A ten year Moment Tensor database for Western Greece

Moment Tensors (MTs) provide important information for seismotectonic, stress distribution and source studies. It is also important as a real time or near real time information in shakemaps, tsunami warning, and stress transfer. Therefore a reliable and rapid MT computation is a routine task for modern seismic networks with broadband sensors and real-time digital telemetry. In this paper we present the database of Moment Tensor solutions computed during the last ten years in Western Greece by the University of Patras, Seismological Laboratory (UPSL). The data from UPSL broad band network were used together with the ISOLA Moment Tensor inversion package for routine MT calculation. The procedures followed and the comparison of UPSL derived solutions with the ones provided by other agencies for Western Greece region are presented as well. The Moment Tensor database includes solutions for events in the magnitude range 2.8–6.8 and provides a unique insight into the faulting characteristics of Western Greece. Moreover it paves the way for detailed studies of stress tensor and stress transfer. The weak events' Moment Tensor included in UPSL's database are important for the comprehension of local seismotectonics and reveal the role of minor faults, which may be critical in seismic hazard estimation.     

Evapotranspiration models of different complexity for multiple land cover types

A comparison between half‐hourly and daily measured and computed evapotranspiration (ET) using three models of different complexity, namely, the Priestley–Taylor (P‐T), the reference Penman–Monteith (P‐M) and the Common Land Model (CLM), was conducted using three AmeriFlux sites under different land cover and climate conditions (i.e. arid grassland, temperate forest and subhumid cropland). Using the reference P‐M model with a semiempirical soil moisture function to adjust for water‐limiting conditions yielded ET estimates in reasonable agreement with the observations [root mean square error (RMSE) of 64–87 W m^?2 for half‐hourly and RMSE of 0.5–1.9 mm day^?1 for daily] and similar to the complex Common Land Model (RMSE of 60–94 W m^?2 for half‐hourly and RMSE of 0.4–2.1 mm day^?1 for daily) at the grassland and cropland sites. However, the semiempirical soil moisture function was not applicable particularly for the P‐T model at the forest site, suggesting that adjustments to key model variables may be required when applied to diverse land covers. On the other hand, under certain land cover/environmental conditions, the use of microwave‐derived soil moisture information was found to be a reliable metric of regional moisture conditions to adjust simple ET models for water‐limited cases. Further studies are needed to evaluate the utility of the simplified methods for different landscapes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GlobeLand30: Operational global land cover mapping and big-data analysis

正Information regarding Land cover and change (LCC) over time is essential for a variety of Societal Benefits Areas(SBA), such as environmental change analysis, geographical condition monitoring, urban and rural management, earth surface process modeling, and sustainable development.Since the middle of 1990s, the international scientific communities have devoted tremendous efforts to Global Land Cover (GLC) mapping, and developed a number of coarser resolution (ranging from 300-m to 1 km) data products. As     

A landscape shape index-based sampling approach for land cover accuracy assessment

Spatial sampling design is one of the key steps in land cover accuracy assessment, and many traditional sampling approaches may not achieve credible spatial sampling due to the high spatial heterogeneity of land cover. This paper characterizes the spatial heterogeneity with three-level LSIs and determines the subsequent sample sizes and their spatial distributions. The three-level LSIs are rLSI in a region, cLSI for each land cover class and uLSI in each geographic sampling unit in the region. The rLSIs are used to derive appropriate sample sizes in the target regions. The cLSIs are used to assure that larger sample numbers are allocated to land cover classes with higher spatial heterogeneity. The uLSIs provide useful measures for selecting optimal geographic units in which sample sites will be located. This LSI-based sampling approach can derive the sample sizes and determine their distributions in an adaptive way according to the spatial heterogeneity. An experimental case study further demonstrates that the LSI-based sampling approach obtains more appropriate sample sizes for each region, sufficient sample numbers for rare classes, and optimal sample distributions in the geographical space.     

