Tracking long-term floodplain wetland changes: A case study in the China side of the Amur River Basin

Floodplain wetlands in the China side of the Amur River Basin (CARB) undergone consistent decreases because of both natural and anthropogenic drivers. Monitoring floodplain wetlands dynamics and conversions over long-time periods is thus fundamental to sustainable management and protection. Due to complexity and heterogeneity of floodplain environments, however, it is difficult to map wetlands accurately over a large area as the CARB. To address this issue, we developed a novel and robust classification approach integrating image compositing algorithm, objected-based image analysis, and hierarchical random forest classification, named COHRF, to delineate floodplain wetlands and surrounding land covers. Based on the COHRF classification approach, 4622 Landsat images were applied to produce a 30-m resolution dataset characterizing dynamics and conversions of floodplain wetlands in the CARB during 1990–2018. Results show that (1) all floodplain land cover maps in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2018 had high mapping accuracies (ranging from 90 %±0.001–97%±0.005), suggesting that COHRF is a robust classification approach; (2) CARB experienced an approximately 25 % net loss of floodplain wetlands with an area declined from 8867 km² to 6630 km² during 1990–2018; (3) the lost floodplain wetlands were mostly converted into croplands, while, there were 111 km² and 256 km² of wetlands rehabilitated from croplands during periods of 2000–2010 and 2010–2018, respectively. To our knowledge, this study is the first attempt that focus on delineating floodplain wetlands at a large-scale and produce the first 30-m spatial resolution dataset demonstrating long-term dynamics of floodplain wetlands in the CARB. The COHRF classification approach could be used to classify other ecosystems readily and robustly. The resultant dataset will contribute to sustainable use and conservation of wetlands in the Amur River Basin and provide essential information for related researches.     

Use of WorldView-2 time series to establish a wetland monitoring program for potential offsite impacts of mine site rehabilitation

The Ramsar-listed wetlands of the Magela Creek floodplain, situated in the World Heritage Kakadu National Park, in northern Australia are recognised for their biodiversity and cultural values. The floodplain is also a downstream receiving environment for Ranger uranium mine, which is entering closure and rehabilitation phases. Vegetation on the floodplain is spatially and temporally variable which is related to the hydrology of the region, primarily the extent and level of inundation and available soil moisture. Time-series mapping of the floodplain vegetation will provide a contemporary baseline of annual vegetation dynamics to assist with determining whether change is natural or a result of the potential impacts of mine closure activities such as increased suspended sediment moving downstream. The research described here used geographic object-based image analysis (GEOBIA) to classify the upper Magela Creek floodplain vegetation from WorldView-2 imagery captured over four years (2010–2013) and ancillary data including a canopy height model. A step-wise rule set was used to implement a decision tree classification. The resulting maps showed the 12 major vegetation communities that exist on the Magela Creek floodplain and their distribution for May 2010, May 2011, June 2012 and June 2013 with overall accuracies of over 80% for each map. Most of the error appears to be associated with confusion between vegetation classes that are spectrally similar such as the classes dominated by grasses. Object-based change detection was then applied to the maps to analyse change between dates. Results indicate that change between dates was detected for large areas of the floodplain. Most of the change is associated with the amount of surface water present, indicating that although imagery was captured at the same time of year, the imagery represents different stages of the seasonal cycle of the floodplain.     

中国湿地变化的驱动力分析

在全球气候变化及中国社会经济迅速发展的背景下,为了解中国湿地分布的时空动态特征及演化规律,以4期(1978年、1990年、2000年、2008年)中国湿地遥感制图数据和3期(1990年、2000年、2005年)土地利用数据为基础,同时考虑到对湿地变化的影响程度和数据的可获取性,选取12个影响因子(平均温度、平均湿度、累计降水量、人口数量、地区生产总值、农林牧渔产值、耕地面积、粮食产量、有效灌溉面积、水库库容量、除涝面积、治碱面积)研究1978年—2008年这30年间中国湿地变化的驱动机制。考虑到地理现象的空间非平稳性,本文采用地理加权回归的方法分析驱动因子对湿地变化的影响作用。地理加权回归作为一种局部线性回归方法,能够直观地反映湿地驱动因子对湿地作用的地域差异。结果表明:不同类型的湿地变化的主要影响因素不同,内陆湿地与温度、降水以及农业耕作灌溉等密切相关;人工湿地与经济发展水平和水利设施兴建密切相关;滨海湿地与农林牧渔产业和人口等密切相关。同一类型湿地变化的主要影响因素随着时间推移也有所变化,并且影响程度在地域上也存在较为明显的南北和东西差异。本次研究结果基本反映了1978年—2008年中国湿地变化的特征规律。     

