Dr Sietse Los
Principal Research Officer, Wetland Landscapes & Processes
Contact details
About me
My first job was with the Netherlands Forestry Commission to map the major groundwater flow systems of the Netherlands to inform nature conservation policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. After that I moved to the USA and worked as a contractor at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Maryland) where I analysed interactions between vegetation, the hydrological cycle and carbon cycle with global satellite vegetation data. I continued this research when I joined the Geography Department in Swansea University (UK).
At WWT I investigated the implications of climate change for our sites, so that we can adapt their management and continue to be able to maintain attractive wetlands. I am involved in our international projects supporting them with (satellite) data analysis so we can measure the effect of management interventions and target problem areas.
My role
I work on various projects supporting WWTs mission. I have assessed the potential impacts of climate change on sites managed by WWT: summers in the UK will become warmer and drier, and winters for most sites will become warmer and wetter; variability in temperatures and in rainfall is expected to increase. Our coastal sites experience sea-level rise. We already see changes in migration patterns of our visiting birds, and these are expected to continue. I also support our international work using satellite data to explore causes of lake turbidity in Madagascar and to measure the effects of management interventions in conservation sites in the Mekong Delta in Cambodia.
Experience and interests
- Remote sensing / Earth Observation
- Interactions between the biosphere and atmosphere
- Climate Change
- Hydrology
- Carbon cycle
- Environmental modelling using computer programming (R/SPlus, C, Fortran)
Publications
- Los, S. O., Street-Perrott, F. A., Loader, N., Froyd, C., Cuní-Sanchez, A., & Marchant, R. (2019). Sensitivity of a tropical montane cloud forest to climate change, present, past and future: Mt. Marsabit, N. Kenya. Quaternary Science Reviews, 218, 34-48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.06.016
- Los, S. O. (2013). Analysis of trends in fused AVHRR and MODIS NDVI data for 1982-2006: Indication for a CO2 fertilization effect in global vegetation. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 27(2), 318-330. https://doi.org/10.1002/gbc.20027
- Los, S. O., Weedon, G. P., North, P. R. J., Kaduk, J., Taylor, C., Cox, P. (2006). An observation-based estimate of the strength of rainfall-vegetation interactions in the Sahel. Geophysical Research Letters, 33(16), L16402. https://doi.org/10.1029/2006GL027065
- Slayback, D., Pinzon, J., Los, S. O., & Tucker, C. J. (2003). Northern hemisphere photosynthetic trends 1982-99. Global Change Biology, 9(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2486.2003.00507.x
- Los, S. O., Collatz, G. J., Bounoua, L., Sellers, P. J., & Tucker, C. J. (2001). Global Interannual Variations in Sea Surface Temperature and Land Surface Vegetation, Air Temperature, and Precipitation. Journal of Climate, 14(7), 1535-1549. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2001)0142.0.CO;2