News From Geographic Centers

This paper stresses the importance of bridging the conceptual gap between tourism research and economic geography. It explains why the tourism production system has been unable to avoid its peripheral position in economic geography. The paper then focuses on the structure and organization of the principal agents comprising the tourism production system and identifies the state's pivotal role as coordinator of these agents. Lastly, it highlights two under-researched issues relating to entreprcneurship and labor pools and makes recommendations for further research.     

The California Electric Power Crisis: Lessons for Other States

Distinguishing forested wetland from dry forest using aerial photographs is handicapped because photographs often do not reveal the presence of water below tree canopies. Radar images obtained by the Seasat satellite reveal forested wetland as highly reflective patterns on the coastal plain between Maryland and Florida. Seasat radar images may complement aerial photographs for compiling maps of wetland. A test with experienced photointerpreters revealed that interpretation accuracy was significantly higher when using Seasat radar images than when using only conventional sources.     

Use of an expert system to map forest soils from a geographical information system

Abstract

Mapping forest soils using conventional methods is time consuming and expensive. An expert system is described and applied to the mapping of five forest soil-landscape units formed on a single granitoid parent material. Three thematic maps were considered important in influencing the distribution of soils. The first showed the distribution of nine classes of native eucalypt forests, and the second and third were derived from a digital elevation model and represented slope gradient and a soil wetness index combined with topographical position. These layers were input to a raster based geographical information system (GIS) and then geometrically co-registered to a regular 30 m grid. From a knowledge of soil distributions, the relationships between the soil-landscape units and the three data layers were quantified by an experienced soil scientist and used as rules in a rule based expert system. The thematic layers accessed from the GIS provided data for the expert system to infer the forest soil-landscape unit most likely to occur at any given pixel. The soil-landscape map output by the expert system compared favourably with a conventional soil-landscape map generated using interpretation of aerial photographs.     

An OLS regression model for context-aware tile prefetching in a web map cache

The increasing popularity of web map services has motivated the development of more scalable services in the spatial data infrastructures. Tiled map services have emerged as a scalable alternative to traditional map services. Instead of rendering map images on the fly, a collection of pre-generated image tiles can be served very fast from a server-side cache. However, during the start-up of the service, the cache is initially empty and users experience a poor quality of service. Tile prefetching attempts to improve hit rates by proactively fetching map images without waiting for client requests.

While most popular prefetching policies in traditional web caching consider only the previous access history to make predictions, significant improvements could be achieved in web mapping by taking into account the background geographic information.

This work proposes a regressive model to predict which areas are likely to be requested in the future based on spatial cross-correlation between an unconstrained catalog of geographic features and a record of past cache requests. Tiles that are anticipated to be most frequently requested can be pre-generated and cached for faster retrieval. Trace-driven simulations with several million cache requests from two different nation-wide public web map services in Spain demonstrate that accurate predictions and performance gains can be obtained with the proposed model.     

Incorporating vegetation into visual exposure modelling in urban environments

Visual exposure modelling establishes the extent to which a nominated feature may be seen from a specified location. The advent of high-resolution light detection and ranging (LiDAR)-sourced elevation models has enabled visual exposure modelling to be applied in urban regions, for example, to calculate the field of view occupied by a landmark building when observed from a nearby street. Currently, visual exposure models access a single surface elevation model to establish the lines of sight (LoSs) between the observer and the landmark feature. This is a cause for concern in vegetated areas where trees are represented as solid protrusions in the surface model totally blocking the LoSs. Additionally, the observer's elevation, as read from the surface model, would be incorrectly set to the tree top height in those regions. The research presented here overcomes these issues by introducing a new visual exposure model, which accesses a bare earth terrain model, to establish the observer's true elevation even when passing through vegetated regions, a surface model for the city profile and an additional vegetation map. Where there is a difference between terrain and surface elevations, the vegetation map is consulted. In vegetated areas the LoS is permitted to continue its journey, either passing under the canopy with clear views or partially through it depending on foliage density, otherwise the LoS is terminated. This approach enables landmark visual exposure to be modelled more realistically, with consideration given to urban trees. The model's improvements are demonstrated through a number of real-world trials and compared to current visual exposure methods.     