USE OF THE CARTOGRAPHIC METHOD IN THE STUDY OF CHANNEL PROCESSES

A second paper on floodplain and channel mapping describes how the “cartographic method” (the use of maps to derive information about the world not readily available through other means of investigation) is applied through the use of special maps depicting the sizes and types of river channels, the character of floodplains and of channel deformation, and the general conditions responsible for channel evolution. The uses, strengths, and limitations of channel maps at small, intermediate, and large scales are discussed, as well as methods of cartographic presentation that have proven most effective. Translated from: Geografiya i prirodnyye resursy, 1986, No. 3, pp. 99-108.     

海河流域湿地格局变化分析

利用遥感和GIS技术,制作了海河流域1980年、1990年、2000年和2007年4期湿地分布图,分析了湿地格局变化过程与区域气候变化以及人类活动的影响.结果表明:(1)流域内天然湿地面积萎缩趋势明显,由1980年的5360 km2降至2007年的4331 km2;人工湿地面积先增加后减小,由1980年的3492 km...     

Characterizing wetland dynamics: a post-classification change detection analysis of the East Kolkata Wetlands using open source satellite data

The East Kolkata Wetlands is a unique resource recovery system. The Ramsar Convention recognized it as a ‘Wetland of International Importance’ in August 2002. However, the long-term resource exploitation and land use changes in the dynamic ecosystem have resulted in non-linear environmental responses. This is an attempt using open source remote sensing datasets to capture the spatio-temporal transformation of the wetland resulting from various anthropogenic activities. Landsat MSS and TM imageries of 1973, 1980, 1989, 2001 and 2010 were classified using Maximum Likelihood Classifier to monitor the wetland change; however, to study wetland dynamics, the post-classification wetland change detection maps have been generated for two temporal phases, i.e. 1973–1989 and 1989–2010. This study finds that the area under wetlands has reduced comprehensively in the past 40 years due to the conversion of wetlands into various other uses such as urban expansion of the Kolkata metropolitan city.     

Application of GIS and remote sensing techniques in frost risk mapping for mitigating agricultural losses in the Aberdare ecosystem,Kenya

Frost is a perennial agricultural hazard that normally causes crop damage leading to huge agricultural losses within the Kenyan highlands; aggravated by inadequate information on frost. This research mapped frost hotspots within the Aberdare and Mount Kenya regions and identified the extent of arable land under frost risk while establishing the trend of minimum temperature occurrences between the years 2000 and 2013. Minimum temperature values were extracted from daily Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer land surface temperature data-sets, and frost risk categorized into very severe frost (<250 K), severe frost (250–260 K), moderate frost (260–270 K), minor frost (270–280 K) and areas of no frost. Concentration of frost (<273 K) was mapped within regions above 1500 m asl and occasional occurrences within valleys lower than this altitude with recurrent occurrences in the months of April, May, July, August and November. Elevation, land surface convexity and humidity were found to influence frost occurrence. Improved agricultural practice to mitigate against losses is recommended.     

Insight to Ecosystem Based Approach (EBA) at Landscape Level Using a Geospatial Medium

Ecosystem based approach (EBA) for resource management is a concerted, environmentally tuned and an integrated framework that holistically addresses the ecological character of the natural resource, its societal benefit spectrum and its environmental functions. In this paper, the EBA concept is closely linked with the emerging concept of multiple use systems (MUS) while taking account of environmental, economic, and social factors that govern the ecosystems services and benefits. We elucidate a multi-scalar approach and multiple case studies to understand EBA particularly in context of a wetlandscape. At the global scale, Ramsar sites of international importance are geospatially analyzed with reference to their agro-ecology and biodiversity. At regional scale, the agrarian use of inland wetlands in India was re-evaluated taking account of database from a recent inland wetland inventory. At the local scale, drawing on the landscape characterization and the ecological economics for fresh water Lake Kolleru in India and the Muthurajawela Marsh-Negombo Lagoon coastal marsh in Sri Lanka, we illustrate some of the practical challenges in balancing wetland conservation, development needs and the overall well-being of local people. We also discuss how variability in the scale, geophysical characteristics of the site and the data availability confines the ability to simplify a single complete approach to address issues in complex ecosystem such as wetlands. All levels of the study are supported by a variety of earth observation data and the geographical information system (GIS) tools. The site level analysis also draws on socio-economic assessment tools.     