The Antarctic meteorite Yamato 74123 — a new ureilite

The rare gases He, Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe were measured in bulk samples of Yamato 74123. The ³He and ²¹Ne exposure ages are found to be 5.50 Ma and 2.83 Ma, respectively. In addition to the cosmogenic component the samples contain primordial rare gases of the fractionated type in amounts typical of ureilites. In a three-isotope plot neon turns out to be a mixture of planetary neon and cosmogenic neon.The elements Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, K, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni have been determined by spark source mass spectrometry in Yamato 74123 and for comparison in the ureilites Haveröand Kenna. The chemical composition as well as the noble gas abundance pattern identify Yamato 74123 as an ureilite.     

Variability and trends in the annual snow‐cover cycle in Northern Hemisphere land areas, 1972–2000

This study investigated variability and trends in the annual snow‐cover cycle in regions covering high‐latitude and high‐elevation land areas in the Northern Hemisphere. The annual snow‐cover cycle was examined with respect to the week of the last‐observed snow cover in spring (WLS), the week of the first‐observed snow cover in autumn (WFS), and the duration of the snow‐free period (DSF). The analysis used a 29‐year time‐series (1972–2000) of weekly, visible‐band satellite observations of Northern Hemisphere snow cover from NOAA with corrections applied by D. Robinson of Rutgers University Climate Laboratory. Substantial interannual variability was observed in WLS, WFS and DSF (standard deviations of 0·8–1·1, 0·7–0·9 and 1·0–1·4 weeks, respectively), which is related directly to interannual variability in snow‐cover area in the regions and time periods of snow‐cover transition. Over the nearly three‐decade study period, WLS shifted earlier by 3–5 days/decade as determined by linear regression analysis. The observed shifts in the annual snow‐cover cycle underlie a significant trend toward a longer annual snow‐free period. The DSF increased by 5–6 days/decade over the study period, primarily as a result of earlier snow cover disappearance in spring. The observed trends are consistent with reported trends in the timing and length of the active growing season as determined from satellite observations of vegetation greenness and the atmospheric CO₂ record. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The use of remotely sensed land cover to derive floodplain friction coefficients for flood inundation modelling

Remotely sensed land cover was used to generate spatially‐distributed friction coefficients for use in a two‐dimensional model of flood inundation. Such models are at the forefront of research into the prediction of river flooding. Standard practice, however, is to use single (static) friction coefficients on both the channel and floodplain, which are varied in a calibration procedure to provide a “best fit” to a known inundation extent. Spatially‐distributed friction provides a physically grounded estimate of friction that does not require fitting to a known inundation extent, but which can be fitted if desired. Remote sensing offers the opportunity to map these friction coefficients relatively straightforwardly and for low cost. Inundation was predicted using the LISFLOOD‐FP model for a reach on the River Nene, UK. Friction coefficients were produced from land cover predicted from Landsat TM imagery using both ML and fuzzy c‐means classifiction. The elevetion data used were from combined contour and differential global positioning system (GPS) elevation data. Predicted inundation using spatially‐distributed and static friction were compared. Spatially‐distributed friction had the greatest effect on the timing of flood inundation, but a small effect on predicted inundation extent. The results indicate that spatially‐distributed friction should be considered where the timing of initial flooding (e.g. for early warning) is important. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Novel fuzzy uncertainty modeling for land cover classification based on clustering analysis

It is well known that there is a degree of fuzzy uncertainty in land cover classification using remote sensing (RS) images. In this article, we propose a novel fuzzy uncertainty modeling algorithm for representing the features of land cover patterns, and present an adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy clustering method. The proposed fuzzy uncertainty modeling method is performed in two main phases. First, the segmentation units of the input multi-spectral RS image data are subjected to objectbased interval-valued symbolic modeling. As a result, features for each land cover type are represented in the form of an intervalvalued symbolic vector, which describes the intra-class uncertainty better than the source data and improves the separability between different classes. Second, interval type-2 fuzzy sets are generated for each cluster based on the distance metric of the interval-valued vectors. This step characterizes the inter-class high-order fuzzy uncertainty and improves the classification accuracy. To demonstrate the advantages and effectiveness of the proposed approach, extensive experiments are conducted on two multispectral RS image datasets from regions with complex land cover characteristics, and the results are compared with those given by well-known fuzzy and conventional clustering algorithms.     

