Projects

International

PANGEOS - PANGEOS - Pan-European Network of Green Deal Agriculture and Forestry Earth Observation Science
PANGEOS - Pan-European Network of Green Deal Agriculture and Forestry Earth Observation Science
Program: COST
Project leader: Mgr. Halabuk Andrej, PhD.
Annotation: The sustainability of Europe’s green resources are threatened by climate change associated environmental changes. Agricultural systems and forests are among the ecosystems mostly interlinked with human health and wellbeing due to the socio-economic services they provide. Whether heat, drought, extreme weather, or biotic stressors, conventional agriculture and forestry today is unprepared for future climate scenarios, rising populations, changing consumption habits, and traditional management practices need re-thinking. The objectives set by PANGEOS are developed in the wake of the European Green Deal strategic goals. For agriculture, these include ensuring food security in the face of climate change, strengthening the EU food system’s resilience and reducing the environmental and climate footprint of the EU agricultural sector towards a competitive and sustainable use and management of resources. For forestry, these span the protection, restoration and enlargement of the EU’s forests to combat climate change, reversing biodiversity loss and ensuring resilient and multifunctional forest ecosystems. To support these goals, PANGEOS aims to leverage state-of-the-art remote sensing (RS) technologies to advance field phenotyping workflows, precision agriculture/forestry practices and larger-scale operational assessments for a more sustainable management of Europe’s natural resources. We propose to bridge the gap between state-of-the-art technologies and applied sciences, to directly serve and inform academics, Young Researchers and Innovators, Inclusiveness Target Countries and Near Neighbor Countries, end-users (e.g., farmers, foresters), and stakeholders in industry and policy-makers by bringing together RS experts and applications in (1) Field Phenotyping, (2) Precision and Regenerative Agriculture, (3) Sustainable Land Management of Complex European landscapes, and (4) Uncertainty Analysis and Standardization.
Project webpage: https://pangeos.eu/
Duration: 6.11.2023 - 6.11.2027
MORIDEK - MORIDEK - Modelovanie vplyvov rastlinných invázií na dunajské ekosystémy
MORIDEK - Modelling long term impacts of plant invasions on danubian ecosystems
Program: Other
Project leader: RNDr. Halada Ľuboš, CSc.
Annotation: The activities of the proposed MORIDEK project complement the interdisciplinary nature of the original Horizon Europe project Restore4Life, which represents an innovation action addressing the socially significant issue of wetland restoration. Our proposed MORIDEK project contributes primarily to the scientific and research component of this innovation activity, which is necessary for demonstrating the importance of wetland restoration based on solid and reliable scientific foundations. Specifically, it focuses on assessing the impact of a particular threat to the Danube\'s alluvial wetlands, which is posed by plant species invasions. Invasive plants represent a significant threat to many of the Danube\'s alluvial wetlands, which are important and valuable ecological zones in Europe, but also act as catalysts for the spread of these invasive species. These invasive plant species can significantly disrupt ecosystem balance, threatening native species and the overall functionality of wetlands. The project will employ innovative approaches to assess the impacts of plant invasions using a combination of Earth observation (EO) and ecosystem process modeling (EM), aiming to contribute to the understanding of potential impacts of plant invasions on wetlands, particularly in terms of carbon and nutrient flows.
Duration: 1.6.2024 - 31.5.2026
PROCLIAS - PROCLIAS - Procesné modely pre atribúciu klimatických vplyvov naprieč odvetviami
PROCLIAS - Process-based models for climate impact attribution across sectors
Program: COST
Project leader: Dr.nat.techn. Ing. Merganičová Katarína
Annotation: Many complex process-based models are available in Europe to project future climate impacts. Yet, the current climate impact research community is fragmented, modeling mostly individual systems. The integration of climate impacts across different natural and societal sectors is only slowly emerging. Likewise, attribution of impacts to climate and other factors is still a strongly under-researched field given that climate change is already strongly manifesting itself, an increasing number of court cases dealing with climate impacts is being negotiated and policy debates on loss and damage are intensifying. This lack of coordination amongst impact modelers and insufficient awareness about impact attribution methods hampers important scientific and political progress and more coordination and networking is urgently needed. Therefore, PROCLIAS aims to develop common protocols, harmonized datasets and a joint understanding of how to conduct cross-sectoral, multi-model climate impact studies at regional and global scales allowing for attribution of impacts of recent climatic changes and robust projections of future climate impacts. The Action will do so by focusing on key interactions of climate impacts across sectors, their accumulated effect, especially of extreme events, the attribution of impacts to climate change and the quantification of uncertainties. PROCLIAS will make use of all COST networking tools to train young researchers to conduct and analyse multi-model simulations in a cross-sectoral way, to support a common platform for collecting impact model simulations and methods for analyzing them and to disseminate the data, code and results to scientists as well as, in a more synthesized form, to stakeholders.
Project webpage: https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA19139/#tabs|Name:Description
Duration: 27.10.2020 - 26.10.2024
CHIME_NPV - CHIME_NPV - Kvantifikácia nefotosyntetickej vegetácie z budúcej misie Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment
CHIME_NPV - Towards quantification of non-photosynthetic vegetation from Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment
Program: European Space Agency (ESA)
Project leader: Mgr. Halabuk Andrej, PhD.
Annotation: The project activities represent a feasibility study of imaging spectroscopy\'s added value for NPV mapping in agricultural landscapes. Current state-of-the-art approaches are explored followed by set of empirical analyses and tests for effective retrieval algorithms and mapping using PRISMA and EnMAP products. In addition, NPV-relevant data are continuously collected through dedicated field campaigns of varying scales (plot to region wide).
Duration: 2.4.2022 - 1.4.2024

