Only the world's leading experts are appointed to the international body to play an active part in shaping the further development of this globally most significant and longest-standing Earth observation programme over a period of five years. Since the 1970s, the Landsat satellites have been continuously collecting high-resolution image data covering the spectral ranges of visible light as well as near infrared and short-wave infrared light. The data has been constantly available with a pixel size of 30 metres and a high repetition rate of up to eight days since the mid-1980s. The mapping by van der Linden's working group also goes back this far. This data continuity makes it possible to use measurements to describe and better understand environmental changes and the underlying processes over the course of decades, in turn contributing knowledge for future decisions.
Research with international visibility
Together with his colleagues from Trier University, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Technical University of Munich, van der Linden applied for a place on the Landsat Science Team with the topic "Synergistic Data Processing Pipelines for Landsat and European Satellite Missions". During its membership of the Landsat team, the group of German researchers aims to investigate how the US Landsat and European Sentinel satellite data can be processed and brought together in the best possible way for users in order to enable higher quality and more usable results. The generated data and resulting products will be of great importance to private companies, public and non-profit institutions and researchers if they want to understand historical and current changes in land cover and land use.
Greifswald research focus: changes in peatland areas since 1984
The research of the “Earth Observation and Geoinformation Science Lab" led by Sebastian van der Linden at the University of Greifswald focuses on the analysis of peatlands and wetlands in the Baltic Sea region and worldwide - work that requires Landsat data to be able to look back several decades. "We are now able to track in detail and extensively how the peatlands in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern or in the Baltic Sea region have changed since the mid-1980s, i.e. how long they were used as grassland, whether they have become overgrown, or are now regularly flooded," explains van der Linden. "Such spatio-temporal patterns are only possible with continuous time series from satellite data, which thus make an important contribution to research in the field of sustainability. The working group contributes the achieved results to the DFG Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio WETSCAPES2.0 and to the Interdisciplinary Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research IFZO at the University of Greifswald."
“The appointment to the Landsat Science Team confirms that we are conducting socially relevant research with international visibility here in Greifswald and together with colleagues from Trier, Munich, Berlin, and international partners. We owe our appointment above all to a large number of high-ranking international publications on the advanced processing and use of Landsat data," says van der Linden. The appointment is not linked to any funding, but primarily to academic recognition. The Landsat Science Team meets twice a year: in South Dakota at the USGS Data Center and alternately at one of the sites of the US members of the team. Being a member of the body is a special honour for Sebastian van der Linden: "It is a great honour to be part of this team of leading scientists. We contribute our results and expertise and at the same time benefit from the experience of the other members and the joint discussion on the technical and focal areas of the further development of the programme over the next one to two decades. It is an exchange that ultimately advances research with satellite images across the globe."
Contact at the University of Greifswald
Prof. Dr. Sebastian van der Linden
Institute of Geography and Geology
Earth Observation and Geoinformation Science Lab
Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Straße 16, 17489 Greifswald
Tel.: +49 3834 420 4500
sebastian.lindenuni-greifswaldde