Patch scale aggregation of heterogeneous land surface cover for mesoscale meteorological models

Theoretical studies dealing with aggregation of surface parameters at small scale are reviewed. Finding effective parameters for surface resistance is possible for most cases by taking simple geometric or arithmetic averages of the component resistances. The use of more sophisticated techniques such as the blending height improves the calculations. Resistances for heat and water vapour behave differently in heterogeneous terrain. A simple surface energy balance model is adapted to show the behaviour of the roughness length of heat and water vapour in heterogeneous terrain. It is suggested that this simple parameterization can adequately take into account the effect of variation in surface cover on the fluxes of heat and water vapour.     

Continuous land cover change monitoring in the remote sensing big data era

<正>Since the late 20th century,global change issues have attracted lots of attention.As a key component of global changes,land cover and land use information has been increasingly important for improved understanding of global environmental changes and feedbacks between social and environmental systems(Verburg et al.,2015).A set of national and global scale land cover/use products with higher spatial and temporal resolutions have been developed to fill this gap.In China,existing efforts include China’s National     

Climate and land cover effects on the temperature of Puget Sound streams

We apply an integrated hydrology‐stream temperature modeling system, DHSVM‐RBM, to examine the response of the temperature of the major streams draining to Puget Sound to land cover and climate change. We first show that the model construct is able to reconstruct observed historic streamflow and stream temperature variations at a range of time scales. We then explore the relative effect of projected future climate and land cover change, including riparian vegetation, on streamflow and stream temperature. Streamflow in summer is likely to decrease as the climate warms especially in snowmelt‐dominated and transient river basins despite increased streamflow in their lower reaches associated with urbanization. Changes in streamflow also result from changes in land cover, and changes in stream shading result from changes in riparian vegetation, both of which influence stream temperature. However, we find that the effect of riparian vegetation changes on stream temperature is much greater than land cover change over the entire basin especially during summer low flow periods. Furthermore, while future projected precipitation change will have relatively modest effects on stream temperature, projected future air temperature increases will result in substantial increases in stream temperature especially in summer. These summer stream temperature increases will be associated both with increasing air temperature, and projected decreases in low flows. We find that restoration of riparian vegetation could mitigate much of the projected summer stream temperature increases. We also explore the contribution of riverine thermal loadings to the heat balance of Puget Sound, and find that the riverine contribution is greatest in winter, when streams account for up to 1/8 of total thermal inputs (averaged from December through February), with larger effects in some sub‐basins. We project that the riverine impact on thermal inputs to Puget Sound will become greater with both urbanization and climate change in winter but become smaller in summer due to climate change. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An EcoCity model for regulating urban land cover structure and thermal environment: Taking Beijing as an example

Urban land-use/cover changes and their effects on the eco-environment have long been an active research topic in the urbanization field. However, the characteristics of urban inner spatial heterogeneity and its quantitative relationship with thermal environment are still poorly understood, resulting in ineffective application in urban ecological planning and management.Through the integration of "spatial structure theory" in urban geography and "surface energy balance" in urban climatology, we proposed a new concept of urban surface structure and thermal environment regulation to reveal the mechanism between urban spatial structure and surface thermal environment. We developed the EcoCity model for regulating urban land cover structure and thermal environment, and established the eco-regulation thresholds of urban surface thermal environments. Based on the comprehensive analysis of experimental observation, remotely sensed and meteorological data, we examined the spatial patterns of urban habitation, industrial, infrastructure service, and ecological spaces. We examined the impacts of internal land-cover components(e.g., urban impervious surfaces, greenness, and water) on surface radiation and heat flux. This research indicated that difference of thermal environments among urban functional areas is closely related to the proportions of the land-cover components.The highly dense impervious surface areas in commercial and residential zones significantly increased land surface temperature through increasing sensible heat flux, while greenness and water decrease land surface temperature through increasing latent heat flux. We also found that different functional zones due to various proportions of green spaces have various heat dissipation roles and ecological thresholds. Urban greening projects in highly dense impervious surfaces areas such as commercial, transportation, and residential zones are especially effective in promoting latent heat dissipation efficiency of vegetation, leading to strongly cooling effect of unit vegetation coverage. This research indicates that the EcoCity model provides the fundamentals to understand the coupled mechanism between urban land use structure and surface flux and the analysis of their spatiotemporal characteristics. This model provides a general computational model system for defining urban heat island mitigation, the greening ratio indexes, and their regulating thresholds for different functional zones.     

