Remote sensing-derived national land cover land use maps: a comparison for Malawi

Reliable land cover land use (LCLU) information, and change over time, is important for Green House Gas (GHG) reporting for climate change documentation. Four different organizations have independently created LCLU maps from 2010 satellite imagery for Malawi for GHG reporting. This analysis compares the procedures and results for those four activities. Four different classification methods were employed; traditional visual interpretation, segmentation and visual labelling, digital clustering with visual identification and supervised signature extraction with application of a decision rule followed by analyst editing. One effort did not report classification accuracy and the other three had very similar and excellent overall thematic accuracies ranging from 85 to 89%. However, despite these high thematic accuracies there were very significant differences in results. National percentages for forest ranged from 18.2 to 28.7% and cropland from 40.5 to 53.7%. These significant differences are concerns for both remote-sensing scientists and decision-makers in Malawi.     

Urbanization and child growth failure in Sub-Saharan Africa: a geographical analysis

Journal of Geographical Systems - This paper raises a fundamental question about Sub-Saharan Africa: has urbanization there been accompanied by improvements in personal wellbeing? It then proceeds...     

Evaluating the impact of data quantity, distribution and algorithm selection on the accuracy of 3D subsurface models using synthetic grid models of varying complexity

Testing the accuracy of 3D modelling algorithms used for geological applications is extremely difficult as model results cannot be easily validated. This paper presents a new approach to evaluate the effectiveness of common interpolation algorithms used in 3D subsurface modelling, utilizing four synthetic grids to represent subsurface environments of varying geological complexity. The four grids are modelled with Inverse Distance Weighting and Ordinary Kriging, using data extracted from the synthetic grids in different spatial distribution patterns (regular, random, clustered and sparse), and with different numbers of data points (100, 256, 676 and 1,600). Utilizing synthetic grids for this evaluation allows quantitative statistical assessment of the accuracy of both interpolation algorithms in a variety of sampling conditions. Data distribution proved to be an important factor; as in many geological situations, relatively small numbers of randomly distributed data points can generate more accurate 3D models than larger amounts of clustered data. This study provides insight for optimizing the quantity and distribution of data required to accurately and cost-effectively interpolate subsurface units of varying complexity.     

Cascaded image analysis for dynamic crack detection in material testing

Concrete probes in civil engineering material testing often show fissures or hairline-cracks. These cracks develop dynamically. Starting at a width of a few microns, they usually cannot be detected visually or in an image of a camera imaging the whole probe. Conventional image analysis techniques will detect fissures only if they show a width in the order of one pixel. To be able to detect and measure fissures with a width of a fraction of a pixel at an early stage of their development, a cascaded image analysis approach has been developed, implemented and tested. The basic idea of the approach is to detect discontinuities in dense surface deformation vector fields. These deformation vector fields between consecutive stereo image pairs, which are generated by cross correlation or least squares matching, show a precision in the order of 1/50 pixel. Hairline-cracks can be detected and measured by applying edge detection techniques such as a Sobel operator to the results of the image matching process. Cracks will show up as linear discontinuities in the deformation vector field and can be vectorized by edge chaining. In practical tests of the method, cracks with a width of 1/20 pixel could be detected, and their width could be determined at a precision of 1/50 pixel.     

Using gravity and topography-implied anomalies to assess data requirements for precise geoid computation

Many regions around the world require improved gravimetric data bases to support very accurate geoid modeling for the modernization of height systems using GPS. We present a simple yet effective method to assess gravity data requirements, particularly the necessary resolution, for a desired precision in geoid computation. The approach is based on simulating high-resolution gravimetry using a topography-correlated model that is adjusted to be consistent with an existing network of gravity data. Analysis of these adjusted, simulated data through Stokes’s integral indicates where existing gravity data must be supplemented by new surveys in order to achieve an acceptable level of omission error in the geoid undulation. The simulated model can equally be used to analyze commission error, as well as model error and data inconsistencies to a limited extent. The proposed method is applied to South Korea and shows clearly where existing gravity data are too scarce for precise geoid computation.     

Evaluation of the geometric stability and the accuracy potential of digital cameras — Comparing mechanical stabilisation versus parameterisation

