Description: This brochure is designed for scientists and engineers of upcoming drilling projects and explains the key steps and important challenges in planning and executing continental scientific drilling.

Description: This brochure is designed for scientists and engineers of upcoming drilling projects and explains the key steps and important challenges in planning and executing continental scientific drilling.

Description: The demand for mobile applications in agriculture is increasing as smartphones are continuously developed and used for many purposes; one of them is managing pests and diseases in crops. Using mobile applications, farmers can detect early infection and improve the specified treatment and precautions to prevent further infection from occurring. Furthermore, farmers can communicate with agricultural authorities to manage their farm from home, and efficiently obtain information such as the spectral signature of crops. Therefore, the spectral signature can be used as a reference to detect pests and diseases with a hyperspectral sensor more efficiently than the conventional method, which takes more time to monitor the entire crop field. This review aims to show the current and future trends of mobile computing based on spectral signature analysis for pest and disease management. In this review, the use of mobile applications for pest and disease monitoring is evaluated based on image processing, the systems developed for pest and disease extraction, and the structure of steps outlined in developing a mobile application. Moreover, a comprehensive literature review on the utilisation of spectral signature analysis for pest and disease management is discussed. The spectral reflectance used in monitoring plant health and image processing for pest and disease diagnosis is mentioned. The review also elaborates on the integration of a spectral signature library within mobile application devices to obtain information about pests and disease in crop fields by extracting information from hyperspectral datasets. This review demonstrates the necessary scientific knowledge for visualising the spectral signature of pests and diseases using a mobile application, allowing this technology to be used in real-world agricultural settings.

Description: Cyanobacteria are major contributors to algal blooms in inland waters, threatening ecosystem function and water uses, especially when toxin-producing strains dominate. Here, we examine 140 hyperspectral (HS) images of five representatives of the widespread, potentially toxin-producing and bloom-forming genera Microcystis, Planktothrix, Aphanizomenon, Chrysosporum and Dolichospermum, to determine the potential of utilizing visible and near-infrared (VIS/NIR) reflectance for their discrimination. Cultures were grown under various light and nutrient conditions to induce a wide range of pigment and spectral variability, mimicking variations potentially found in natural environments. Importantly, we assumed a simplified scenario where all spectral variability was derived from cyanobacteria. Throughout the cyanobacterial life cycle, multiple HS images were acquired along with extractions of chlorophyll a and phycocyanin. Images were calibrated and average spectra from the region of interest were extracted using k-means algorithm. The spectral data were pre-processed with seven methods for subsequent integration into Random Forest models, whose performances were evaluated with different metrics on the training, validation and testing sets. Successful classification rates close to 90 % were achieved using either the first or second derivative along with spectral smoothing, identifying important wavelengths in both the VIS and NIR. Microcystis and Chrysosporum were the genera achieving the highest accuracy (〉95 %), followed by Planktothrix (79 %), and finally Dolichospermum and Aphanizomenon (〉50 %). The potential of HS imagery to discriminate among toxic cyanobacteria is discussed in the context of advanced monitoring, aiming to enhance remote sensing capabilities and risk predictions for water bodies affected by cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms.

Description: Widespread flooding in June 2013 caused damage costs of €6 to 8 billion in Germany, and awoke many memories of the floods in August 2002, which resulted in total damage of €11.6 billion and hence was the most expensive natural hazard event in Germany up to now. The event of 2002 does, however, also mark a reorientation toward an integrated flood risk management system in Germany. Therefore, the flood of 2013 offered the opportunity to review how the measures that politics, administration, and civil society have implemented since 2002 helped to cope with the flood and what still needs to be done to achieve effective and more integrated flood risk management. The review highlights considerable improvements on many levels, in particular (1) an increased consideration of flood hazards in spatial planning and urban development, (2) comprehensive property-level mitigation and preparedness measures, (3) more effective flood warnings and improved coordination of disaster response, and (4) a more targeted maintenance of flood defense systems. In 2013, this led to more effective flood management and to a reduction of damage. Nevertheless, important aspects remain unclear and need to be clarified. This particularly holds for balanced and coordinated strategies for reducing and overcoming the impacts of flooding in large catchments, cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation, the role of the general public in the different phases of flood risk management, as well as a transparent risk transfer system. Recurring flood events reveal that flood risk management is a continuous task. Hence, risk drivers, such as climate change, land-use changes, economic developments, or demographic change and the resultant risks must be investigated at regular intervals, and risk reduction strategies and processes must be reassessed as well as adapted and implemented in a dialogue with all stakeholders.