Usability Issues in Applying Participatory Mapping for Neighborhood Infrastructure Planning

Public participation is required in neighborhood infrastructure planning and problem‐solving. Although Participatory GIS methods are considered important to help urban community groups identify problems and express their needs and concerns, usable means to help groups produce their maps remain difficult to be realised. Further, an effective means to facilitate the integration of government spatial plans and participatory maps also remains unclear. This article addresses usability issues in participatory mapping activities by exploring group collaboration mechanics and accomplishing use assessments. The study aims at testing the usefulness and the impact of participatory mapping for community development. User studies including questionnaire surveys, interviews, group usability testing, scenario assessments, and the scaling‐up activity were executed. Transparent photomaps, Mobile GIS, and a Web map were implemented and assessed in the study area. A use scenario for community and official spatial data integration was also developed. The results of user studies show that the use of transparent photomaps is more effective to complete group tasks to discuss, draw, and annotate their infrastructure problems. For group participants, the transparent maps are more engaging, easy to learn, and more error tolerant than the use of Mobile GIS. A combination use of simple and advanced PGIS methods is necessary to be implemented to reach informed priority‐decision making.     

Analysis and simulation of land use spatial pattern in Harbin prefecture based on trajectories and cellular automata—Markov modelling

There have been rapid population and accelerating urban growth with associated changes in land use and soil degradation in northeast China, an important grain-producing region. The development of integrated use of remote sensing, geographic information systems, and combined cellular automata– Markov models has provided new means of assessing changes in land use and land cover, and has enabled projection of trajectories into the future. We applied such techniques to the prefecture-level city of Harbin, the tenth largest city in China. We found that there had been significant losses of the land uses termed “cropland”, “grassland”, “wetland”, and “floodplain” in favour of “built-up land” and lesser transformations from “floodplain” to “forestland” and “water body” over the 18-year period. However, the transition was not a simple process but a complex network of changes, interchanges, and multiple transitions. In the absence of effective land use policies, projection of past trajectories into a balance state in the future would result in the decline of cropland from 65.6% to 46.9% and the increase of built-up area from 7.7% to 23.0% relative to the total area of the prefecture in 1989. It also led to the virtual elimination of land use types such as unused wetland and floodplain.     

Improved coastal wetland mapping using very-high 2-meter spatial resolution imagery

Accurate wetland maps are a fundamental requirement for land use management and for wetland restoration planning. Several wetland map products are available today; most of them based on remote sensing images, but their different data sources and mapping methods lead to substantially different estimations of wetland location and extent. We used two very high-resolution (2 m) WorldView-2 satellite images and one (30 m) Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) image to assess wetland coverage in two coastal areas of Tampa Bay (Florida): Fort De Soto State Park and Weedon Island Preserve. An initial unsupervised classification derived from WorldView-2 was more accurate at identifying wetlands based on ground truth data collected in the field than the classification derived from Landsat 8 OLI (82% vs. 46% accuracy). The WorldView-2 data was then used to define the parameters of a simple and efficient decision tree with four nodes for a more exacting classification. The criteria for the decision tree were derived by extracting radiance spectra at 1500 separate pixels from the WorldView-2 data within field-validated regions. Results for both study areas showed high accuracy in both wetland (82% at Fort De Soto State Park, and 94% at Weedon Island Preserve) and non-wetland vegetation classes (90% and 83%, respectively). Historical, published land-use maps overestimate wetland surface cover by factors of 2–10 in the study areas. The proposed methods improve speed and efficiency of wetland map production, allow semi-annual monitoring through repeat satellite passes, and improve the accuracy and precision with which wetlands are identified.     

Mapping and characterization of inland wetlands using remote sensing and GIS

Sustainable management of wetland ecosystem is necessary as it serves the important functions such as food storage, water quality maintenance and providing habitat for different species of wildlife. Hence, an inventory of wetlands in any given area is a pre-requisite for their conservation and management. A study has been carried out to delineate the wetlands of east Champaran district of Bihar, India, using IRS ID LISS III data. The data for the pre and post monsoon seasons have been analysed and the wetlands have been qualitatively characterized based on the turbidity and aquatic vegetation status. The extent of water logging problem in the study area was inferred from the seasonal variation of waterspread during both the seasons. The three categories of wetlands (ponds/lakes, water logged areas and oxbow lakes) have been identified. From the analysis, it has been observed that the inland wetlands constitute 2.7% of the study area, of which 1.8% is subjected to water logging. Thus, this study highlights the usefulness of remotely sensed data for wetland mapping, seasonal monitoring and characterization.     

