I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Natural Resources, Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation. My research and teaching focus on land cover monitoring and the estimation of vegetation biophysical parameters using active remote sensing across multiple scales, particularly in forest and agricultural ecosystems. I develop land cover classifications and retrieval algorithms for vegetation height, structure, and aboveground biomass using interferometric and polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and laser scanning data from both spaceborne and airborne platforms. Additionally, I am interested in upscaling quantitative vegetation metrics, such as height and biomass, from field measurements to remote sensing data. The used methodologies encompass empirical and physically-based modeling, as well as data science techniques. The ultimate goal of biophysical parameter retrieval is to enhance our understanding of ecological functions, ecosystem services, and the resilience of forests and agricultural systems, as well as their changes in transformation processes (e.g., from forest to cropland).

Before joining the University of Twente in 2020, I obtained a BSc, a MSc and a PhD from the University of Jena, Germany. My PhD was on the use of interferometric SAR data for land cover monitoring and aboveground biomass retrieval, and was completed in 2015. Between 2016 and 2018, I was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Mission Science Division of the European Space Agency. In addition, I was a Scientist at the University of Göttingen between 2018 and 2020.

Expertise

  • Earth and Planetary Sciences

    • Datum
    • Synthetic Aperture Radar
    • Forest
    • TanDEM-X
    • Height
    • Aboveground Biomass
    • Canopy
    • Model

Organisations

Publications

2025

Potential of Sentinel-1 time-series data for monitoring the phenology of European temperate forests (2025)ISPRS journal of photogrammetry and remote sensing, 223, 131-145 (E-pub ahead of print/First online). Schlund, M.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2025.02.026Leveraging educational partnerships to integrate education for sustainable development into university geoscience curriculum (2025)International journal of sustainability in higher education, 26(9), 131-148. Maganini, M., Herndon, K. E., Loran, T. M., Griffin, R. E., Anderson, E. R., van der Meer, F. D., Darvishzadeh, R., Paris, C., Rietbroek, R., Huesca Martinez, M. & Schlund, M.https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-07-2024-0445Investigating LiDAR Metrics for Old-Growth Beech- and Spruce-Dominated Forest Identification in Central Europe (2025)Remote sensing, 17(2). Article 251. Adiningrat, D. P., Skidmore, A. K., Schlund, M., Wang, T., Abdullah, H. & Heurich, M.https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17020251Estimation of transplanting and harvest dates of rice crops in the Philippines using Sentinel-1 data (2025)Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 37. Article 101435. Galay Cauba Jr., A., Darvishzadeh, R., Schlund, M., Nelson, A. D. & Laborte, A. G.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2024.101435

2024

Diverse and larger tree islands promote native tree diversity in oil palm landscapes (2024)Science, 386(6723), 795–802. Paterno, G. B., Brambach, F., Guerrero-Ramírez, N., Zemp, D. C., Cantillo, A. F., Camarretta, N., Moura, C. C. M., Gailing, O., Ballauff, J., Polle, A., Schlund, M., Erasmi, S., Iddris, N. A., Khokthong, W., Sundawati, L., Irawan, B., Hölscher, D. & Kreft, H.https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ado1629Mapping aboveground biomass in Indonesian lowland forests using GEDI and hierarchical models (2024)Remote sensing of environment, 313. Article 114384. May, P. B., Schlund, M., Armston, J., Kotowska, M. M., Brambach, F., Wenzel, A. & Erasmi, S.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2024.114384Comparing airborne and terrestrial LiDAR with ground-based inventory metrics of vegetation structural complexity in oil palm agroforests (2024)Ecological indicators, 166. Article 112306. Montoya-Sánchez, V., Camarretta, N., Ehbrecht, M., Schlund, M., Brant Paterno, G., Seidel, D., Guerrero-Ramírez, N., Brambach, F., Hölscher, D., Kreft, H., Irawan, B., Sundawati, L. & Zemp, D. C.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.112306Mapping temperate old-growth forests in Central Europe using ALS and Sentinel-2A multispectral data (2024)Environmental monitoring and assessment, 196. Article 841. Adiningrat, D. P., Schlund, M., Skidmore, A. K., Abdullah, H., Wang, T. & Heurich, M.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-024-12993-5Estimation of transplanting and harvest dates of Rice crops in the Philippines using Sentinel-1 data (2024)[Working paper › Preprint]. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Galay Cauba Jr., A., Darvishzadeh, R., Schlund, M., Nelson, A. D. & Laborte, A. G.https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4939576Detection and attribution of cereal yield losses using Sentinel-2 and weather data: A case study in South Australia (2024)ISPRS journal of photogrammetry and remote sensing, 213, 33-52. Duan, K., Vrieling, A., Schlund, M., Nidumolu, U. B., Ratcliff, C., Collings, S. & Nelson, A.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2024.05.021

Research profiles

Address

University of Twente

Langezijds (building no. 19), room 1125
Hallenweg 8
7522 NH Enschede
Netherlands

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