weather conditions. Therefore, it is possible to utilize the variability of these factors, in order to develop various techniques and...

Lake Koroneia (or Lake of Lagkadas) is located approximately 15km northeast of the city of Thessaloniki and constitutes part of the Mygdonia Basin. It is also under a special environmental protection status, along with the broader region. Over the last few decades, this water body has undergone several stages, with strong fluctuations, which have p...

The European Union Digital Elevation Model (EU-DEM) is a relatively new, hybrid elevation product, principally based on SRTM DEM and ASTER GDEM data, but also on publically available Russian topographic maps for regions north of 60ο N. More specifically, EU-DEM is a Digital Surface Model (DSM) over Europe from the Global Monitoring for Environment...

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite images are particularly useful for mapping geomorphological elements and their changes on the surface of the Earth. One of the reasons that consolidate this usefulness is the fact that the SAR backscatter (and thus the resulting SAR images) heavily depend on two main factors: a) surface roughness and b) soil...

At the beginning of 2011 Santorini volcano underwent a volcanic unrest, accompanied by an increase of the microseismic activity. The unrest that lasted for over a year, demonstrated substantial amounts of uplift, justifying the volcanic origin of the activity. The continuation of the deformation monitoring after the unrest event was deemed necessar...

Χρησιμοποιώντας αποκλειστικά εικόνες και σύντομες περιγραφές αυτών, το παρόν ηλεκτρονικό βιβλίο επιχειρεί να παρουσιάσει το φυσικό και ανθρωπογενές περιβάλλον, καθώς και τη μεταξύ τους αλληλεπίδραση, με έμφαση στον εικοστό και εικοστό πρώτο αιώνα. Το περιεχόμενο στηρίζεται κυρίως σε χαρακτηριστικά παραδείγματα παγκόσμιας κλίμακας, αλλά και σε παραδ...

The European Union Digital Elevation Model (EU-DEM) is a relatively new, hybrid elevation product, principally based on SRTM DEM and ASTER GDEM data, but also on publically available Russian topographic maps for regions north of 60° N. More specifically, EU-DEM is a Digital Surface Model (DSM) over Europe from the Global Monitoring for Environment...

The establishment and maintenance of long-term Earth Observation (EO) missions has enabled the acquisition of data that facilitate the monitoring of Earth’s surface. Among a multitude of Geoscience applications, the coupling of EO data and relevant image processing techniques, along with Geographical Information Systems (GIS), has been proven as a...

In this study, a comprehensive 30-year (1984–2016) water quality parameter database for Lake Koronia – one of the most important Ramsar wetlands of Greece – was compiled from Landsat imagery. The reliability of the data was evaluated by comparing water Quality Element (QE) values computed from Landsat data against in situ data. Water quality algori...

Since 2013, NASA and ESA, in cooperation with Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic), have been joining forces and sharing expertise within the organization of annual Trans-Atlantic-Training (TAT) events in Eastern European countries. TAT concerns capacity building on Earth Observation from Space and focuses mainly on land cover/land use app...

The purpose of this paper is to present the framework, content, outcomes and the lessons learnt from the 2015 Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) course on geological disasters management, delivered within the 2015 CEOS Distance Education Course entitled “Remote Sensing Technology for Disaster Management” - a joint effort by CEOS Agenc...

Στην παρούσα εργασία παρουσιάζονται τόσο οι ανθρωπογενείς όσο και οι φυσικοί παράγοντες που έχουν επηρεάσει το ευρύτερο περιβάλλον της Θεσσαλονίκης, μιας πόλης με ιστορία, η οποία ξεκίνησε από το 315 π.Χ.. Αρχικά περιγράφεται η εξέλιξη της πεδιάδας της Θεσσαλονίκης, ενώ ακολούθως παρουσιάζεται το γεωλογικό υπόβαθρο της πόλης, καθώς και τα μορφολογι...

2015, με τη χρήση του επίγειου σαρωτή LIDAR ILRIS-(3D-HD). Η θέση σάρωσης βρισκόταν σε κάθετη απόσταση 10 m από την επιφάνεια και ο σαρωτής ρυθμίστηκε κατάλληλα ώστε το βήμα (χω-ρική ανάλυση) σάρωσης να είναι 1 mm. Σαρώθηκε όλη η αποκαλυμμένη ρηξιγενής επιφάνεια, εκτός από το ανώτερο τμήμα του νοτίου άκρου της λόγω πρακτικών δυσκολιών. Επεξεργασία...

The use of satellite data for mapping and overall managing of natural and/or anthropogenic disasters from Space is nowadays operational in many parts of the world. Floods are a characteristic example of catastrophes, where the contribution and advantages of satellite data are highlighted in terms of easy and free access, covering extensive areas, h...

On 2003 August 14, a Mw = 6.2 earthquake occurred offshore the Lefkada Island in the eastern Ionian Sea, one of the most seismically active areas in Europe. The earthquake caused extended damages in the island, and a number of ground failures, especially along the north-western coast. Seven ascending ENVISAT/ASAR images are used to process six co-s...

Vocational Education and Training (VET) and LifeLong Learning (LLL), stand at the forefront of Europe's strategic policies in Education, in response to the lack of students' interest in STEM and the emerging needs for new skills in the labour market. Space can be a particularly useful platform for attracting students to STEM, environmental as well...

Since 2013, NASA and ESA, in cooperation with Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic), have been joining forces and sharing expertise within the organization of annual TransAtlantic Training (TAT) events in Eastern European countries. TAT concerns capacity building on Earth Observation from Space and focuses mainly on land cover/land use appl...

The purpose of this paper is to present the framework, content, outcomes and the lessons learnt from the 2015 Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) course on ge-ological disasters management, delivered within the 2015 CEOS Distance Education Course entitled “Remote Sensing Technology for Disaster Management” - a joint effort by CEOS Agen...

In this study, a comprehensive 30-year (1984-2016) water quality parameter database for lake Koronia-one of the most important Ramsar wetlands of Greece-was compiled from Landsat imagery. The reliability of the data was evaluated by comparing water Quality Element (QE) values computed from Landsat data against in-situ data. Water quality algorithms...

There is an increasingly growing interest in observing the Earth’s surface from space. This can be done in several ways, such as using visible and radar imaging - the latter significantly less popular amongst members of the international scientific community. The purpose of this study is the exploitation of the advantages of radar satellite data, n...

In the present study we are dealing with the evaluation of the European Digital Elevation Model (EU-DEM) in a limited area, covering few kilometers. We compare EU-DEM derived vertical information against orthometric heights obtained by classical trigonometric leveling for an area located in Northern Greece. We apply several statistical tests and we...