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I am a Professor of Remote Sensing in the Department of Geography and a member of the Environmental Monitoring and Modelling Group. I am also a member of the NERC National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO).
- More about Professor Disney
My background was a BSc in physics, followed by our very own UCL MSc in remote sensing. I then studied radiative transfer modelling of crop canopies for my PhD, using detailed 3D models to explore the information content of moderate resolution satellite data, to test simpler models and validate new (at the time!) satellite albedo products based on these simpler approaches. This led to work with NASA colleagues on the MODIS BRDF/albedo product, amongst other things.
My research interests lie in using new observations of terrestrial ecosystems, particularly trees and forests, across scales from individual leaves to global. My aim is to better understand the interactions between vegetation, climate and people, by quantifying the relationships between tree form and function. I do this by combining traditional field measurements with cutting-edge new technologies including in particular ground-based terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and satellite Earth Observation (EO). The approaches I have helped develop are now being used to underpin new space-based global forest measurements by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), among other international organisations e.g. for calibration and validation of the forthcoming NASA GEDI (2018) and ESA BIOMASS (2021) missions. I have led field campaigns across the tropics as well as in the US and Europe.
I have pioneered the use of new highly accurate TLS measurements and models to provide unique 3D measurements of forest structure and biomass. These measurements are proving to be of critical importance in reducing uncertainty in estimates of tropical forest C stocks from ground and space. My new approach to ‘weighing’ trees with lasers by calculating their 3D shape and volume very precisely, is providing new insights into current tropical forest C stocks. I have collaborated widely with partners across the tropics to characterise forest AGB, for example in the new AmazonFACE CO2 enrichment experiment set up near Manaus and funded by (among others) INPA, CNPq and Brasil Governo Federal. Under various funding from NERC, the EC and others I am generating new samples of tree volume (and mass) with which to test existing methods and develop improved relationships with much lower uncertainty. This is particularly important for the UN programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) in terms of valuation of avoided deforestation C in tropical forests.
My work on characterising forest structure is also providing new ways to test fundamental hypotheses relating tree and forest structure to function: what controls tree size and shape? How do size and form reflect the various contributions of metabolic, environmental and evolutionary constraints? What are the implications for responses to disturbance and change? These questions are almost impossible to answer for large, hyper-diverse trees and forests; accurate measurements of the tree structures of the sort I have developed are providing new insights and empirical tests of these hypotheses, which have been sorely lacking so far. This work has led to a wide range of publications, outreach activities, and funding to lead field campaigns, develop methods, and organise and participate in international workshops and research networks around the broad themes of new forest measurements. I was co-recipient of funding from the Royal Society to hold a special meeting on the Terrestrial Laser Scanning revolution in forest ecology (Feb 2017) and guest editor of and contributor to the subsequent special issue of the Royal Society: Interface Focus special issue (as well as providing the cover image). I have collaborated widely including with groups in the UK, Europe, the US, Australia, Ghana, Gabon, Brazil, Peru, Malaysia and elsewhere. As part of my outreach and impact activities in the area of public understanding, my work has featured in various recent high-profile documentaries for the BBC, and in the wider press. I maintain a blog around my work which has led to new public outreach activities, including in schools, with local government community organisations, charities, artists and museums e.g. Trees for Cities, Friends of the Earth, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum etc.
You can find out more about what I do, and some of the exciting places we've been working, on my lidar research blog here. I collaborate widely; I'm a firm believer that sharing data & ideas etc. means we all move forward faster. Perhaps more importantly, working with other people opens my eyes to new ways of doing things and generates potential new areas of research. That's got to be a good thing!
- Teaching
I teach a range of undergraduate and Masters-level courses covering remote sensing, modelling, measurement and applications, as well as more generally on the philosophy of science and scientific method. Full details are on the UCL moodle pages.
- Publications
To view Professor Disney's publications, please visit UCL Profiles:
- Research Interests
My research is more generally in the interactions of radiation (predominantly at optical wavelengths) with the land surface. In particular, I am interested in how radiation interacts with vegetation, how we can model and understand this interaction and how we can exploit it to quantify and understand the terrestrial biosphere, particularly related to the carbon cycle - how plants take up and release carbon, naturally, in response to changing climate and under an increasing range of anthropogenic disturbances (eg fire, land use change, agriculture, deforestation and degradation etc). Satellites allow us large-scale but very indirect observations of surface biophysical properties, particularly the extent and dynamics of vegetation. Much of my research effort has been directed at new ways of exploiting observations of this sort to provide quantitative estimates of these things that are consistent with our understanding of climate-carbon cycle models and observations. The image below sums up our aims - this shows an area of temperate rainforest on Fraser Island, Northern Queensland, Australia. The variety of structure (shadows, texture) and variations in leaf colour (to do with chlorophyll and water content) is very striking. My aim is to understand and exploit this 'signal' much better than we can do currently, for all sorts of applications that rely on knowing the state of forests like this.
