Estimation of recent glacial variations in baspa basin using remote sensing technique

The Himalayas has one of the largest concentrations of glaciers outside the Polar Regions. Various reports suggest that significant number of mountain glaciers is shrinking due to climatic variations. Monitoring of these glaciers is important to assess future availability of water resources in the Himalayan region. However, Himalayan glaciers are normally difficult to monitor due to the rugged, mountainous terrain. Therefore, images of Indian Remote Sensing Satellite were used to monitor glaciers in the Baspa basin. Investigations have shown the presence of 30 glaciers in the basin, with areal extent of 167 km2. Out of these, 19 glaciers, with areal extent of 140 km² were selected to estimate retreat. Investigation suggests that almost all glaciers are retreating in the study basin and overall 19% deglaciation has been observed from 1962 to 2001. In general, altitude distribution appears to have significant influence on glacial retreat. Glaciers located around 5000 m altitude range are showing 24% loss as compared to 14% by glaciers located in altitude range higher than 5400 m. In addition, mean altitude of glacier terminus is shifted upward by 88 m, i.e. from 4482 to 4570 m in last 39 years. The glacial volumes were estimated using regression relationship between area and depth. The investigations have suggested that 19.10 km³ of glacial water stored in the 19 glaciers in 1962, has been reduced to 14.71 km³ in 2001, respectively, an overall loss of 23 percent in a period between 1962 and 2001. These investigations suggest that all glaciers in the Baspa Basin are reducing and in long term, such reducing trend can create scarcity of water in the region.     

A multidisciplinary multi-scale framework for assessing vulnerabilities to global change

Terrestrial ecosystems provide a number of vital services for people and society, such as food, fibre, water resources, carbon sequestration, and recreation. The future capability of ecosystems to provide these services is determined by changes in socio-economic factors, land use, atmospheric composition, and climate. Most impact assessments do not quantify the vulnerability of ecosystems and ecosystem services under such environmental change. They cannot answer important policy-relevant questions such as 'Which are the main regions or sectors that are most vulnerable to global change?’ 'How do the vulnerabilities of two regions compare?’ 'Which scenario is the least harmful for a sector?’This paper describes a new approach to vulnerability assessment developed by the Advanced Terrestrial Ecosystem Analysis and Modelling (ATEAM) project. Different ecosystem models, covering biodiversity, agriculture, forestry, hydrology, and carbon sequestration are fed with the same Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios based on the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES). Each model gives insights into specific ecosystems, as in traditional impact assessments. Moreover, by integrating the results in a vulnerability assessment, the policy-relevant questions listed above can also be addressed. A statistically derived European environmental stratification forms a key element in the vulnerability assessment. By linking it to other quantitative environmental stratifications, comparisons can be made using data from different assessments and spatial scales.     

Derivation of indices using remote sensing data to evaluate cropping systems

This paper presents the work done in Bathinda District of Punjab state of India for evaluating the cropping system efficiency using multi-date, multi-year and multi-sensor satellite based remote sensing data along with various spatial and non-spatial collateral data. Three efficiency indices, such as Multiple Cropping Index (MCI), Area Diversity Index (DI), Cultivated Land Utilization Index (CLUI), have been worked out to characterize the cropping systems. The salient findings point out that, the MCI has, increased remarkably. A further increase is possible by only taking a third crop. The ADI has increased in kharif (rainy) season, due to introduction of rice in the cotton belt, however in rabi (winter) season the ADI has reduced nearly to one, showing it to be a mono-cropped situation. The CLUI is low (> 0.5) in many blocks, showing there is a great scope to improve it. Since in summer the land is remaining unutilized, a summer crop can very well be taken up to improve it.     

Geomasking sensitive health data and privacy protection: an evaluation using an E911 database

Geomasking is used to provide privacy protection for individual address information while maintaining spatial resolution for mapping purposes. Donut geomasking and other random perturbation geomasking algorithms rely on the assumption of a homogeneously distributed population to calculate displacement distances, leading to possible under-protection of individuals when this condition is not met. Using household data from 2007, we evaluated the performance of donut geomasking in Orange County, North Carolina. We calculated the estimated k-anonymity for every household based on the assumption of uniform household distribution. We then determined the actual k-anonymity by revealing household locations contained in the county E911 database. Census block groups in mixed-use areas with high population distribution heterogeneity were the most likely to have privacy protection below selected criteria. For heterogeneous populations, we suggest tripling the minimum displacement area in the donut to protect privacy with a less than 1% error rate.     

Fast robust large-scale mapping from video and internet photo collections

This paper presents a system approaching fully automatic 3D modeling of large-scale environments. Our system takes as input either a video stream or collection of photographs obtained from Internet photo sharing web-sites such as Flickr. The system achieves high computational performance through algorithmic optimizations for efficient robust estimation, the use of image-based recognition for efficient grouping of similar images, and two-stage stereo estimation for video streams that reduces the computational cost while maintaining competitive modeling results. In addition to algorithmic advances, we achieve a major improvement in computational speed through parallelization and execution on commodity graphics hardware. These improvements lead to real-time video processing and to reconstruction from tens of thousands of images within the span of a day on a single commodity computer. We demonstrate modeling results on a variety of real-world video sequences and photo collections.     

