Contact Dr Daniel Simms
- Tel: +44 (0) 1234 750111 x2767
- Email: d.m.simms@cranfield.ac.uk
- ORCID
Areas of expertise
- Digital Agriculture
- Monitoring and Environmental Informatics
- Natural Capital
Background
Daniel Simms graduated from the University of Plymouth in 2000 and worked as a GIS technician for Jacobs Babtie before studying for an MSc in Geographical Information Management at Cranfield. After working as the Spatial Data Manager for Kent County Council, he returned to Cranfield in 2004 to work on a UK Government project on illicit crop monitoring. The project delivered science-based support for decision makers through the integration of multi-resolution satellite and airborne imagery, digital photogrammetry, ground data collection and analysis. During the 6 year project he gained field experience in the operation and deployment of satellite receiving stations, collection of aerial photography and crop data.Since 2009 Dr Simms has been involved in projects supporting the UNODC in monitoring of illicit crops; the dissemination of soil and terrain data through open web standards as part of the European contribution to a Global Soil Observing System (eSoter); and the integration of spatial hazard datasets based on future projections of extreme weather events as part of the CREW (Community Resilience to Extreme Weather) interdisciplinary project.
Current activities
Dr Daniel Simms is a specialist in applied remote sensing and GIS, researching the integration of imagery and spatial data for land and agricultural information
His interests are in the area of applied remote sensing for improved land and agricultural information. He is currently researching crop detection and cultivation estimation from field to regional scale through the integration of satellite and aerial imagery with ancillary spatial datasets. Of particular interest is the development of methodologies for deriving accurate and timely information from remotely sensed data with a minimal requirement for ground-based sampling.
Dr Simms lectures on the Geographical Information Management MSc Programme and has delivered training in remote sensing and GIS techniques to Afghan nationals under UN-sponsored capacity building projects, and ground data collection for the UK component of the 2013 EU LUCAS survey.
Clients
- UK Government
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
- EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
- EUFP7 (EU Framework Programme 7)
- ETI (Energy Technologies Institute)
- Magellium
- DMC International Imaging Ltd
- Commodity traders
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Beale J, Grabowski RC, Lokidor PL, Vercruysse K & Simms DM (2022) Vegetation cover dynamics along two Himalayan rivers: drivers and implications of change, Science of the Total Environment, 849 (November) Article No. 157826.
- Hamer AM, Simms DM & Waine TW (2021) Replacing human interpretation of agricultural land in Afghanistan with a deep convolutional neural network, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 42 (8) 3017-3038. Dataset/s: 10.17862/cranfield.rd.13228634
- Simms DM (2020) Fully convolutional neural nets in-the-wild, Remote Sensing Letters, 11 (12) 1080-1089.
- Campbell S, Simmons R, Rickson J, Waine T & Simms D (2018) Using Near-Surface Photogrammetry Assessment of Surface Roughness (NSPAS) to assess the effectiveness of erosion control treatments applied to slope forming materials from a mine site in West Africa, Geomorphology, 322 (December) 188-195.
- Snapir B, Simms DM & Waine TW (2017) Mapping the expansion of galamsey gold mines in the cocoa growing area of Ghana using optical remote sensing, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 58 (June) 225-233.
- Simms DM, Waine TW & Taylor JC (2017) Improved estimates of opium cultivation in Afghanistan using imagery-based stratification, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 38 (13) 3785-3799.
- Simms DM, Waine TW, Taylor JC & Brewer TR (2016) Image segmentation for improved consistency in image-interpretation of opium poppy, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 37 (6) 1243-1256.
- Waine TW, Simms DM, Taylor JC & Juniper GR (2014) Towards improving the accuracy of opium yield estimates with remote sensing, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 35 (16) 6292-6309.
- Simms D, Waine T, Taylor J, Taylor J & Juniper G (2014) The application of time-series MODIS NDVI profiles for the acquisition of crop information across Afghanistan, International Journal of Remote Sensing, 35 (16) 6234-6254.
- Pourabdollah A, Leibovici DG, Simms DM, Tempel P, Hallett SH & Jackson MJ (2012) Towards a standard for soil and terrain data exchange: SoTerML, Computers and Geosciences, 45 270-283.
- Taylor JC, Waine TW, Juniper GR, Simms DM & Brewer TR (2010) Survey and monitoring of opium poppy and wheat in Afghanistan: 2003-2009, Remote Sensing Letters, 1 (3) 179-185.
Conference Papers
- Simms DM & Waine TW (2016) Opium yield estimates in Afghanistan using remote sensing. In: Seventh International Conference on Agricultural Statistics (ICAS VII), Rome, 26-28 October 2016.
- Simms DM & Hallett S (2011) Development of a web-based portal for supporting community resilience to extreme weather events.. In: 11th International Disaster and Emergency Resilience : IDER 2011, Florence, 13 April 2011.
- Simms DM & Hallett SH (2011) WISP- scenario-based dissemination toolkits; Disseminating the outcomes of CREW. In: Community Resilience to Extreme Weather (CREW) Final Conference and General Assembly, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), London, 25 November 2011.
