17. January 2021.

Is it possible to find the buried radioactive trees of the red forest in the exclusion zone of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant?

Sebastian Briechle dealt with this exciting question, among others, in his PhD thesis, which he is preparing under the supervision of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter Krzystek at the IAMLIS research institute. At the ITC PhD Publication Award 2020 at the University of Twente, he recently convinced the review committee with his paper "Detection of radioactive waste sites in the Chornobyl exclusion zone using UAV-based lidar data and multispectral imagery" (DOI: 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2020.06.015 ) and made it to the shortlist of three selected PhD students at the annual award for young scientists.

As part of his research, Sebastian Briechle was able to show that, based on UAV-based remote sensing data and the use of machine learning methods, it is possible to detect radioactive burial sites with an accuracy of about 90%. This was preceded by two exciting stays in the Chernobyl exclusion zone to conduct the experiments on site. "This was certainly one of the most interesting and challenging projects I have conducted at the Faculty of Geoinformation," says Prof. Krzystek. "The successfully demonstrated technology only needs to be implemented to excavate the recovered radioactive biomass and store it in a Deep Geological Repository. The entire disposal work, especially the dismantling of the accident reactor, will take decades until this area of land will be habitable again. With our technology, we are making a contribution to sustainable development in the Chernobyl region," adds Sebastian Briechle.

The award winner Sebastian Briechle is completing his doctoral thesis in a cooperative doctoral program at the University of Twente under the supervision of Prof. Dr-Ing. George Vosselmann.