Environmental Change in Siberia: Earth Observation, Field Studies and Modelling

Professor Balzter Heiko Balzter is Professor in Physical Geography and Head of the Geography Department at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. His research interests include biosphere / climate interactions and their responses to environmental change, with a focus on remote sensing and modelling approaches. From 1998 to 2006 he worked at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology at Monks Wood, UK, where he was leading the Section for Earth Observation for three years. Professor Balzter has contributed to many major international and interdisciplinary research projects (supported by the European Commission, European Space Agency and British funding sources), including SIBERIA, SIBERIA-2, SIBFORD, GEOLAND and GEOLAND2. His academic background is in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and he received his Dipl.-Ing. agr. degree in 1994 with a dissertation topic on methods for vegetation sampling, and his Dr. agr. in 1998 from Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen, Germany, for a thesis on vegetation modelling using Markov Chains and Cellular Automata.