CliWac

Climate change will affect the availability and the quality of fresh water, particularly through altering the characteristics and frequency of extremes such as droughts and flooding. This in turn puts the functioning of water-related sectors and ecosystem services at risk. The Einstein Research Unit Climate and Water under Change (CliWaC) is a research initiative designed to harness and further develop the unique potential of various universities, non-university institutes and stakeholders in the Berlin-Brandenburg region to address water-related risks under climate change. Please visit the CliWaC website for more details.

As a member of CliWaC, the EOLab will develop and apply remote sensing methods to quantify spatial and temporal responses of ecosystem properties to altered water availability. A specific focus will be on agricultural grasslands, which provide a great range of ecosystem functions and services and play an important role as habitats and for safeguarding biodiversity. Dense Sentinel-2 time series and machine learning approaches will be used to quantify recent vegetation feedbacks related to changing water availability. These insights will be complemented by both a historical and a detailed ecological perspective through the use of long Landsat time series and latest hyperspectral satellite imagery, respectively. The suite of approaches allows for considering water-related effects across temporal and spatial scales, ranging from short-term drought-related changes in crop production to long-term shifts in plant species assemblages and their functions and impacts.

Funding

Einstein Stiftung Berlin

Project members

Patrick Hostert (Principle investigator)
Akpona Okujeni (Project scientist)