People ›Faculty

Prof. Wolfgang Wagner

Responsibilities

Prof. Wagner is professor for remote sensing at TU Wien and has been the head of the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation since October 2012. He is co-founder of the Earth Observation Data Centre for Water Resources Monitoring (EODC), acting firstly as head of science and later as senior scientific advisor since December 2014.

Teaching: Fundamentals of remote sensing, Introduction to earth observations, Microwave remote sensing

Research Interests

• Remote sensing

• Quantitative retrieval of soil moisture and vegetation

• Scatterometry

• Synthetic Aperture Radar

• Full-waveform laser scanning data

The main research interests of Wolfgang Wagner lie in physical modelling and geophysical parameter retrieval from remote sensing data. His scope is to develop robust algorithms, taking into account instrument specifications and application requirements. He has mainly worked with active remote sensing techniques, in particular scatterometry, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and full-waveform airborne laser scanning (lidar), although he also has experience with optical and infrared sensors. He has always sought the cooperation with scientists from other geoscientific fields (hydrology, meteorology, climatology, agriculture, etc.) in order to develop novel remote sensing applications.

Key Facts

Wolfang Wagner received his Dipl.-Ing. (MSc) degree in physics and his Dr.techn. (PhD) degree in remote sensing, both with excellence, from the Vienna University of Technology. In support of his master and PhD studies he received fellowships to carry out research at the University of Bern (1993), Atmospheric Environment Service Canada (1994), NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre (1995), European Space Agency (1996), and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (1996-1998). From 1999 to 2001 he worked with the German Aerospace Agency (DLR), first as a project assistant at the Institute of High Frequency Technology and later as the head of the SAR Applications team at the German Remote Sensing Data Centre.

Wolfgang Wagner is a recipient of the ISPRS Frederick J. Doyle Award for his scientific contributions in active remote sensing. After having been member of the GCOS/WCRP Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC) from 2012 to 2016, Wolfgang Wagner became TOPC chair in 2017. He has also been member of the ISPRS International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) since 2012, and member of the Science Advisory Group of METOP-SG SCA instrument (jointly organized by EUMETSAT and ESA) since 2014.