Meet Joseph Agate from Twente University

Join us in welcoming our new REWRITER, Joseph Agate!

Joseph’s work focusses on remote sensing technologies and how they can be used to provide effective monitoring of coastal environments. This knowledge can help direct the integration of remote sensing into monitoring practices to help leverage the improvements in both efficiency and effectiveness that this technology can offer.

His doctoral study focussed on monitoring salt marsh restoration at multiple scales, from highly detailed in situ data to vegetation communities, drones, and satellites. He did this by monitoring vegetation succession in the field, which was then mapped across the drone and satellite imagery using machine learning algorithms, with the mapping of the satellite imagery performed by upscaling from the drone imagery. He found how these different scales can be used effectively to provide information about post-restoration changes in sites, as well as how the data collected at these scales can be integrated to enhance monitoring capabilities.

In the REWRITE project, Joseph will play a key role in using remote sensing to upscale the detailed work carried out at the demonstrator sites across Europe. This work will produce large-scale maps of both ecosystem services and biodiversity, which will provide an understanding of the spatial variation of these factors across Europe. Additionally, these maps will be fed to other members of the team, who will use them to create projections of how this spatial variation may change in response to both climate change and rewilding.