I've continued to work with 3D models over the last few years, as they give us an unprecedented level of detail with which to model radiation interacting with the surface - and this is our satellite signal. Faster, cheaper computers mean we can use these models in ways we never could even a few years ago. I have worked with on the librat modelling software, which we have developed over the years into a powerful modelling tool, which we make freely available. We have used the tools for a range of applications and projects, including exploring lidar signals, modelling fire impacts and benchmarking and testing simpler models, as part of the ongoing Radiative Transfer Model Intercomparison (RAMI) project; librat is one of the 'credible models' used in the RAMI online model checker. The librat wiki page contains some documentation on the software along with a list of some of the student projects and publications arising from librat over the years. We are always amenable to further collaborations using librat, so drop us an email.
A recent project which demonstrates an application of my 3D radiative transfer work, funded by the European Space Agency Support to Science Element, is 3D Veglab. The project, led by Felix Morsdorf at the University of Zurich, has developed an open toolbox of 3D models and simulation tools, including our librat modelling software. A nice movie (produced by Felix and the UZH group) demonstrating how the toolbox was put together is shown below.
YouTube Widget Placeholderhttps://youtu.be/3mB86LjDu_g I have a number of movies I've simulated over the years for various teaching and research applications here. Feel free to use these but please provide attribution.
In the last few years, I have become interested in how we can use new, more direct EO measurements from terrestrial lidar scanning (TLS) to probe canopy 3D structure and function. I have been developing new models and methods to exploit these observations to extract canopy structure and biomass. This has involved extensive fieldwork across a range of environments, including many tropical locations, as well as the US, UK and others. For more detail on some of the places we have collected TLS, see our map, generated by Matheus Boni Vicari. We have extended this work to urban areas most recently, using open-access airborne lidar, with satellite and ground-based observations, to help quantify the extent and benefits of urban forests. For example, we have showed that there are small pockets of London that have very high biomass (carbon) density, equivalent to tropical rainforests. This is often poorly captured, and hence valued, by current methods. I work with a wide range of ecologists, forestry and climate researchers, as well as NGOs and organisations interested in the human relationship to trees and forests. I discuss some of these areas in more detail on my blog. We also put examples of our 3D models on Sketchfab, on my page, Phil's.
- Impact
My research in recent years has involved funding and collaboration across a range of sources and disciplines, including UK research councils, NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), EU, as well as NGOs and other organisations. The research has been part of work contributing to the provision of information on global environmental processes, particularly vegetation and the land surface more generally, that has been used nationally and internationally to inform government and agency activities. Examples of this include the development and testing of global satellite datasets such as albedo, provided by NASA and ESA and used by a wide variety of governments, NGOs and other users such as the Met Office and ECMWF; development of new methods for monitoring change (particularly fire impacts) and forest carbon stocks eg for NGOs, African National Parks agencies (Gabon, S. Africa). Work on albedo has been featured in the IPCC AR4 (2007) and AR5 (2013).
My terrestrial lidar work is being used by space agencies (NASA, ESA) as part of the calibration/validation of new space-based estimates of forest biomass and C stocks. The approach I have developed is cited by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) as a transformative approach in their Good Practice Guidelines to national Greenhouse Gas reporting (IPCC GPG GHG reporting 2019, Chapter 2, Volume 4). The IPCC emphasises that the adoption of transparent and reliable forest biomass estimation will be key to effective forest carbon accounting for the COP21 Paris Agreement. I have helped develop a new way to look at urban trees and so-called ‘urban forests’ for the public, policymakers and other organisations such as local charities and NGOs with interests in urban greening. This work involves collaboration with local government tree officers, the GLA and Forestry England (formerly the UK Forestry Commission), NGOs and charities among others. The 2019 Friends of the Earth campaign to double UK tree cover by 2030, More Trees Please, featured a filmed section where I talk about how we can better measure and value trees. My lidar work has been featured in various television documentaries including BBC films The Oak Tree: Nature's Greatest Survivor, Life and Death On Your Lawn, and Dame Judi Dench: My Passion for Trees. I have given invited talks on this work in a wide range of public settings including primary and secondary schools, policymakers, planners etc.
