Geoff Groom

Aarhus University | AU · Department of Bioscience

Analysis of historical land use and land cover change (LULCC) of pre-1950s landscapes primarily relies on cartographic documents as the source of spatially explicit infor-mation. Methodologically, most historical LULCC studies utilizing historical carto-graphic documents report on the geometrical precision and correctness of georeferencing and vect...

The geography and history of the 300 km coastal zone of western Jutland is marked by the role of dune sand. Tides, currents and waves deposit marine sand as beaches. During low water, the prevailing winds and frequent storms drive the beach sand inland. For much of this coast, a zone of high dunes forms a natural coastal defence, backed by several...

This report records the methods and the results of a pilot project aimed at automated production of machine-readable spatial datasets for land categories from Danish topographical maps from the late 1800s. The study was undertaken for two study areas in Jutland, covering around 300 km². Target land categories were: heath, sand dune, wetland, forest...

Modern geography is massively digital with respect to both map data production and map data analysis. When we consider historical maps, as a key resource for historical geography studies, the situation is different. There are many historical maps available as hardcopy, some of which are scanned to raster data. However, relatively few historical map...

This report investigates the potential of using different remote sensing (RS) technologies to supplement the conventional national NOVANA programme for monitoring of water quality (chlorophyll a) and submerged aquatic vegetation (seagrasses and macroalgae) in Danish coastal waters. The potential of using drones, orthophotos and Sentinel 2+3 satelli...

Maps of eelgrass distribution are important for optimal management of eelgrass meadows and also contribute with synergy between e.g. the waterframework directive that uses eelgrass as an indicator of ecological quality, and the birds directive, that has a focus on eelgrass as food for water birds and therefore demands quantification of the distribu...

This report reviews the possibilities of using data from different remote sensing techniques to supplement the conventional national NOVANA programme for monitoring of water quality (chlorophyll-a) and submerged aquatic vegetation (seagrasses and macroalgae) in Danish coastal waters. Strengths, weaknesses and knowledge gaps are briefly discussed an...

Local-scale flooding (LSF) is usually characterized by much less severe damage compared to extreme flood events; however, it does have marked local environmental influence, especially when it is characterized by regular and frequent occurrence and long duration. Knowledge about the spatial extent of flood-prone areas is essential for flood risk and...

Knowledge about the magnitude of localised flooding of riverine areas is crucial for appropriate land management and administration at regional and local levels. However, detection and delineation of localised flooding with remote sensing techniques are often hampered on floodplains by the presence of herbaceous vegetation. To address this problem,...

Remote sensing technology serves as a powerful tool for analyzing geospatial characteristics of flood inundation events at various scales. However, the performance of remote sensing methods depends heavily on the flood characteristics and landscape settings. Difficulties might be encountered in mapping the extent of localized flooding with shallow...

High spatial resolution mapping of natural resources is much needed for monitoring and management of species, habitats and landscapes. Generally, detailed surveillance has been conducted as fieldwork, numerical analysis of satellite images or manual interpretation of aerial images, but methods of object-based image analysis (OBIA) and machine learn...

Digitised vertical aerial photography was used to investigate the instantaneous distributional patterns of Lesser Flamingos Phoeniconaias minor at Kamfers Dam, South Africa. Image processing software was applied to differentiate high and low density flocks, based on earlier work, suggesting formation of dense aggregations in response to food abunda...

This study was performed on Danish grasslands on well-drained sandy soils. Image data included georeferenced Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (casi) data calibrated to apparent surface reflectance. Ecological data included a field-based management map, registration of (vascular) plant species and thirty 30 m by 30 m test sites with affinities...

Digital flow networks derived from digital elevation models (DEMs) sensitively react to errors due to measurement, data processing and data representation. Since high‐resolution DEMs are increasingly used in geomorphological and hydrological research, automated and semi‐automated procedures to reduce the impact of such errors on flow networks are r...

Denmark contains major areas of coastal habitats, including a significant part of the European area of coastal dunes and salt marshes. The natural dynamics in coastal habitats are a prerequisite for the maintenance of their structure and biodiversity, yet very little research on the implications of decreased habitat dynamics exists. A valuable sour...

Implementation of mapping and monitoring is necessary to supply sufficient information to guide an effective management of species, habitats and landscapes. Coastal ecosystems can be difficult to monitor effectively in the field due to spatially discontinuous and unpredictable processes such as encroachment, erosion and succession, while coverage o...

Advances in image data capture with airborne digital cameras and in object-based image analysis (OBIA) have provided a basis for new arenas of applied remote sensing, one of which is the direct counting and mapping of animal individuals. The derived data represents significant inputs to population size estimation and study of animal–habitat interac...

Knowing instantaneous locations and numbers of individuals in animal populations is a major requirement for wildlife and conservation ecology. Recent advances in very high spatial resolution digital-imaging systems and in object-based image-analysis methods offer great potential for developing remote sensing in new application arenas, including dir...

