Land degradation is a critical challenge to sustainable development, impacting ecosystems, economies, and communities globally. As part of the FAIR-EASE Earth Critical Zone (ECZ) pilot, this study develops a tailored Land Degradation Assessment tool based on the Trends.Earth approach. The tool aims to enhance data accessibility, integration, and usability across environmental domains, supporting decision-making and policy frameworks aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Building upon the robust Trends.Earth implementation, we can integrate customized workflows and datasets to reflect regional variability in degradation indicators, including vegetation productivity, soil health, and land cover changes. Our approach prioritizes FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles to ensure broad usability and collaboration across scientific and policy communities.
Preliminary results demonstrate the tool's capacity to enhace the detail of the analysis and to identify degradation hotspots. Furthermore, the integration of open-source geospatial tools and standards supports a scalable framework applicable to diverse environmental contexts.
The tool is designed to be embedded within the LandSupport platform, a geospatial decision support system, further enhancing its accessibility and integration into decision-making processes for land management.
This work contributes to advancing interdomain digital services and illustrates the potential of FAIR principles in addressing complex environmental challenges. We invite feedback from the community to refine, expand and customise the tool's application, fostering collaboration for sustainable land management.

How to cite: Mauriello, I. E., Langella, G., Terribile, F., and Miralto, M.: Customizing Trends.Earth for land degradation assessment in the earth critical zone: a FAIR-EASE approach, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19225, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19225, 2025.

INTRODUCTION. InSAR or Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar is a technique for mapping ground deformation using radar images of the Earth's surface collected from orbiting satellites. DInSAR or Differential SAR Interferometry is an active remote sensing technique based on the principle that, due to the very high stability of the satellite orbits, it is possible to exploit the informative contribution carried by the phase difference between two SAR images looking at the same scene from comparable geometries.

AIM. In this setting, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the region near the closed rock salt mine in the south of Albania. Our input for this exercise will be two images of the land near the former rock salt mine in Dhrovjan near the Blue Eye (Saranda, Albania).

RESULTS. By combining the phases of 2 images we produce an interferogram where the phase is correlated to the terrain topography and deformation so if the phase shifts related to the topography are removed from the interferogram, the difference between the resulting products will show surface deformation patterns or cure between the two acquisition dates and this methodology is called differential interferometry Processing, Phase Unwrapping, and at the end creating the displacement map. We use in our study the difference in time with the algorithm which consists of working step by step with these operators: Read the two split products, Applying Orbit files, Back-Geocoding, Enhanced Spectral Diversity, Interferogram, TOPSAR Deburst, and Write. The resulting difference of phases is called an interferogram containing all the information on relative geometry. Removing the topographic and orbital contributions may reveal ground movements along the line of sight between the radar and the target.

The next algorithm we worked with these operators: Read the debursted interferogram, TopoPhaseRemoval, Multilook, Goldstain Filtering, and Write. At the same time from Goldstain Filtering, we add the Snaphu Export operator.

Correct phase unwrapping procedures must be performed to retrieve the absolute phase value by adding multiples of 2π phase values to each pixel to extract accurate information from the signal. In this study, we will use SNAPHU, which is a two-dimensional phase unwrapping algorithm consists of working step by step with these operators: read (the wrapped image) and read (2) the unwrapped image, Snaphu Import, PhaseToDisplacement, and Write. We can display it in Google Earth after saving it as .kmz and also make a profile of the displacements.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

One of the SAR Interferometry applications is deformation mapping and change detection. This work demonstrates the capability of interferometric processing for the observation and analysis of instant relative surface deformations in the radar LOS direction. When two observations are made from the same location in space but at different times, the interferometric phase is proportional to any change in the range of a surface feature directly. All three stages of the work are important and require accurate interpretation knowledge, especially when working with the Snaphu program.

KEY-WORDS

InSAR, DInSAR, Interferogram

How to cite: Belba, P.: The use of InSAR and DInSAR for detecting land subsidence in Albania, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11808, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11808, 2025.

In today's changing climate, there is an urgent need to understand the adverse impacts of climate change on natural environments, infrastructures, and industries.Particularly permafrost regions in the Arctic are highly vulnerable to global warming, impacting both the environment and socioeconomic aspects. Thus, systematic monitoring of such environments, is of paramount significance. Advances in Geoinformation technologies, and in particular in Earth Observation (EO), cloud computing, GIS, web cartography create new opportunities and challenges for Arctic research examining the socioeconomic impact of climate change.The rapid advancements in EOin particular have led to an exponential increase in the volume of geospatial data that come from spaceborne EO sensors. This surge, combined with the fast developments in GIS and web cartography present significant challenges for effective management, access, and utilization by researchers, policymakers, and the public. Consequently, there is a growing need for advanced methodologies to organize, process, and deliver geospatial information that comes from EO satellites in an accessible and user-friendly manner.

