Carsten Jürgens

• Prof. Dr.
• Professor (retired) at Ruhr University Bochum

Geospatial data literacy is of paramount importance in an increasingly digital business world. Especially in economic decision-making processes, the ability to judge the trustworthiness of pertinent data sets is inevitable for reliable decisions. Thus, geospatial competencies need to supplement the university’s teaching syllabus of economic degree...

After the collapse of the San Rafael waterfall in Northeast Ecuador on 2 February 2020, a regressive erosion started along the River Coca putting national infrastructure, the environment and indigenous communities at risk. A fast monitoring of areas exposed to landslides on local scales therefore is necessary to provide adequate risk management for...

Earth observation is an interdisciplinary field of application. This makes it ideal for supporting natural science education in schools. Understanding satellite data can enable students to see more than just “beautiful images”. They can gain insights into an exciting field of application of many natural- and computer science fundamentals. In recent...

Archaeological research is increasingly embedding individual sites in archaeological contexts and aims at reconstructing entire historical landscapes. In doing so, it benefits from technological developments in the field of archaeological prospection over the last 20 years, including LiDAR-based Digital Terrain Models, special visualizations, and a...

Urban greenspace is of high importance for the general public from different points of view. Among others, it is beneficial for recreational activities as well as for cooling effects during summer in urban climate. Many studies investigate urban greenspace from perspectives related to environmental justice or health geography that are usually based...

Ground movement can be observed from space using radar interferometry. This works essentially by measuring the distance and angle between a satellite and a spot on the ground twice and subtracting them. This uses the transit time of radar waves, sent from the satellite to the ground and reflected back. Very precise measurements and calculations usi...

This paper investigates spatial relationships regarding the accessibility of urban green space, the overall yearly vitality of the surrounding vegetation, and additional indicators such as air and noise pollution, in urban areas. The analysis uses socio-economic data sets derived from a sophisticated disaggregation approach. It results from applyin...

The German Ruhr area is a highly condensed urban area that experienced a tremendous structural change over recent decades with the replacement of the coal and steel industries by other sectors. Consequently, a lot of major land cover changes happened. To retrospectively quantify such land cover changes, this study analysed synthetic aperture radar...

For the purpose of expanding STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education with remote sensing (RS) data and methods, an augmented reality (AR) app was developed in combination with a worksheet and lesson plan. Data from the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO) was searched for topics applicable to STEM curricula, whic...

Learning videos can be concise learning packages that offer a wide range of possibilities when it comes to present topics in an up-to-date way and disseminating them in a variety of learning environments. Videos are already a primary source of information in our society; however, few examples convey earth observation topics. Over recent decades, nu...

Sustainable business development is connected with environmental impact, natural resources and people. This makes the location a crucial factor for the operation of a business. Therefore, a combination of both geo-spatial data analysis and traditional economic evaluation of companies are advantageous. The consideration of geolocation is beneficial...

Economic forecasts are an important instrument to judge the nation-wide economic situation. Such forecasts are mainly based on data from statistical offices. However, there is a time lag between the end of the reporting period and the release of the statistical data that arises for instance from the time needed to collect and process the data. To i...

This contribution focuses on the utilization of very-high-resolution (VHR) images to identify construction areas and their temporal changes aiming to estimate the investment in construction as a basis for economic forecasts. Triggered by the need to improve macroeconomic forecasts and reduce their time intervals, the idea arose to use frequently av...

This paper describes a methodological approach that is able to analyse socio-demographic and -economic data in large-scale spatial detail. Based on the two variables, population density and annual income, one investigates the spatial relationship of these variables to identify locations of imbalance or disparities assisted by bivariate choropleth m...

By 2050, two-third of the world’s population will live in cities. In this study, we develop a framework for analyzing urban growth-related imperviousness in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) from the 1980s to date using Landsat data. For the baseline 2017-time step, official geodata was extracted to generate labelled data for ten classes, including thre...

Since the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic is a global phenomenon, many scientists and research organizations create thematic maps to visualize and understand the spatial spread of the disease and to inform mankind. Nowadays, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and web mapping technologies enable people to create digital maps on demand...

