Dr. M.T. Marshall | People Pages: Find employees & contact details

I seek to improve our understanding of crop carbon and water exchange from field to global scales. I answer my research questions with models that capture the spatio-temporal dynamics of agricultural production (area × yield) and evapotranspiration. The models are: (i) implemented in a Geographic Information System; (ii) based on principles of light-use efficiency and machine-learning; and (iii) driven by Earth observation, climate reanalysis, and other geospatial information. The work flow reduces uncertainties in crop models and improves agricultural monitoring systems, as well as motivates my teaching and capacity-building activities. The long-term impact of my work is increased agricultural production, enhanced resilience of crops to drought and other climate shocks, and reduced CO₂ emissions caused by agricultural expansion into natural ecosystems. Such outcomes help achieve Sustainable Development Goal SDG-2 (“Zero Hunger”), SDG-6 (“Clean Water and Sanitation”), SDG-13 (“Climate Action”), and SDG-15 (“Life on Land”).

Editor of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

Expertise

Earth and Planetary Sciences
- Model
- Cartography
- Investigation
- Remote Sensing
- Vegetation Index
- Evapotranspiration
- Farmland
- Datum

Organisations

Associate professor in crop resilience and sustainable land use:

Many regions of the world are experiencing rapid population growth, which will push farming deeper into natural ecosystems as the amount of available farmland per person dwindles. The change in croplands will impact our global carbon and water cycles by modifying carbon storage and rainfall triggered by evapotranspiration, but where, when, and to what degree remain highly uncertain. The position addresses the uncertainty by (i) analyzing crop cover-carbon-water use dynamics from field to global scales, (ii) integrating remote sensing data into agricultural monitoring systems, and (iii) applying knowledge-based, machine learning model hybrids. The activities increase agricultural production, enhance crop resilience to climate shocks, and reduce agriculture-related CO₂ emissions.

Publications

2024

The influence of temporal resolution on crop yield estimation with Earth Observation data assimilation (2024)Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 36. Article 101272. Tilahun, B. S., Marshall, M. T., Mengistu, D. & Nelson, A. D.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2024.101272Characterizing crop productivity under heat stress using MODIS data (2024)Agricultural and forest meteorology, 355, 1-15. Article 110116. Lai, P., Marshall, M., Darvishzadeh, R., Tu, K. & Nelson, A.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.110116Enhancing regional estimates of evapotranspiration with earth observation data (2024)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC). Zhang, L.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036561259Crop growth and yield monitoring in smallholder agricultural systems: a multi-sensor data fusion approach (2024)[Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT]. University of Twente, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC). Tilahun, B. S.https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036560818Enhanced Detection of Artisanal Small-Scale Mining with Spectral and Textural Segmentation of Landsat Time Series (2024)Remote sensing, 16(10). Article 1749. Fonseca, A., Marshall, M. T. & Salama, S.https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16101749A method for estimating physical and economic food access at high spatial resolution (2024)Food security, 16, 47-64. Campomanes, F. V., Marshall, M. & Nelson, A.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-023-01404-1Assimilation of Earth Observation data for crop yield estimation in smallholder agricultural systems (2024)IEEE Journal of selected topics in applied earth observations and remote sensing, 17, 557-572. Sisheber, B., Marshall, M., Mengistu, D. & Nelson, A.https://doi.org/10.1109/jstars.2023.3329237

2023

Association of catchment characteristics to Budyko hydrologic model’s uncertainty in humid catchments (2023)In Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology XXV. Article 127270W. SPIE. Zhang, L., Marshall, M., Vrieling, A. & Nelson, A.https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2679836Biogeographic limits of C4 engineered rice (2023)[Working paper › Preprint]. Research Square Publications. Marshall, M., Haridasan, D., Florencio, C. V., van der Tol, C., Vrieling, A., Tu, K., Zhang, L. & Nelson, A.https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3333949/v1Detecting the long-term spatiotemporal crop phenology changes in a highly fragmented agricultural landscape (2023)Agricultural and forest meteorology, 340. Article 109601. Tilahun, B. S., Marshall, M., Mengistu, D. & Nelson, A.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109601

Research profiles

I grew up in the Mojave Desert where a few spectacular weeks a year a wanderer’s senses are stimulated by the unique smells of thirst-quenched soil and sudden wildflower blooms. These early experiences and my exposure to amazing educators influenced me profoundly. Consequently, I am driven to understand how we impact our environment and to help students discover their own passion in this regard.

Past Webinar

Monitoring Rangeland Carrying Capacity with EO

Noy-Meir Carrying Capacity Calculation

Supplementary Reading

Ungar (2019)

de Leeuw et al. (2019)

Courses academic year 2024/2025

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.