Prof. Dr. Christoph Raab
Principal Investigator (WP2, Digital Innovations)
University of Hildesheim
Christoph Raab is a geographer and Junior Professor for Applied Geoecology at the Institute of Geography, University of Hildesheim. His research links satellite remote sensing, machine learning and field-based ecological research to analyse agricultural land-use change, grassland ecosystems, biodiversity and nature conservation. Regionally, his work spans Germany, Ireland, Central Asia and Pakistan, with a focus on translating geospatial information into applied land-use and conservation questions. In SMALLPAK, he is one of the Principal Investigators for Work Package 2 and assesses how optical, radar, commercial and drone-based remote sensing can support crop-health monitoring and decision-making in smallholder farming systems in Punjab, Pakistan.
Research interests
- Satellite and drone remote sensing for smallholder agriculture
- Crop-health and vegetation-status monitoring across spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions
- Machine learning for agricultural land-use and crop-type mapping
- Integration of Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Landsat, commercial imagery and field data
- Geospatial data management and reproducible remote-sensing workflows
- Translation of remote-sensing indicators into information relevant for farmers and stakeholders
- Sustainable land use, food security and resilience in Punjab, Pakistan and Central Asia
Work experience and education
2023 - present
Junior Professor for Applied Geoecology, Institute of Geography, University of Hildesheim, Germany
2019 - 2023
Postdoctoral Researcher, Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE), TRANSECT junior research group; focus on agricultural land-cover change and sustainable land use in Central and South Asia
2019
PhD, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany; thesis on combining remote sensing data at different spatial, temporal and spectral resolutions to characterise semi-natural grassland habitats for large herbivores
2016 - 2019
PhD Researcher, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany
2014 - 2015
Research Assistant, University College Cork, Ireland; project Mapping Land Cover in Lowlands and Uplands with Satellite Imagery (TaLAM)
2011 - 2014
M.Sc. Geographical Sciences - Environmental Hydrology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
2007 - 2011
B.Sc. Georesources Management, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Selected publications
Raab, C., Nguyen, V. D., Barrett, B., Zakirova, A., Zuberi, M., Alff, H., & Spies, M. (2026). Crop type classification in smallholder agriculture of Central and South Asia using Sentinel-1/2 data fusion. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 102007
Riesch, F., Isselstein, J., Balkenhol, N., Beckmann, J., Bojarska, K., Gerber, N., ... & Signer, J. (2025). From here to there: free-ranging large herbivores redistribute nutrients from grassland to forest soil. Landscape Ecology, 40(5), 96
Zwick, M., Cardoso, J. A., Gutiérrez-Zapata, D. M., Cerón-Muñoz, M., Gutiérrez, J. F., Raab, C., ... & Barrett, B. (2024). Pixels to Pasture: Using Machine Learning and Multispectral Remote Sensing to Predict Biomass and Nutrient Quality in Tropical Grasslands. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 101282
Raab, C., & Spies, M. (2023). Characterising cropland fragmentation in post-Soviet Central Asia, using Landsat remote-sensing time series data. Applied Geography, 156, 10296
Spies, M., Zuberi, M., Mählis, M., Zakirova, A., Alff, H., & Raab, C. (2022). Towards a participatory systems approach to managing complex bioeconomy interventions in the agrarian sector. Sustainable Production and Consumption. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2022.03.020