I have led various consultancy projects through UCL, working with a range of industrial partners including via collaborative PhD research funding, enabling the development of new remote sensing methods and instrumentation, particularly lidar. I have sat on government panels assessing government funding in environmental science for a range of agencies including NERC, NASA, ESA, the Environmental Protection Agency of Ireland and the Australian National Research Council, among others.
Outreach
I have participated in and/or led a number of activities to bring the work I do to the wider public, as well as trying to promote interest in science topics more generally. I have been involved in two Royal Society Summer Exhibitions and contributed material on forests, fire and carbon to the NERC representative (Prof. Shaun Quegan) presenting examples of NERC-funded environmental science to the Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology. I have been involved in the Network for Calibration and Validation of Earth Observation Data (NERC Knowledge Transfer project) and wider international CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation activities (e.g. lead of core MODIS validation site in the UK; co-lead of CEO LPV subgroup on biomass). I regularly give lectures to schools across a range of age groups (from 11 to 18), focusing on topics of carbon, forests and climate change. I have given live presentations to children via virtual learning environments and I have written for national school publications on these same topics. My lidar scanning work has been featured in a number of recent documentaries, including the award-winning Oak Tree: Nature's Greatest Survivor; and Life and Death on Your Lawn.
I maintain a blog of my lidar activities and I am active on Twitter as @mathiasdisney
- Research Students
Current PhD Students
- 2019-current: Wanxin Yang, New ways to exploit 3D terrestrial lidar for forest structure and function
- 2018-current: Chiara Aquino, Univ of Edinburgh, joint supervision with Dr Ed Mitchard and Dr Steve Hancock.
- 2015-current: James Brennan (2nd supervisor): New approaches to monitoring and quantifying fire impacts from Earth Observation, supervised by Prof. P. Lewis; funded by NCEO.
- 2014-current: Niall Origo Measurement and modelling of absorbed photosynthetic radiation in forest canopies: quantifying uncertainty for global observations and models; part-time, PhD funded by National Physical Laboratory.
Past PhD Students
- 2015-2019: Matheus Boni Vicari: Ecological applications of wood-leaf separation from terrestrial lidar; funded by Brazilian Govt. Students Without Borders studentship.
- 2014-2018: Jennifer Adams. Topic: Standards for the validation of geophysical remote sensing products; EU studentship, in conjunction with JRC Ispra (Nadine Gobron lead supervisor).
- 2012-2016: Andrew Burt. Topic: Quantifying forest state and degradation: exploiting new measurements and models. NERC CASE studentship, in conjunction with EADS Astrium. Co-supervisors: Prof. P. Lewis and Prof. S. Lewis (both UCL).
- 2012-2016: Charlotte Wheeler (2nd supervisor). Topic: Designing Tropical Forests of the Future to mitigate Climate Change. NERC CASE studentship in conjunction with Permian, supervised by Prof. S. Lewis (UCL).
- 2007-2011: Natasha Macbean. Topic: Monitoring and modelling vegetation response under catchment-scale treatment regimes using Earth Observation (EO) data. Joint CTCD/UKPopnet studentship. Co-supervisor: Prof. Phil Ineson, University of York.
- 2006-2010: Steven Hancock: CASE studentship. Co-supervisor with Prof. P. Lewis and Prof. P. Muller. Additional: supervisory role/input in various other PhD studentships including Dr John Armston (University of Queensland, Australia) and Dr Will Woodgate (University of Melbourne, Australia).
- 2005-2009: Martin DeKauwe. Topic: Data assimilation: Integrating EO data into ecosystem models. Co-supervisor with Professor P. Lewis (UCL), Professor M. Williams (Edinburgh) and Professor S. Evans (Forest Research).
MSc students
Many (2005-present, not a full list and in no particular order) across MSc Remote Sensing and Environmental Mapping, MSc Remote Sensing, MSc Environmental Mapping, MSc Conservation, MSc Climate Change:
- Ben Grundy
- Lena Weissert
- Jacques Malaprade
- Sam Fleming
- Vasilios Kalogirou
- Louise Ireland
- Ruth Boogert
- Martin Vickers
- Niall Origo
- Will Vincent
- Alasdair Hitchens
- Jennifer Adams
- Lin Guo
- Meng Yu
- Chloe Fletcher
- Sicong Tang
- Xingbei Guo
- Wanxin Yang
- Oliver Baines
- Yuchen Guo
- Research Grants, Prizes and Awards
- ESA AO/1-9584/18/NL/AI: Forestscan: New technology for characterising forest structure and biomass at ‘Super Sites’ for EO cal/val across the tropics (€500K, PI, with Wageningen Univ., Univ of Leeds, AMAP, CIRAD, Univ of Edinburgh, Univ of Cambs).
