Session programme

The Open Session on Geosciences Instrumentation is the European forum with an open call for professional conference papers in the field of Geosciences Instrumentation, Methods, Software and Data Systems. The session aims to inform the scientific and engineering geosciences communities about new and/or improved instrumentation and methods, and their related new or existing applications. The session also deals with new ways of utilizing observational data by novel approaches and the required data infrastructure design and organization.

The session is open to all branches of geosciences measurement techniques, including, but not limited to, optical, electromagnetic, seismic, acoustic and gravity. The session is intended as an open forum and discussion between representatives of different fields within geosciences is strongly encouraged. Past experience has shown that such mutual exchange and cross fertilization between fields have been very successful and can open up for a break-through in frontier problems of modern geosciences.

The session is also open for applications related to environmental monitoring and security providing, like archeological surveys, rubbish deposits studies, unexploded ordnance and/or mines detection, water dam inspection, seismic hazards monitoring etc.

The nature of science has changed: it has become more interconnected, collaborative, multidisciplinary, and data intensive. The main aim of this session, now in its third edition, is to create a common space for interdisciplinary scientific discussion where EGU-GA delegates involved in recent and ongoing COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)* Actions can share ideas and present the research activities carried out in their networks. The session represents an invaluable opportunity for different Actions and their members to identify possible synergies and establish new collaborations, find novel links between disciplines, and design innovative research approaches. So far, this session has hosted contributions stemming from 26 Actions, covering different areas of the geosciences (sky, earth and subsurface monitoring, terrestrial life and ecosystems, earth's changing climate and natural hazards, sustainable management of resources and urban development, environmental contaminants, and big data); we are looking forward to receiving new contributions this year.

Same as in past editions, part of this session will be dedicated to presenting and discussing activities carried out in further national and international scientific networks, associations, and collaborative projects.

Moreover, this session is of course open to everyone and abstracts authored by individual scientists or small research teams are most welcome, too. Actually, in 2018 and 2019 we received a very good number of such abstracts, submitted by researchers who wanted to disseminate the results of their studies in front of the multidisciplinary audience that characterizes this session, as an alternative to making a presentation in a thematic session. In fact, contributing to this session can be a productive way to broaden the perspective and find new partners for future interdisciplinary research ventures.

-- Notes --

* COST (www.cost.eu) is funded by the EU and enables researchers to set up their interdisciplinary and international scientific networks (the “Actions”). Academia, industry, public- and private-sector laboratories work together in the Actions, sharing knowledge, leveraging diversity, and pulling resources. Every Action has a main objective, defined goals and deliverables. This session is a follow-up initiative of COST Action TU1208 “Civil engineering applications of Ground Penetrating Radar” (www.gpradar.eu).

This session is a result of a merge between GI1.3 and GM2.3:

Recent advances in image collection and topographic measurements are providing unprecedented insight into landscape and process characterization across the geosciences. In parallel, the increasing availability of digitised historical images, going back to the late 1800s, together with advances in digital photogrammetry software, have provided new opportunities for assessing and reconstructing long-term surface evolution from local to landscape scale. Such data can extend high-resolution time series into the pre-satellite era and offer exciting potential for distinguishing anthropogenic from natural causes of environmental change. For both historic and contemporary scenarios, augmenting classic techniques with digital imagery and ‘structure from motion’ (SfM) processing has democratized data access and offers a new measurement paradigm to geoscientists.

Such data are now available over spatial scales from millimetres to kilometres, and over durations of single events to lasting time series (e.g. from sub-second to century-duration time-lapse), allowing evaluation of event magnitude and frequency interrelationships. Despite a large volume of historical images available for reprocessing with modern methods, their full potential has not yet been widely exploited and uncertainties remain on the optimal types of information that can be extracted. Substantial opportunities are likely to be exposed by exploring such data resources with machine and deep learning approaches.

The session welcomes submissions from a broad range of geoscience disciplines such as geomorphology, cryosphere, volcanology, hydrology, bio-geosciences, and geology. Our goal is to create a diverse and interdisciplinary session to explore the potential of 2D and 3D image and topographic datasets for reconstructing and interpreting environments and processes, past and present. We aim to exchange experiences of modern photogrammetric and topographic measurement and modelling technologies, along with their associated data processing tools, to highlight their potentials, limitations, and challenges in different environments.

