Wet tropospheric effects on precise relative GPS height determination

Summary Considerable interest has been generated recently in the use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) for precise height determination. A major error source in these measurements is the propagation delay due to atmospheric water vapour. In order to achieve the high precisions required for such applications as absolute sea-level monitoring improvement of wet delay modelling is necessary. Results from a GPS campaign show a significant correlation (0.91) between the variability of the wet delay measured using a water vapour radiometer (WVR) at the Onsala site and the absolute value of the residual error in the height determination of a 134 km baseline from Onsala to Jönköping. This correlation indicates that the atmosphericvariability as inferred from the WVR data includes information on the quality of the GPS height estimate. During periods of high atmospheric activity, e.g., during the passage of a weather front, the use of a six-parameter gradient model reduces the spread for the vertical coordinate from 40 mm to 20 mm (with standard deviations of 17 mm and 9 mm respectively) over the 134 km baseline (less than 1 × 10^–7) using 8 hour data spans on 11 different days over a six month period.     

The hierarchical tessellation model and its use in spatial analysis

The hierarchid tessellation model belongs to a class of spatial data models based on the recursive decomposition of space. The quadtree is one such tessellation and is characterized by square cells and a 1:4 decomposition ratio. To relax these constraints in the tessellation, a generalized hierarchical tessellation data model, called Adaptive Recursive Tessellations (ART), has been proposed. ART increases flexibility in the tessellation by the use of rectangular cells and variable decomposition ratios. In ART, users can specify cell sizes which are intuitively meaningful to their applications, or which can reflect the scales of data. ART is implemented in a data structure called Adaptive Recursive Run-Encoding (ARRE), which is a variant of two-dimensional run-encoding whose running path can vary with the different tessellation structures incorporated in an ART model. Given the recognition of the benefits of implementing statistical spatial analysis in GIS, the use of hierarchical tessellation models such as ART in spatial analysis is discussed. Three examples are introduced to show how ART can: (1) be applied to solve the quadrat size problem in quadrat analysis of point patterns; (2) act as the data model in the variable resolution block kriging technique for geostatistical data to reduce variation in kriging error; and (3) facilitate the evaluation of spatial autocorrelation for area data at multiple map resolutions via the construction of a connectivity matrix for calculating spatial autocorrelation indices based on ARRE.     

Assessing the Resolving Power of Photographic Systems Used forTerrestrial Remote Sensing

It is often necessary to measure the resolving power of an imaging system comprising "off the shelf" components by a method that can also describe resolution in the object space. Furthermore, the results should allow useful comparisons to be made with alternative systems, where these have undergone a similar evaluation procedure. An example is given of measuring the resolving power of two imaging systems employing catadioptric objectives by a method that does not necessitate extensive laboratory tests, but utilizes the photographic product provided through field trials, or in the course of operational use. While the method reported does not claim to be a rigorous evaluation of the resolving power, it has been found to provide a convenient and practical guide to the image quality associated with a complete camera system, and its relation to the object space.     

Analytical methods Of assessing the image quality associated with digital and photographic imaging systems

The introduction of digital cameras for aerial survey photography and use of scanners with processed aerial film present a number of technical questions concerning the way photography is to be acquired in the future. Among the questions to be addressed are the comparative metric properties of images acquired by each system and the associated image quality characteristics. The new digital camera systems will require very careful appraisal, using well-established methods of assessing metric quality already available to survey organisations. The questions concerning image quality are more difficult to answer, as they require very specialised instrumentation if measurements are to be made directly in practice. Over the course of the past several decades a more analytical approach to assessing image quality has emerged, and one that may be used by individuals. The method is particularly effective where information on the micro-image characteristics of products is made available by the manufacturers concerned. An outline is given of some considerations that need to be taken into account when using an analytical approach, with references given for further reading.     

Remote sensing of horticultural plantations in Kumarsain tehsil in Shimla district, Himachal Pradesh

The favourable agroclimatic conditions for orchards especially apples have increased the acreages in Himachal Pradesh (HP) which has significantly contributed in the growth of state economy. Realizing the importance of horticulture in HP and its changing scenario of the land use/land cover, a study was conducted to identify and map apple and almond plantations in the Kumarsain tehsil of Shimla district using Remote Sensing (RS) techniques. IRS-IB LISS-II False Colour Composite (FCC) diapositives of October 27, March 30 and April 20, 1992 were visually analysed for mapping apple and almond plantations. The results indicate that IRS LISS-II data of April 20 on 1∶50,000 scale was found very useful for identification and mapping of apple and almond plantations in this region. Accuracy of interpretation was also tested on sample basis assuming a binomial distribution for the probability of success/failure of sample points. The overall interpretation accuracy assessed based on 40 sample points was found to be 87 per cent at 90 per cent confidence limits.     