Mapping spatio-temporal flood inundation dynamics at large river basin scale using time-series flow data and MODIS imagery

Flood inundation is crucial to the survival and prosperity of flora and fauna communities in floodplain and wetland ecosystems. This study tried to map flood inundation characteristics in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia, utilizing hydrological and remotely sensed data. It integrated river flow time series and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images to map inundation dynamics over the study area on both temporal and spatial dimensions. Flow data were analyzed to derive flow peaks and Annual Exceedance Probabilities (AEPs) using the annual flood series method. The peaks were linked with MODIS images for inundation detection. Ten annual maximum inundation maps were generated for water years 2001–2010, which were then overlaid to derive an inundation frequency map. AEPs were also combined with the annual maximum inundation maps to derive an inundation probability map. The resultant maps revealed spatial and temporal patterns of flood inundation in the basin, which will benefit ecological and environmental studies when considering response of floodplain and wetland ecosystems to flood inundation.     

Age discrimination among eruptives of Menengai Caldera,Kenya, using vegetation parameters from satellite imagery

This paper reports an investigation to determine the degree to which digitally processed Landsat TM imagery can be used to discriminate among vegetated lava flows of different ages in the Menengai Caldera, Kenya. Since Landsat data display vegetation parameters well, and plant communities vary with type and depth of soil development, selective digital processing techniques were applied to take advantage of these characteristics for discriminating relative age differences of the underlying volcanics. A selective series of five images, consisting of a color‐coded Landsat 5 classification and four color composites, were compared with geologic maps. These included a color coded, modified, unsupervised classification and contrast enhanced, color composite images using TM bands 3–2–1, 4–3–2 and 7–5–3, and the first 3 Karhunen‐Loeve transformation axes that had been generated using 7 Landsat TM bands.

The most recent of more than 70 post‐caldera flows within the caldera are trachytes, which are variably covered by shrubs and subsidiary grasses. Soil development evolves as a function of time, and as such, supports a changing plant community. Progressively older flows exhibit the increasing dominance of grasses over bushes. It was found that the Landsat images correlated well with geologic maps, but that the two mapped age classes could be further subdivided on the basis of different vegetation communities. It is concluded that field maps can be modified, and in some cases corrected by use of such imagery, and that digitally enhanced Landsat imagery can be a useful aid to field mapping in similar terrains.     

Animation of Reliability in Computer-generated Dot Maps and Elevation Models

Visualization of reliability in spatial data has been the subject of considerable recent research activity. Animation has been suggested as one method to achieve this, and its application to various measures associated with class-area maps (classified satellite images and soil maps) has been discussed elsewhere. Animation is achieved by randomly selecting a location and then assigning it to a different map unit (cover or soil type) according to the information on the reliability associated with the original map or map units. In this article the same basic method is extended to mapping locational reliability in dot maps and surface error in a digital elevation model (DEM). In the former case, the dots, which are randomly located in the first place, are randomly relocated so that any meaningless positional information implicit in the location of the dots is lost while the meaningful information (the number of dots within a region) remains constant. In the DEM, animation uses a random field as an error surface, based upon the root mean squared error (RMSE). The amount of error at a location is constantly changed, giving no impression that the elevation is precisely known. The ability to vary the spatial autocorrelation within the error field provides a graphic illustration that the usual RMSE is not a sufficient method for the reporting of error in spatial databases. In both examples animation of reliability is believed to make a novel, but appropriate, use of the computer in cartography.     

Augmented paper maps: Exploring the design space of a mixed reality system

Paper maps and mobile electronic devices have complementary strengths and shortcomings in outdoor use. In many scenarios, like small craft sailing or cross-country trekking, a complete replacement of maps is neither useful nor desirable. Paper maps are fail-safe, relatively cheap, offer superior resolution and provide large scale overview. In uses like open-water sailing it is therefore mandatory to carry adequate maps/charts. GPS based mobile devices, on the other hand, offer useful features like automatic positioning and plotting, real-time information update and dynamic adaptation to user requirements. While paper maps are now commonly used in combination with mobile GPS devices, there is no meaningful integration between the two, and the combined use leads to a number of interaction problems and potential safety issues. In this paper we explore the design space of augmented paper maps in which maps are augmented with additional functionality through a mobile device to achieve a meaningful integration between device and map that combines their respective strengths.     