Recognizing thepromising potential of geoinformation technologies, the European Union (EU) has funded several research projects that leverage advanced technologies such as geospatial databases and WebGIS platforms to streamline EO data handling and dissemination. One such project is EO-PERSIST (http://www.eo-persist.eu), which aims to create a collaborative research and innovation environment focusing on leveraging existing services, datasets, and emerging technologies to achieve a consistently updated ecosystem of EO-based datasets for permafrost applications. To formulate the socioeconomic indicators, the project exploits state of the art cloud processing resources, innovative Remote Sensing (RS) algorithms, Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based models formulating, exchanging also multidisciplinary knowledge.EO-PERSIST innovative approach is anticipated to contribute to more informed decision-making and broader data accessibility for researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders.

The present contribution aim is two-fold: at first, to provide an overview of EO-PERSIST Marie Curie Staff Exchanges EU-funded research project; second, to present some of the key project outputs delivered so far relevant to the selected Use Cases of the project and the geospatial database developed for assessing the socioeconomic impacts of climate change in the permafrost Arctic regions.

This study is supported by EO-PERSIST project which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 101086386.

KEYWORDS:earth observation, cloud platform, Arctic, socioeconomic impact

How to cite: Tselos, G.-N., Detsikas, S. E., Kroszka, B., Grzybowski, P., and Petropoulos, G. P.: Enhancing the use of Geoinformation technologies to assess the socioeconomic impacts of climate change in the Arctic: Insights from the EO-PERSIST Project, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6240, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6240, 2025.

Rock masses are characterized by the complex hierarchical structures involving various scale levels. The deformation of rock masses is primarily controlled in weak structural layers between rocks, whereas the rock block can be regarded as a non-deformable block and can move as a whole. In consequence, a new dynamic phenomenon, namely the pendulum-type wave, has emerged, which is a kind of nonlinear displacement wave caused by the overall movement of relatively intact large-scale rock blocks. Aiming at the complex hierarchical structures of rock masses and low-frequency characteristics of pendulum-type waves, the blocky rock masses composed of granite blocks and rubber interlayers are simplified into the block-spring model and wave motion model. Based on Bloch theorem and d’Alembert’s principle, the dispersion relation and equations of motion of 1D blocky rock masses are determined. Research shows that with the increase of the rock size and geomechanical invariant, the initial frequency of the first attenuation zone gradually decreases, and only the low-frequency waves lower than that frequency can propagate in blocky rock masses, which reveals the mechanism of low-frequency characteristics of pendulum-type waves theoretically. The equivalent substitution for the two models and their errors are given, and the results show that the equivalent substitution of the two models is not universal and unconditional. Finally, the influence of hierarchical structures on the dispersion relation and dynamic response is further studied. The larger the stiffness ratio, or the higher the order of hierarchical structures, the smaller is the effect of ignoring the high-order hierarchical structures.

How to cite: Jiang, K. and Qi, C.: Research on dispersion relation and dynamic properties of pendulum‑type waves in 1D blocky rock masses with complex hierarchical structures, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5033, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5033, 2025.

Poincaré established a framework for understanding the dependence of a dynamical system's properties on its topology. Topological properties offer detailed insights into the fundamental mechanisms — stretching, squeezing, tearing, folding, and twisting — that govern the shaping of a dynamical system's flow in state space. These mechanisms serve as a conduit between the system's dynamics and its topology [Ghil & Sciamarella, NPG, 2023]. A topological analysis based on the templex approach [Charó et al., Chaos, 2022] involves finding a topological representation of the underlying structure of the flow by the construction of a cell complex that approximates its branched manifold and a directed graph on this complex. A pivotal feature of the cell complex that facilitates the characterization of the flow dynamics is the joining locus, upon which all the fundamental mechanisms that sculpt the flow leave a pronounced signature.

The local dimension d(x) and the inverse persistence θ(x) of the state x of a dynamical system [Lucarini et al., 2016; Faranda et al., Sci. Rep., 2017] provide information on the rarity and predictability of specific states, respectively. We demonstrate herein that these two measures, d and θ  also provide information about the localization of the joining locus.

The present work proposes a new topological method for fingerprinting a system’s nonlinear behavior using the concept of persistent generatexes. This novel approach integrates the strengths of two topological data analysis methods: the templex and persistent homologies. Rather than employing a single cell complex and a digraph to characterize the flow of the system, our approach emphasizes the localization of the joining locus through the calculation of local dimension and the inverse persistence, leading to the construction of a family of nested digraphs. The dynamical paths, namely the nonequivalent ways of travelling through the flow, are found to be the most persistent cycles; here the concept of persistence is used in the sense of the persistent homology approach [Edelsbrunner & Harer, Contemporary mathematics, 2008]. The dynamical paths give us the ‘topological fingerprinting’ of a system’s dynamics.

