The Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing (FMRS) is a part of the Department of Forestry and Natural Environment, which is one of the 41 departments of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the biggest university in Greece. The department is responsible for training more than 500 undergraduate and about 200 graduate students on all aspects of ecology and management of forest and natural resources.

FMRS conducts research in the fields of remote sensing, geographic information systems, and digital photogrammetry, as well as their applications in areas such as natural ecosystem management, environmental change monitoring, and natural disasters prevention and response, with a particular focus on forest fires. It has also participated and is participating in a large number of European and National competitive projects, whereas it employs specialized scientific staff with extensive experience in studies and projects related to wildfire management.

 

Activities & Research Interests

FMRS’ main purpose is to serve educational needs in the fields of forest management and remote sensing, as well as to conduct research relevant to the laboratory’s teaching and research subjects. Specifically, FMRS conducts applied research in the following areas:

  • Management and protection of natural ecosystems.
  • Monitoring of environmental changes (e.g., land use and land cover changes).
  • Forest biomass monitoring, with emphasis on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).
  • Precision farming and optimization of inputs and production through crop modeling.
  • Monitoring of soil erosion.
  • Prevention of natural disasters and treatment of the affected areas, with focus on forest fires.

 

In particular, in the context of various research projects FMRS currently deals with the development of methodologies and algorithms related to, inter alia:

  • mapping forest fuels and monitoring vegetation dryness,
  • automated mapping of forest fires as well as post-fire vegetation monitoring of the burned areas,
  • automated forest species mapping and their discrimination from other land cover categories,
  • automated land cover mapping and their changes,
  • separation and mapping of forest species using satellite data,
  • modeling soil erosion, and
  • the optimization of rice cultivation through forecasting models and remote sensing data.

Coordination and participation in competitive programs related to XENIOS

The Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing has participated and is participating in a large number of European and National competitive programs, with the most relevant to XENIOS being the following:

 

  • EPADAP: Establishment and pilot operation of a National Forest Fire Observatory (EPADAP) – Development of indicators, products and services relating to the prevention of forest fires and to the forest fire assessment – GREEN FUND, MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE (2014 – 2017)
  • EPAD: Establishment andl pilot operation of the Forest monitoring Observatory– GREEN FUND, MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE (2013 – 2016)
  • ARCFUEL- LIFE10 ENV/GR/617: Mediterranean fuel maps geodatabase for wildland & forest fire safety – EC DG Environment (2011-2013)
  • FIRE PROBA- CONTRACT NR CB/XX/11: Burned area mapping and post-fire monitoring of Mediterranean ecosystems using Proba-V imagery – Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (2010 – 2012)
  • FM@PROBA-V – CONTRACT NR CB/XX/12: Forest – non forest mapping in different ecosystems using Proba-V imagery – Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (2010 – 2012)
  • Tele-Kyoto (ΘΑΛΗΣ): Vegetation mapping and biomass estimation with modern Remote Sensing methods in order to fulfil the country’s obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol – MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS, SPORT AND CULTURE (2012 – 2015)
  • Validation of the cartographic products of the FAO FRA project – MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE (2010 – 2012)
  • The Future of the Greek Forest: Creation of a Forest Map for Greece at different scales by using remote sensing – WWF-GREECE/GREEK FOREST SERVICE (2008-2011)
  • FIRE PARADOX – IP-FP6-018505: An Innovative Remote Sensing Approach of Integrated Wildland Fire / Management Regulating the Wildfire Problem by the Wise Use of Fire: Solving the Fire Paradox – EC Research Directorate (2007-2010)
  • BOSS4GMES: Building Operational Sustainable Services for GMES – EC Research Directorate (2006-2010)
  • Geoland 2 / FP7-SPACE-2007-1- 218795: towards an operational GMES land monitoring core service – EC- Enterprise and Industry Directorate General (2008 – 2012)
  • ISOTEIA, INTERREG IIB – CADSES, Integrated System for the Promotion of Territorial / Environmental Impact Assessment in the Framework of Spatial Planning – European Regional Development Funds (2003-2006)

 

 

Available infrastructure and equipment related to XENIOS

FMRS has a special laboratory equipped with regularly updated equipment and high-quality computer software. More specifically, the equipment available by FMRS includes: two 8TB Network Attached Storage (NAS) storage units, high quality laptops and desktops, dedicated servers, SVC-1024i hyperspectral radiometer, ADC infrared camera, Plotter A0, 2 Handheld GPS and a Thales differential GPS, academic licenses for commercial Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing software.