Environmental sensing and modelling
Research
Research areas
- UAV-borne sensing of crop water stress and agricultural water use
- Optical remote sensing of land cover dynamics of floods in hydrology and evapotranspiration losses
- Multi-sensor remote sensing of soil water and vegetation vigour
- Quantifying large-scale hydrological cycles and land surface processes using satellite remote sensing and coupled earth system modelling
- Investigating impacts of agricultural water use on local-to-regional water circulation
- Assessment of water scarcity and sustainable water use using a global earth systems model
- Bayesian predictive framework for the assessment of water quality behaviours at the Great Barrier Reef catchments
- Stochastic data assimilation for hydrological prediction models
Lab capabilities
The Environmental Sensing and Modelling Lab integrates various ground and remote sensing techniques into process-based (physical and biophysical) and statistical models to predict land and atmosphere interaction via water and energy exchanges.
Research focus
For the next five years our research will focus on addressing key questions on how land and atmosphere interact via water and energy exchanges, and how the interaction reacts to the land/water use and land cover changes made by human. Our approach will be made primarily by using various monitoring data (in situ and remote sensing) and coupled land-atmosphere models. We will continue to link our research to the practical issues such as agricultural water use, heatwaves, bushfire risks, floods, and drought.
PhD projects
For the latest opportunities contact:
- Assoc Prof Dongryeol Ryu
Lead researcher
dryu@unimelb.edu.au
Researchers
Dr Liangliang Tao
PhD students
Kai Wu (visiting PhD student)
Honorary staff
- Dr Eileen Perry (Agriculture Victoria)
- Prof Min-Hui Lo (National Taiwan University)
- Prof Kaighin McColl (Harvard University)
- Dr Sugata Narsey (Bureau of Meteorology)
Facilities and resources
Airborne spectral sensors
AL-32 LiDAR (Phoenix Aerial Inc.), Pika-IIg hyperspecral scanner (Resonon Inc.), S185 hyperspectral imager (Cubert), MiniMCA multispectral imager, RedEdge and RedEdge-M multispectral imager, A65 thermal infrared imager (FLIR), Tau-2 thermal infrared imager (FLIR), Vue Pro – R thermal infrared imager (FLIR)
Ground spectral sensors and calibration gear
Fieldspec 2 hyperspectral scanner (ASD Inc.), Fieldspec 4 hyperspectral scanner (ASD Inc.), Cropscan, FLIR One, SKYE multispectral sensors, Apogee thermal infrared sensors, spectral calibration tarps, active blackbody system for TIR calibration
Ground soil hydrometeorological sensors
Eddy covariance systems, TDR, sapflow systems for trees, sapflow systems for plants, DGPS
Other
We use commercial image processing software such as Pix4DMapper Pro, PhotoScan of Agisoft, ENVI, and ER Mapper of ERDAS, ArcGIS, Flir Tools, SpectrononPro, as well as remotely sensed geospatial scripting in Python, R and MATLAB.
Along with the University’s Spartan HPC system, we use DELL PowerEdge R430/R630 systems to accommodate the high computation demands for the image/point clouds processing and the Community Earth System Model (CESM).
Partnerships
- Australian Bureau of Meteorology
- Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Victoria
- Agriculture Victoria, Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources
- Defence Science and Technology (DST)
- CSIRO Land and Water
- Hort-Eye Pty Ltd
- Rubicon Water Pty Ltd
- XM2 Aerial Pty Ltd
- Birchip Cropping Group (BCG)
- Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)
- US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS)
- NASA
- Seoul National University (Korea)
- Harvard University
- European Commission
- Ariespace srl (Italy)
- Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) – Chinese Academy of Science (CAS)