Thomas Groen

Being an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resources, I am focusing my research on monitoring the interactions between vegetation, climate change and land use change using remote sensing. My main interests lie in ecosystems modelling and monitoring using remote sensing. Applying Remote Sensing to monitor ecosystem processes is a mayor challenge, as most Remote Sensing platforms have limitations with respect to their spatial resolution, the time period they cover, their revisiting time, or the spectral domain that they cover. The ecosystem process that is investigated (or modelled) and the scale of at which this process is occurring (both spatial and temporal) determine the suitability of the various Remote Sensing products that exist today for monitoring. The ever growing possibilities of new sensors (higher spatial resolutions, more frequent recordings, new spectral domains that are explored) as well as the increasing demand from society to derive relevant conclusions about the changes that happen in natural systems create both interesting opportunities as well as daunting challenges. With my research, I contribute to this increasing potential of Remote Sensing. I aim to improve our understanding of the dynamics in the natural world, by improving our tools to monitor these dynamics. Especially the dynamics of vegetation under changing conditions and the occurrence of sudden shifts in ecosystems are topics that are becoming increasingly important in a world where human pressure is increasing in many ecosystems.

Part of the NRM Curriculum and the iGEON distance based course.

Teaching topics related to:

• Spatial Modelling
• Species Distribution Models
• Statistics
• Modelling in R
• Quantitative Ecology
• Thermal spectroscopy
• Field Work Preparation
• Research Skills

Topics covered by current and past research include:

• Species distribution modelling techniques, error propagation and applications for conservation
• Hyperspectral thermal remote sensing of plant stress
• remote sensing and spatial modelling to assess dynamics in ecosystems
• Interactions between savanna vegetation patterns and fire
• Early-warning for tipping points in ecosystems
• Novel methodologies to determine carbon budgets of forests
• Novel methodologies to create long time series from various geographical information sources,

Activities in capacity development

I have undertaken fieldwork in Australia, Bulgaria, India and South Africa and performed consulting and training service work in Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Ghana, Greece, Indonesia, Kenya, Namibia, Russia (Sacha Republic), Rwanda, Uganda, and Vietnam.