Solmaz Fatholoumi

Role: Conference Bursary Recipient

Department: Environmental Science

Conference Attended: Canadian Society of Soil Science annual meeting

Location: Edmonton, Alberta

Value: $3,029.50

Research Presentation: 

1-The first research which has been accepted in this conference with the title of “a machine learning based approach for downscaling soil water index (SWI) derived from satellite imagery” is focusing on the soil moisture (SM) which is a key variable in the water and energy cycle since and is one of the most important factors for plants growth in the soil. The need for soil moisture information and their spatial distribution, especially high-resolution maps at different scales and operational areas such as climate, hydrology and agricultural management is increasing. One of the limitations of daily SWI products obtained from satellite imagery is the low spatial resolution of this data. As a result, it cannot be used for precise applications. In this study a machine learning based approach strategy is presented for downscaling the SWI obtained from the Advanced Scatterometer. Results of this study showed that the proposed machine learning based approach is an acceptable approach for SWI downscaling. 2- The second accepted abstract with the title of “Improving the annual crops mapping accuracy using feature level-based fusion of Surface biophysical properties” is focused on remote sensing methods to land crop classification.

Objectives for Attending: 

Conferences are usually holding to bring together researchers and scientists with common scientific interests and discuss issues and ideas relating to a specific topic. My purpose in attending this conference is to meet closely with scientists and researchers related to my field of research and build strong relationships with face-to-face networking. Attending a gathering of researchers can be a good opportunity to establish scientific connections and useful collaborations and to form interesting ideas in various fields of research. On the other hand, scientific conferences are an opportunity to ask scientific questions and find suitable solutions for them. Hearing the views of others on various issues is very effective in developing knowledge. In addition, as an interested and young researcher, participating in such scientific conferences will cause being seen and being heard and scientific growth. As a matter of fact, attendance in such scientific conference will help to enhance both our professional and personal development, as well as providing us with tools and skills which we cannot be taught in-house or online. The focused nature of learning at a conference allows us to dig deeper with the understanding of our topic of interest. In conclusion attending conferences is a very good way to learn new things in my interested topics. Where many specialists will share their experiences to help me gain knowledge about them.