Retrieval of the Change of Precipitable Water Vapor by GPS Technique

The feasibility of GPS precipitable water vapor (PWV) is discussed based on the comparison of Radiosonde and GPS PWV where the correlation coefficient is 0.94 and the RMS is 4.0 mm. PWV change in the C...     

Predicting the Impact of Coastal Development on Water Quality Using Remote Sensing and GIS‐assisted Hydrologic Modeling Techniques

Abstract

A decline in water quality in the Okatie River, a coastal estuary located in Beaufort County, SC, has resulted in the closure of several shellfish beds. Continuing urban development within the watershed has altered land cover conditions and may be contributing to the recent decline in water quality. Remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) technology, coupled with a water quality model were used to spatially model stormwater runoff to understand the relationship between recent changes in land cover and watershed runoff characteristics. High spatial resolution imagery acquired in 1994 and 1996 spatially documented pre‐ and post‐development land cover conditions within the watershed. The water quality model Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution (AGNPS) evaluated land characteristics such as soil type, topography, and land cover to simulate surface water flow and sediment transport over past and current land cover conditions. Results of the model were used to locate net increases of fresh water discharge and to suggest best management practices (BMP).     

Water resource applications with RADARSAT-2 – a preview

Abstract

Fresh water is arguably the most vital resource for many aspects of a healthy and stable environment. Monitoring the extent of surface water enables resource managers to detect perturbations and long term trends in water availability, and set consumption guidelines accordingly. Potential end-users of water-related observations are numerous and reflect society as a whole. They encompass scientists and managers at all levels of government, aboriginal groups, water/power utility managers, farmers, planners, engineers, hydrologists, medical researchers, climate scientists, recreation enthusiasts, public school to post-graduate students, many special interest groups and the general public. Water data and analyses generate information products that benefit water resources planning and management, engineering design, plant operations, navigation activities, health research, water quality assessments and ecosystem management. As well, they serve as inputs for flood and drought warnings and weather and climate prediction models. Radar data in general, and RADARSAT in particular, are very good for detecting open surface water and have been used operationally for flood monitoring in many countries. Significant radar data archives now exist to analyse seasonal, annual and decadal trends, in order to attain a better understanding of the freshwater cycle. Radar data are also useful for wetland classification and soil moisture estimation. With the increasing pressure on water resources, both from a quality as well as a quantity perspective, the need will continue to increase for reliable information.

RADARSAT-2 has several innovations that will enhance the ability to provide useful information about water resources. This paper provides an overview of the use of radar in general, and RADARSAT-2 in particular, for the generation of information products useful to water resource managers.     

FANN-Based Surface Water Quality Evaluation Model and Its Application in the Shaoguan Area

A fuzzy neural network model is proposed to evaluate water quality. The model contains two parts: first, fuzzy mathematics theory is used to standardize the samples; second, the RBF neural network and ...     

Experiment on Driving Precipitable Water Vapor from Ground-Based GPS Network in Chengdu Plain

The estimates of total zenith delay are derived using Bernese GPS Software V4. 2 based on GPS data every 30 s from the first measurement experiment of a ground-based GPS network in Chengdu Plain of Southwest China during the period from July to September 2004. Then the estimates of 0.5 hourly precipitable water vapor (PWV) derived from global positioning system (GPS) are obtained using meteorological data from automatic weather stations (AWS). The comparison of PWV derived from GPS and those from radiosonde observations is given for the Chengdu station, with RMS (root mean square) differences of 3.09m. The consis- tency of precipitable water vapor derived from GPS to those from radiosonde is good. It is concluded that Bevis’ empirical formula for estimating the weighted atmospheric mean temperature can be applicable in Chengdu area because the relationship of GPS PWV with Bevis’ formula and GPS PWV with radiosonde method shows a high correlation. The result of this GPS measurement experiment is helpful both for accumu- lating the study of precipitable water vapor derived from GPS in Chengdu areas located at the eastern side of the Tibetan Plateau and for studying spatial-temporal variations of regional atmospheric water vapor through many disciplines cooperatively.     

