The Scientific Catholic Student Association Unitas-Hetania in Würzburg has invited Hannes Taubenböck again to give an evening lecture in their scientific seminar series on the 15th of April 2026.
This time, he gave a lecture titled “Krieg, Flucht, Vertreibung – Erdbeobachtung durch Victor Hugo’s Blickwinkel” (engl.: War, flight, expulsion – Earth observation through Victor Hugo’s perspective).
The topics in this lecture show the effects of social and geopolitical developments on our planet. Remote sensing can document, monitor and analyze many of these effects. Destruction caused by acts of war and armed conflicts, the effects of flight manifested by refugee camps or slum areas, or displacement caused by evictions, natural hazards and much more. In combination with other geolocalizable data from social media or online news, underlying socio-economic-political processes can also enrich remote sensing information or make results plausible.
In relation to the famous book “Les Misérables” by Victor Hugo, this lecture deliberately switches the perspective between remote sensing analysis on trends, aggregated statistical numbers and cartographic representations and people affected and suffering. The aim is to make processes generally understandable through remote sensing and, through the eyes of those affected, to clarify what this means beyond figures and trends on individual levels.
