LATEST PUBLICATIONS
  • Sobrino, J.A., Julien, Y. & Morales, L. (2011). Changes in vegetation spring dates in the second half of the 20th century. RInternational Journal of Remote Sensing, DOI: 10.1080 / 01431161. 2010 .496470.
  • Julien, Y., Sobrino, J. A. & Jiménez-Muñoz, J.-C. (2011). Land use classification from multitemporal Landsat imagery using the Yearly Land Cover Dynamics (YLCD) method. International Journal of Applied Earth Observations and Geoinformation, 13 (2011), 711-720.
  • Julien, Y., Sobrino, J. A., Mattar, C., Ruescas, A. B., Jiménez-Muñoz, J.-C., Sòria, G., Hidalgo, V., Atitar, M., Franch, B. & Cuenca, J. (2011). Temporal analysis of NDVI and LST parameters to detect changes in the Iberian land cover between 1981 and 2001. International Journal of Remote Sensing, Vol. 32, No. 7, 2057-2068.
  • C. Mattar, J. A. Sobrino, Y. Julien & L. Morales. Trends in Column Integrated Water Vapor from 1973 to 2003 over Europe. International Journal of Climatology. 10.1002/joc.2186. 2010.
  • C. Corbari, J. A. Sobrino, M. Mancini, M. V. Hidalgo. Land surface temperature representativeness in an heterogeneous area through a distributed energy water balance model and remote sensing data. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 14 (2010) ,2141–2151.
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  • The Gobal Change Unit (GCU) was established as a Reseach group of the University of Valencia in 1996, based on the initiative of its current director PhD. José A. Sobrino, professor of Earth Physics in this University. Nowadays it’s constituted by the following members, PhD Juan Carlos Jiménez, Juan Cuenca, Yves Julien, Guillem Soria, as well as the PhD students, Belen Franch, Victoria Hidalgo, Cristian Mattar and Rosa Oltra.
  • The research area of Global Change Unit is related to changes that happen in our planet, which are analyzed with Remote Sensing Satellites and Digital Treatment support. The aim of our research group is to develop operative algorithms to estimate different biophysical parameters such as Land Surface Temperature, Sea Surface Temperature, surface emissivity, ground albedo, thermal inertia, evapotranspiration, neyjhfgyijit radiation, atmospheric water vapor content, among others. All of this is based on remote sensors localized on satellites platforms (AVHRR, TM, AATSR, MODIS; SEVIRI, METOP, ASTER) and airborne sensors (DAIS, AHS, ect). In addition, GCU also organize and realize field campaigns frequently where some of this parameters are determined using Radiometers, thermal cameras, ect.
  • At present, the GCU belongs to the Image Processing Laboratory (IPL) of the University of Valencia together with other 3 research groups: GACE - Group of Astronomy and Space Sciences, LEO - Laboratory of Earth Observations and GPDS - Group of Digital Signal Processing.

    The LPI disposes of many scientific instruments such as two satellite receiving antenna corresponding to MSG (Meteosat Secong Generation) and NOAA Satellites, as well as satellite reception station that allows to record TERRA and AQUA satellite images (www.uv.es/iplsat/). The IPL was created with the purpose of becoming a reference centre which achieved the algorithms developed from satellite images at real time, saving a satellite database that could be available to any public institution interested in monitoring natural disasters, desertification, forest fires, etc., and taking part in earth observation projects for future space missions, at national and international levels such as the FLEX mission, which is coordinated by a LPI researcher, whose pre-phase A has been approved by the European Space Agency - ESA.

    The GCU also has important experience on active participation in many research projects, leading two European projects:
    - WATERMED "WATer use Efficiency in natural vegetation and agricultural areas by Remote sensing in the MEDiterranean basin" where have taken part five groups from Spain, Denmark, France, Egypt and Morocco.
    - EAGLE "Exploitation of AnGular effects in Land surfacE observations from satellites" where have participated Spanish, Dutch and French groups.

    and participating in the current European projects WATCH "Water and Global Change" of the Sixth Framework Programme and CEOP-AEGIS "Coordinated Asia-European long-term Observing system of Qinghai - Tibet Plateau hydro-meteorological processes and the Asian monsoon-with systEm Ground Image satellite data and numerical Simulations" the VII program. We have also been involved and / or leaded other projects financed by the European Space Agency (CEFLES2, AGRISAR, SEN2FLEX, SPARC, SIFLEX and DAISEX), the Ministry of Education and Science and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECI).

    It must be emphasized the numerous collaborations with national and international research centres, particularly with International institute for Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation (ITC) from Holland, the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) at NASA, the Alterra Research Institue at Wageningen University and Research Center in Holland, The Washington University (USA), The National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) in Holland, The Institut National de Recerche Agronomique (INRA) in Avignon and Burdeos (France), the Groupe de Recherche en Télédetection Radiométrique at Louis Pasteur University from Straburg (France), the Laboratory of Sostenible Agricultur of CSIC in Córdoba, the Environmental Science and Natural Renewable Resources of Uniersity of Chile (Chile), the Marrakech University (Marrakech), the Earth Observation Science Group at University of Leicester (United Kingdom), the National Laboratoy RISOE at Technic Deenmark University, among others.

    As a result of this research experience, numerous doctoral investigations have been developed, as well as publications in international journals and specialized communications which are available on the unit website: www.uv.es/ucg

    José A. Sobrino is also the founder of the quadrennial international conferences "Recent Advances in Quantitative Remote Sensing", held in 2002 and 2006 in Torrent (Valencia), and organized by the UCG. It attended more than 200 experts in remote sensing around the world, and was supported by ESA, NASA and the EU among others (www.uv.es/raqrs). The third congress is scheduled for September of 2010 in Valencia, we wait for you.