Her main research interests are in the development of methods for process-oriented and spatially differentiated environmental observation with the aid of various measurement techniques to analyse changes in the environment at various scales across the globe. She offers strong expertise in land use/land cover monitoring and analysis including natural and agricultural land use systems in Europe, Latin America and Southeast-Asia. Her research projects show a strong focus on fusion of different, active and passive sensors and multi-temporal analysis of image data for environmental analysis of agricultural systems, land surface processes and landscape development, ecology and ecosystem services, and aquatic ecosystems. She and her group is also involved in a number of projects focusing on the processing and analysis of remote sensing data to support a sustainable land and coastal zone management. In this context, she is developing remote sensing applications for optically complex, coastal and inland waters. An important aspect is in combining remote sensing data and modelling using different model approaches and ensembles including bio-optical modelling of aquatic environments for monitoring water quality and, in shallow waters, bathymetry and benthic vegetation of inland and coastal waters; recent research activities also include monitoring of Arctic sea ice due to climate change.