Autor: Kateřina Hájková
-
Darkness as an Endangered Species: Why Light Pollution Matters
Author: Tomáš Klouček Darkness, once an integral part of life on Earth, is now rapidly vanishing. The spread of artificial lighting—often excessive, misdirected, or poorly regulated—has created a form of pollution that is both overlooked and far-reaching. Known as light pollution, it disrupts ecosystems, affects human health, and fundamentally alters our relationship with the night…
-
Why Timing Matters: How seasonal changes shape bird species distribution models
Author: Dominika Prajzlerová Species Distribution Models (SDMs) are powerful tools that help scientists understand where species live—and why—by linking species occurrences to environmental conditions. These models often use remote sensing (RS) data from satellites to describe habitat conditions across large areas. But one key question often goes overlooked: When is the best time to acquire…
-
Tracking the Hidden Climate Impact of Invasive Plants
Author: Giorgi Kozhoridze A joint research initiative between the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague and Tel Aviv University aimed to explore a frequently neglected impact of invasive plant species: their capacity to alter the local climate. Concentrating on the delicate coastal sand dunes of the eastern Mediterranean, the research investigated how two invasive…
-
How Ground-Based LiDAR Is Transforming Forest Inventories
Author: Juan Alberto Molina Valero These days, with drones and satellites capturing stunning views from above, it’s easy to forget that some of the most powerful tools for understanding our forests are still on the ground. In our recent study, we explored how a ground-based laser scanning tool—called terrestrial laser scanner (TLS)—can help us measure…
-
Lidar in Students‘ Final Theses
Author: Vitezslav Moudry Recent months have been marked by the completion and evaluation of student theses. It should come as no surprise that the students I have supervised have often worked with laser altimetry data in some way and that these theses are closely related to what we are doing in EarthBridge. Two studies validated…
-
When Wind Blows
Author: Jan Komárek Drones have revolutionised environmental monitoring, promising on-demand, high-resolution data collection in places satellites can’t reach. But beneath the hype lies a harsher reality: weather. I analysed meteorological records from 31 Czech locations (2016–2024) and found that drones are actually grounded about 75 % of the time. Here’s why—and what we can do…
-
Spectral Characterization of Bird Habitats: Research Exchange at the University of Bonn
Author: Richard Bittman As part of the „Building Bridges between Earth Observation and Environmental Sciences“ project, I recently completed a research exchange at the University of Bonn with Prof. Anna Cord’s team. This collaboration strengthened my doctoral research on avian habitat characterization using remote sensing techniques. With Prof. Anna Cord Research Focus My work addresses…
-
Eric Kosczor at CZU
Eric Kosczor visited CZU and presented his recent work titled “Mapping the 60-year evolution of agricultural landscape heterogeneity in Saxony: A customized segmentation approach for panchromatic remote sensing data” in the course of the weekly SciSeminar at the Department of Spatial Sciences at CZU. In his research work, Eric is using historic spy imagery from…
-
Research on Forest Stands Continues in the Most Valuable Part of the Krkonoše Mountains
The most valuable protected areas of the Krkonoše National Park, specifically the Obří důl valley, remain under close scrutiny by specialists from the Department of Spatial Sciences at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. The team led by Jan Komárek has been conducting remote sensing research on the valley…
-
Stream Network Delineation: Beyond the Vertical Accuracy of global DEMs
Authors: Vítězslav Moudrý, Jana Marešová, Petr Bašta I am sure you are aware of my passion for Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and their validation. It’s been a few years since we validated the then brand-new TanDEM-X DEM (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2020.111724), and since then, the number of available global DEMs has grown rapidly, just to name a few:…