Land use indicators of a watershed in arid region, western Rajasthan using Remote Sensing and GIS

The vegetation dynamics and land use/land cover types of Birantiya Kalan watershed located in the arid tracts of western Rajasthan have been characterized and evaluated using Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS). The watershed under study falls in the transitional plain of Luni Basin and is characterized by Aravali ranges in the eastern half and vast alluvial plains in the west. The land use/land cover types, as identified are cropland, fallow, forest, land with scrub, land without scrub, sandy area and the water body. Land with scrub occupied maximum area (39% area of the watershed) in 1996 in place of crop land which was dominant (43% of total area) in the year 1988. During eight years period, seasonal fallow land increased significantly and the areal extent of water body decreased to almost half. Vegetation vigour types have been classified into very poor, poor. moderate, good and very good categories. Moderate vigour type reduced from 62 to 27% and poor type increased from 34 to 68% during the period 1988 to 1996. Other vegetation vigour types have not shown any significant changes. To quantify the changes over the years in both vegetation and land use/land cover, weightages have been given to each type and composite values of both vegetation vigour and land use types for 1996 and 1988 have been calculated. It has been observed that the ratio for vegetation vigour has been found to be 0.85 showing that the overall vegetation have not improved after the treatment. The ratio for land use is found to be 1.01, which indicates negligible change in land use.     

Vening Meinesz inverse isostatic problem with local and global Bouguer anomalies

Inverse problems in isostasy will consist in making the isostatic anomalies to be zero under a certain isostatic hypothesis. In the case of the Vening Meinesz isostatic hypothesis, the density contrast is constant, while the Moho depth (depth of the Mohorovičić discontinuity) is variable. Hence, the Vening Meinesz inverse isostatic problem aims to determine a suitable variable Moho depth for a prescribed constant density contrast. The main idea is easy but the theoretical analysis is somewhat difficult. Moreover, the practical determination of the variable Moho depths based on the Vening Meinesz inverse problem is a laborious and time-consuming task. The formulas used for computing the inverse Vening Meinesz Moho depths are derived. The computational tricks essentially needed for computing the inverse Vening Meinesz Moho depths from a set of local and global Bouguer anomalies are described. The Moho depths for a test area are computed based on the inverse Vening Meinesz isostatic problem. These Moho depths fit the Moho depths derived from seismic observations with a good accuracy, in which the parameters used for the fitting agree well with those determined geophysically. Received: 4 February 1999 / Accepted: 4 October 1999     

Precise Real-Time Positioning in WADGPS Networks

In recent years the importance of real-time positioning and navigation with the Global Positioning System (GPS) has grown rapidly. Starting from the establishment of differential GPS (DGPS) reference stations for marine and land navigation, new users and applications have emerged that resulted in a high demand for the establishment of a high-density network of reference stations around the world. Many countries have established their own DGPS service, which is either governmentally or commercially owned. These services are referred to as Local Area DGPS Systems (LADGPS). However, the costs for the establishment and maintenance of a dense network of reference stations are very high. Therefore Wide Area DGPS Systems (WADGPS) are being developed to overcome the main drawbacks of LADGPS. In this case, only a few reference stations are used to cover a large area, such s a continent like Europe. To achieve high positioning accuracies, real-time modeling of the main error sources for long-range baselines is required as errors in the satellite orbit and ionospheric refraction do not cancel entirely in double differencing. In this article, a real-time correction model based on the Kalman filter for WADGPS and networked LADGPS services is discussed and results of field tests in a WADGPS network in Europe are presented. ? 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Atmospheric, oceanic and hydrological contributions to seasonal variations in length of day

 The annual and semiannual residuals derived in the axial angular momentum budget of the solid Earth–atmosphere system reflect significant signals. They must be caused by further excitation sources. Since, in particular, the contribution for the wind term from the atmospheric layer between the 10 and 0.3 hPa levels to the seasonal variations in length of day (LOD) is still missing, it is necessary to extend the top level into the upper stratosphere up to 0.3 hPa. Under the conservation of the total angular momentum of the entire Earth, variations in the oceanic angular momentum (OAM) and the hydrological angular momentum (HAM) are further significant excitation sources at seasonal time scales. Focusing on other contributions to the Earth's axial angular momentum budget, the following data are used in this study: axial atmospheric angular momentum (AAM) data derived for the 10–0.3 hPa layer from 1991 to 1997 for computing the missing wind effects; axial OAM functions as generated by oceanic general circulation models (GCMs), namely for the ECHAM3 and the MICOM models, available from 1975 to 1994 and from 1992 to 1994, respectively, for computing the oceanic contributions to LOD changes, and, concerning the HAM variations, the seasonal estimates of the hydrological contribution as derived by Chao and O'Connor [(1988) Geophys J 94: 263–270]. Using vector representation, it is shown that the vectors achieve a close balance in the global axial angular momentum budget within the estimated uncertainties of the momentum quantities on seasonal time scales. Received: 6 April 2000 / Accepted: 13 December 2000