Navigating the Complex Trade-Offs of Pesticide Use on Santa Cruz Island,Galapagos

Pesticide use by farmers on Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos—a perceived adaptation to changing ecological and economic dynamics—has the potential to lead to environmental degradation in an area that is known and valued worldwide for its biodiversity. We survey Santa Cruz farmers to understand motivations for and concerns about pesticide use on the island. Results from farmer surveys are supplemented with interview data to develop the case study of pesticide use on Santa Cruz Island. We then apply a “complex trade-off” framework to explore and navigate the tensions between conservation and livelihoods. We conclude by elaborating the implementation of a participatory certification system, the Participatory Guarantee System, as a possible path for reconciling trade-offs in Santa Cruz, Galapagos.     

The Digital Belt and Road program in support of regional sustainability

The Belt and Road initiative has a significant focus on infrastructure, trade, and economic development across a vast region, and it also provides significant opportunities for sustainable development. The combined pressure of climate variability, intensified use of resources, and the fragility of ecosystems make it very challenging, however, to achieve future sustainability. To develop the path in a sustainable way, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of these issues across nations and evaluate them in a scientific and well-informed approach. In this context, the Digital Belt and Road (DBAR) program was initiated as an international venture to share expertise, knowledge, technologies, and data to demonstrate the role of Earth observation science and technology and big Earth data applications to support large-scale development. In this paper, we identify pressing challenges, present the research priorities and foci of the DBAR program, and propose solutions where big Earth data can make significant contributions. This paper calls for further joint actions and collaboration to build a digital silk road in support of sustainable development at national, regional and global levels.     

Testing for similarity in area‐based spatial patterns: Alternative methods to Andresen's spatial point pattern test

Andresen's spatial point pattern test (SPPT) compares two spatial point patterns on defined areal units; it identifies areas where the spatial point patterns diverge and aggregates these local (dis)similarities to one global measure. We discuss the limitations of the SPPT and provide two alternative methods to calculate differences in the point patterns. In the first approach we use differences in proportions tests corrected for multiple comparisons. We show how the size of differences matters, as with large point patterns many areas will be identified by SPPT as statistically different, even if those differences are substantively trivial. The second approach uses multinomial logistic regression, which can be extended to identify differences in proportions over continuous time. We demonstrate these methods by identifying areas where pedestrian stops by the New York City Police Department are different from violent crimes for 2006–2016.     

The application of remote sensing data to diagnose soil degradation in the Dakhla depression – Western Desert,Egypt

Dakhla depression in Egypt’s Western Desert is experiencing two soil degradation processes, notably: soil salinization and sand encroachment. The present study aimed to diagnose the severity of these processes using remote sensing. Soil salinity was determined by spectral regression analysis between tasselled cap spectral transform extracted from a Landsat-8 image acquired in September 2013 along with synchronized soil salinity measurements. Assessment of sand advance rate was conducted by temporal change detection of brilliant crescentic sand dune visualized by Google Earth in old (2002) and recent (2013) images. Results showed that salinized soils (dS/m4<) represent 91% of bare lands and salinization is attributed to aridity, topography and poor drainage. Barchan dunes north and south of Abu Tartur escarpment moved at rates of 5.9 and 3.6 m/year, respectively. The escarpment protected the majority of the depression from massive dune invasion. However, sand encroachment is clearly observed west of the depression.     

Concurrent Drainage Network Rendering for Automated Pen‐and‐ink Style Landscape Illustration

Pen‐and‐ink style geomorphological illustrations render landscape elements critical to the understanding of surface processes within a viewshed and, at their highest levels of execution, represent works of art, being both practical and beautiful. The execution of a pen‐and‐ink composition, however, requires inordinate amounts of time and skill. This article will introduce an algorithm for rendering creases – linework representing visually significant morphological features – at animation speeds, made possible with recent advances in graphics processing unit (GPU) architectures and rendering APIs. Beginning with a preprocessed high‐resolution drainage network model, creases are rendered from selected stream segments if their weighted criteria (slope, flow accumulation, and surface illumination), attenuated by perspective distance from the viewpoint, exceed a threshold. The algorithm thus provides a methodology for crease representation at continuous levels of detail down to the highest resolution of the preprocessed drainage model over a range of surface orientation and illumination conditions. The article also presents an implementation of the crease algorithm with frame rates exceeding those necessary to support animation, supporting the proposition that parallel processing techniques exposed through modern GPU programming environments provide cartographers with a new and inexpensive toolkit for constructing alternative and attractive real‐time animated landscape visualizations for spatial analysis.     