Mapping the London 2012 Olympics

Abstract

The London 2012 Olympic Games was a true spectacle of sporting achievement. It also provided the impetus for official organisations, news media and individuals to turn the vast amount of data into map form. This paper provides an outline of some of the cartographic highlights (and one or two lowlights) that the Olympics inspired. There were some great maps on view and also some interesting trends emerging, particularly in terms of web maps and web maps used as infographics. In particular, the Dorling cartogram saw widespread use, particularly to map medal tallies by online news media.     

Mapping of Lateritic Soils of Midlands in Kerala Using Resourcesat-1 LISS-III and SRTM DEM Data

Lateritic soils of Mathamangalam, Kannur District, located in midlands of Kerala, were morphologically studied, characterized, classified and mapped at 1:50,000 scale using remote sensing techniques. The terrain of the study area being hilly and covered with perennial vegetation, soil-landscape model was applied. For this purpose physiographic information was inferred from SRTM DEM, Resourcesat-1 LISS-III satellite image and topographical maps. The interpreted units were validated in the field and characterized through soil-site examination, soil profile study and soil analysis. The study indicated that the lateritic soils of midlands of Kerala vary in physical, chemical and morphological properties in relation to micro-relief. Soils developed on moderately steeply sloping side slopes (15–30% slope) are deep, moderately well drained with gravelly clay textured, where as the soils developed on moderately slopping side slope (10–15% slope) are very deep and well drained. The soils of valleys are very deep, moderately well drained with fine texture. Very gently sloping (1–3%) laterite plateau tops have extremely shallow soils associated with rock outcrops. These soils mainly belong to Order Ultisols followed by Inceptisols and Entisols. These were further grouped up to Family and Series level by tentatively establishing seven soil series. This study helps in understanding the behaviour of lateritic soils of midlands of Kerala, which can be useful in generation of interpretative maps and in optimizing the land use.     

Assessment of floodplain landuse and channel morphology within meandering reach of the Talar River in Iran using GIS and aerial photographs

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to investigate and monitor the landuse and morphological changes in the floodplain part of the Talar River, northern parts of Iran. In the present study, the aerial photographs have been used to produce landuse maps of the floodplain for three periods including 1968, 1994, and 2013. The quantitative analysis of the produced landuse maps showed that the floodplain has undergone substantial landuse changes. Moreover, the sediment bar and the beach area have been decreased about 97 and 90%, respectively, during the 45-year period. Substantial increases of 192 and 622% have been observed for orchards and residential areas, respectively. On the other hand, not only the forest and riparian vegetation were decreased but also the average width of river was decreased about 25.5 m. In addition, flow length of the study reach increased about 8 m. The RNCI was about ?0.7 m per year indicating sedimentation process. During the period of 1968–2013, Caspian Sea has retreated about 150 m and the delta of Talar River was changed. This study showed that morphological actions during first 26 years (1968–1994) were the stable and last 19 years had the change period, especially sedimentation (bar).     

TIN-based Tag Map Layout

With the widespread use of tag clouds, multiple map-based variations have been proposed. Like standard tag clouds (also called word clouds), these ‘tag maps’ all share the basic strategy of displaying words within a ‘geographic space’ and scaling the word size to depict frequency (or importance) of those words within some dataset. While some tag maps simply plot a standard tag cloud on top of a map, the subset of tag maps we focus on here are those in which the collection of words are displayed within bounded geographic regions (often of irregular shape) that the words are relevant for. For this form of tag map, map scale and polygon shape add constraints to word size and position that have not been considered in most prior approaches to tag map word layout. In this paper, we present a layout strategy for tag map generation that includes consideration of the shape and size of the geographical regions acting as containers for the tags. The method introduced here uses a triangulated irregular network (TIN) to subdivide the geographical region into many triangle subareas, with the centroid of each triangle being a potential location to centre a tag on. All the triangles are sorted by their area and all the tags are sorted by their weight value (e.g. frequency, importance or popularity). Positioning of tags is undertaken sequentially from most important (or frequent or popular) with potential locations being the TIN triangle centroids (tried from largest to smallest triangle). After each tag placement, the TIN is recalculated to integrate the tag centroid and bounding corners into the TIN creation. The limited whitespace in the geographical region, at any specific scale, is used fully by dynamically adjusting the font size along with the number and the direction of tags. The method can be applied to add tags within geographic polygons that are convex, concave and other more complex regions containing holes or islands.