2013 年3 月27 日台湾南投MW 6. 0 地震震源机制解与发震构造研究

采用基于近远震波形的CAPjoint 方法,对2013 年3 月27 日台湾南投MW6. 0 地震分别进行了单独反演和联合反演,获得了各自的震源机制解及震源深度。其中,联合反演所得的最优双力偶机制解参数为,节面Ⅰ:方位角0°,倾角30°,滑动角78°;节面Ⅱ:方位角193°,倾角60°,滑动角96°;震源深度18km。为了验证联合反演的有效性和可靠性,采用由重抽样理论发展而来的Bootstrap 方法,对近远震数据分别进行了重采样,并对其单独反演和联合反演所得的参数进行了统计,验证了联合反演的有效性及稳定性,并发现远震反演震源深度的结果一定程度上受台站分布的影响,若要获得精确的震源深度则需要方位角分布较好的远震台站记录。根据前人对集集地震及车笼埔断层的研究成果以及南投地震的发震断层性质接近车笼埔断层的认识,推测此次地震可能发生在车笼埔断层上。     

库车坳陷复杂高陡构造地震成像研究

复杂构造地震成像主要取决于叠前地震数据品质、偏移速度可靠性和偏移算子成像精度. 库车坳陷异常复杂的近地表条件导致极低信噪比的地震采集数据. 该区逆冲推覆高陡构造刺穿盐体大面积分布, 盐层厚度变化大、顶底面形态复杂, 盐下断裂带破碎、小断块发育, 形成异常复杂的地震成像问题. 本文重点研究三个关键环节:(1)精细的叠前地震预处理研究: 根据该区地震地质复杂性和地震资料特征, 采用一些新的方法技术和技术组合从振幅与时移的大、中、小尺度变化三个层次来解决资料信噪比问题, 重建深部反射信号; (2)三级偏移速度分析研究:利用库车坳陷盐刺穿逆冲推覆构造建模理论及变速成图配套技术解决叠前时间偏移速度场时深转换问题,利用井约束低频速度地震迭代反演技术解决连井层速度场与偏移速度场的融合问题,实现从DMO速度分析、叠前时间偏移速度分析到叠前深度偏移速度分析的有机衔接,建立拓扑结构相对保持的叠前深度偏移速度模型;(3)基于退化Fourier偏移算子的半解析波动方程叠前时间和深度偏移研究, 极大地改善了地震偏移过程中高波数波的成像问题. 通过对库车坳陷大北、博孜、却勒、西秋4和西秋10等复杂高陡构造的叠前时间和深度偏移地震成像处理,取得了较好的应用效果.     

基于Matlab的断裂带温泉水地球化学特征及地震活动性研究

基于Matlab开发出地下流体分析软件,对比分析了甘肃西秦岭北缘的武山、街子和清水温泉水化学组分特征;初步分析了温泉水水质类型、补给来源、水-岩平衡状态以及循环深度,并讨论了温泉水深循环对地震活动性的影响.研究表明温泉水均为大气降水成因,其水化特征受围岩的控制作用;清水温泉水的成熟度没有武山和街子温泉水高.地下水循环深度较浅的武山温泉和街子温泉水化类型属于Na-HCO3·SO4·Cl,所处断裂的地震活动频繁;地下水循环深度较深的清水温泉水化类型属于Na-SO4·Cl,所处断裂的地震活动性弱.     

Field Evaluation of Arid Soils Wetting Pattern in Subsurface Drip Irrigation Scheme

A field study evaluating wetted radius (Wr), downward depth (Dd), and upward movement (Um) under different emitter discharges and lateral depths was conducted. Four emitter discharges (2, 4, 8, and 16 L/h) and four lateral depths (0, 10, 20, and 30 cm) were tested in a clay loam soil. Relationships were found between the emitter discharge and lateral depth versus Wr, Dd, and Um. Wetting area at the surface occurs under different emitter discharges and lateral depths except at 30 cm lateral depth. At lateral depth of 0 and 10 cm, Wr and emitter discharge were positively correlated. The Dd was not affected by emitter discharge except for laterals installed at 20 cm depth. At 30 cm lateral depth, the correlations between each of Wr, Um, and Dd with emitter discharge were poor. The ratios of Wr/Dd and Um/Dd, with respect to emitter position, were less than unity over different emitter discharges and lateral depths. These results shed some light on the design of subsurface drip irrigation scheme so that the spacing between emitters should be determined based on the lateral depths and discharge of emitters. Evaporation losses were negligible for the 30‐cm‐lateral depth since the upward moisture movement has not reached the soil surface area at all discharge rates tested in the study.     

浅谈涉密测绘成果管理

随着全国二次土地调查工作的全面开展,基础测绘工作出现了飞跃式的发展,这就对基础测绘成果的管理和应用提出了更高、更新的要求。结合多年基层基础测绘成果管理经验,对涉密测绘成果的管理及使用上提出了一些建议。