Studying contemporary geomorphic processes from photomodelling (Belgium, North France)

Rapid and detailed understanding of geomorphic processes is of paramount importance whenever societies want to ensure their sustainability, especially facing global climate change. Over the past decades, emerging technologies (e.g., lidar) allowaed to quantify landforms at high accuracies. However, the applicability of such technologies is often limited due to the high costs involved, the experience required to operate the equipments and practical limitation given by the field conditions. Therefore, this project aims at elaborating a new framework for studying landforms by the use of image-based 3D photomodelling. The latterbasically allows to create accurate 3D models by photographing an object from different viewpoints with a normal camera. The technology was already used successfully in other fields, but few examples exist from the field of the earth science. Based on geomorphological expertise and technological knowhow at the Department of Geography at Ghent University I aim at gaining expertise in the image-based 3D modelling of geomorphic features and processes. Focus areas are Belgium and North France, and additionally, Montenegro and Ethiopia. I will consider a wide range of landforms, including rills, gullies, landslides, glaciers, etc. Promoting the research will be done by means of international publications, conference contribution, the organisation of a workshop (own funding) and outreaching to local and region authorities responsible for erosion control.