Output of 1 ： 2000 Maps of Land Use of the Second National Land Survey of Guangzhou

标准分幅土地利用现状图制作与输出是广州市第二次全国土地调查的一项重要工作。由于国家、省没有1：2000土地利用现状图的标准或技术规程,根据我市作业模式、数据特点,制定了技术要求,开发了由建库数据到制图数据的转换程序,依据上交给国家、省的数据库成果,完成了全市十区两市10225幅图的电子数据制作,并打印纸质图件归档。     

Determination of Geopotential of Local Vertical Datum Surface

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Multi-technique comparisons of 10?years of wet delay estimates on the west coast of Sweden

We present comparisons of 10-year-long time series of the atmospheric zenith wet delay (ZWD), estimated using the global positioning system (GPS), geodetic very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), a water vapour radiometer (WVR), radiosonde (RS) observations, and the reanalysis product of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). To compare the data sets with each other, a Gaussian filter is applied. The results from 10 GPS–RS comparisons using sites in Sweden and Finland show that the full width at half maximum at which the standard deviation (SD) is a minimum increases with the distance between each pair. Comparisons between three co-located techniques (GPS, VLBI, and WVR) result in mean values of the ZWD differences at a level of a few millimetres and SD of less than 7?mm. The best agreement is seen in the GPS–VLBI comparison with a mean difference of ?3.4?mm and an SD of 5.1?mm over the 10-year period. With respect to the ZWD derived from other techniques, a positive bias of up to ~7?mm is obtained for the ECMWF reanalysis product. Performing the comparisons on a monthly basis, we find that the SD including RS or ECMWF varies with the season, between 3 and 15?mm. The monthly SD between GPS and WVR does not have a seasonal signature and varies from 3 to 7?mm.     

Processing of Laser Scanner Data and Extraction of Structure Lines Using Methods of the Image Processing

激光扫描数据提供了一种新的手段用于获取高精度的数字地形表面模型. 原始的航空激光扫描数据表达的是一些非规则分布的"点云", 这些非规则分布的点需要进行有效的事后处理. 这种事后处理有2个目的:一是将那些分布在地表面上的点(即地面点)与分布在非地表面上的点(譬如树木、房屋或汽车上的点, 即非地面点)进行有效的分离;二是从分离后的地面点中提取结构线, 用于建立高精度的数字地面模型. 作者发展了一系列的基于数字形态学理论和稳健参数估计理论的方法用于分离和探测地面点. 这里所介绍和开发的提取结构线的算法建立在数字图像处理和表面曲率理论的基础上. 这些算法同样可以扩展地用于其他领域. 所介绍的基于数字图像处理理论处理原始的航空激光扫瞄数据和提取结构线的方法取得了很好的结果. 这一结论可以在本文中通过一系列的插图得到有力的证明.     

Transformation of amplitudes and frequencies of precession and nutation of the earth’s rotation vector to amplitudes and frequencies of diurnal polar motion

The temporal change of the rotation vector of a rotating body is, in the first order, identical in a space-fixed system and in a body-fixed system. Therefore, if the motion of the rotation axis of the earth relative to a space-fixed system is given as a function of time, it should be possible to compute its motion relative to an earth-fixed system, and vice versa. This paper presents such a transformation. Two models of motion of the rotation axis in the space-fixed system are considered: one consisting only of a regular (i.e., strictly conical) precession and one extended by circular nutation components, which are superimposed upon the regular precession. The Euler angles describing the orientation of the earth-fixed system with respect to the space-fixed system are derived by an analytical solution of the kinematical Eulerian differential equations. In the first case (precession only), this is directly possible, and in the second case (precession and nutation), a solution is achieved by a perturbation approach, where the result of the first case serves as an approximation and nutation is regarded as a small perturbation, which is treated in a linearized form. The transformation by means of these Euler angles shows that the rotation axis performs in the earth-fixed system retrograde conical revolutions with small amplitudes, namely one revolution with a period of one sidereal day corresponding to precession and one revolution with a period which is slightly smaller or larger than one sidereal day corresponding to each (prograde or retrograde) circular nutation component. The peculiar feature of the derivation presented here is the analytical solution of the Eulerian differential equations.     

