Activities

Spectral characteristics of biogenic soil crusts can be similar to those of higher plants, especially when the crusts are wet. Therefore, in semi-arid environments, the reflectance of lower plant communities may lead to misinterpretation of the vegetation dynamics and overestimation of ecosystem productivity.

Remote detection of water leaving radiance is quantitatively related to three marine constituents, which exist in the water column – chlorophyll (CHL); suspended matter (SM) such as sediments; and colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), also known as Gelbstoff. The variation of the volume reflectance of these constituents is rather complicated.

Lichens are sensitive in varying degrees to man-induced pollutants such as sulphur dioxide. This fact is widely used as an indicator of air quality.

Thermal anomaly across the Israel-Egypt political border was observed in satellite images. This anomaly was explained by the different properties of the sand dunes of both sides of the border. While the Israeli side is covered by biogenic soil crust, the Egyptian side is characterized by bare sands.

The Negev Desert (Israel) is of considerable interest in calibrating/validating of satellites’ data for many scientists around the world.

The Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) describes the directional dependence of the reflected energy of a target as a function of illumination and viewing geometries.

Precision agriculture or site specific management consider agricultural activities in variety of scales smaller than the field scale all the way down to specific plants.