Remote sensing erosion estimation

High topography and hardly accessible terrains make field studies on a large-scale cumbersome. An integrative approach, employing several remote sensing techniques combined with field studies, as well as experimental and numeric simulations, provides tools for the understanding of coupled processes. New remote sensing technologies have the capability of measuring physical parameters, such as precipitation, land use, vegetation coverage, soil moisture, and uplift with an area-wide coverage and high spatial resolution. These techniques allow us to quantify the surface deformation (intensity, timing, localization) and the influence of environmental processes such as surface and underground water flow, seismic and landslide hazard, and, to some extent, land use. The final aim consists to generate a suite of tools allowing the quantification of surface processes at the interface between tecto-, hydro- and atmosphere, mainly using remote sensing data.