Recent tests on the geometric stability of several digital cameras that were not designed for photogrammetric applications have shown that the accomplished accuracies in object space are either limited or that the accuracy potential is not exploited to the fullest extent. A total of 72 calibrations were calculated with four different software products for eleven digital camera models with different hardware setups, some with mechanical fixation of one or more parts. The calibration procedure was chosen in accord to a German guideline for evaluation of optical 3D measuring systems [VDI/VDE, VDI/VDE 2634 Part 1, 2002. Optical 3D Measuring Systems–Imaging Systems with Point-by-point Probing. Beuth Verlag, Berlin]. All images were taken with ringflashes which was considered a standard method for close-range photogrammetry. In cases where the flash was mounted to the lens, the force exerted on the lens tube and the camera mount greatly reduced the accomplished accuracy. Mounting the ringflash to the camera instead resulted in a large improvement of accuracy in object space. For standard calibration best accuracies in object space were accomplished with a Canon EOS 5D and a 35 mm Canon lens where the focusing tube was fixed with epoxy (47  μm maximum absolute length measurement error in object space). The fixation of the Canon lens was fairly easy and inexpensive resulting in a sevenfold increase in accuracy compared with the same lens type without modification. A similar accuracy was accomplished with a Nikon D3 when mounting the ringflash to the camera instead of the lens (52  μm maximum absolute length measurement error in object space). Parameterisation of geometric instabilities by introduction of an image variant interior orientation in the calibration process improved results for most cameras. In this case, a modified Alpa 12 WA yielded the best results (29  μm maximum absolute length measurement error in object space). Extending the parameter model with FiBun software to model not only an image variant interior orientation, but also deformations in the sensor domain of the cameras, showed significant improvements only for a small group of cameras. The Nikon D3 camera yielded the best overall accuracy (25  μm maximum absolute length measurement error in object space) with this calibration procedure indicating at the same time the presence of image invariant error in the sensor domain. Overall, calibration results showed that digital cameras can be applied for an accurate photogrammetric survey and that only a little effort was sufficient to greatly improve the accuracy potential of digital cameras.     

Variation in tree mortality and regeneration affect forest carbon recovery following fuel treatments and wildfire in the Lake Tahoe Basin, California, USA

Background

Forest fuel treatments have been proposed as tools to stabilize carbon stocks in fire-prone forests in the Western U.S.A. Although fuel treatments such as thinning and burning are known to immediately reduce forest carbon stocks, there are suggestions that these losses may be paid back over the long-term if treatments sufficiently reduce future wildfire severity, or prevent deforestation. Although fire severity and post-fire tree regeneration have been indicated as important influences on long-term carbon dynamics, it remains unclear how natural variability in these processes might affect the ability of fuel treatments to protect forest carbon resources. We surveyed a wildfire where fuel treatments were put in place before fire and estimated the short-term impact of treatment and wildfire on aboveground carbon stocks at our study site. We then used a common vegetation growth simulator in conjunction with sensitivity analysis techniques to assess how predicted timescales of carbon recovery after fire are sensitive to variation in rates of fire-related tree mortality, and post-fire tree regeneration.

Results

We found that fuel reduction treatments were successful at ameliorating fire severity at our study site by removing an estimated 36% of aboveground biomass. Treated and untreated stands stored similar amounts of carbon three years after wildfire, but differences in fire severity were such that untreated stands maintained only 7% of aboveground carbon as live trees, versus 51% in treated stands. Over the long-term, our simulations suggest that treated stands in our study area will recover baseline carbon storage 10?C35?years more quickly than untreated stands. Our sensitivity analysis found that rates of fire-related tree mortality strongly influence estimates of post-fire carbon recovery. Rates of regeneration were less influential on recovery timing, except when fire severity was high.

Conclusions

Our ability to predict the response of forest carbon resources to anthropogenic and natural disturbances requires models that incorporate uncertainty in processes important to long-term forest carbon dynamics. To the extent that fuel treatments are able to ameliorate tree mortality rates or prevent deforestation resulting from wildfire, our results suggest that treatments may be a viable strategy to stabilize existing forest carbon stocks.     

A bilinear approximation of the surface relief in terrain correction computations

A new method is presented for the computation of the gravitational attraction of topographic masses when their height information is given on a regular grid. It is shown that the representation of the terrain relief by means of a bilinear surface not only offers a serious alternative to the polyhedra modeling, but also approaches even more smoothly the continuous reality. Inserting a bilinear approximation into the known scheme of deriving closed analytical expressions for the potential and its first-order derivatives for an arbitrarily shaped polyhedron leads to a one-dimensional integration with – apparently – no analytical solution. However, due to the high degree of smoothness of the integrand function, the numerical computation of this integral is very efficient. Numerical tests using synthetic data and a densely sampled digital terrain model in the Bavarian Alps prove that the new method is comparable to or even faster than a terrain modeling using polyhedra.     

A note on frame transformations with applications to geodetic datums

Rigorous equations in compact symbolic matrix notation are introduced to transform coordinates and velocities between ITRF frames and modern GPS-based geocentric geodetic datums. The theory is general but, after neglecting higher than second-order terms, it is shown that the equations revert to the formulation currently applied in most major continental datums. We discuss several examples: the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83), the European Terrestrial Reference System of 1989 (ETRS89), the Geodetic Datum of Australia of 1994 (GDA94), and the South American Geocentric Reference System (SIRGAS). Electronic Publication