A Review of the Policies on the Private Colleges of China

One of the most impor tant factors impacting the development of today‘s private higher education in China is that there are not enough policies to support in.Then,the history of private higher educationin Nanjing Nationalist Government(1927-1749)is focused on.     

Estimation of Geodetic Parameters with VLBI Data of Last 5 Years

The meaning to research the potential of VLBI for geodetic applications is summarized. And the observation models and their related parameters of geodetic interest are investigated. Then, the principle and method of using the random model in VLBI data processing are investigated. With the world wide VLBI data from 2000-2004, the conditions to compute the parameters of geodetic interest are introduced, and so are the computing methods and processes. And the computed results of the parameters of geodetic interest are analyzed.     

Applying time series Landsat data for vegetation change analysis in the Florida Everglades Water Conservation Area 2A during 1996–2016

Mapping plant communities and documenting their changes is critical to the on-going Florida Everglades restoration project. In this study, a framework was designed to map dominant vegetation communities and inventory their changes in the Florida Everglades Water Conservation Area 2A (WCA-2A) using time series Landsat images spanning 1996–2016. The object-based change analysis technique was combined in the framework. A hybrid pixel/object-based change detection approach was developed to effectively collect training samples for historical images with sparse reference data. An object-based quantification approach was also developed to assess the expansion/reduction of a specific class such as cattail (an invasive species in the Everglades) from the object-based classifications of two dates of imagery. The study confirmed the results in the literature that cattail was largely expanded during 1996–2007. It also revealed that cattail expansion was constrained after 2007. Application of time series Landsat data is valuable to document vegetation changes for the WCA-2A impoundment. The digital techniques developed will benefit global wetland mapping and change analysis in general, and the Florida Everglades WCA-2A in particular.     

Landsat MSS images of the clean‐up of Lake Chicot

As a result of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, between mid‐January and June 1991, the Persian Gulf was contaminated with an estimated 4 to 6 million barrels of crude oil, released directly into the Gulf from refinement facilities, transhipment terminals, and moored tankers along the coast of Kuwait, and precipitated from oil fire smoke plumes. To assess the environmental impact of the oil, an international team of marine scientists representing 14 nations was assembled under the auspices of the United Nations International Oceanic Commission and the Regional Organization for Protection of the Marine Environment to conduct detailed surveys of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman, including hydrographic, chemical, and biological measurements. To supplement the field surveys and to serve as an aid in data interpretation, astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis photographed water features and coastal habitats in the Persian Gulf during mission STS‐45 (24 March to 02 April 1992). The astronauts collected 111 hand‐held, color photographs of the Gulf (72 70 mm photographs and 39 5‐inch photographs) from an altitude of 296 km (160 n.mi.). The photographs reveal distributions in water turbidity associated with outflow from the Shatt‐al‐Arab and water circulation along the entire coast of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, coastal wetlands and shallow‐water habitats, and sticks appearing in the sunglint pattern, which appear to be oil.     

