Earth Observation and Geoinformation Science Lab

Prof. Dr. Sebastian van der Linden

Head of Lab

Room 206

talk time: anytime, gladly by appointment 

phone: +49 3834 420 4500

sebastian.lindenuni-greifswaldde

 

I am an environmental scientist and since 2019 professor of geography at the University of Greifswald. I am heading the Earth Observation and Geoinformation Science Lab. In my research I use Earth observation data to analyse land use and cover and their variation in space and time. This way, I want to contribute to a better understanding of underlying environmental processes and the functioning of human-environment systems. A special focus of my work is on the monitoring of peatlands. Together with my team I work on approaches for quantitative mapping of land cover from multi- and hyperspectral data, mostly at local to regional scales. We use machine learning algorithms and sophisticated learning strategies to achieve more accurate and temporally robust mapping models.

Since 2025, I am a member of the Landsat Science Team (LST) and since 2022 deputy director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Baltic Sea Region Research at University of Greifswald (IFZO). I am also a member of the Greifswald Mire Center (GMC) and from 2021 to 2025 I was a member of the EnMAP Science Advisory Group (EnSAG). 

My teaching reaches from basic modules on geoinformation science and remote sensing to advanced remote sensing modules. The latter include field work and deal with applied questions of environmental science, e.g. land use monitoring or forest and vegetation remote sensing.

  • IFZO
  • EnMAP-Box
  • ReWetSpec
since 10/2019 University of Greifswald - Professor for Geoinformation Science and Remote Sensing at the Department of Geography and Geology
01/2007– 09/2019 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin – Senior scientist and lecturer at the Earth Observation Lab of the Geography Department
10/2012 – 03/2018 Managing director (part-time) of the IRI THESys of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
10/2006– 12/2006 Columbia University, New York – Guest scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
01/2004– 09/2006 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin & Center for Remote Sensing of Land Surfaces at Bonn University – PhD student in scholarship program of German Environmental Foundation (DBU)
Dr. rer. nat., Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät (01/2008), Dissertation title: „Investigating the potential of hyperspectral remote sensing data for the analysis of urban imperviousness“ (https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/16409)
10/1996– 10/2002 Trier University – Student of Applied Environmental Sciences, Majors Remote Sensing, Climatologie, Minors Geomathematics, Hydrology
  09/1999 – 06/2000 University of Edinburgh – Exchange student
  Diplom-Umweltwissenschaftler (MSc equivalent 10/2002)

  • Chabrillat, S., Foerster, S., Segl, K., Beamish, A., Brell, M., Asadzadeh, S., Milewski, R., Ward, K. J., Brosinsky, A., Koch, K., Scheffler, D., Guillaso, S., Kokhanovsky, A., Roessner, S., Guanter, L., Kaufmann, H., Pinnel, N., Carmona, E., Storch, T., van der Linden, S., … Fischer, S. (2024). The EnMAP spaceborne imaging spectroscopy mission: Initial scientific results two years after launch. Remote Sensing of Environment, 114379. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2024.114379

     

  • Hellmann, C., Bobertz, B., Hübner, F., Köhn, N., Kreyling, J., & van der Linden, S. (2024). Biomass prediction of Typha latifolia on a paludiculture site by combining structural and spectral features from UAS data. Mires and Peat, 31(18), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.19189/MaP.2023.CM.Sc.2455998

     

  • Pham, V.-D., Thiel, F., Frantz, D., Okujeni, A., Schug, F., & van der Linden, S. (2024). Learning the variations in annual spectral-temporal metrics to enhance the transferability of regression models for land cover fraction monitoring. Remote Sensing of Environment, 308, 114206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2024.114206

     

  • de Waard, F., Connolly, J., Barthelmes, A., Joosten, H., & van der Linden, S. (2024). Remote sensing of peatland degradation in temperate and boreal climate zones – A review of the potentials, gaps, and challenges. Ecological Indicators, 166, 112437. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.112437

     

  • Frantz, D., Schug, F., Wiedenhofer, D., Baumgart, A., Virág, D., Cooper, S., Gómez-Medina, C., Lehmann, F., Udelhoven, T., van der Linden, S., Hostert, P., & Haberl, H. (2023). Unveiling patterns in human dominated landscapes through mapping the mass of US built structures. Nature Communications, 14(1), 8014. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43755-5

     

  • Kreyling, J., Tanneberger, F., Jansen, F., van der Linden, S., Aggenbach, C., Blüml, V., Couwenberg, J., Emsens, W.-J., Joosten, H., Klimkowska, A., Kotowski, W., Kozub, L., Lennartz, B., Liczner, Y., Liu, H., Michaelis, D., Oehmke, C., Parakenings, K., Pleyl, E., … Jurasinski, G. (2021). Rewetting does not return drained fen peatlands to their old selves. Nature Communications, 12(1), 5693. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25619-y

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