Gregoire Kerr

An Overview of the Regional Experiments for Land-atmosphere Exchanges 2012 (REFLEX 2012) Campaign

The REFLEX 2012 campaign was initiated as part of a training course on the organization of an airborne campaign to support advancement of the understanding of land-atmosphere interaction processes. This article describes the campaign, its objectives and observations, remote as well as in situ. The observations took place at the experimental Las Tiesas farm in an agricultural area in the south of Spain. During the period of ten days, measurements were made to capture the main processes controlling the local and regional land-atmosphere exchanges. Apart from multi-temporal, multi-directional and multi-spatial space-borne and airborne observations, measurements of the local meteorology, energy fluxes, soil temperature profiles, soil moisture profiles, surface temperature, canopy structure as well as leaf-level measurements were carried out. Additional thermo-dynamical monitoring took place at selected sites. After presenting the different types of measurements, some examples are given to illustrate the potential of the observations made.

The hyperspectral sensor DESIS on MUSES: Processing and applications

The hyperspectral instrument DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) will be developed and integrated in the Multi-User-System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) platform installed on the International Space Station (ISS). The DESIS instrument will be launched to the ISS mid of 2017 and installed in one of the four slots of the MUSES platform. The MUSES / DESIS system will be commanded and operated by the publically traded company Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE), which initiated the program. TBE provides the MUSES platform and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) develops DESIS and establishes a Ground Segment for processing, archiving, delivering and calibrating the data used for scientific and humanitarian applications. Harmonized products will be generated by the Ground Segment established at Teledyne. This article describes the processing ground segment and the foreseen data validation activities. Finally comments regarding the data policy and foreseen scientific uses are given.

High Temperature Fire Experiment for TET-1 and Landsat 8 in Test Site DEMMIN (Germany)

In 2012, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) launched the small satellite TET-1 (Experimental Technology Carrier) as a test platform for new satellite technologies and as a carrier for the Multi-Spectral Camera System (MSC) with five spectral bands (Green, Red, Near Infrared, Middle Infrared, and Thermal Infrared). The MSC has been designed to provide quantitative parameters (e.g. fire radiative power, burned area) observing high-temperature events. The detection of such events provides information for operational support to fire brigades, to change detection of hotspots, to assess CO2 emissions of burning vegetation, and, finally, contributes to the monitoring programs that support climate models. In order to investigate the sensitivity and accuracy of the MSC system, a calibration and validation fire campaign was developed and executed, to derive characteristic signal changes of corresponding pixels in the MWIR and LWIR bands. The planning and execution of the validation campaign and the results are presented.

Cross-sensor calibration and validation between DESIS and HISUI Hyperspectral Imager on the International Space Station (ISS)

The HISUI Hyperspectral Imager is being developed by Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), which will deploy on International Space Station (ISS) Japan Experiment Module (JEM) in FY2018. The DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) is also a hyperspectral instrument developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and Teledyne will integrate DESIS onto its ISS-based imaging platform, the Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES). This paper shows the cross-calibration and validation for DESIS and HISUI hyperspectral imager.

Uncertainty estimation for spaceborne hyperspectral data products and the relevance to the desis and EnMAP mission

For all Earth Observation (EO) missions, it is of increasing importance to provide well calibrated and validated data products. In addition, the Quality Assurance Framework for Earth Observation (QA4EO) by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) proposes that all “Data and derived products shall have associated with them a fully traceable indicator of their quality”.

Reliability assessment for remote sensing data: Beyond Cohen's kappa

Cohens κ coefficient has been widely used for assessing classification results derived from remote sensing data. It however presents several limitations, which are preventing both an efficient use as well as a generalisation of its use. This paper reviews these problems and proposes as an alternative to prefer the Krippendorffs α-coefficient over Cohens κ. Krippen-dorffs α indeed presents less flaws while dealing with more data types - hence allowing the rating of quantitative data -and managing the case where more than two judgements are issued and finally dealing with cases where no judgement is issued. These concepts are be illustrated by some exemplary data-sets.

Corresponding pixel automated matcher (CPAM) and application to analysis of hyperspectral data variability

In order to produce validated, and therefore reliable, products based on hyperspectral imagery, it is necessary to first characterise the data quality itself. Since hyperspectral airborne imagery is usually acquired in several partially overlapping flight-lines [1], one can use this informationredundancy to retrieve the imagery uncertainty. In this paper, a generic algorithm, the corresponding pixel automated matcher (CPAM) allowing to extract pixels from two overlapping flight-lines corresponding to the same geo-location is proposed. In a second time, these results are used to obtain a quantification of the imagery internal variability as well as for producing quality indicators for land-products.

EO-MINERS: Monitoring the environmental and societal impact of the extractive industry using Earth Observation

The growing demand for mineral and energy resources over the last decade has placed the extractive industry under increasing pressure to monitor and reduce the environmental and societal impact throughout the life-cycle of mining operations. Despite the mounting pressure, the industry is still facing the challenge of how to define targets for, and monitor, the impact of mining. In 2010, the EU-funded EO-MINERS project (Earth Observation for Monitoring and Observing Environmental and Societal Impacts of Mineral Resources Exploration and Exploitation) was set up in an effort to help address this issue, specifically through the application of Earth Observation (EO) data. Furthermore, the aim was to help facilitate and improve interaction and dialogue between the mineral extractive industry and society in view of its sustainable development, while improving its societal acceptability. One of the primary project objectives was to develop novel yet objective EO products contributing to a constructive “trialogue” involving stakeholders such as industrialists (mining companies), regulatory bodies and the civil society. EOMINERS is scheduled to run until October 2013.