EAGLE Internship Presentation “Effect of Semicircular Bunds for Soil moisture conservation in Ethiopia”

EAGLE Internship Presentation “Effect of Semicircular Bunds for Soil moisture conservation in Ethiopia”

m

presentation

January 27, 2025

On January 28, 2025, Suriya Elango will present his internship on “Effect of Semicircular Bunds for Soil moisture conservation in Ethiopia” at 12:00 in seminar room 3, John-Skilton-Str. 4a.

 

From the abstract:

This study assessed the impact of semi-circular soil bunds on soil moisture conservation in the semi-arid Desa forest region of Ethiopia.  Implemented in 2020-2021, the bunds were evaluated against a control region using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data processed in Google Earth Engine (GEE).  Analysis was conducted seasonally (Bega, Belg, Kiremt) corresponding to dry, medium, and high rainfall periods.  Sentinel-1 GRD parameters, including VH/VV ratio, and Sentinel-2 derived indices (NDVI, GVMI, MSAVI, LSWI) were extracted.  A novel approach integrating LSWI and EVI with the Water Cloud Model was employed to enhance soil moisture prediction. Random forest regression modeling yielded R² values of 0.2 for Sentinel-2 data, 0.48 for Sentinel-1 (VH/VV ratio being key), and 0.8 for fused data.  Results indicate a significant increase in total water content within bunded fields since 2020, demonstrating the effectiveness of semi-circular bunds for improving soil moisture retention and potentially enhancing agricultural resilience in arid Ethiopian environments

 

Supervisor: Dr. Dhillon Maninder Singh

Hosting institution: Weforest.org

you may also like:

John Friesen gives a talk at DLR

John Friesen gives a talk at DLR

On the 17th of July, Dr. John Friesen gave a inspiring talk at the seminar of the department "Georisks and Civil Security (GZS)" at the Earth Observation Center (EOC) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The talk was titled "Urbanization and infrastructure in the...

Presentation at the largest volcano conference

Presentation at the largest volcano conference

On July 3, 2025, our habilitation candidate and guest lecturer from DLR Dr. Simon Plank presented a study on the evolution of newly born volcanic islands at the largest international conference of the volcano science community, the Scientific Assembly of the...