Revisiting cartography: towards identifying and developing a modern and comprehensive framework

Developments in production, sharing and use of spatial data and information involve revisiting the role and scope of cartography. Cartography is a core discipline for spatially modelling, investigating and mapping natural and cultural environments, developing location-aware applications, establishing spatial data infrastructures and forming spatially enabled societies. In this context, spatial data handling provides key tools for creating spatial databases, integrating spatial data, producing geographic information and maps and so on. Although cartography plays a key role in many phases of such activities, it tends to be introduced only as visualization phase of spatial data handling. On the other hand, it is sometimes regarded to encompass entire phases of spatial data handling. So this article investigates the relationships between cartography and spatial data handling, management and use, and on this basis, proposes a modern and comprehensive framework for cartography to contribute to restoring the full conceptual breadth of the discipline.     

Reply to the comment on “Prediction of ground vibrations resulting from the blasting operations in an open pit mine by adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system” by Tarkan Erdik

Environmental Earth Sciences -     

Durability assessment of the Ala?at? tuff (Izmir) in western Turkey

Ala?at? tuff has been used extensively as a source of building stone for outdoor and indoor decorations since the historical times in and around the tourist town of Ala?at? (western Turkey). The use of the Alacati tuff in buildings has been made compulsory by the Ala?at? municipality, for preserving the historical appearance of the buildings, after 2005 in Ala?at?. It has been noticed that, evident deteriorations developed in tuff surfaces of the stone buildings and garden walls within 5?C6?years of their emplacement. Durability properties of the Ala?at? tuff are evaluated by determining the mineralogical, chemical, and physico-mechanical properties of the fresh tuff samples obtained from the only operative quarry in the area. Ageing tests such as Na₂SO₄ and MgSO₄ salt crystallization, freezing?Cthawing, and wetting?Cdrying were conducted on the fresh tuff samples to assess their durability. Additionally, the durability of the tuff is also evaluated by determining its average pore diameter, saturation coefficient, wet-to-dry strength ratio, static rock and slake-durability indices. Fresh Ala?at? tuff has high porosity and low unit weight and strengths and are classified to be very poor to moderately durable stone based on the test results of different durability assessment methods. Mineralogical and geochemical analyses have also been carried out on the deteriorated tuff samples collected from the surfaces of the stone buildings to determine the effect of weathering on tuff and the test results have been compared with those of the fresh tuff samples. There is no major difference observed between the mineralogy and chemistry of the fresh and weathered tuff samples thus, it has been concluded that physical weathering has been dominant in the area in deterioration of tuff.     

Stability Assessment of Avanos Underground Congress Centre (Cappadocia, Turkey) in Soft Tuffs Through an Integrated Scheme of Rock Engineering Methods

The Cappadocia Region is one of the seven sites in Turkey included in the World Heritage List in 1985 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and includes structures carved into thick and soft tuffs that have survived and kept their integrity for a number of centuries. Besides existing ancient structures, new underground constructions have been undertaken. Considering the historical characteristics of the region, the construction of an underground structure was planned by the Municipality of Avanos Town to utilize a hill remnant from an abandoned quarry as an underground congress centre in the 1980s, but its construction has not yet been completed due to financial problems. In this study, integrated experimental, analytical and numerical analyses and an in situ monitoring program were undertaken to assess the stability conditions of the congress centre, which was carved into a soft tuff susceptible to long-term degradation processes. The experimental results indicate that the surrounding rock is quite vulnerable to cyclic freezing–thawing and wetting–drying processes. The strength of the rock is drastically reduced under saturated conditions, and the processes of freezing and thawing further accelerate the rock degradation under such conditions. Simple short-term stability analyses clearly show that some tensile cracking may take place and that the opening may suffer from some cracking problems 28–30 years after excavation. The analyses carried out for the long-term safety of the structure indicate that the most critical condition exists for the widest opening and that some supports at the middle of the widest opening may be necessary. Nevertheless, further studies on the long-term characteristics of this tuff are necessary to check this conclusion. The in situ monitoring clearly showed that some further crack propagation will occur, especially after rainy and freezing–thawing periods.     

