Classifiers vs. input variables—The drivers in image classification for land cover mapping

The study investigates the performance of image classifiers for landscape-scale land cover mapping and the relevance of ancillary data for the classification success in order to assess and to quantify the importance of these components in image classification. Specifically tested are the performance of maximum likelihood classification (MLC), artificial neural networks (ANN) and discriminant analysis (DA) based on Landsat7 ETM+ spectral data in combination with topographic measures and NDVI. ANN produced high accuracies of more than 75% also with limited input information, while MLC and DA produced comparable results only by incorporating ancillary data into the classification process. The superiority of ANN classification was less pronounced on the level of the single land cover classes. The use of ancillary data generally increased classification accuracy and showed a similar potential for increasing classification accuracy than the selection of the classifier. Therefore, a stronger focus on the development of appropriate and optimised sets of input variables is suggested. Also the definition and selection of land cover classes has shown to be crucial and not to be simply adaptable from existing land cover class schemes. A stronger research focus towards discriminating land cover classes by their typical spectral, topographic or seasonal properties is therefore suggested to advance image classification.     

尖紫蛤的人工育苗

1997年 7月开始进行尖紫蛤人工育苗的研究 ,1999年 11月培育出壳长 4 mm左右的幼苗近30万只 ,首次获得尖紫蛤人工育苗的成功     

Interactions between groundwater and seasonally ice‐covered lakes: Using water stable isotopes and radon‐222 multilayer mass balance models

Interactions between lakes and groundwater are of increasing concern for freshwater environmental management but are often poorly characterized. Groundwater inflow to lakes, even at low rates, has proven to be a key in both lake nutrient balances and in determining lake vulnerability to pollution. Although difficult to measure using standard hydrometric methods, significant insight into groundwater–lake interactions has been acquired by studies applying geochemical tracers. However, the use of simple steady‐state, well‐mixed models, and the lack of characterization of lake spatiotemporal variability remain important sources of uncertainty, preventing the characterization of the entire lake hydrological cycle, particularly during ice‐covered periods. In this study, a small groundwater‐connected lake was monitored to determine the annual dynamics of the natural tracers, water stable isotopes and radon‐222, through the implementation of a comprehensive sampling strategy. A multilayer mass balance model was found outperform a well‐mixed, one‐layer model in terms of quantifying groundwater fluxes and their temporal evolution, as well as characterizing vertical differences. Water stable isotopes and radon‐222 were found to provide complementary information on the lake water budget. Radon‐222 has a short response time, and highlights rapid and transient increases in groundwater inflow, but requires a thorough characterization of groundwater radon‐222 activity. Water stable isotopes follow the hydrological cycle of the lake closely and highlight periods when the lake budget is dominated by evaporation versus groundwater inflow, but continuous monitoring of local meteorological parameters is required. Careful compilation of tracer evolution throughout the water column and over the entire year is also very informative. The developed models, which are suitable for detailed, site‐specific studies, allow the quantification of groundwater inflow and internal dynamics during both ice‐free and ice‐covered periods, providing an improved tool for understanding the annual water cycle of lakes.     

Sedimentation and continental slope processes in the vicinity of an ocean waste‐disposal site,southeastern Tasmania

Digital echo sounding, SeaBeam swath bathymetry data and sediment cores were collected on the continental slope (1500–3700 m water depth) off southeastern Tasmania in order to study sedimentary processes in the vicinity of an ocean disposal site. The new bathymetry data show that the shallower limits of the disposal site are positioned on the seaward edge of a gently dipping (3°) mid‐slope shoulder, between 1200 and 2100 m water depth. The slope below the disposal site is relatively steep (6.5°) and is cut by submarine canyons which lead into the adjacent East Tasman Saddle. The SeaBeam bathymetry data show a small submarine canyon traversing the slope in 2400 m water depth directly downslope from the disposal site, with local slopes of up to 22°. The canyon feeds into a perched basin at 2450 m, which could be acting as a local sediment trap. Short (<90 cm) gravity cores indicate that indurated erosional surfaces characterise the slope environment. The cores contain Upper Cretaceous (upper Campanian) sandstones and siltstones, which in places crop out on the sea floor where they are locally draped by a thin (0–30 cm), modern layer of hemipelagic calcareous ooze. Five cores collected from the vicinity of the disposal site had lead and zinc concentrations in the surface 1 cm of 10.3 ± 5.0 and 39.5 ± 19.6 mg/kg, respectively, significantly greater than the background values (2.9 ± 1.4 for lead and 21.2 ± 5.4 for zinc) which characterise the underlying unit that is composed of the same hemipelagic calcareous ooze. Lead and zinc are constituents of the dumped material, jarosite, which, after mixing with slope sediments, can be used as sediment tracers. One core contains a fining‐upwards bed which is also elevated in lead and zinc. This is interpreted as evidence for dispersal of the jarosite from the disposal site downslope to depths >3000 m via turbidity flows sometime during the past 24 years. Current meter data collected from 30 m above the sea floor over one year at the disposal site show that bottom currents attain speeds of up to 0.46 m/s. The current events are attributed to eddies shed by the East Australia Current. The measured bottom currents are capable of transporting fine‐grained hemipelagic muds and could provide a trigger mechanism for turbidity flows.     