Public information:
We will have a video meeting on Friday evening starting from 6 pm CEST (UTC+2), in addition to the chat session on Friday morning, as scheduled. Authors will give talks in this video meeting, and there will be room for discussions, with the following agenda:

18:00 - 18:05 - Meeting setting and introduction to the session
18:05 - 18:17 - Amaury Dehecq, "Multidecadal elevation changes from spy satellite images: application to glaciers and landslides".
18:17 - 18:29 - Robert McNabb, "An open-source toolset for automated processing of historic spy photos: sPyMicMac".
18:29 - 18:41 - Penelope How, "PyTrx: a Python-based monoscopic terrestrial photogrammetry toolset for glaciology".
18.41 - 18:53 - Sebastian Flöry, "Development of a 3D Viewer for georeferencing and monoplotting of historical terrestrial images".
18.53 - 19:05 - Luca Carturan, "Use of WWI photos for quantitative reconstructions of glaciers along the Italian-Austrian front".
19:05 - 19:17 - Martino Terrone, "Coupling historical maps and Lidar data to recognize man-made landforms in urban areas".
19:17 - 19:25 - a little break
19:25 - 19:37 - William D. Harcourt. "Observing the cryosphere with millimetre wave radar: The case study of Rhône Glacier".
19.37 - 19:49 - Denis Feurer, "Time-SIFT: a frugal method for leveraging multi-temporal photogrammetric data without ancillary data"
19.49 - 20:01 - Helge Smebye, "Combined aerial and ground-based Structure-from-Motion modelling for a vertical rock wall face to estimate volume of failure"
20:01 - 20:13 - Sara Cucchiaro, "Terrestrial-Aerial-SfM and TLS data fusion for agricultural terrace surveys in complex topographic and land cover conditions".
20:13 - 20:25 - Andreas Mayr, "Close-range sensing and object based analysis of shallow landslides and erosion in grasslands".
20:25 - 20:37 - Kieran Wood, "UAS radiation hot-spot detection and refinement."
20:37 - break and discussion with an open end.

Join the video meeting using the following link:
https://kuei.zoom.us/j/99949141405

For an optimal audio and video experience, we suggest that you join the meeting using the Zoom application. When following the meeting link, you will be asked to install it. Alternatively, you may join the meeting using the Chrome browser.

Environmental systems often span spatial and temporal scales covering different orders of magnitude. The session is oriented in collecting studies relevant to understand multiscale aspects of these systems and in proposing adequate multi-platform and inter-disciplinary surveillance networks monitoring tools systems. It is especially aimed to emphasize the interaction between environmental processes occurring at different scales. In particular, a special attention is devoted to the studies focused on the development of new techniques and integrated instrumentation for multiscale monitoring high natural risk areas, such as: volcanic, seismic, energy exploitation, slope instability, floods, coastal instability, climate changes and other environmental context.
We expect contributions derived from several disciplines, such as applied geophysics, geology, seismology, geodesy, geochemistry, remote and proximal sensing, volcanology, geotechnical, soil science, marine geology, oceanography, climatology and meteorology. In this context, the contributions in analytical and numerical modeling of geological and environmental processes are also expected.
Finally, we stress that the inter-disciplinary studies that highlight the multiscale properties of natural processes analyzed and monitored by using several methodologies are welcome.

The MacGyver session focuses on novel sensors made, or data sources unlocked, by scientists. All geoscientists are invited to present
- new sensor systems, using technologies in novel or unintended ways
- new data storage or transmission solutions sending data from the field with LoRa, WIFI, GSM, or any other nifty approach
- started initiatives (e.g., Open-Sensing.org) that facilitate the creation and sharing of novel sensors, data acquisition and transmission systems.

Connected a sensor for iPhone to an Arduino or Raspberri Pi? 3D printed an automated water quality sampler? Or build a Cloud Storage system from Open Source Components? Show it! New methods in hydrology, plant physiology, seismology, remote sensing, ecology, etc. are all welcome. Bring prototypes and demonstrations to make this the most exciting Poster Only (!) session of the General Assembly.

This session is co-sponsered by MOXXI, the working group on novel observational methods of the IAHS.