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Seminar: Elephants as Ecosystem Engineers of Savanna Vegetation Structure and Above-Ground Carbon Stocks

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Konrad Wessels

Speaker

Konrad Wessels, Associate Professor, George Mason University Geography & Geoinformation Science Department

When

March 25, 2026, 3 – 4 p.m.

Where

Dr. Wessels is a remote sensing expert and ecologist that specialises in the estimation of vegetation structure and biomass using airborne, drone- and space-based LiDAR and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) in the arid Savannas of Africa, including Namibia, South Africa and Senegal. He has published extensively on the drivers of woody vegetation change, including elephants, drought, fire and human fuelwood harvesting. He is best known for pioneering remote sensing and statistical methods for distinguishing the impact of rainfall variability from human-induced land degradation. He has been selected to the following NASA Science teams: Surface Topography and Vegetation (STV) Incubation Study; Carbon Monitoring System program; EDGE Explorer mission and the ARID Terrestrial Ecology Scoping study. He is  currently Associate Professor and Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Geography and GeoInformation Science, George Mason University (2018-present). 

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Contacts

Ruth Holladay