ULTRA-HIGH RESOLUTION MAPS AND MODELS AS TOOLS FOR MANAGING AND MONITORING ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE GEOSITES (ESTRELA UNESCO GLOBAL GEOPARK, PORTUGAL)

Fogo in Cabo Verde is one of the most active ocean island volcanoes on Earth, posing important hazards to local populations and at a regional level. The last eruption occurred from November 2014 to February 2015. A survey of the Chã das Caldeiras area was conducted using a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle. A point cloud, digital surface model and orthomosaic with 10 and 25 cm resolutions are provided, together with the full aerial survey projects and datasets.

A 2-D automated electrical resistivity tomography (A-ERT) system was installed for the first time in Antarctica at Deception Island to (i) monitor subsurface freezing and thawing processes on a daily and seasonal basis and map the spatial and temporal variability of thaw depth and to (ii) study the impact of short-lived extreme meteorological events on active layer dynamics.

Little is known about permafrost in the Antarctic outside of the few research stations. We used a simple equilibrium permafrost model to estimate permafrost temperatures in the whole Antarctic. The lowest permafrost temperature on Earth is −36 °C in the Queen Elizabeth Range in the Transantarctic Mountains. Temperatures are commonly between −23 and −18 °C in mountainous areas rising above the Antarctic Ice Sheet, between −14 and −8 °C in coastal areas, and up to 0 °C on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The Toubkal is the highest massif in North Africa (4167 m). Landforms and deposits above 3000 m show the effects of frost action in the present-day geomorphological dynamics, but data on ground temperatures were lacking. In this study ground surface temperature data measured across an altitudinal transect are presented and analysed for the first time. The highlight is the possible occurrence of permafrost at an elevation of 3800 m, which may be of high ecological and hydrological significance.

We evaluate the use of high-resolution microwave satellite images from TerraSAR-X for mapping snow-patch distribution in ice-free areas of the maritime Antarctic (King George Island). The imagery was acquired simultaneously to ground truthing of snow. Image classification resulted in very high accuracy when discriminating between snow, water and bare ground. The method provides a solution for characterizing the snowmelt patterns in the ice-free areas of the Antarctic Peninsula.