I’m an interdisciplinary researcher interested in the “bigger picture” of things. I have a background in geobotany, nature conservation and soil science through my MSc at the University of Bonn (1999), which I then complemented with geospatial and remote sensing skills during my PhD at the University of Würzburg, Germany (2005). In my PhD project in collaboration with the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), I assessed the vegetation dynamics and bush encroachment of thornbush savannas in Namibia as a result of land use practises, recent rainfall history and long-term climate change using Landsat TM timeseries. My interest in savanna dynamics brought me to South Africa, and I joined the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 2007. Here, I continued remote sensing work on arid land degradation, until I felt the topic became “too dry” and I realised there is an urgent need for geospatial and remote sensing assessments of coastal dynamics and for risk assessments, especially in the light of climate change and the massive development pressure on South Africa’s coast.
Since 2011, I have been developing the coastal vulnerability assessment field in South Africa at the CSIR in Stellenbosch. I’m aiming for trans-disciplinary approaches including the interdisciplinary generation of coastal flood and erosion risk lines from national to local scale, the identification of adaptation options (including green infrastructure solutions) and training of and decision support for decision makers on climate change risks and adaptation options. In 2014, I also joined the Department of Geography & Environmental Studies as Extraordinary Senior Lecturer. Since then, I have been lecturing on coastal specific and general remote sensing topics and supervised several post-grad students (BSc to PhD) on my journey towards a climate resilient coast.
- Geospatial and remote sensing assessment and monitoring of coastal dynamics
- Impact of land use, seasonality, tidal conditions and climate change on remote sensing assessment of coastal dynamics and degradation
- Development of geospatial and interdisciplinary climate change adaptation decision support tools for the coastal zone
- Technical research interests: multispectral remote sensing cloud processing and topographic LiDAR applications
2006: PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) Geography (remote sensing). University of Würzburg, Germany. Title of Dissertation: “Remote sensing-based detection of vegetation change in Namibia considering recent precipitation feeds.”
1999: MSc (Diplom) Biology. University of Bonn, Germany. Title of thesis: “Phyto-sociological assessment of the Paschenwerder at Werben in the River Elbe floodplain in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.”
021 888 2400 (CSIR switchboard)
mluckvogel@csir.co.za
