Hermann Klug's research background is in Geography and Landscape Ecology with a special focus on soil sciences, landscape planning and automated Geo-Spatial Information Processing. These research interests include the methodological integration of GIS, Landscape Ecology and Remote Sensing at the interface of meteorology, hydrology, pedology and land use / land cover sciences. His major research expertise focuses on the development of holistic landscape planning approaches for integrated water resources and landscape management. This includes research on risk assessment and decision support regarding utilisation, management, adaptation and regulation of landscapes, its structure and ecological functions at different spatial and temporal scales and impacts of driving forces. His numerous research activities, developments and cooperation with international partners, have resulted in applied methodologies and advanced techniques helping to disclose conditions at risk and to develop strategies to reduce these risks at a landscape scale.

Dr. Klug's special interests cover the further integration of GIS, remote sensing and environmental modelling. The focus is on risk assessments, including climate change, which is assumed the main driving force and human security problem of the 21st century. He intends to strengthen further his present experience in the holistic and integrated view of system components from the Earth’s surface and the connected climate-hydrology-soil boundary layer. He is interested in using trans-disciplinary approaches to provide adequate and applied GI tools for decision support for stakeholders and politicians. This includes amalgamating web-based participatory approaches and visualisation techniques with process-based scientific analyses for repetitive and transparent scenario modelling, incorporating real time spatial-temporal datasets. Specifically he looks at non-point source nutrient emission during extreme events (high precipitation rates and snow melting times). Real-time information from sensors (e.g. rain gauges, snow water equivalent, discharge and phosphorus measurements) operating at field scale enables him to proceed from static to dynamic modelling at local scale using real-time operating and OGC/ISO standard compliant Sensor Web Systems. These in situ measurements help understanding spatial processes in the dimension of time and aid modelling approaches to be more accurate. Up- and downscaling opportunities in GIS frameworks that link multi-spatial and multi-temporal scenarios should support decision making at different political levels. Linking environmental modelling from different disciplines such as hydrology, meteorology and pedology with online visualization tools enables an applied access to science at the interface of purely scientific (value-free) and anthropogenic (norm- and standard-based) working environments. Enabling stakeholders to analyse the present environmental status based on state-of-the-art Spatial Data Infrastructures enhances communication and decision making across disciplines such as landscape planning. Thus, Dr. Klug's main contribution is the 'Automated Geosynthesis' approach, where raw field data is transformed to decision-making context including near real time information provision.

Dr. Hermann Klug  (♂, www.hermannklug.com), associate professor at Z_GIS, completed his academic qualifications with a PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) in Landscape Ecology and Geoinformatics in 2006 and his habilitation with the venia docendi in Geography and in Geoinformatics in 2015. At the Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg (Austria), he is head of the Landscape Lab with a special scientific emphasis on applying the 'Automated Geosynthesis' approach to transdisciplinary holistic landscape planning approaches for integrated water resources management, multifunctional landscapes and landscape management. He led and participated in many international research cooperations and authored many scientific journal publications. Besides teaching in Geoinformatics and Geography at BSc, MSc, and PhD level in Salzburg, he is providing courses in Timisoara (Romania), at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), University of Applied Sciences Villach (Carinthia), University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg, Pedagogic University in Linz (Upper Austria), and at the University of Pècs (Hungary).