Biography
Dr Alexis Hrysiewicz is a postdoctoral researcher in Irish Centre of Research in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG). Alexis graduated with a PhD in Geophysical Volcanology in 2019 from University Clermont Auvergne in France. Now, he joined iCRAG under the supervision of Assoc Prof. Eoghan Holohan and Prof. John Walsh.
The peatlands cover a limited area of Earth but they contain a very large quantity of carbon making them one of the biggest sources of methane. However, their implementation into global warning models is wobbly due to our bad quantification of carbon content for example. Satellites allow measurement the ground surface displacements and scientists have established links between these measures and the peat conditions. However these relations are not clearly defined. My work is therefore focused on the peat displacements and their modelling to improve our quantification of peat conditions and the renewal of peat.
Technical description
The interferometric synthetic-aperture radar (InSAR) will be used to obtain the evolutions of displacements during several years from the satellites orbiting the Earth (Sentinel-1 A/B). The methods of Persistent Scatterers and Small Baseline will be used to produce the evolutions of peat displacements. The analysis of the displacements will therefore be the core of the project with the use of various methods ranging from displacement-rate analysis to the study of displacement fluctuations due to weather conditions. The main objective will be to separate the different displacement sources to improve our understanding of these processes. At the same time, the development of new tools and applications will be made to facilitate the use of InSAR data and their analysis, resulting from the huge amount of data provided by the Sentinel-1 satellites. Finally, it is therefore from this precise mapping of displacements, coupled with data from other satellites (visible/IR images, vegetation and water index), and field measurements (water table levels, CO2 measurements, …), that it will be possible to model the peat conditions using analytical and numerical models.
Role
- Postdoctoral Researcher
Institution
- UCD
Research Area
- Platform Technologies
Expertise
- Geophysics
