Assessing soil erosion in Mediterranean karst landscapes of Lebanon using remote sensing and GIS

Maps showing the potential for soil erosion at 1:100,000 scale are produced in a study area within Lebanon that can be used for evaluating erosion of Mediterranean karstic terrain with two different sets of impact factors built into an erosion model. The first set of factors is: soil erodibility, morphology, land cover/use and rainfall erosivity. The second is obtained by the first adding a fifth factor, rock infiltration. High infiltration can reflect high recharge, therefore decreasing the potential of surface runoff and hence the quantity of transported materials. Infiltration is derived as a function of lithology, lineament density, karstification and drainage density, all of which can be easily extracted from satellite imagery. The influence of these factors is assessed by a weight/rate approach sharing similarities between quantitative and qualitative methods and depending on pair-wise comparison matrix.The main outcome was the production of factorial maps and erosion susceptibility maps (scale 1:100,000). Spatial and attribute comparison of erosion maps indicates that the model that includes a measure of rock infiltration better represents erosion potential. Field investigation of rills and gullies shows 87.5% precision of the model with rock infiltration. This is 17.5% greater than the precision of the model without rock infiltration. These results indicate the necessity and importance of integrating information on infiltration of rock outcrops to assess soil erosion in Mediterranean karst landscapes.     

GMOs and their contexts: A comparison of potential and actual performance of GM crops in a local agricultural setting

In this paper, I argue that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have inherent potential to contribute to socially and environmentally sustainable agriculture by virtue of their ‘biological embeddedness’. Their actual ‘performance’ and how this contributes to sustainability depends on the ‘mutual shaping’ of technology and context. While much attention has been given to the design context of GMOs, this paper considers the influence of the application context and of users. A case study investigating the use of insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant GM cotton in the cotton-growing region of New South Wales in Australia is presented. The study was based on focus groups with farmers and other stakeholders in a cotton-growing community. It demonstrated a range of direct and indirect effects of GM cotton use, both positive and negative for sustainability, and the ways in which these effects were influenced by the local social context. The influences of the biotechnology industry context, in limiting the contributions that gene technologies can make to sustainability, were also considered, and remedies suggested. I argue that the polarity of the GM debate is hindering progress on these issues, and that a more balanced approach to our analysis of GMOs is necessary in order to fully understand, and to influence, their role in the future of rural spaces.     

Contribution of the SISCam Web-based GIS to the seismotectonic study of Campania (Southern Apennines): an example of application to the Sannio-area

In this article the implementation and potential of the Seismotectonic Information System of the Campania Region (SISCam) are described, in particular an application of this Web-based GIS system to the seismotectonic analysis of the Sannio area (Southern Apennines) is performed. WEB-GIS technologies greatly contribute to both the environmental monitoring and the disaster management of areas affected by high natural risks. Specifically the SISCam system has been developed with the aim of providing easy access and fast diffusion, through Internet technology, of the most significant geological, geophysical, and territorial data relative to the Campania Region. The Sannio area has been selected as our application example because it is among the most active seismic regions in Italy. This portion of the Southern Apennines which was hit by the June 5, 1688 strong earthquake (M _W = 6.7, CPTI 1999) and by some low- and moderate-energy seismic sequences (1990–1992, 1997), is characterized by a complex inherited tectonic setting and low-tectonic deformation rates that hide the seismogenic sources position. Since this case study turned out to be complicated, the use of the SIScam WEB-GIS has become indispensable because it allowed us to visualize, integrate and analyze all the data available, in order to obtain an accurate and direct picture of the seismotectonic setting of the area. Moreover, a different approach of data analysis was necessary, due to the lack of up-to-date neotectonic and structural data; therefore, the operation of this GIS system enabled us to process and generate some original informative layers, through image analysis, such as new structural lineaments represented on a map of the potential active faults of the area, which has been the final result of our application, as a contribution to new knowledge about the local seismic risk parameters.     

Comparative analyses of East Texas forest cover maps generated from Landsat and AVHRR data

Comparing satellite data derived map products are affected by differences in data characteristics, image acquisition dates, processing techniques, and classification schemes used for assigning pixels to a thematic class. By comparing two forest maps generated from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) images acquired on the same day, and processed using identical classification scheme and methods these differences were minimized. The ETM+ derived map had higher classification accuracy values and more precise area estimates than the AVHRR derived map. In the ETM+ derived map, 87 of the 599 verification data were misclassified, whereas in the AVHRR derived map, 155 of the 469 verification data were misclassified. Detailed error analyses by land cover class revealed that a land use based definition of forest accounted for 74% (64 out of 87) and 57% (89 out of 155) of the classification errors in ETM+ and AVHRR derived maps, respectively.     