How to cite: Charó, G. D., Faranda, D., Ghil, M., and Sciamarella, D.: Topological fingerprinting of dynamical systems, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12947, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12947, 2025.

The presence of rain in wind farms involves several modeling challenges, as the momentum exchanges between turbulent wakes and the particle phase present subtle phenomena. For instance, rain droplets are typically large enough to exhibit inertia relative to the air carrier phase. Under these conditions, it has been found that the gravitational settling of particles in turbulent flows may be either enhanced or hindered compared to stagnant conditions. While this has significant implications for rainfall transport, ash pollutants, and pollen dispersion, very few studies have been conducted in field conditions. Moreover, the scaling laws and non-dimensional parameters governing this phenomenon have not yet been properly identified, and determining which configurations result in the enhancement or hindrance of settling velocity remains an open question.

We propose a hybrid experimental/numerical approach. Field data from a meteorological mast located at a wind farm in Pays d’Othe, 110 km South-East of Paris, France, were used to characterize the background turbulent flow through a set of sonic anemometers. Additionally, disdrometers were employed to characterize the settling velocity of raindrops, discriminating by particle size. Numerical simulations complement this data analysis. Specifically, 3D space and time vector fields that realistically reproduce the observed spatial and temporal variability of wind fields are generated using multifractal tools. Then, 3D trajectories of non-spherical particles are simulated and their settling velocity derived.

Our findings indicate that the presence of turbulence significantly hinders the settling velocity of raindrops in turbulent environments. Our study covers several distinct rainfall events, allowing us to analyze the influence of turbulent flow properties on this phenomenon.

How to cite: Obligado, M. and Gires, A.: Rainfall Dynamics in Wind Energy Scenarios, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19070, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19070, 2025.

Over thirty years ago, Y. Kagan speculated that seismicity could fruitfully be considered as “the turbulence of solids”.  Indeed, fluid turbulence and seismicity have many common features: they are both highly nonlinear with huge numbers of degrees of freedom.  Beyond that, Kagan recognized that they are both riddled with scaling laws in space and in time as well as displaying power law extreme variability and – we could add – multifractal statistics.

Kagan was referring to seismicity as usually conceived, as a sudden rupture process  occurring over very short time periods.  We argue that even at one million year time scales, that the movement of tectonic plates is “quake-like” and is quantitatively close to seismicity, in spite of being caused by relatively smooth mantle convection. 

To demonstrate this, we develop a multifractal model grounded in convection theory and the analysis of the GPlates data-base of 1000 point trajectories over the last 200 Myrs.  We analyzed the statistics of the dynamically important vector velocity differences where Dr is the great circle distance between two points and Dt is the corresponding time lag.  The longitudinal and transverse velocity components were analysed separately.  The longitudinal scaling of the mean longitudinal difference follows the scaling law <Δv(Δr)> ≈ Δr^H with empirical H close to the mantle convection theory value  H = 1.  This high value implies that  mean fluctuations vary smoothly with distance.  Yet at the same time,  the intermittency exponent C₁ is extremely high (C₁ ≈ 0.55) implying that from time to time there are enormous “jumps” in velocity: “Plate quakes”.  For comparison, laminar (nonturbulent) flow has H = 1 but is not intermittent (C₁ = 0), whereas fully developed isotropic fluid turbulence has the (less smooth) value H = 1/3 (Kolmolgorov) but with non-negligible intermittency C₁ ≈ 0.07 and seismicity has very large C₁ ≈ 1.3.  Our study thus quantitatively shows how smooth fluid-like behaviour for the longitudinal velocity component can co-exist with highly intermittent quake-like behaviour.

Whereas the longitudinal component is well modelled by (highly intermittent) convection, the transverse velocity is well modelled by Brownian motion.  In the temporal domain both components (including their strong correlations) display such diffusion behaviour (i.e. with classical exponent H = ½), but are highly intermittent (C_1time = C_1space/2 ≈ 0.27).  Finally, the extreme velocity differences (that appear as occasional spikes in the velocities) have power law probability tails; the “Guttenberg-Richter” exponents in the seismology literature.

The advection - diffusion model is based on an underlying multifractal space-time cascade process.  Using mantle convection theory, we show how the driving multifractal flux (ψ) is related to vertical heat fluxes, expansion coefficients, densities, viscosities and specific heats. Taking typical values predict driving fluxes very close to the observed mean <ψ> ≈ 1/(400 Myrs).  Trace moment analysis shows that the outer space-time scales of the cascade process are ≈17000 km in space and ≈ 50Myrs in time.   Whereas the former corresponds to half the Earth’s circumference, the latter is the typical time required for a plate to randomly “walk” the same distance.

How to cite: Lovejoy, S., Spiridonov, A., and Balakauskas, L.: The turbulence of solids: a multifractal plate tectonic model with Guttenberg-Richter plate “quakes” , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20653, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20653, 2025.