National

CALTER - Toky uhlíka v pôde hlavných typov lesných ekosystémov na výškovom gradiente Západných Karpát.
Soil carbon fluxes in dominant forest ecosystems along elevation gradient in the Western Carpathians
Program: SRDA
Project leader: RNDr. Halada Ľuboš, CSc.
Annotation: Forest stores more than 70% of global soil carbon (C) and plays a central role in soil surface-atmosphere exchange of greenhouse gases. Due to the amount of C stored in the soil, it is essential to recognize that even a small change within this pool could significantly feedback the earth system. Soil organic carbon occurs in diverse forms, which according to the stability, can be divided into an active (labile) fraction, whose persistence time varies from a few weeks to a few months, and a stable fraction, which can persist in the soil for many years or even centuries. Soil loses C by two main processes - respiration and leaching. Both of them show complex spatio-temporal biophysical controls that vary on different scales as a consequence of changes in biotic (plant or microbial community) and abiotic (e.g., soil temperature, soil moisture, soil texture) factors. Soil respiration (Rs) consists of the two main components - heterotrophic (Rh) and autotrophic respiration (Ra), which respond differently to changes in influencing factors. The elevation is a key driver of climate properties playing an essential role in soil carbon content and fluxes. The main aim of our project is to identify C loss by respiration and leaching and to identify their driving factors along an elevation gradient representing the main forest communities in the Western Carpathians. Study plots are located in sites dedicated to long-term ecological research (LTER Slovakia). Possible impact of elevated temperature on soil C fluxes will be studied in open-top greenhouses. For reliable estimation of naturally very variable soil C fluxes we will optimize sampling strategy for each studied ecosystem by spatial stratification and by adjustment of measuring frequency.
Project webpage: n/a
Duration: 1.7.2022 - 30.6.2025
URANOS - Údajová a vedomostná podpora pre systémy rozhodovania a strategického plánovania v oblasti adaptácie poľnohospodárskej krajiny na klimatické zmeny a minimalizáciu degradácie poľnohospodárskych pôd
Scientific support of climate change adaptation in agriculture and mitigation of soil degradation.
Program: EU Structural Funds Research & Development
Project leader: Mgr. Halabuk Andrej, PhD.
Duration: 3.4.2020 - 30.6.2023