Dixon resultant’s solution of systems of geodetic polynomial equations

The Dixon resultant is proposed as an alternative to Gröbner basis or multipolynomial resultant approaches for solving systems of polynomial equations inherent in geodesy. Its smallness in size, high density (ratio on the number of nonzero elements to the number of all elements), speed, and robustness (insensitive to combinatorial sequence and monomial order, e.g., Gröbner basis) makes it extremely attractive compared to its competitors. Using 3D-intersection and conformal C ₇ datum transformation problems, we compare its performance to those of the Sturmfels’s resultant and Gröbner basis. For the 3D-intersection problem, Sturmfels’s resultant needed 0.578 s to solve a 6  ×  6 resultant matrix whose density was 0.639, the Dixon resultant on the other hand took 0.266 s to solve a 4  ×  4 resultant matrix whose density was 0.870. For the conformal C ₇ datum transformation problem, the Dixon resultant took 2.25 s to compute a quartic polynomial in scale parameter whereas the computaton of the Gröbner basis fails. Using relative coordinates to compute the quartic polynomial in scale parameter, the Gröbner basis needed 0.484 s, while the Dixon resultant took 0.016 s. This highlights the robustness of the Dixon resultant (i.e., the capability to use both absolute and relative coordinates with any order of variables) as opposed to Gröbner basis, which only worked well with relative coordinates, and was sensitive to the combinatorial sequence and order of variables. Geodetic users uncomfortable with lengthy expressions of Gröbner basis or multipolynomial resultants, and who aspire to optimize on the attractive features of Dixon resultant, may find it useful.     

Evolution of sand encroachment using supervised classification of Landsat data during the period 1987–2011 in a part of Laâyoune-Tarfaya basin of Morocco

Abstract

The study anticipated to understand sand encroachment evolution through analysis of sand contribution across space and time using remote sensing in Laâyoune-Tarfaya basin, Morocco, over the period from 1987 to 2011. The assessment based on supervised classifications of Landsat imagery orthorectified data, using Maximum Likelihood (ML), Minimum Distance (MD) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers. In order to ameliorate the information, principal components analysis (PCA) and co-occurrence measurement algorithm were used for choosing bands and data transformation. Images differencing was applied on image pairs derived from classification to analyze sand encroachment evolution. All classifiers present enhanced performances, and revealed that area covered by sand was increased by 7%, 4.66% and 4.59% for ML, MD and SVM, respectively. Consequently, images differencing results confirmed that sand material increasing arise not only from coastal area contribution but also mostly from erosion of complicated sand dunes exist in the middle part of the studied area. Evaluating of the presented phenomenon dimensions and its consequences are extremely important to increase the local authorities awareness and mainly for avoiding or minimizing the consequences of the future sand dunes threats.     

The pyrogeography of sub-Saharan Africa: a study of the spatial non-stationarity of fire–environment relationships using GWR

This study analyses the relationship between fire incidence and some environmental factors, exploring the spatial non-stationarity of the phenomenon in sub-Saharan Africa. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) was used to study the above relationship. Environment covariates comprise land cover, anthropogenic and climatic variables. GWR was compared to ordinary least squares, and the hypothesis that GWR represents no improvement over the global model was tested. Local regression coefficients were mapped, interpreted and related with fire incidence. GWR revealed local patterns in parameter estimates and also reduced the spatial autocorrelation of model residuals. All the covariates were non-stationary and in terms of goodness of fit, the model replicates the data very well (R ² = 87%). Vegetation has the most significant relationship with fire incidence, with climate variables being more important than anthropogenic variables in explaining variability of the response. Some coefficient estimates exhibit locally different signs, which would have gone undetected by a global approach. This study provides an improved understanding of spatial fire–environment relationships and shows that GWR is a valuable complement to global spatial analysis methods. When studying fire regimes, effects of spatial non-stationarity need to be incorporated in vegetation-fire modules to have better estimates of burned areas and to improve continental estimates of biomass burning and atmospheric emissions derived from vegetation fires.     

Cartographic Consequences of a Planned Economy—50 Years of Soviet Cartography

For half a century all cartography in the Soviet Union has been under centralized control. It was recognized early that mapmaking was an activity of prime importance. All phases of the activity—from cartographic education and the preparation of topographic and thematic maps to the development of regional atlases and school maps—have been managed by and for the benefit of the state in accordance with its economic and social objectives. This has had a significant effect on the development of cartography, the degree of its standardization, and the relative emphasis placed on its various aspects.