遥感在滑坡灾害研究中的应用进展

在对常用的光学遥感卫星影像、InSAR,LiDAR等遥感技术方法介绍的基础上,综述了这些方法在滑坡研究中的最新应用进展,从滑坡风险评估中的基础地形数据获取、滑坡编录与制图、监测、滑坡因素制图、承灾体制图等5个方面阐述遥感技术在滑坡风险中的支撑技术作用与应用前景。从遥感影像在滑坡风险评估中的作用、解译能力、影响解译的因素、精度评价和遥感数据源选择等角度阐述了常用遥感技术在滑坡风险评估应用中存在的问题,认为: ① 遥感技术在滑坡风险评估中的主要作用为数据、信息的获取与更新;② 滑坡的遥感影像解译能力取决于影像空间分辨率与待识别滑坡大小的相对关系,影像的时间分辨率、滑坡与其周边环境的对比度、立体影像的获取能力是利用遥感影像开展滑坡探测、识别与制图的关键要素;解译方法和解译员的专业素质是滑坡遥感解译的重要影响因素;③ 遥感影像与GIS空间分析、3D可视化的综合可有效增强滑坡识别与制图的效率和精度;④ 对于遥感解译滑坡的精度评价应针对具体影像的可解译性从有效解译,错误解译和遗漏解译三个方面予以客观评价;⑤ 滑坡风险评估应针对具体应用,从成本效益比的角度,本着“够用为止”原则合理选用遥感数据源。     

Pervasive wetland flooding in the glacial drift prairie of North Dakota (USA)

This article describes a unique flood hazard, produced by the dramatic expansion of wetlands in Nelson County, located within the North American Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, USA. There has been an unprecedented increase in the number, average size, and permanence of prairie wetlands, and a significant increase in the size of a closed lake (Stump Lake) due to a decade-long wet spell that began in 1993 following a prolonged drying trend. Base-line land cover information from the 1992 USGS National Land Cover Characterization dataset, and a Landsat TM scene acquired 9 July 2001 are used to assess the growth of the closed lake and wetland pond surface areas, and to analyze the type and area of various land cover classes inundated between 1992 and 2001. The open water profile in Nelson County changed from one marked by relatively comparable coverage of closed lake and wetland pond areas in 1992, to one in which wetland open water accounted for the vast majority of total open water in 2001. The bulk of the wetland pond area expansion occurred by displacing existing wetland vegetation and agricultural cropland. Producers responded to the flood hazard by filing Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) claims and enrolling cropland in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a federal land retirement program. Land taken out of agricultural production has had an enormous impact upon the agricultural sector that forms the economic base of the rural economy. In 2001 the land taken out of production due to CRP enrollment and preventive planting claims represented nearly 42% of Nelson County’s 205.2 K ha base agricultural land. The patterns obtained from this detailed study of Nelson County are likely to be the representative of the more publicized flood disaster occurring within the Devils Lake Basin of North Dakota.     

水平定向钻进非开挖铺管技术市场分析

重点分析了近几年我国水平定向钻进铺管钻机和施工市场的发展趋势,结合国外的水平定向钻进市场发展分析,总结了我国水平定向钻进技术与市场的发展态势。     

基于Mindlin理论Winkler地基参数的Kalman滤波识别

提出了Winkler地基参数的Kalman滤波识别方法。引入Mindlin理论后,推导了Winkler地基上板的控制微分方程。利用Fourier变换,推求了Winkler地基上简支板的Fourier闭式解。推导了Winkler地基参数的Kalman滤波方程,研究了Winkler地基参数的Kalman滤波识别的具体计算步骤。研究表明,运用Kalman滤波理论进行Winkler地基参数的识别,能有效地估计Winkler地基参数;Winkler地基参数的滤波收敛速度和精度受地基参数初始值选取和位移实测资料的影响,且Kalman滤波理论也可用于其他地基模型地基参数的识别。     

从汶川地震看遥感技术在突发自然灾害中的应用

现代遥感技术具有获取信息范围大、速度快,适应性强和信息量大等特点。"5.12"汶川地震后,交通堵塞、通信中断,遥感技术成为信息获取和灾害监测的重要手段。本文以遥感图像特征和遥感解译在汶川地震中的应用为例,阐述了遥感技术在突发自然灾害中的应用。     

卫星海洋遥感的发展和预报中心遥感应用

本文简要介绍了卫星海洋遥感的发展情况和可获得的海洋气象观测数据,介绍了预报中心卫星遥感的发展历史和现今状况,以及为海洋环境监测和预报提供的海洋遥感信息产品,并给出了部分产品示例.