Florian Siegert

Tropical peatlands are one of the largest near-surface reserves of terrestrial organic carbon, and hence their stability has important implications for climate change. In their natural state, lowland tropical peatlands support a luxuriant growth of peat swamp forest overlying peat deposits up to 20 metres thick. Persistent environmental change-in p...

Abstract The quantification of tropical forest carbon stocks is a key challenge in creating a basic methodology for REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries) projects. Small-footprint LiDAR (light detection and ranging) systems have proven to successfully correlate to above ground biomass (AGB) estimates i...

Fires raged once again across Indonesia in the latter half of 2015, creating a state of emergency due to poisonous smoke and haze across Southeast Asia as well as incurring great financial costs to the government. A strong El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) led to drought in many parts of Indonesia, resulting in elevated fire occurrence comparable...

Kalimantan poses one of the highest carbon emissions worldwide since its landscape is strongly endangered by deforestation and degradation and, thus, carbon release. The goal of this study is to conduct large-scale monitoring of above-ground biomass (AGB) from space and create more accurate biomass maps of Kalimantan than currently available. AGB w...

The amount and spatial distribution of forest aboveground biomass (AGB) were estimated using a range of regionally developed methods using Earth Observation data for Poland, Sweden and regions in Indonesia (Kalimantan), Mexico (Central Mexico and Yucatan peninsula), and South Africa (Eastern provinces) for the year 2010. These regions are represent...

Warming in the last two decades has caused massive rockfall activity with limited mobility in the range of 101-6 m³. However, only a few highly destructive and mobile rock avalanches above 1 Mio. m³ have been documented. Rock-ice mechanical models explaining high-magnitude rock slope failure in permafrost have been postulated but not validated on r...

Massive sediment pulses in catchments are a key alpine multi-risk component. Substantial sediment redistribution in alpine catchments frequently causes flooding, river erosion, and landsliding and affects infrastructure such as dam reservoirs as well as aquatic ecosystems and water quality. While systematic rock slope failure inventories have been...

Massive sediment pulses in catchments are a key alpine multi-risk component. Substantial sediment redistribution in alpine catchments frequently causes flooding, river erosion, and landsliding, and affects infrastructure such as dam reservoirs as well as aquatic ecosystems and water quality. While systematic rock slope failure inventories have been...

Als Basis zur Umsetzung eines Smart-City-Ansatzes machen sich Städte zunehmend auf den Weg, einen sogenannten "digitalen Zwilling" aufzubauen. Der digitale Zwilling soll dabei ein Abbild des städtischen Raums und der sich darin abspielenden Abläufe sein. Die Spannweite der zu erzielenden Mehrwerte reicht von Monitoring-Aufgaben über intelligente St...

Increasing frequencies of climate change-induced extreme weather events like prolonged droughts pose significant challenges for small-scale subsistence farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, who rely on the yearly harvest by more than 80 % of their nutritional needs. However, we do not have a good understanding of yield estimates at the field and household...

Increasing conflicts between farmers and pastoralists continue to be a major challenge in the Sahel. Political and social factors are in tandem important underlying determinants for conflicts in the region, which are amplified by the variability and scarcity of natural resources, often as a result of climate variability and climate change. This stu...

We use high-resolution aerial photogrammetry to investigate glacier retreat in great spatial and temporal detail in the Ötztal Alps, a heavily glacierized area in Austria. Long-term in situ glaciological observations are available for this region as well as a multitemporal time series of digital aerial images with a spatial resolution of 0.2 m acqu...

Peatlands in Indonesia are one of the primary global storages for terrestrial organic carbon. Poor land management, drainage, and recurrent fires lead to the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Accurate information about the extent of the peatlands and its 3D surface topography is crucial for assessing and quantifying this globally relevant...

Glaciers all over the world experience an increasing mass loss during recent decades due to change in the global climate. This leads to considerable environmental consequences in the densely populated Alps and many other mountain ranges in the world. We used high-resolution aerial photogrammetry within the AlpSenseBench project to investigate glaci...

Due to high spatiotemporal variability of aquatic systems, relationships between microplastic sources and sinks are highly complex and transportation pathways yet to be understood. Field data acquisitions are a necessary component for monitoring of microplastic contamination but alone cannot capture such complex relationships. Remote sensing is a k...

This study provides a comparative analysis of two Sentinel-1 and one Sentinel-2 burned area (BA) detection and mapping algorithms over 10 test sites (100 × 100 km) in tropical and sub-tropical Africa. Depending on the site, the burned area was mapped at different time points during the 2015–2016 fire seasons. The algorithms relied on diverse burned...

Due to high spatiotemporal variability of aquatic systems, relationships between microplastic sources and sinks are highly complex and transportation pathways yet to be understood. Field data acquisitions are a necessary component for monitoring of microplastic contamination but alone cannot capture such complex relationships. Remote sensing is a k...

Globally available high-resolution information about canopy height and AGB is important for carbon accounting. The present study showed that Pol-InSAR data from TS-X and RS-2 could be used together with field inventories and high-resolution data such as drone or LiDAR data to support the carbon accounting in the context of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions...

Microplastic research has mainly concentrated on open seas, while riverine plumes remain largely unexplored despite their hypothesized importance as a microplastic source to coastal waters. This work aimed to model coastal accumulation of microplastic particles (1–5 mm) emitted by the Po River over 1.5 years. We posit that river-induced microplasti...