Description: Forecasting and early warning systems are important investments to protect lives, properties and livelihood. While early warning systems are frequently used to predict the magnitude, location and timing of potentially damaging events, these systems rarely provide impact estimates, such as the expected amount and distribution of physical damage, human consequences, disruption of services or financial loss. Complementing early warning systems with impact forecasts has a two‐fold advantage: it would provide decision makers with richer information to take informed decisions about emergency measures, and focus the attention of different disciplines on a common target. This would allow capitalizing on synergies between different disciplines and boosting the development of multi‐hazard early warning systems. This review discusses the state‐of‐the‐art in impact forecasting for a wide range of natural hazards. We outline the added value of impact‐based warnings compared to hazard forecasting for the emergency phase, indicate challenges and pitfalls, and synthesize the review results across hazard types most relevant for Europe.

Description: The scope of the Science Plan is to describe the scientific background, applications, and activities related to the Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) mission. Primarily, the document addresses scientists and funding institutions, but it may also be of interest for environmental stakeholders and governmental bodies. It is conceived to be a living document that will be updated throughout the entire mission. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the principles and current state of imaging spectroscopy. This is followed by an introduction to the EnMAP mission, including its objectives and potential impact on international programs as well as major environmental and societal challenges to their understanding and management EnMAP can contribute. Chapter 2 describes the EnMAP system together with data products and access, calibration/validation issues, and synergies with other missions. Chapter 3 gives an overview of the relevance, current lines of research, and potential contributions of EnMAP for major fields of application, such as vegetation, geology and soils, coastal and inland waters, cryosphere, urban areas, atmosphere and hazards to address the environmental and societal challenges presented in Chapter 1. Finally, Chapter 4 outlines the scientific exploitation strategy, which includes the strategy for community building and training, preparatory flight campaigns and software developments. A list of abbreviations is provided in the annex to this document, while an extended glossary of terms and abbreviations is available at the EnMAP website.

Description: Earth system science is an interdisciplinary effort to understand the fundamentals and interactions of environmental processes. Interdisciplinary research is challenging since it demands the integration of scientific schemes and practices from different research fields into a collaborative work environment. This paper introduces the framework F4ESS that supports this integration. F4ESS provides methods and technologies that facilitate the development of integrative work environments for Earth system science. F4ESS enables scientists a) to outline structured and summarized descriptions of scientific procedures to facilitate communication and synthesis, b) to combine a large variety of distributed data analysis software into seamless data analysis chains and workflows, c) to visually combine and interactively explore the manifold spatiotemporal data and results to support understanding and knowledge creation. The F4ESS methods and technologies are generic and can be applied in various scientific fields. We discuss F4ESS in the context of the interdisciplinary investigation of flood events.

Description: The Dead Sea region has faced substantial environmental challenges in recent decades, including water resource scarcity, ~ 1 m annual decreases in the water level, sinkhole development, ascending-brine freshwater pollution, and seismic disturbance risks. Natural processes are significantly affected by human interference as well as by climate change and tectonic developments over the long term. To get a deep understanding of processes and their interactions, innovative scientific approaches that integrate disciplinary research and education are required. The research project DESERVE (Helmholtz Virtual Institute Dead Sea Research Venue) addresses these challenges in an interdisciplinary approach that includes geophysics, hydrology, and meteorology. The project is implemented by a consortium of scientific institutions in neighboring countries of the Dead Sea (Israel, Jordan, Palestine Territories) and participating German Helmholtz Centres (KIT, GFZ, UFZ). A new monitoring network of meteorological, hydrological, and seismic/geodynamic stations has been established, and extensive field research and numerical simulations have been undertaken. For the first time, innovative measurement and modeling techniques have been applied to the extreme conditions of the Dead Sea and its surroundings. The preliminary results show the potential of these methods. First time ever performed eddy covariance measurements give insight into the governing factors of Dead Sea evaporation. High-resolution bathymetric investigations reveal a strong correlation between submarine springs and neo-tectonic patterns. Based on detailed studies of stratigraphy and borehole information, the extension of the subsurface drainage basin of the Dead Sea is now reliably estimated. Originality has been achieved in monitoring flash floods in an arid basin at its outlet and simultaneously in tributaries, supplemented by spatio-temporal rainfall data. Low-altitude, high resolution photogrammetry, allied to satellite image analysis and to geophysical surveys (e.g. shear-wave reflections) has enabled a more detailed characterization of sinkhole morphology and temporal development and the possible subsurface controls thereon. All the above listed efforts and scientific results take place with the interdisciplinary education of young scientists. They are invited to attend joint thematic workshops and winter schools as well as to participate in field experiments.