4D-EARTH
Earth scientists at the Department of Earth Systems Analysis (ESA) strive at providing reliable earth science information that is used to understand earth dynamic processes in all three dimensions and variation over time, to manage resources (energy, economic and industrial minerals) and cope with environmental effects of exploitation of resources, and to minimize loss of life and property from natural and man-induced disasters, thus contributing to economic development and a sustainable future.
Our departmental research is embedded in a programme called 4D-EARTH.
4D-EARTH aims at solving societal en environmental problems on related to earth resources management, exploration and exploitation, natural hazards and disaster risk management, by combining knowledge on earth surface and geological processes with relevant geo-information.
Dealing with such issues and problem areas requires that adequate spatial and temporal information on earth systems and processes is available and accessible. This requires a good understanding of the earth systems and processes, their dynamics in time and space, and their influence on society. Thus we combine competence in the earth sciences with relevant know-how about state of the art remote sensing and GIS technology including spatio-temporal process modeling, predictive modeling, geostatistics, object oriented remote sensing and contextual filtering, hyperspectral remote sensing, airborne and spaceborne geophysics and geochemistry.
Our research (see figure) is divided into two intimately linked themes:
- Geologic Remote Sensing theme (GRS), and
- Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk Management research theme (DMAN).
The overlap between the chairs is both thematic and technical. The thematic overlap is in geophysics and geo-engineering related to natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, subsidence and slope instability. A more technical overlap can be found in spatial statistics, and contextual and spectral image analysis techniques, that are commonly developed and applicable in both fields in areas that involve change detection in space and time.
| Research theme | 4D-EARTH |
| Research group leaders | Geologic Remote Sensing theme (GRS), Chair: Earth Subsurface Systems Analysis Prof. dr. Freek van der Meer Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk Management research theme (DMAN), Chair: Earth Surface Systems Analysis Prof. dr. Victor Jetten |
| Group memberships | The department of Earth Systems Analysis (ESA) is a member of the Twente Graduate School (TGS). Both prof. Van der Meer and prof. Jetten are member of the research school SENSE. |
| Keywords | Georesources, Geo-energy, Geodynamics, Natural Hazards, Rural & Urban risk, Damage assessment, Spectral image analysis, Contextual image analysis, Spatial statistics, Geophysics, Engineering |
