International Symposium on Advanced Methods of Monitoring Reed Habitats in Europe

About the Book Reed habitats are multi-functional ecotopes characterised by a unique diversity of plant and animal life. Their enormous ecological values are more and more spoiled by impacts of economical regional development such as the expansion of industry and agriculture, of tourism, road transport infrastructure and subsequently by various forms of environmental pollution. There is an urgent need for the establishment of balanced management strategies taking into account spatial planning for both nature conservation as well as sustainable regional development. Reliable methodologies of spatial monitoring and mapping of reed stands provide the baseline for any kind of measures both in terms of conservation as well as in terms of sustainable resource management. Spatial data acquisition over large wetland areas is essentially supported by hybrid methods of airborne and spaceborne remote sensing coupled with detailed ground sampling. Various sensor systems and image types cover a wide range of different spectral bands and provide very high geometric resolution of ground land cover and land use. The operational application of those systems and methodologies for detailed mapping of wetland vegetation in general and reed plant communities in particular both in space as well as in time (time series) is still at the dawn. Nevertheless a steadily growing number of related activities is set up by different administrative and research institutions since a few years.