An accurate geomorphometric description of the Iranian loess plateau landscape will further enhance our understanding of recent and past geomorphological processes in this strongly dissected landscape. Therefore, four different input datasets for four landform classification methods were used in order to derive the most accurate results in comparison to ground-truth data from a geomorphological field survey. The input datasets in 5 m and 10 m pixel resolution were derived from Pléiades stereo satellite imagery and the “Shuttle Radar Topography Mission” (SRTM), and “Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer” (ASTER GDEM) datasets with a spatial resolution of 30 m were additionally applied. The four classification approaches tested with this data include the stepwise approach after Dikau, the geomorphons, the topographical position index (TPI) and the object based approach. The results show that input datasets with higher spatial resolutions produced overall accuracies of greater than 70% for the TPI and geomorphons and greater than 60% for the other approaches. For the lower resolution datasets, only accuracies of about 40% were derived, 20–30% lower than for data derived from higher spatial resolutions. The results of the topographic position index and the geomorphons approach worked best for all selected input datasets.

The interdisciplinary Transregional Collaborative Research Center 32 (CRC/TR 32) works on exchange processes between soil, vegetation, and the adjacent atmospheric boundary layer (SVA). Within this research project a terrestrial laser scanning sensor is used in a multitemporal approach for determining agricultural plant parameters. In contrast to other studies with phase-change or optical probe sensors, time-of-flight measurements are used. On three dates in the year 2008 a sugar beet field (4.3 ha) in Western Germany was surveyed by a terrestrial laser scanner (Riegl LMS-Z420i). Point clouds are georeferenced, trimmed, and compared with official elevation data. The estimated plant parameters are (i) surface model comparison between different crop surfaces and (ii) crop volumes as well as (iii) soil roughness parameters for SVA-Modelling. The results show, that the estimation of these parameters is possible and the method should be validated and extended.

For accurate regional modelling of (agro-)ecosystems, up-to-date land use information is essential to assess the impact of the permanent changing vegetation cover of agricultural land on matter fluxes in the soil-vegetation-atmosphere (SVA) system. In this regard, officially available land use datasets are mostly inadequate, since they only provide generalised information concerning agricultural land use. In this contribution, we present our work for the year 2008 on the generation of multi temporal, disaggregated land use data with the goal to derive a crop rotation map for the years 2008–2010 for the study area of the research project CRC/TR 32. For this purpose, the Multi-Data Approach (MDA) was used to integrate multitemporal remote sensing classifications with additional spatial information by the means of expert knowledge-based production rules. Our results show that the information content of a land use dataset is considerably enhanced by combining crop type information of multiple observations during each growing season. For a sufficient temporal coverage, the usage of multiple sensors is generally inevitable. Thus, datasets of ASTER, Landsat TM & ETM+ as well as IRS-P6 were incorporated. In terms of classification accuracy our analysis yielded similar results with support vector machines (SVM) and the classical maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) for all sensors, with SVM being mostly only slightly better. For the refinement of land parcel boundaries and the reduction of misclassification, the incorporation of the 'field block' (FB) vector information was very effective. 'Field blocks', provided by the chamber of agriculture, are coherent agricultural areas with (relatively) permanent boundaries. As a result, a much more accurate differentiation of agricultural land and non-agricultural land was achieved. With the enhanced annual MDA land use data of the three consecutive years containing crop type information sufficient information is available for the derivation of crop rotation. Again, adapted knowledge-based production rules are used for this purpose.

Dislocated boulders are one sign of high‐energy wave impacts on coasts. These high‐energy impacts, caused by severe storms or tsunamis, can trigger initial cracking and transport of boulders. Monitoring of these boulders, as well as the associated coastal sites is important in distinguishing between gradual coastal processes and high‐energy events. Western Greece is a seismically active area, where tsunamis and high‐energetic storms might occur and such past events are documented by historic and geoscientific research, making it an ideal location for monitoring dislocated boulders. Since 2008, monitoring of eight different coastal sites in this region was conducted by terrestrial laser scanning and photogrammetric approaches, with low‐cost unmanned aerial vehicles. The re‐use of similar surveying points in following years, allowed highly accurate monitoring. Point clouds derived from these methods were evaluated for change detection by point cloud comparisons. The data were also used to establish accurate three‐dimensional models of dislocated boulders (n = 70). The determined boulder volumes of these accurate three‐dimensional models were incorporated in wave transport equations and wave decay curves, and compared with monitoring results. A comprehensive overview of dislocated boulders in western Greece is presented. Three‐dimensional boulder reconstruction is compared to an approach which uses a tape‐based measuring of boulder axes, with the tape‐based measurement showing a mean overestimation of mass by 32%. Accurate monitoring over time by both methods, is achieved by using fixed networks of reference points. Changes for each site over time, detected by direct point cloud comparisons, are fit to the possible inundation calculated by wave decay curves based on computed minimum wave heights for boulder transport. Both storm and tsunami waves may have initiated movement from the cliff edge and further transport is also possible. However, boulders showed no further movement from their current position in the area for the time period of this study.