Rubrika: News
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Europe Is Almost Fully Mapped in 3D Using Airborne Laser Scanning
Author: Vítězslav Moudrý Mapping the three-dimensional structure of vegetation (and terrain) is essential for understanding how terrestrial ecosystems function and for designing effective environmental policies. One of the most suitable remote sensing technologies for this purpose is airborne laser scanning (LiDAR). However, LiDAR is a relatively costly technology, and in Europe its acquisition is not…
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FathomDEM raises the bar for the accuracy of global 30 m DEMs to new heights
Author: Petr Bašta Digital elevation models (DEMs) constitute fundamental data for various governmental, scientific, and commercial activities, serving a wide range of purposes in environmental sciences. The availability of global DEMs (GDEMs) has been improved considerably, especially in the past few years, which have been prolific in terms of the number of newly available bare-earth…
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Improving Canopy Height Models in Temperate Regions: The Key to Accurate Forest Monitoring
Author: Vojtěch Barták Canopy height is one of the most important characteristics of forest structure. It is closely linked to stored biomass, forest productivity, and biodiversity. As we face increasing pressure from climate change and environmental degradation, consistent global monitoring of forest canopy height is crucial for understanding the state of our ecosystems and making…
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How to Cool Down Urban Heat
Author: David Moravec Cities are getting hotter. As concrete, asphalt, and dense apartment blocks increasingly replace natural areas, urban areas often heat up significantly more than surrounding rural zones in hot weather. This phenomenon — known as the “urban heat island” — isn’t just about discomfort: it can affect public health, energy demand, and overall…
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Invited Lecture by Research Professor Eija Honkavaara: Towards Autonomous Use of Drone Technology for Forestry Applications
Author: Jan Komárek As part of the ongoing seminar series on environmental monitoring and geospatial technologies, we had the pleasure of hosting Research Professor Eija Honkavaara from the Department of Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry at the National Land Survey of Finland. Her invited lecture, entitled “Towards Autonomous Use of Drone Technology for Forestry Applications”, offered…
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Novel Method for Correcting Observer-Specific Bias in Species Distribution Models
Author: Petr Balej The prediction accuracy of Species Distribution Models (SDMs) is often compromised by sampling bias in species occurrence records. This issue is widespread in collaborative databases like the worldwide GBIF, iNaturalist, and the local Czech Species Occurrence Database. These platforms are filled with opportunistic species records of various quality collected by both expert…
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New scientific article highlights data gaps in global biodiversity — featuring EarthBridge
A new article published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution draws attention to a surprising blind spot in global biodiversity research — cultivated lands. Although farmland covers almost half of the world’s habitable land, it remains underrepresented in open biodiversity data. The study, titled “Cultivated lands: blind spots in global biodiversity data,” was co-authored by…
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Building Bridges in Dresden: Advancing Light Pollution Research
Between September 29 and October 31, 2025, researcher Tomáš Klouček spent a productive month at the Technical University of Dresden (TUD), working with the Environmental Remote Sensing Group led by Prof. Dr. Matthias Forkel. His stay was part of the project “Building Bridges between Earth Observation and Environmental Sciences” and aimed to strengthen international collaboration…
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New Paper by Petra Pracná Explores High-Resolution Global Terrain Mapping Using ICESat-2 and GEDI
A new research article led by Petra Pracná from the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, co-authored by Vítězslav Moudrý, Eliška Šárovcová, Kateřina Gdulová, and international partners, presents an important step toward creating more accurate global terrain models.The study, published in Science of Remote Sensing and funded by the Horizon Europe project EarthBridge, investigates how…
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Towards 90 m Resolution Digital Terrain Models from Spaceborne Lidar: Balancing Accuracy and Sampling Intensity
Author: Petra Pracná Mapping the Earth’s terrain beneath forests and across rugged mountains has always been a challenge. Traditional lidar surveys can achieve high accuracy but are limited in spatial coverage and costly to repeat. With the launch of NASA’s ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2) and GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation) missions, we…