The Brazilian Cerrado is considered to be the most species-rich savannah region in the world, covering ~2 million km2. Uncontrolled late season fires promote deforestation, produce greenhouse gases (~25% of Brazil's land-use related CO2 emissions between 2003 and 2005) and are a major threat to the conservation of biodiversity in protected areas. G...

Kalimantan poses one of the highest carbon emissions worldwide since its landscape is strongly endangered by deforestation and degradation and, thus, carbon release. The goal of this study is to conduct large-scale monitoring of above-ground biomass (AGB) from space and create more accurate biomass maps of Kalimantan than currently available. AGB w...

Schlussbericht (final project report in German language)

The first International Peat Congress (IPC) held in the tropics - in Kuching (Malaysia) - brought together over 1000 international peatland scientists and industrial partners from across the world (“International Peat Congress with over 1000 participants!,” 2016). The congress covered all aspects of peatland ecosystems and their management, with a...

The central volcano Bárðarbunga, with a 65 km² large caldera, is located on the northwestern edge of Vatnajökull ice cap. It is connected with a 190 km long, from southwest to northeast running fissure system within the Neovolcanic Zone of Iceland. The subglacial volcano reaches a height of 2009 m a.s.l. and is covered with an up to 850 m thick ice...

The first International Peat Congress (IPC) held in the tropics - in Kuching (Malaysia) - brought together over 1000 international peatland scientists and industrial partners from across the world ("International Peat Congress with over 1000 participants!," 2016). The congress covered all aspects of peatland ecosystems and their management, with a...

Vast and disastrous fires occurred on Borneo during the 2015 dry season, pushing Indonesia into the top five carbon emitting countries. The region was affected by a very strong El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon, on par with the last severe event in 1997/98. Fire dynamics in Central Kalimantan were investigated using an innovati...

Tropical peatland fires play a significant role in the context of global warming through emissions of substantial amounts of greenhouse gases. However, the state of knowledge on carbon loss from these fires is still poorly developed with few studies reporting the associated mass of peat consumed. Furthermore, spatial and temporal variations in burn...

Interim Report of Aerial Surveys and Ground Truth Campaigns in 1997 and 1998 in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia - Peat Swamp Forest, Mega-Rice-Project and Fires for the EEC INCO Project, Munich 25.2.1999

Malaria affects about half of the world’s population, with the vast majority of cases occuring in Africa. National malaria control programmes aim to reduce the burden of malaria and its negative, socio-economic effects by using various control strategies (e.g. vector control, environmental management and case tracking). Vector control is the most e...

Large-scale fires occur frequently across Indonesia, particularly in the southern region of Kalimantan and eastern Sumatra. They have considerable impacts on carbon emissions, haze production, biodiversity, health, and economic activities. In this study, we demonstrate that severe fire and haze events in Indonesia can generally be predicted months...

Landscape fires show large variability in the amount of biomass or fuel consumed per unit area burned. Fuel consumption (FC) depends on the biomass available to burn and the fraction of the biomass that is actually combusted, and can be combined with estimates of area burned to assess emissions. While burned area can be detected from space and esti...

Large-scale fires occur frequently across Indonesia, particularly in the southern region of Kalimantan and eastern Sumatra. They have considerable impacts on carbon emissions, haze production, biodiversity, health, and economic activities. In this study, we demonstrate that severe fire and haze events in Indonesia can generally be predicted month...

Landscape fires show large variability in the amount of biomass or fuel consumed per unit area burned. These fuel consumption (FC) rates depend on the biomass available to burn and the fraction of the biomass that is actually combusted, and can be combined with estimates of area burned to assess emissions. While burned area can be detected from spa...

Wildfire is a fundamental Earth System process, affecting almost all biogeochemical cycles, and all vegetated biomes. Fires are naturally rare in humid tropical forests, and tropical trees are generally killed by even low-intensity fires. However, fire activity in the tropics has increased markedly over the past 15-20 years, especially in Indonesia...

Plenty of publications have documented the impact of plastic debris in marine ecosystems. However, knowledge about sources, sinks and transportation pathways is still scarce. Since July 2013 a German research project aims at expanding this knowledge using a combination of in situ measurements and remote sensing data analysis. Case studies at three...

Tropical peat swamp forests are among the most carbon rich ecosystems and are therefore in the focus of the program Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus (REDD+), which requires accurate aboveground biomass (AGB) estimations for emission assessments. The present study evaluates different SAR frequencies and polarizations...

Die phreatomagmatische Eruption des isländischen Vulkans Eyjafjallajökull im Frühjahr 2010 hatte durch die Beeinträchtigung des europäischen Luftverkehrs einen enormen wirtschaftlichen Schaden verursacht. Basierend auf diesem Ereignis wird im Projekt IsViews (Iceland subglacial Volcanoes interdisciplinary early warning system) der wenige Kilometer...

The alpine ecosystem of the Western Nyainqentanglha region, located in the Central Tibetan Plateau, has experienced a lot of changes in the context of climatic change. The long data record of remote sensing data allowed us to evaluate spatio-temporal change in this remote area. The ecosystem changes of the Western Nyainqentanglha region were detect...

Quantification of tropical forest above-ground biomass (AGB) over large areas as input for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) projects and climate change models is challenging. This is the first study which attempts to estimate AGB and its variability across large areas of tropical lowland forests in Central Kaliman...

Tropical peat swamp forests in Indonesia store huge amounts of carbon and are responsible for enormous carbon emissions every year due to forest degradation and deforestation. These forest areas are in the focus of REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation, forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and e...