A hybrid approach to modeling territorial control in violent armed conflicts

Territorial control is central to the understanding of violent armed conflicts, yet reliable and valid measures of this concept do not exist. We argue that geospatial analysis provides an important perspective to measure the concept. In particular, measuring territorial control can be seen as an application of calculating service areas around points of control. The modeling challenge is acute for areas with limited road infrastructure, where no complete network is available to perform the analysis, and movements largely occur off road. We present a new geospatial approach that applies network analysis on a hybrid transportation network with both actual road data and hexagon‐fishnet‐based artificial road data representing on‐road and off‐road movements, respectively. Movement speed or restriction can be readily adjusted using various input data. Simulating off‐road movement with hexagon‐fishnet‐based artificial road data has a number of advantages including scalability to small or large study areas and flexibility to allow all‐directional travel. We apply this method to measuring territorial control of armed groups in Sub‐Saharan Africa where inferior transport infrastructure is the norm. Based on the Uppsala Conflict Data Program's (UCDP) Georeferenced Event Data (GED) as well as spatial data on terrain, population locations, and limited transportation networks, we enhance the delineation of the specific areas directly controlled by each warring party during civil wars within a given travel time.     

中国北方三流域河流—沙漠过渡带地表沉积物化学元素空间差异分析

通过对克里雅河、毛布拉格孔兑以及西拉木伦河三流域的河流-沙漠过渡带地表沉积物的7种常量氧化物以及15种微量元素进行因子分析,结果显示:三个流域之间或不同河段因子分析提取的公因子均可以概括为较稳定的铁锰矿物、较不稳定的长石类和方解石（白云石）类等硅酸盐矿物以及稳定的稀土元素和重矿物等类别;河流间因子分析结果表明,自西向东三个流域沿河地表沉积物的化学元素富集与迁移程度呈递增趋势,化学风化程度增强;流域内因子分析结果表明,自上游至下游,样点化学组成均愈变复杂,不同河段或不同河岸沉积物化学元素空间分布规律与其物源、地貌格局以及水分条件等因素有关;自河床至阶地,不同地貌单元地表沉积物化学元素呈相异的递变规律,这与在距离河道远近不同,物源、动力因素的分配不同有关。