- NERC Standard Grant: A 3D perspective on the effects of topography and wind on forest height dynamics, NE/S010750/1, (£66K, PI, lead RO Cambridge, David Coomes).
- CALFIRE: Evaluating plot-level remote sensing tools to increase accuracy and efficiency of fuels management approaches, (£32K, PI, lead RO Sonoma State Univ, California PI Lisa Bentley).
- NERC Standard Grant: The multi-trophic impact of ash dieback, NE/T007648/1 (£797K, PI, lead RO Oxford, PI Yadvinder Malhi).
- EU Horizon 20:20: FODEX: Tropical Forest Degradation Experiment, proposal 757526: (€244K of €1.9M total, PI, lead RO Edinburgh, PI Ed Mitchard).
- NERC Standard Grant: Understanding tree architecture, form and function in the tropics, NE/P011780/1: (£250K, PI, lead RO Oxford, PI Yadvinder Malhi).
- NASA ROSES Carbon Monitoring System (CMS): Future Mission Fusion for High Biomass Forest Carbon Accounting, led by T. Fatoyinbo and L. Duncanson ($30K, collaborator).
- AmazonFACE travel award, Manaus, Brazil: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (cNPQ) Brazil (£5K, PI).
- Studentship: Brazilian National funding via Students without Borders (~£100K, PI)
- NERC Capital Award: Handheld laser scanning instrument for rapid 3D measurement (£31K), PI.
- NERC Standard Grant: Weighing Trees with Lasers: reducing uncertainty in tropical forest biomass and allometry: NE/N00373X/1 (£630K, PI).
- 2015-2016 ESA BIOMASS mission support: Calibration/validation campaign at AfriSCAT site, Akasa, Ghana: in conjunction with Wageningen University, €25K, co-I.
- 2015 Noragues Travel Grants Program, French Guiana: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France), ~€10K, PI.
- 2015-2018 NCEO PhD studentship: New methods of monitoring and modelling disturbance using EO, £85.5K.
- 2014-2015: NERC National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) Phase 2: Terrestrial Carbon and Vegetation, 3D RT modelling and measurement, UCL component £248K for first 18 months, PI with Prof. P. Lewis.
- 2015-2018 EU FP7: METEOC2: Metrology for Earth Observation and Climate: II, €5M total led by National Physical Laboratory, UCL unfunded partner to NPL value of ~£300K, co-I.
- 2015-2018 EU Horizon 20:20 BACI: Detecting changes in the essential ecosystem and biodiversity properties – towards a Biosphere Atmosphere Change Index (BACI), €3.3M total, consortium of 10 partners; UCL component €246, PI.
- 2014-2018 EU FP7 QA4ECV: Quality Assurance for Essential Climate Variables, €5M total, UCL component €440K (shared between MSSL: €312K and Geog €127K).
- NERC Capital Award: Terrestrial laser scanner, £117K.
- 2013-2017 NERC GREENHOUSE: Generating Regional Emissions Estimates with a Novel
- Hierarchy of Observations and Upscaled Simulation Experiments, £156K from £2.5M total consortium, led by Edinburgh Geosciences (NE/K002554/1).
- 2012-2016: NERC PhD CASE studentship with EADS Astrium, Quantifying forest state and degradation: exploiting new lidar measurements (~£100k), PI.
- 2011-2013: ESA 3DVegLab: A 3D modelling tool for simulating remote sensing observations (€70K).
- 2009-2010: ESA ASCOPE: Simulating the reflectivity of spaceborne LIDAR (€100K).
- 2008-2012: PI in rebid for carbon component of NERC National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), NE/F001444/1.
- 2007-2010: NERC PhD studentship, with CTCD and UKPopnet, including £10k funding for fieldwork and data
- 2007-2010: European Science Foundation ATANS (Abisko Transnational Researcher) travel funding (£6K).
- 2006-2009: Arctic Biosphere-Atmosphere Coupling across multiple Scales (ABACUS), NERC Consortium project, £205K.
- 2004-2007: NERC Capital Equipment Grant: "ASD Spectroradiometer" £78K
- 2004-2007: Associate co-I: NERC Centre of Excellence in Earth Observation "The Centre for Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics", £2.25M (UCL protion approx £450K)
Data Funding/Science Teams
- 2007+: ESA PI (ABACUS project)
- 2000+: CHRIS-PROBA
- 2000+: Multiple NERC ARSF acquisitions
