Collection

Special Issue: Multimodal Characterization of Built and Natural Environments for Multi-Risk Assessment

Submission status
Closed

Global urbanization processes and population growth are reshaping the surface of our planet. Natural hazards that had little impact in the past, when they hit sparsely populated and spatially fragmented settlement areas, affect urban agglomerations with millions of people nowadays. At the same time, numerous hazards do not occur in an isolated manner but form complex chains of events with disastrous cascading effects.

In order to mitigate affiliated perils, detailed information about multi-risk situations is required. However, the quantification of such risks poses major challenges regarding the comprehensiveness of data, tailored analysis methods, and valid modelling techniques. Remarkably, a vast body of technologies emerged over the last decades comprising novel data collections mechanisms and interpretation techniques. Today, sensor data from multiple sources (i.e., modalities) capturing built and natural environments are almost ubiquitously available. This includes ground-based imagery, geo-located social media data, various sources of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), as well as earth observation data, among others. To extract relevant thematic information from the data, novel methods related to the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are increasingly deployed.

Consequently, the overall aim of this Special Issue is to inform the multi-disciplinary risk community on the latest developments, capabilities, and limitations regarding the multimodal characterization of built and natural environments regarding risk-related properties (with particular focus on exposure and vulnerability) for usage in multi-risk assessment approaches.

Editors

  • Christian Geiß Christian Geiß , 

    Christian Geiß

    Geiß received the M.Sc. degree in applied geoinformatics from the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria, in 2010 and the Ph.D. degree (Dr. rer. nat.) from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, in 2014. Since 2010, he is with the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). In 2017, he was also with the Cambridge University Centre for Risk in the Built Environment (CURBE), University of Cambridge, UK, as a visiting scholar. He is currently pursuing a habilitation in Geography with the University of Würzburg.

  • Elisabeth Schoepfer Elisabeth Schoepfer , 

    Elisabeth Schoepfer

    Schöpfer received the degree in geography in 2001, and the Ph.D. degree in geography, with special emphasis on remote sensing and geographic information science, in 2005 from the University of Salzburg, Austria. Since 2009 she is working at German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. Since November 2017 Elisabeth is coordinating the research project RIESGOS “Multi-risk analysis and information system components for the Andes region” funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

  • Torsten Riedlinger Torsten Riedlinger  &

    Torsten Riedlinger

    Riedlinger is deputy head of DLR-DFD's department "Geo-risks and Civil security" and is leading a research team on topics related to geomatics, early warning and the development of environmental and crisis information systems. He holds a PhD in Applied Geoscience from the Julius-Maximilians-University of Würzburg (Germany) from 2006 and has a master degree in physical geography (1999). His main research topics are related to disaster management, emergency response, security research, geo-risks, decision support and early warning.

  • Hannes Taubenböck Hannes Taubenböck

    Hannes Taubenböck

    Taubenböck received the Diploma degree in geography from the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Munich, Germany, in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree (Dr.rer.nat.) in geography from the Julius Maximilian’s University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany, in 2008. In 2019 he habilitated at the University of Würzburg in Geography. His research interests include urban remote sensing topics, from the development of algorithms for information extraction to value-adding to classification products for findings in urban geography.

Articles (22 in this collection)

  6. Reporting from the front

    Authors

    • Christian Werthmann
    • Content type: Short Communication
    • Open Access
    • Published: 06 February 2023
    • Pages: 1145 - 1148

  11. Earthquake fatalities and potency

    Authors

    • Max Wyss
    • Michel Speiser
    • Stavros Tolis
    • Content type: Original Paper
    • Open Access
    • Published: 21 October 2022
    • Pages: 1091 - 1106