Air photo approach to inventory of urban land use in central area case study — Kanpur

The case study of Kanpur demonstrates the use of air photo approach to collect physical data, mainly landuse in central area. The study reveals that very less percentage of vacant land exists in central area for future development. Though this area consist CBD, even then commercial landuse accounts to be only 10% of total area. Selective landuse inventory analysis was carried out for the landuse categories, commercial, industrial and vacant. Reliability of aerial photo-interpretation of over all landuse map found to be 91–95% and each sub-class of landuse reliability for omission and commission error found to be within limits for planning and design purpose.     

Seismic hazard monitoring in Kamchatka and its applications to the M = 6.6 earthquake of 6 October 1987

The earthquake of 6 October 1987 (M = 6.6), which occurred near the Shipunsky Cape, Kamchatka, was the largest crustal event in the vicinity of the main city of Kamchatka — Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky — during the last three decades. It was followed by numerous aftershocks. This earthquake allowed us to test the effectiveness of the seismic hazard monitoring in Kamchatka, including the seismological, geodetic and hydrogeochemical surveys. The seismic survey provided the location and source nature of the main shock and aftershocks and the seismic environment of the main shock. The geodetic and hydrogeochemical surveys have yielded data on the response to earthquakes of the Earth's surface deformations, water level, and chemical elements concentration in the underground water. As a result, the following data were obtained:

u

The earthquake of 6 October had a seismic moment 4–10 E18 Nm, thrust type of faulting and the source volume of 20 × 20 × 10 km³. The maximum intensity was VI–VII (MSK-64 scale) and maximum acceleration 88 cm/s².

Before this event, a relative increase in the number of the upper mantle (depth more than 100 km) moderate magnitude earthquakes during 5 years and a one-year period of seismic quiescence for small shallow earthquakes, were recognized. Significant anomalies in HCO₃ and H₃BO₃ concentrations in the underground waters were observed in the wells a week before the main shock.

     

Palaeomagnetism of Holocene lake sediments from north Poland

Summary. Detailed palaeomagnetic investigations of 17 cores of Holocene lake sediments from four lakes in Poland show a pattern of declination variations similar to those found in Lake Windermere, England and in addition a well defined pattern of inclination variations. A total of nine inclination swings are observed compared to five declination swings and their phase relationships are such that both sets of swings cannot be periodic. Exact dating of the palaeomagnetic record is not possible as radiocarbon ages are over 1000 yr older than those deduced from palynological studies. Thermomagnetic and X-ray studies on magnetic concentrates confirm the results of studies of remanence cooling, IRM acquisition and coercivity experiments which are consistent with fine grained magnetite as the main magnetic mineral in the sediments.     

Crustal and upper mantle structure of the northwestern North Island, New Zealand, from seismic refraction data

The crustal and upper mantle structure of the northwestern North Island of New Zealand is derived from the results of a seismic refraction experiment; shots were fired at the ends and middle of a 575 km-long line extending from Lake Taupo to Cape Reinga. The principal finding from the experiment is that the crust is 25 ± 2 km thick, and is underlain by what is interpreted to be an upper mantle of seismic velocity 7.6 ± 0.1 km s⁻¹, that increases to 7.9 km s⁻¹ at a depth of about 45 km. Crustal seismic velocities vary between 5.3 and 6.36 km s⁻¹ with an average value of 6.04 km s⁻¹. There are close geophysical and geological similarities between the north-western North Island of New Zealand and the Basin and Range province of the western United States. In particular, the conditions of low upper-mantle seismic velocities, thin crust with respect to surface elevation, and high heat-flow (70–100 mW m⁻²) observed in these two areas can be ascribed to their respective positions behind an active convergent margin for about the past 20 Myr.