“We set out to explore the Moon and instead discovered the Earth“ Apollo 8 Astronaut and Earthrise picture photographer Bill Anders’ perspective on Earth was changed sustainably by the view from Space onto our home planet. The presentation will demonstrate how the technology and the application of remote sensing from space, i.e. from the ISS, can e...

his special issue of the European Journal of Remote Sensing consists of selected papers originally presented at the 38th EARSeL Symposium and the 3rd Joint EARSeL LULC & NASA LCLUC Workshop, that took place at Chania, Greece on 9–12 July 2018. The Symposium covered a range of topics of Earth Observation applications, including 3D Remote Sensing, C...

This paper discusses the potential and limitations of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in environmental justice, health and inequality studies in urban areas. Very often the NDVI is correlated with socioeconomic and/or sociodemographic data to demonstrate the inequality in environmental settings that themselves influence individual...

Data literacy is an essential skill for today’s digital way of life, to be able to judge the reliability of different data presented, for instance in news and media or in business processes. Geo-Spatial data are a specific kind of data and influence most of our daily decisions. In school one learns how to critically read and reflect texts and liter...

Facing global challenges, a qualified education in remote sensing technologies needs to start in school to sensitise teachers and thus young people for ecological issues and develop their technological skills. Remote sensing is part of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curricular topics, all of which are either a requireme...

Für den Einsatz von Geodaten im Schulbetrieb verfügen die wenigsten Schulen über ausrei- chende Hard- oder Software. Auch die mobilen Endgeräte der Schülerinnen und Schüler sind hierzu nur bedingt fähig, hier können jedoch zusätzliche Funktionen der Augmented und Virtual Reality (AR und VR) genutzt werden. In beiden Fällen liegt eine heterogene Aus...

The digital integrated learning environments (ILEs) for earth observation described in this article are bringing the complex topic of earth observation into classrooms. They are intended to give pupils with no prior experience in remote sensing the opportunity to solve tasks with earth observation data by using the same means that professionals hav...

Despite the deplorable condition of slums, it still harbors most of the urban population and may continue to do so, especially in Africa where slum growth is on a par with urban growth. This is the case in Lagos, a megacity reportedly dominated by slum dwellers, with limited knowledge on residential choices of slum dwellers and its contribution to...

This chapter is devoted to the overview of the data fundamentals as regards data models and sources accompanied by geomatics, remote sensing, and economy. Description of such data sources is complemented with the basics from respective disciplines to provide a thematic context to the reader. The chapter starts with a summary of the most commonly us...

This open access book is based on "Spationomy – Spatial Exploration of Economic Data", an interdisciplinary and international project in the frame of ERASMUS+ funded by the European Union. The project aims to exchange interdisciplinary knowledge in the fields of economics and geomatics. For the newly introduced courses, interdisciplinary learning...

Observations in thermal infrared (IR) contribute substantially to the understanding of the global fluxes of energy and matter between Earth’s surface, ocean and atmosphere. Key parameters derived from such observations are Sea Surface Temperature (SST), Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Land Surface Emissivity (LSE). These variables are important...

Careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), although attractive in theory, are not popular with young pupils; this leads to a severe STEM manpower shortage in Germany that will increase over time. In order to motivate pupils to consider a STEM career, both hard and soft skills play an important role. The project KEPLER ISS...

Demographic forecasts put Lagos as one of the cities with the highest population growth. Past trends show correlations between urban growth and slum growth, thereby creating a major challenge for sustainable city planning. This study explores the drivers of slum development in Lagos, and simulates scenarios for slum growth through coupling logistic...

A new elective school subject called 'Geography-Physics' was developed by the Universities of Bonn and Bochum in cooperation with a German high school. With a focus on remote sensing, the modules of this STEM subject convey information, and present methodology and applications. There are two main sections: the physics of remote sensing, including b...

Hyperspektraldaten finden selten bis gar nicht Einzug in den Schulunterricht, obwohl diese zahlreiche curriculumsnahe Anwendungsgebiete haben, beispielsweise die Unterscheidung von Schwebstoffen bis hin zu verschiedenen Algenarten in Trinkwasserreservoiren. Dies liegt zum einen an ihrer schlechten Verfügbarkeit, da es wenige Hyperspektralsensoren g...