Estimating groundwater residence time and recharge patterns in a saline coastal aquifer

A detailed study using environmental tracers such as chloride (Cl^?) and tritium (³H), deuterium (²H) and oxygen (¹⁸O) isotopes was performed in an alluvial coastal aquifer in two contrasting environments (urban and agricultural). These environmental tracers combined with a high‐resolution multi‐level sampling approach were used to estimate groundwater residence time and recharge patterns and to validate the hydrogeochemical conceptual model already proposed in previous studies. δ¹⁸O and δ²H combined with Cl^? data proved that the hypersaline groundwater present in the deepest part of the aquifer was sourced from the underlying hypersaline aquitard via an upward flux. Both chemical and isotopic data were employed to calibrate a density‐dependent numerical model based on SEAWAT 4.0, where ³H and Cl^? were helped quantifying solutes transport within the modelled aquifer. Model results highlighted the differences on estimated recharge in the two contrasting environments, with the urban one exhibiting concentrated recharge because of preferential infiltration associated to the storm water drains network, while scarce local recharge characterized the agriculture setting. In the urban field site, is still possible to recognize at 9 m b.g.l. the input of the atmospheric anthropogenic ³H generated by testing of thermonuclear weapons, while in the agricultural field site, the ³H peak has been washed out at 6 m b.g.l. because the groundwater circulation is restricted only to the upper fresh part of the aquifer, drained by the reclamation system. The presented approach that combined high‐resolution field monitoring, environmental tracers and numerical modelling, resulted effective in validating the conceptual model of the aquifer salinization. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using geophysical surveys to test tracer‐based storage estimates in headwater catchments

Hydrogeophysical surveys were carried out in a 3.2 km² Scottish catchment where previous isotope studies inferred significant groundwater storage that makes important contributions to streamflow. We used electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) to characterize the architecture of glacial drifts and make an approximation of catchment‐scale storage. Four ERT lines (360–535 m in length) revealed extensive 5–10 m deep drift cover on steeper slopes, which extends up to 20–40 m in valley bottom areas. Assuming low clay fractions, we interpret variable resistivity as correlating with variations in porosity and water content. Using Archie's Law as a first approximation, we compute likely bounds for storage along the ERT transects. Areas of highest groundwater storage occur in valley bottom peat soils (up to 4 m deep) and underlying drift where up to 10 000 mm of precipitation equivalent may be stored. This is consistent with groundwater levels which indicate saturation to within 0.2 m of the surface. However, significant slow groundwater flow paths occur in the shallower drifts on steeper hillslopes, where point storage varies between ~1000 mm–5000 mm. These fluxes maintain saturated conditions in the valley bottom and are recharged from drift‐free areas on the catchment interfluves. The surveys indicate that catchment scale storage is >2000 mm which is consistent with tracer‐based estimates. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sequential Gaussian simulation for geosystems modeling: A machine learning approach

Sequential Gaussian Simulation(SGSIM)as a stochastic method has been developed to avoid the smoothing effect produced in deterministic methods by generating various stochastic realizations.One of the main issues of this technique is,however,an intensive computation related to the inverse operation in solving the Kriging system,which significantly limits its application when several realizations need to be produced for uncertainty quantification.In this paper,a physics-informed machine learning(PIML)model is proposed to improve the computational efficiency of the SGSIM.To this end,only a small amount of data produced by SGSIM are used as the training dataset based on which the model can discover the spatial correlations between available data and unsampled points.To achieve this,the governing equations of the SGSIM algorithm are incorporated into our proposed network.The quality of realizations produced by the PIML model is compared for both 2D and 3D cases,visually and quantitatively.Furthermore,computational performance is evaluated on different grid sizes.Our results demonstrate that the proposed PIML model can reduce the computational time of SGSIM by several orders of magnitude while similar results can be produced in a matter of seconds.     

