PhD student Tim van Emmerik showed that radar technology in space can be used to measure how ‘thirsty’ plants and crops are. He found that this could play a key role in improving our understanding of the interrelationship between ecosystems and the water and carbon cycles. Van Emmerik wrote a poem about it.
I’ll tell you how my research went,
What we know from biology,
The functioning of ev’ry tree,
Depends on its water content
So what if there’s a little less
Of this epic liquid of life
Will plants just stop to thrive
Or will we end up in a mess
Plant death is a catastrophe
For that we need to explore new ways
To ensure food security
Simply said, to save the human race
We need more lonely satellites
For drought detection from out’r space
Tim van Emmerik
Tim van Emmerik will defend his thesis Water stress detection using radar on Friday 1 December.
More information can be found here.