On the ability of large-scale hydrological models to simulate land use and land cover change impacts in Amazonian basins

ABSTRACT

The MHD-INPE model was applied in the Ji-Parana Basin, a 30 000 km² catchment located in the southwest of the Amazon Basin which has lost more than 50% of its forest since the 1980s, to simulate land use and land cover change impacts on runoff generation process and how they are related to basin topography. Simulation results agree with observational studies in the sense that fast response processes are significant in sub-basins with steep slopes while in basins with gentle topography, the impacts are most visible in slow-response hydrological processes. On the other hand, the model is not able to capture the dependence of LUCC impacts on spatial scales. These discrepancies are probably associated with limitations in the spatial representation of heterogeneities within the model, which become more relevant at larger scales. We also tested the hypothesis that secondary forest growth should be able to compensate the decrease in evapotranspiration due to forest–cropland or forest–grassland conversion at a regional scale. Results showed that despite the small fraction of secondary forest estimated on the basin, the higher evapotranspiration efficiency of this type of forest counterbalances a large fraction of the LUCC impacts on evapotranspiration. This result suggests that enhanced transpiration due to secondary forest could explain, at least in part, the lack of clear LUCC signals in discharge series at larger scales.

EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis; ASSOCIATE EDITOR T. Wagener     

Impacts of land use and land cover changes on hydrological processes and sediment yield determined using the SWAT model

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes strongly affect local hydrology and sediment yields.The current study focused on a basin in the Brazilian Amazon and had the following three objectives:(1) to perform an effective diagnosis of flow and sediment yield,(2) to evaluate the impacts of LULC changes over the last 40 years on the hydro-sedimentological variables,and (3) to investigate the impacts of the possible trends or breaking points in the flow,surface runoff,and sediment yield series.The Soi...     

The new worldwide collapse caldera database (CCDB): A tool for studying and understanding caldera processes

Collapse calderas are one of the most important volcanic structures not only because of their hazard implications, but also because of their high geothermal energy potential and their association with mineral deposits of economic interest. The objective of this work is to describe a new general worldwide Collapse Caldera DataBase (CCDB), in order to provide a useful and accessible tool for studying and understanding caldera collapse processes. The principal aim of the CCDB is to update the current field based knowledge on calderas, merging together the existing databases and complementing them with new examples found in the bibliography, and leaving it open for the incorporation of new data from future studies. This database does not include all the calderas of the world, but it tries to be representative enough to promote further studies and analyses. We have performed a comprehensive compilation of published field studies of collapse calderas including more than 200 references, and their information has been summarized in a database linked to a Geographical Information System (GIS) application. Thus, it is possible to visualize the selected calderas on a world map and to filter them according to different features recorded in the database (e.g. age, structure). The information recorded in the CCDB can be grouped in seven main information classes: caldera features, properties of the caldera-forming deposits, magmatic system, geodynamic setting, pre-caldera volcanism, caldera-forming eruption sequence and post-caldera activity. Additionally, we have added two extra classes. The first records the references consulted for each caldera. The second allows users to introduce comments on the caldera sample such as possible controversies concerning the caldera origin. A further purpose of this work is to construct the CCDB web page. In this web page where registered users can acquire the current database version, as well as to propose corrections or updates and to exchange information with other registered members also involved in the study of caldera collapse processes. Additionally, the CCDB includes a formulary that will facilitate the incorporation of new calderas into the database.     

