Subject: Mapping forest disturbance dynamics using multi-source remote sensing datasets 

　　Lecturer: Ran Meng (Professor, Huazhong Agricultural University)

　　Host: Chao Yue (Researcher, Institute of Soil and Water Resource Conservation, NWAFU)

　　Time: 2019.04.24 Wednesday 14:30

　　Venue: Room 203, State Key Laboraory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau.

　　Abstract: Studying disturbance-caused (e.g., fire and insect) forest dynamics across large spatio-temporal scales is critical for evaluating the effects of global warming on forest health, improving forest resource management and addressing a number of impressing environmental issues. Field measurements is accurate but low efficient, and the accuracy of traditional remote sensing methods for studying forest disturbances is low with very high uncertainties. To address these issues, we examined the combined use of multi-source remote sensing datasets on mapping forest disturbance severity and related spatial-temporal patterns of forest dynamics, and studying the effects of fire severity, plant traits and post-fire climate on short-term vegetation recovery. Our study thus represents one of the first few efforts to link multi-sensor remote sensing techniques to monitor forest dynamics over large-scales, with important implications for disturbance-related forest management and more accurately constraining/benchmarking disturbance effect schemes in ecological process models.

　　About the lecturer: 

　　Dr. Ran Meng got his master degree in Geographical Information Sciences from Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research，CAS in 2010 and PhD in Geography from University of Utah in 2015. Then, he worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory during 2015-2018. Starting on 2018 Autumn, he took a professor position (doctoral advisor) at College of Natural Resources and Environment, Huazhong Agricultural University. His research interests include remote sensing of forest dynamics, crop type and yield monitoring, intelligent agriculture and so on. He has published his works at top journals, such as Remote Sensing of Environment, Global Change Biology, New Phytologist. In addition, he served as review expert for USA Department of Energy and USA National Science Foundation, as well as 18 international academic journals, for more than 50 times since 2014