New measures for analysis and comparison of shape distortion in world map projections

ABSTRACT

World maps can have quite different depictions of reality depending on the projection adopted, and this can influence our perception of the world. In this respect, shape is a significant property that needs to be considered, especially when representing large regions in general-purpose world maps. A map projection distorts most geometric properties (area, distance, direction/angle, shape, and specific curves) and usually preserves a single property or provides a compromise between different properties when transforming terrestrial features from globe to plane. The distortions are mainly classified based on area, distance and direction/angle and analyzed with Tissot’s theorem. However, this theorem offers a local (pointwise) solution, so the distortion assessment is valid at infinitesimal scale (i.e. for very small regions). For this reason, different approaches are required to analyze the distortions at finite scale (i.e. for larger regions). However, there are very few attempts at analyzing and comparing shape distortion of landmasses in world map projections owing to the fact that shape measurement is difficult and usually involves measuring different characteristics. Seeking to fill this gap, in this study, compactness and elongation distortion measures are introduced. In this regard, 16 world map projections are analyzed and compared with these distortion measures in a GIS environment, based on map datasets of continents and countries. An analysis of the effect of the levels of detail of the datasets is also presented.     

Necessity and adequacy of near-source factors for not-so-tall fixed-base buildings

Nonlinear response history analyses and use of strong ground motion data including near-field effects has become a common practice in both performance based design of tall buildings and design of base-isolated buildings. On the other hand, ordinary buildings are commonly analysed via response spectrum analysis following the rules of conventional seismic codes, most of which do not take near-field effects into account. This study evaluates the necessity and the adequacy of near-source factors for ordinary fixed-base buildings that are not specifically classified as tall, by comparing dynamic responses of 3, 8, and 15-story benchmark buildings obtained via(1) linear time history analyses using 220 record components from 13 historical earthquakes and 45 synthetic earthquake records of different magnitudes and fault distances and(2) response spectrum analyses in accordance with the Turkish Earthquake Code 2007-representing seismic codes not taking near-field effects into account- and the Uniform Building Code 1997 which takes near-field effects into account via near-source factors that amplify design response spectrum. It is shown that near-source factors are crucial for the safe design of not-so-tall ordinary fixed-base buildings but those defined in UBC97 may still not be adequate for those located in the vicinity of the fault.     

Effect of watershed partitioning on hydrologic parameters and estimation of hydrograph of an ungauged basin: a case study in Gokirmak and Kocanaz,Turkey

The main goal of this study is to investigate the effect of the size of the subbasins of a watershed on the hydrologic parameters and their spatial variability in an estimation of the hydrologic parameters and hydrograph of a neighbouring ungauged basin. In this paper, Hydrologic Engineering Center-Hydrologic Modelling System (HEC-HMS), a semi-distributed hydrologic model, is used to calibrate and cross-validate two flood events occurred in 1998 and then validate four other flood events occurred in 1991, 1994, 2002, and 2009 in Gokirmak Basin in Western Black Sea Region, Turkey. The basin is divided into seven different subbasins to investigate the effect of watershed partitioning on calibrated hydrologic parameters of each subbasin using the peak-weighted root mean square error method as an objective function and the hydrograph at the outlet of the whole basin. It is found out that as the geometric magnitudes of the subbasins changed, the calibrated values of the hydrologic parameters of those subbasins changed as well. Then, a neighbouring basin, Kocanaz, is considered as an assumed neighbouring ungauged basin to investigate the effect of watershed partitioning of a gauged basin on the estimation of hydrograph of a neighbouring ungauged basin. Hydrologic parameters and direct runoff hydrograph of assumed ungauged neighbouring basin are estimated from the hydrologic parameters of the HEC-HMS calibration results of Gokirmak. Statistical indicators of the simulation results for each basin partitioning were graded with respect to the boundary values of the simulation outputs to find the best alternative. The grading results show that the simulation results with a single basin gave better representation among all other partitioning except two flood events.     

Determination of earthquake-risky areas in Yalova City Center (Marmara region,Turkey) using GIS-based multicriteria decision-making techniques (analytical hierarchy process and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution)

Disaster mitigation as a pre-disaster measure within the scope of disaster risk management is significant in the sense of reducing the adverse effects of earthquakes in the context of earthquake-sensitive risk planning. In the urban planning context, the existence of numerous decision makers and alternatives, which are depending on many criteria, makes decision-making process difficult. This difficulty was overcomed through geographical information systems (GIS). In the context of GIS-based multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) analysis, we used analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to determine earthquake-risky areas in Yalova City Center. First, AHP analysis related to geological and superstructure/infrastructure criteria was conducted and two separate AHP maps were obtained. Then, we conducted TOPSIS analysis to consider both criteria in the sense of earthquake risk-sensitive planning. Then, overall earthquake risk map obtained which could be used as an input for disaster mitigation processes.

     

Some exact solutions of string cosmology with heat flux in Bianchi type III space-time

In this paper, the Einstein field equations have been solved for a cloud of string with heat flux in Bianchi type III space-time. The physical and geometrical properties of the model have been examined.