The effect of land cover change on duration and severity of high and low flows

Land cover has been increasingly recognized as an important factor affecting hydrologic processes at the basin and regional level. Therefore, improved understanding of how land cover change affects hydrologic systems is needed for better management of water resources. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of land cover change on the duration and severity of high and low flows by using the Soil Water Assessment Tool model, Bayesian model averaging and copulas. Two basins dominated by different land cover in the Ohio River basin are used as study area in this study. Two historic land covers from the 1950s and 1990s are considered as input to the Soil Water Assessment Tool model, thereby investigating the hydrologic high and low flow response of different land cover conditions of these two basins. The relationships between the duration and severity of both low and high flow are defined by applying the copula method; changes in the frequency of the duration and severity are investigated. The results show that land cover changes affect both the duration and severity of both high and low flows. An increase in forest area leads to a decrease in the duration and severity during both high and low flows, but its impact is highest during extreme flows. The results also show that the land cover changes have had significant influences on changes in the joint return periods of duration and severity of low and high flows. While this study sheds light on the role of land cover change on severity and duration of high and low flow conditions, more studies using various land cover conditions and climate types are required in order to draw more reliable conclusions in the future. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

太湖流域LUCC对水文过程的影响

基于1971年枯水年、1989年丰水年、2000年平水年3类典型代表年的逐日降雨量、逐日蒸发量以及不同时期地表覆盖遥感分类数据,以城市化快速发展地表覆盖变化明显的太湖流域为研究区域,利用太湖流域河网水量模型进行了土地利用/覆被变化的水文响应研究,分析了太湖流域1990 2000年与2000 2006年间的土地利用/覆被变化及其对水位过程的影响.不仅有利于对城市化地区水文特征变化规律深入了解,也为典型城市化地区防洪减灾提供科学可靠的依据.研究表明,太湖流域城镇化进程的加快引起了土地利用/覆被变化的主要表现是水田、水域等面积向城镇面积转化,城镇化进程加快,2000 2006年期间的城镇化速度大于1990 2000年间;下垫面的变化对太湖流域水文过程产生了明显的影响,随着城市化进程地表覆盖的变化,水位有整体升高的趋势,并且增幅加大,与城镇化速率变化趋势相一致,城镇化程度高的地方水位上升更为明显;降雨量也是水位过程的影响因素之一.     

Modeling the climatic effects of the land use/cover change in eastern China

This study aims to quantify the contribution of land use/cover change (LUCC) during the last three decades to climate change conditions in eastern China. The effects of farmland expansion in Northeast China, grassland degradation in Northwest China, and deforestation in South China were simulated using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in addition to the latest actual land cover datasets. The simulated results show that when forestland is converted to farmland, the air temperature decreased owing to an increase in surface albedo in Northeast China. The climatic effect of grassland degradation on the Loess Plateau was insignificant because of the negligible difference in albedo between grassland and cropland. In South China, deforestation generally led to a decrease in temperature. Furthermore, the temperature decrease caused by the increase in albedo counteracted the warming effects of the evapotranspiration decrease, so the summer temperature change was not significant in South China. Excluding the effects of urbanization in the North China Plain, the LUCC effects across the entire region of East China presented an overall cooling trend. However, the variation in temperature scale and magnitude was less in summer than that in winter. This result is due mainly to the cooling caused by the increase in albedo offset partly by the increase in temperature caused by the decrease in evaporation in summer. Summer precipitation showed a trend of increasing–decreasing–increasing from southeast to northwest after LUCC, which was induced mainly by the decrease in surface roughness and cyclone circulations appearing northwest of Northeast China, in the middle of the Loess Plateau, and in Yunnan province at 700 hPa after forests were converted into farmland. All results will be instructive for understanding the influence of LUCC on regional climate and future land planning in practice.