A new elective school subject called “Geography-Physics” was developed by the Universities of Bonn and Bochum in cooperation with a German high school. The STEM subject focuses on remote sensing to convey information, methodology, and application. There are two main sections: the physical basis of remote sensing, including both mathematics and comp...

Despite good working and career conditions in many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields in Germany, few pupils decide to take up a higher education or training and subsequently pick a career in these fields. The result is a STEM worker shortage on all education levels in Germany that is projected to increase in the coming...

“You realise that the Earth is nothing but accumulated cosmic dust having formed a rock that is encompassed by a flimsy, fragile atmosphere. To grasp this, I needed the view out of the window.” German ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst's perspective on Earth was changed sustainably by the view from the International Space Station (ISS) onto our home pla...

Das Projekt Columbus Eye / KEPLER ISS hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die MINT-Bildung an Schulen mit Bildern aus dem All zu verbessern, und stellt dafür digitale Lehreinheiten bereit. Diese fördern das wissenschafts-propädeutische Lernen und motivieren Schülerinnen und Schüler, sich stärker mit MINT-Themen auseinanderzusetzen und diese als Berufsfelder...

Geography is considered a subject of the humanities in many curricula. Important basic knowledge about physical geography is given barely any time, nor to the methodology to observe and analyse changes in the physical environment. Remote sensing is one of the most important fields of geographical methods as it allows to observe all spheres of the e...

While Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) revolutionized archaeological prospection and different visualizations were developed, an automated detection of cultural heritage still poses a significant challenge. Therefore, geographers and archaeologists from Westphalia, Germany are developing automated workflows for classifying field monuments from s...

Das Projekt Columbus Eye und sein Nachfolger KEPLER ISS haben sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die MINT-Bildung an Schulen mit Bildern aus dem All zu verbessern, und stellen dafür interaktive, interdisziplinäre und intermediale Lehreinheiten zur Verfügung. Diese fördern das wissenschafts-propädeutische Lernen und motivieren Schülerinnen und Schüler, sich stä...

“You realise that the Earth is nothing but accumulated cosmic dust having formed a rock that is encompassed by a flimsy, fragile atmosphere. To grasp this, I needed the view out of the window.” German ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst’s perspective on Earth was changed sustainably by the view from the International Space Station (ISS) onto our home pla...

“You realise that the Earth is nothing but accumulated cosmic dust having formed a rock that is encompassed by a flimsy, fragile atmosphere. To grasp this, I needed the view out of the window.” German ESA Astronaut Alexander Gerst’s perspective on Earth was changed sustainably by the view from the International Space Station (ISS) onto our home pla...

Future spaceborne imaging spectrometers such as EnMAP allow for the monitoring the Earth’s surface and overcome the time- and cost critical limits of airborne based hyperspectral sensor systems. However, the spatial resolution of EnMAP is 30 m, which is in many cases not sufficient to provide essential information on urban areas that are characteri...

The contribution demonstrates the application possibilities of remote sensing in secondary STEM education. It is shown how propaedeutic learning and pupils’ methodological competences are emphasized by applying digital image processing techniques and real data of earth observation satellites and experimental photography onboard the International Sp...

Upgrading all slums in Lagos by 2030 will an ambitious task, given that more than 70% of its residents resides in slums. Furthermore, there is no recent study identifying neither the slums nor their temporal growth/development pattern in Lagos that can backstop any slum management initiative. This study aims to contribute by applying object-based i...

Economic data analyses play a very important role in decision-making processes. Nowadays, the importance of the geospatial component inherent with most economic data is rapidly increasing. Therefore, added value from bringing geospatial aspects in economic data analyses is highly appreciated. The aim of the Spationomy project is to improve students...

Economic data analyses play a very important role in decision-making processes. Nowadays, the importance of the geospatial component inherent with most economic data is rapidly increasing. Therefore, added value from bringing geospatial aspects in economic data analyses is highly appreciated. The aim of the Spationomy project is to improve students...

Hyperspectral remote sensing measurements using the INTA Airborne Hyperspectral Scanner and INTA Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager 1500i instruments onboard the CASA 212 RS - INTA aircraft for the UR-TIR- Urban mapping with airborne thermal infra red imagery project (flight reference: intacasa-rs_20110705_urtir). Data were collected over the...

