The goal of the TERENO initiative is the long-term monitoring and documentation of
proposed climate change, changes in land use, social-economic developments and
anthropogenic influences on terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore long-term observations of
multitemporal environmental parameters at different scale are the basis for gathering
information on changes of the available water resources, material flows, or further
ecological changes.
The Durable Environmental Multidisciplinary Monitoring Information Network (DEMMIN®)
located in the North-east of Germany was installed by German Aerospace Center in 1999
for Calibration and Validation of Remote Sensing data at agricultural areas. Due to its
physiographic composition and typical agricultural management the area is a perfect test
site for monitoring of relevant environmental parameters. Since 2009 the DEMMIN test
field of 50 x 50 km is part of the Northeastern German Lowland Observatory (TERENONE),
which is coordinated by Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre
for Geosciences.
Because of the remote sensing focus of the DEMMIN test sites it is a perfect area to
evaluate the potential of linking ground based in-situ data with remote sensing data
analysis with view to the COPERNICUS initiative of the European Union (EU) and the
European Space Agency (ESA)