Hybrid meta-heuristic machine learning methods applied to landslide susceptibility mapping in the Sahel-Algiers

Landslides are considered as one among many phenomena jeopardizing human beings as well as their constructions. To prevent this disastrous problem, researchers have used several approaches for landslide susceptibility modeling, for the purpose of preparing accurate maps marking landslide prone areas. Among the most frequently used approaches for landslide susceptibility mapping is the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method. However, the effectiveness of ANN methods could be enhanced by using hybrid metaheuristic algorithms, which are scarcely applied in landslide mapping. In the current study, nine hybrid metaheuristic algorithms, genetic algorithm (GA)-ANN, evolutionary strategy (ES)-ANN, ant colony optimization (ACO)-ANN, particle swarm optimization (PSO)-ANN, biogeography based optimization (BBO)-ANN, gravitational search algorithm (GHA)-ANN, particle swarm optimization and gravitational search algorithm (PSOGSA)-ANN, grey wolves optimization (GWO)-ANN, and probability based incremental learning (PBIL)-ANN have been used to spatially predict landslide susceptibility in Algiers’ Sahel, Algeria. The modeling phase was done using a database of 78 landslides collected utilizing Google Earth images, field surveys, and six conditioning factors (lithology, elevation, slope, land cover, distance to stream, and distance to road). Initially, a gamma test was used to decrease the input variable numbers. Furthermore, the optimal inputs have been modeled by the mean of hybrid metaheuristic ANN techniques and their performance was assessed through seven statistical indicators. The comparative study proves the effectiveness of the co-evolutionary PSOGSA-ANN model, which yielded higher performance in predicting landslide susceptibility compared to the other models. Sensitivity analysis using the step-by-step technique was done afterward, which revealed that the distance to the stream is the most influential factor on landslide susceptibility, followed by the slope factor which ranked second. Lithology and the distance to road have demonstrated a moderate effect on landslide susceptibility. Based on these findings, an accurate map has been designed to help land-use managers and decision-makers to mitigate landslide hazards.     

A comparative analysis of seismic response of shallow buried underground structure under incident P,SV and Rayleigh waves

In this study, A time-domain seismic response analysis method and a calculation model of the underground structure that can realize the input of seismic P, SV and Rayleigh waves are established, based on the viscoelastic artificial boundary elements and the boundary substructure method for seismic wave input. After verifying the calculation accuracy, a comparative study on seismic response of a shallow-buried, double-deck, double-span subway station structure under incident P, SV and Rayleigh waves is conducted. The research results show that there are certain differences in the cross-sectional internal force distribution characteristics of underground structures under different types of seismic waves. The research results show that there are certain differences in the internal force distribution characteristics of underground structures under different types of seismic waves. At the bottom of the side wall, the top and bottom of the center pillar of the underground structure, the section bending moments of the underground structure under the incidences of SV wave and Rayleigh wave are relatively close, and are significantly larger than the calculation result under the incidence of P wave. At the center of the side wall and the top floor of the structure, the peak value of the cross-sectional internal force under the incident Rayleigh wave is larger than the calculation result under SV wave. In addition, the floor of the underground structure under Rayleigh waves vibrates in both the horizontal and vertical directions, and the magnification effect in the vertical direction is more significant. Considering that the current seismic research of underground structures mainly considers the effect of body waves such as the shear waves, sufficient attention should be paid to the incidence of Rayleigh waves in the future seismic design of shallow underground structures.     

Geochemistry of sediment moisture in the Badain Jaran desert: Implications of recent environmental changes and water-rock interaction

Unsaturated zone pore water has the potential to record history of recharge, palaeoenvironment, pollution movement and water-rock interaction as it percolates through and moves towards the water table. In this study, two 6-m cores from the Badain Jaran desert (NW China) were collected to explore this potential using directly extracted moisture. Pore waters in these unsaturated zone sediments (1–5% moisture by wet weight) were directly extracted using immiscible liquid displacement and then analysed for major anions, cations and trace elements. Results show enrichment in pore water chemistry in the top 1–2 m where strong temperature and moisture fluxes occur. The enrichment in cations relative to chloride is primarily due to silicate mineral dissolution during infiltration. High nitrate and low iron concentrations indicate the overall oxidizing environment, which allows the mobility of oxyanions, such as uranium, arsenic and chromium. The trace elements show enrichment in the upper zone of fluctuation where chemical gradients are strong, but with lesser reaction lower in the profile. The calculated groundwater recharge rates using the chloride mass balance are negligible in this arid region between 1.5 and 3.0 mm/year. The modern rainfall infiltration signature contrasts with that of the underlying groundwater body, which has a distant, regional recharge signature.This reconnaissance study demonstrates the potential for a new geochemical approach to studying geochemical processes in the unsaturated sediments in semi-arid environments due to both natural and human influences. The use of directly extracted water, rather than extraction by dilution (elutriation), facilitates an improved understanding of hydrological and geochemical processes in the unsaturated zone and into the capillary fringe at the water table, because it avoids potential chemical changes induced during elutriation.