Harmonisation of land-cover data relates to spatial data integration and therefore needs to consider the data concepts adopted and the spatial, temporal, semantic and quality aspects of the data. Differences in semantic concepts are often considered the key obstacle to data integration and interoperability. If the problem of harmonisation is limite...

Both science and policy require a practical, transmissible, and reproducible procedure for surveillance and monitoring of European habitats, which can produce statisticsintegrated at the landscape level. Over the last 30years, landscape ecology has developed rapidly, and many studies now require spatial data on habitats. Without rigorous rules, cha...

Wildlife research and management increasing demand information on the numbers and distribution of birds at high spatial resolution. Duck and other sea birds present special possibilities for automated image-based mapping of bird numbers and locations, data which have been gathered with poorer spatial resolution by airborne observers for many decade...

Recent European instruments such as the European Landscape Convention (ELC) and institutionalized environmental reporting activities such as by OECD or the European Environment Agency have formulated clear demands for assessing the state and trends of European landscapes. One critical reference for understanding landscape changes is the recognition...

That the relationship between remote sensing and landscape ecology is significant is due in large part to the strong spatial component within landscape ecology. However it is nevertheless necessary to have frequent overview of the interface between remote sensing and landscape ecology, particularly in the light of developments in the types of image...

The primary objective of this Handbook is to describe the methodology appropriate for coordinating information on habitats in order to obtain statistically robust estimates of their extent and associated changes in biodiversity. Such detailed rules are necessary if surveillance; i.e., recording information at a point in time; is to be repeated subs...

Programmes for the mapping and monitoring of natural areas generally encounter, sooner or later, the following methodological questions: “what classes shall we use to map / monitor our natural areas?” and “how do the classes used to map / monitor natural areas in country (or study) X relate to those used in country (or study) Y?”. This paper explor...

In many countries, including those of northwest Europe, there have been several decades of development work and application of satellite digital image data for the mapping of land cover. Considerable numbers of environmental and ecological projects and programmes now either use such land cover data or undertake such mapping for themselves, and the...

Field surveys of plants and animals were combined with satellite remote sensing of broad vegetation types to map biodiversity and thereby help plan conservation in the Sango Bay area, some 30 by 100 km bordering Lake Victoria in Uganda. A statistical classifier applied to satellite images identified 14 land-cover classes including water, swamp, dry...

At C-band, SAR imagery often exhibits little variation in mean amplitude between different types of natural land cover. However, there is frequently a large amount of information to be found in the textural properties of such imagery, especially when it is acquired at high spatial resolution. This textural information may be useful in observing pro...

Large area land cover mapping is an important application of remote sensing. A digital land cover map of Great Britain has recently been compiled by supervised classification of Landsat Thematic Mapper data. The work has involved development of a range of post classification procedures to correct contextual errors associated with the use of spectra...

Global monitoring of forest extent and changes of extent with time are vital not just to provide a continuous assessment of a renewable resource essential to mankind but also to give an input to models of the global carbon cycle and of climate change. Microwave remote sensing is a potential means to accomplish this objective. However, to determine...

Short wavelength (C-band) radar backscatter intensity from forests is insufficient for estimating age related tree parameters because the microwave radiation does not penetrate far into the forest canopy. However, extra information that is not available in the SAR image tone may be provided by the image texture, the spatial variation in image inten...

The Land Cover Map of Great Britain was produced using supervised maximum-likelihood classifications of Landsat Thematic Mapper data. By combining summer and winter data, classification accuracies were substantially improved over single-data analyses. The map, bosed on a 25-m grid, records 25 cover types, consisting of sea and inland water, beaches...

The loss of Landsat 6, at launch, and the ageing sensors on board Landsats 4 and 5, enhance the value of existing TM images. This letter shows that 88 per cent of Britain was imaged as cloud-free scenes or quarter scenes, in both the summer and winter of 1988-1990 and 97.5 per cent was imaged on at least one date. Acquisitions in 1991-1993 have bee...

Produced by the British Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE), the Land Cover Map of Great Britain was created using Earth Observation data from Landsat satellites to map at a field by field scale and to produce output compatible with GIS use. In most applications, a GIS would be incomplete without taking account of land cover. Currently, at least...

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This paper presents an approach to the classification of crop type using multitemporal airborne SAR data. Following radiometric correction of the data, the accuracy of a per-field crop classification reached 90 percent for three classes using data acquired on four dates. A comparable accuracy of 88 percent could be obtained for a classification of...

Multi-temporal X-band HH polarised synthetic aperture radar data were used to classify crop type. Prior to the classification the influence of non-crop variables on crop separability were evaluated. Whilst the influence of the soil moisture content was unimportant the data sets had to be radiometrically corrected and inter-calibrated. A per-field c...