MSc Topics
Introduction
Master students interested in writing a thesis in remote sensing are very welcome to approach us to discuss their ideas and suggestions. In general, you should think about your interests, the skills you like to acquire and potential career paths. You should be excited about your topic, as you'll work on it for some months. Just pass by and talk with us about themes you find fascinating, interesting, or simply fun. For your inspiration, we occasionally advertise for specific Master theses. You can find these calls for Master theses below.
Across-scale spatio-temporal surface temperature variations over cryospheric features
Surface temperature information is valuable to improve our understanding of the individual energy balance components over cryospheric features. Investigating and quantifying spatio-temporal variations of surface temperature over cryospheric features is scale dependent and challenging.
More information (PDF, 269 KB)
Kathrin Naegeli
Thermal imaging to assess forest response to stress and extreme events
In this project you will use thermal infrared images acquired from thermal cameras (in high spatio-temporal resolution) over Swiss forests to understand and monitor their response to extreme events such drought and heatwaves.
More information (PDF, 326 KB)
Jennifer Adams
Exploring the potential of debris thermal inertia as a proxy for debris thickness
In this project you will use in-situ and remotely sensed data over a debris covered glacier (Zmuttgletscher, Valais) to understand the daily thermal response of debris cover to climatological conditions. You will compute Apparent Thermal Inertia (ATI) in different ways by taking into account different environmental parameters (from a few to several). This could become a novel method to estimate debris thickness which is crucial for sub-debris glacier melt estimations.
More information (PDF, 359 KB)
Gabriele Bramati
ECOSTRESS calibration and validation for lake surface water temperature monitoring (ECOLake)
Leveraging the ISS-based ECOSTRESS sensor to retrieve lake surface water temperatures using unique automated measurements from three Swiss lakes for Cal/Val, and improving the accuracy of ECOSTRESS products to further support near-real-time monitoring and modeling of Swiss lakes (https://www.alplakes.eawag.ch/).
More information (PDF, 341 KB)
Abolfazl Irani
How do crop wild relatives adapt to extreme climates?
This project investigates the genetic diversity of semi-wild varieties of crops living under extreme climatic conditions. The goal is to find genes that could help adapting commercial crops to climate change.
More information (PDF, 66 KB)
Oliver Selmoni
How fast should wild populations migrate to track climate change?
This project aims to quantify the migration speed that wild population should have to persist in a changing habitat. The investigation will be performed by re-analysing existing environmental and genetic data on species adaptation to climate change.
More information (PDF, 66 KB)
Oliver Selmoni
Predicting wildlife genetic extinction without DNA data
This project aims to assess how accurately genetic extinction can be predicted in absence of DNA data. The investigation will be performed through simulations of extinction on virtual populations, and then extended to real-world species.
More information (PDF, 67 KB)
Oliver Selmoni
Intraspecific diversity in reaction norms of beech seedlings
This project aims to investigate how varying levels of drought affect beech seedlings from across Europe, using leaf spectroscopy to explore phenotypic responses and assess the influence of genetic background on drought tolerance.
More information (PDF, 5 MB)
Sofia van Moorsel
Contrasting the germination rate of silver fir and European provenances in climate chambers, in forestry nurseries, and in the forest
This project aims to compare the germination rates of European beech and silver fir across different seedling production methods, identifying environmental factors that influence germination and early survival.
More information (PDF, 47 KB)
Sofia van Moorsel
Unveiling the Canopy: Potential and Limitations of Drone-Based Structure from Motion (SfM) in Forests
The primary objective of this research is to assess the potential of drone-based SfM methodologies in accurately characterizing different forest structures.
More information (PDF, 32 KB) (PDF, 276 KB)
Felix Morsdorf
Computer vision techniques for vehicle detection in SAR imagery
The objectives of this MSc thesis are to 1) evaluate performance of current computer vision methods, based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs), applied to optical imagery, and 2) adapt them for better performance when applied to SAR images.
More information (PDF, 384 KB)
Elias Mendez
Linking leaf and canopy spectra in a beech seedling common garden experiment
This project aims to use existing datasets to find out whether canopy spectra and leaf
spectra are useful to predict the genetic variation within European beech (Fagus sylvatica).
More information (PDF, 3 MB)
Sofia van Moorsel
Change Detection with Polarimetric SAR imagery
The objective of this MSc thesis is to investigate the current status and potential of polarimetric SAR for change detection purposes in urban and/or natural environments.
More information (PDF, 406 KB)
Elias Mendez
Extraction of phenotypic traits from virtual 3D assemblies of beech tree seedlings
This project aims to understand if the provenance of a tree affects its phenotype based on hundred beech saplings from all over Europe.
More information (PDF, 1 MB)
Sofia van Moorsel
Thermal anisotropy in land surface temperature measurements
The main objective of this MSc thesis is to measure and understand the thermal anisotropy of various surface types and to build up a database
of Bidirectional Temperature Distribution Function (BTDF) measurements.
More information (PDF, 3 MB)
Jennifer Adams
Plant Functional Diversity of Grasslands
The objective of this thesis is to map Plant Functional Diversity of Grasslands in the Swiss National Park using Imaging Spectroscopy Data.
More information (PDF, 157 KB)
Christian Rossi
Spectral imaging within the forest matrix
The objective of this thesis is to evaluate different sensors that could be used on lightweight drones, collect spectral measurements within the forest matrix and calibrate/compare the output to laboratory measurement of vegetation properties.
More information (PDF, 69 KB)
Mathias Kneubühler
Terrestrial LiDAR for forest monitoring
In this MSc, TLS and field data will be collected and the correlation between the ecological value of tree stems and the variations of its surfaces will be analyzed.
More information (PDF, 32 KB)
Felix Morsdorf
Further potential topics
Laser remote sensing of vegetation
Felix Morsdorf
Spectroscopic Data Calibration and Validation
Andy Hueni
Imaging spectroscopy of ecosystems in the Swiss National Park
Mathias Kneubühler
Wet snow cover estimation from SAR backscatter time series
David Small
Time-series analysis of SAR backscatter
David Small
Geometric calibration of SAR sensors
David Small
Time series analysis of land surfaces using the Google Earth Engine
Hendrik Wulf