Several FIS modules received an update with Sentinel data.

High resolution imaging spectroscopy data have been recognised as a valuable data resource for augmenting detailed material inventories that serve as input for various urban applications. Image-specific urban spectral libraries are successfully used in urban imaging spectroscopy studies. However, the regional- and sensor-specific transferability of...

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Remote Sensing on 14 Jul 2016, available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2016.1205314

The 28 papers in this special issue present a collection of papers focusing on the application of remote sensing to urban areas.

The 40-year Landsat time series makes it possible to continuously map and examine land-cover changes. By using images from two dates in each classification year, we can improve the classification accuracy of monotemporal approaches for each year and reduce the misclassification problem between bare lands or impervious surface and vegetation cover t...

Wo steht die urbane Fernerkundung heute? Ist sie bereits ein integraler Teil einer neuen, multidisziplinären urbanen Geographie? Wie muss es in der Mitte des zweiten Jahrzehnts des 21. Jahrhunderts mit der urbanen Fernerkundung weitergehen? Reicht es aus, immer neuere und bessere Satelliten und Sensoren zu bauen oder brauchen wir ein anderes Verstä...

The Tasseled Cap Features, derived by the Tasseled Cap Transformation of the satellite spectral information, provide a way to consistently associate spectral information to biophysical characteristics of land surface features. Since currently there are no Tasseled Cap Coefficients available for RapidEye data, the goal of this study was to obtain Ta...

This special issue follows the very successful series of the Joint Urban Remote Sensing Events (JURSE), held every two years since 2005. The possibility to jointly use optical and radar VHR data, as well as different sensors from the same or related airborne and spaceborne platforms, at a level which may be regional or global according to the situa...

On the relict mine site "Hugo 2/5/8" in the city of Gelsenkirchen the developer plans the construction of a biomass plantation. It is in concordance with the province's biomass action plan with the speciality that for the first time a biomass plantation would be located within an urban area instead of a rural landscape. The authors discuss the mult...

One of the major accompaniments of the globalization is the rapid growing of urban areas. At the end of the 1970th only 38% of world lived in cities, this number increased to more than 50% by 2008. In 2030 two third of all people worldwide are expected to live in cities, many of them in megacities. Urban sprawl is a major environmental concern affe...

Energy efficiency becomes an important topic in times of climate change and efforts on CO2 reduction. In this context building insulation is a very important keyword, because insufficient insulation can cause heat and energy loss. Studies about the insulation of single buildings are time consuming and cost-intensive. Therefore a pre-selection of ap...

The number of remote sensing platforms increased during the last decades significantly and produced an ascend of geographical data availability at variable scale. The development of last generation satellites leads to a revival in sensor research. The highest spatial resolution commercial satellite systems even challenges the aerial photogrammetry....

This special issue follows the one in June 2008 and is related to the very successful series of the Joint Urban Remote Sensing Events, held every two years since 2005. Remote sensing of urban areas is at the moment facing a rapid development, due to the increasing amount of High Resolution (UR) and Very High Resolution VHR (VHR) data in both the op...

JURSE 2011, the IEEE GRSS and ISPRS Joint Urban Remote Sensing Event was a double-track conference which was held in Munich, Germany, from April 11–13, 2011.

This work presents a remote sensing based method for the extraction of potential building ground in order to promote inner-urban development and prevent sprawl developments in the urban periphery. The potential space available in a city is detected by adapting a master ruleset for object-based image analysis to QuickBird satellite data of three urb...

This work presents a remote sensing based method for the extraction of potential building ground in order to promote inner -urban development and prevent sprawl developments in the urban periphery. The potential space available in a city is detected by adapting a master ruleset for object-based image analysis to QuickBird satellite data of three ur...

This chapter provides an introduction into the book’s theme, its relevance for the scientific community as well as for instructors and practitioners. It tries to give an umbrella for the topics that have been chosen to bridge the gap between remote sensing and urban studies through a better understanding of the science that underlies both fields. I...