Subsidence of the Miyako‐Sone submarine carbonate platform,east of Miyako‐jima Island,northwestern Pacific Ocean

Bathymetric mapping and observations of the seafloor using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV, Hyper‐Dolphin 3K) were carried out on the slopes of the Miyako‐Sone submarine platform, east of Miyako‐jima in the Ryukyu Islands, northwestern Pacific Ocean. The bathymetric map indicates that terraces are present at water depths of approximately 140 m, 330 m, 400 m, and 680 m on the northwestern slope of the platform. A number of NW–SE trending lineaments, probably faults, extend perpendicular to the axis of the Ryukyu Island Arc. Two ROV surveys were conducted at water depths ranging from 519 m (on the slope) to 121 m (shallowest part of the platform). The surveys revealed that well‐indurated carbonate rocks are exposed at terrace margins and on upper slopes, and that the lower slopes are covered with modern sediments consisting of unconsolidated, coarse‐sand‐sized bioclastic carbonates. Calcareous nannofossils from the well‐indurated carbonate rocks indicate a Middle–Late Pleistocene age, which suggests that the rocks correlate with the Quaternary reef and fore‐reef deposits of the Ryukyu Group (Ryukyu Limestone) on the Ryukyu Islands. No siliciclastic deposits corresponding to the upper Miocene–lower Pleistocene Shimajiri Group (as exposed on Okinawa‐jima and Miyako‐jima islands) were recovered during the surveys. Coeval well‐indurated carbonate rocks, all of which formed in a similar sedimentary environment, have been downthrown towards the west due to displacements on the western sides of normal faults. Subsidence of the Miyako‐Sone submarine platform was the result of large vertical displacements on such normal faults. The timing of initial subsidence cannot be tightly constrained, but the presence of the youngest limestone at progressively lower levels towards the west suggests the subsidence continued until after 0.265 Ma.     

Performance of base‐isolated reinforced concrete buildings under bidirectional seismic excitation considering pounding with retaining walls including friction effects

Seismic pounding of base‐isolated buildings has been mostly studied in the past assuming unidirectional excitation. Therefore, in this study, the effects of seismic pounding on the response of base‐isolated reinforced concrete buildings under bidirectional excitation are investigated. For this purpose, a three‐dimensional finite element model of a code‐compliant four‐story building is considered, where a newly developed contact element that accounts for friction and is capable of simulating pounding with retaining walls at the base, is used. Nonlinear behavior of the superstructure as well as the isolation system is considered. The performance of the building is evaluated separately for far‐fault non‐pulse‐like ground motions and near‐fault pulse‐like ground motions, which are weighted scaled to represent two levels of shaking viz. the design earthquake (DE) level and the risk‐targeted maximum considered earthquake (MCE_R) level. Nonlinear time‐history analyses are carried out considering lower bound as well as upper bound properties of isolators. The influence of separation distance between the building and the retaining walls at the base is also investigated. It is found that if pounding is avoided, the performance of the building is satisfactory in terms of limiting structural and nonstructural damage, under DE‐level motions and MCE_R‐level far‐fault motions, whereas unacceptably large demands are imposed by MCE_R‐level near‐fault motions. In the case of seismic pounding, MCE_R‐level near‐fault motions are found to be detrimental, where the effect of pounding is mostly concentrated at the first story. In addition, it is determined that considering unidirectional excitation instead of bidirectional excitation for MCE_R‐level near‐fault motions provides highly unconservative estimates of superstructure demands. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Macroalgal survival in ballast water tanks

Despite a large amount of research into invasive species and their introductions, there have been no studies focused on macroalgal transport in ballast water. To address this, we collected replicate samples of ballast water from 12 ships in two Mediterranean harbours (Naples and Salerno). Filtered samples were kept in culture for a month at Mediterranean mean conditions (18 degrees C, 12:12h LD, 60micromol photons m(-2)s(-1)). Fifteen macroalgal taxa were cultured and differed according to the geographic origin of the ballast water. Most of the cultured algae were widely distributed species (e.g. Ulva spp. and Acinetospora-phase). However, Ulva ohnoi Hiraoka and Shimada, described from Japan, was hitherto unknown in the Mediterranean Sea. We show for the first time that ballast water can be an important vector for the transport of microscopic stages of macroalgae and that this can be a vector for the introduction of alien species.     

The radio frequency dielectric properties of the stratified UG1–UG2 geological unit in the Bushveld Complex

A new measurement technique enables the complex dielectric properties of the geological strata comprising the UG1–UG2 (Upper Group 1–Upper Group 2) unit of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa to be determined with unprecedented detail at radio frequencies (RF). Results of non-destructive laboratory measurements of representative diamond drill core samples from the UG1–UG2 unit are presented at 25 MHz. These data establish that the UG1 and UG2 chromitite layers are embedded in rock strata (norite, pyroxenite and anorthosite) which are translucent in the HF spectral band, whereas the chromitite layers themselves exhibit significant velocity contrast, making them good radar reflectors. The data presented here is useful for calibration of the radar system, and for predicting the range and resolution performance of borehole radars operating in both the hanging and footwalls of the economically important platiniferous UG2 reef.