Urbanization is arguably the most dramatic form of irreversible land transformation. Though urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon, it is especially prevalent in India, where urban areas have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth over the last 30 years (UN, 2007). This paper focuses on the capabilities of remote sensing to identify and derive...

Küreselleşmeye paralel olarak kentsel alanlar da hızla büyümektedir. Nitekim 1970’li yılların sonlarında nüfusun sadece %38 ’i kentlerde otururken, bu sayı 2008 yılına kadar %50’nin üzerinde artmıştır. 2030’da dünyadaki tüm nüfusun 2/3’ünün kentlerde ve bunların çoğunun da megakentlerde oturacağı beklenmektedir. Kentsel yayılım (urban sprawl), fark...

"Remote Sensing of Urban and Suburban Areas" provides instructors with a text reference that has a logical and easy-to-follow flow of topics around which they can structure the syllabi of their urban remote sensing courses. Topics have been chosen to bridge the gap between remote sensing and urban studies through a better understanding of the scien...

The adoption of precision farming (PF) was studied on the basis of personal interviews conducted at several agricultural exhibitions in Germany. Between 6.65% and 11% of the interviewed farmers used PF. The majority used data collection techniques such as GPS-based area measurement and soil sampling rather than variable rate application techniques...

The adoption of Precision Farming (PF) in Germany has been studied by several mail surveys, telephone interviews and personal interviews with farmers, advisors, teachers and representatives of the PF industry. The intention was to monitor how PF techniques have entered the German market over the years and geographic location. The farmers were inter...

The rapid development of world‐wide urbanization causes many problems, such as infrastructure planning, uncontrolled urban sprawl and a concentration of resources at the expense of the surrounding countryside. Hence, planners and resource managers need a reliable mechanism to assess the consequences of urbanization quickly and effectively. Today, r...

This investigation compares how two adjacent mesoscale catchments with suburban development activities react to land-use changes. It is very likely that an increasing percentage of impervious area affects the size of peak discharge in a river. To prove this remote sensing was used to determine the actual land use in two catchments at two different...

Traditionally arable land was managed in a uniform way, although the farmer was well aware of the site differences between specific locations in the field. Just recently the technical possibilities have come up to adequately react; they are a key technologies of the modern precision farming concept. The precise determination of the location by mean...

Since the launch of the first earth observation satellite Landsat 1 in 1972 many other satellites have been placed in orbit for gathering spectral information of the earth's land and ocean surface. Much experience was collected from experimental systems in the past, ultimately resulting in the design and construction of operational platforms and se...

In the framework of an investigation about frost damage that occurred 1987 in Northern Greece a new index, the modified NDVI (mNDVI), was developed. Within a joint bilateral German-Greek-Cooperation project the Greek partner investigated SPOT images and the German partner mainly evaluated Landsat TM images to estimate frost damages in agriculture w...

The trend to Earth observation satellites with ever rising resolution is still evident. After the end of the Cold War former military image acquisition techniques were transferred to civil use. This data could be of value to many GIS-users, especially for detailed, large-scale investigations.

The area discussed in this article extends from San Francisco to Los Angeles and inland to the mountains. This is a dry area with an increasing demand for water from industry and agriculture. Its use today exceeds the supply from precipitation, hence creating problems of supply and the uses it may be put to. The article presents very clear maps and...

This study uses the well-known Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) to assess the long-term soil erosion in a small catchment area.With a monotemporal land-use classification the C- factor is determined. L- and S-factors were extracted from a digital elevation model. Soil studies in the field provided the K-factor. The factors P and R were set const...

This study uses the well-known Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and satellite remote sensing data to assess the long-term soil erosion in a small catchment area and to simulate various soil protection alternatives by assistance of a GIS. -Authors

Generally one distinguishes between natural and cultural heritage sites. Among the cultural heritage sites especially the urban centers of historical value, historic farming systems or rural settlement structures will be investigated in this paper. Monitoring of these targets could be achieved by terrestrial surveys and/or observations by means of...

The capabilities of some open source web map client applications allow users to imbed remotely sensed data obtained from free of charge web services into web browser applications via their Ap-plication Programming Interface (API). As an example, Google imagery is one of those interesting sources for different educational applications. The visual ba...