Satellite-derived rainfall thresholds for landslide early warning in Bogowonto Catchment,Central Java,Indonesia

Satellite rainfall products for landslide early warning prediction have been spotlighted by several researchers, in the last couple of decades. This study investigates the use of TRMM and ERA-Interim data, for the determination of rainfall thresholds and the prediction of precipitation, respectively, to be used for landslide early warning purposes at the Bogowonto catchment, Central Java, Indonesia. A landslide inventory of 218 landslides for the period of 2003–2016 was compiled, and rainfall data were retrieved for the landslide locations, as given by 6 ground stations, TRMM, and ERA-Interim data. First, rainfall data from the three different sources was compared in terms of correlation and extreme precipitation indices. Second, a procedure for the calculation of rainfall thresholds for landslide occurrence was followed consisting of four steps: i) the TRMM-based rainfall data was reconstructed for selected dates and locations characterized by landslide occurrence and non-occurrence; ii) the antecedent daily rainfall was calculated for 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 days for the selected dates and locations; iii) two-parameter daily rainfall-antecedent rainfall thresholds were calculated for the aforementioned dates; after analysis of the curves the optimum number of antecedent rainfall days was selected; and (iv) empirical rainfall thresholds for landslide occurrence were determined. The procedure was repeated for the entire landslide dataset, differentiating between forested and built-up areas, and between landslide occurrence in four temporal periods, in relation to the monsoon. The results indicated that TRMM performs well for the detection of very heavy precipitation and can be used to indicate the extreme rainfall events that trigger landslides. On the contrary, as ERA-Interim failed to detect those events, its applicability for LEWS remains limited. The 15-day antecedent rainfall was indicated to mostly affect the landslide occurrence in the area. The rainfall thresholds vary for forested and built-up areas, as well as for the beginning, middle and end of the rainy season.     

Accuracy assessment of NLCD 2011 percent impervious cover for selected USA metropolitan areas

The emergence of high-resolution land cover data has created the opportunity to assess the accuracy of impervious cover (IC) provided by the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). We assessed the accuracy of the 900 m² NLCD2011 %IC for 18 metropolitan areas throughout the conterminous United States using reference data from 1 m² land cover data developed as part of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s EnviroAtlas project. Agreement was assessed from two perspectives: 1) sensitivity to the size of the assessment unit used for the comparison, and 2) utility of NLCD %IC to serve as a proxy for high-resolution IC. The former perspective was considered because statistical relationships can be sensitive to assessment unit size and shape, and the latter perspective was considered because high resolution (reference) %IC data are not available nationwide. The utility of NLCD %IC as a proxy for the high resolution data was assessed for seven lattice (square) cell sizes ranging from 1 ha to 200 ha using four EnviroAtlas IC indicators: 1) %IC per 100 ha (1 km²); 2) %IC by Census block group; 3) %IC within a 15 m (radius) of the riparian zone, and; 4) %IC within a 50 m (radius) of the riparian zone. Agreement was quantified as per assessment unit deviation (NLCD %IC – reference %IC) and summarized as Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) and Mean Deviation (MD) both within and across the 18 metropolitan areas. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression (y = reference %IC and x = NLCD %IC) was also used to evaluate the quality of the NLCD %IC data. MAD was ≤ 5% for six of the seven lattice cell sizes. MAD was also ≤ 5% for Census block groups > 100 ha and for both riparian units. These results suggest that uncertainty attributable to the measurement of %IC was no greater than the uncertainty related to the effect of IC on aquatic resources that have been derived from studies of aquatic condition (e.g., benthic fauna) over a range of %IC. Overall, agreement was variable from one metropolitan area to the next. Agreement improved as assessment unit size increased and declined as the level of urbanization (NLCD %IC) increased. NLCD %IC tended to underestimate reference %IC overall, but NLCD %IC was sometimes greater than reference %IC in urbanized settings.     

Update and spatial extension of strategic forest inventories using time series remote sensing and modeling

Up-to-date forest inventory information relating the characteristics of managed and natural forests is fundamental to sustainable forest management and required to inform conservation of biodiversity and assess climate change impacts and mitigation opportunities. Strategic forest inventories are difficult to compile over large areas and are often quickly outdated or spatially incomplete as a function of their long production cycle. As a consequence, automated approaches supported by remotely sensed data are increasingly sought to provide exhaustive spatial coverage for a set of core attributes in a timely fashion. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the integration of current remotely-sensed data products and pre-existing jurisdictional inventory data to map four forest attributes of interest (stand age, dominant species, site index, and stem density) for a 55 Mha study region in British Columbia, Canada. First, via image segmentation, spectrally homogenous objects were derived from Landsat surface-reflectance pixel composites. Second, a suite of Landsat-based predictors (e.g., spectral indices, disturbance history, and forest structure) and ancillary variables (e.g., geographic, topographic, and climatic) were derived for these units and used to develop predictive models of target attributes. For the often difficult classification of dominant species, two modelling approaches were compared: (a) a global Random Forests model calibrated with training samples collected over the entire study area, and (b) an ensemble of local models, each calibrated with spatially constrained local samples. Accuracy assessment based upon independent validation samples revealed that the ensemble of local models was more accurate and efficient for species classification, achieving an overall accuracy of 72% for the species which dominate 80% of the forested areas in the province. Results indicated that site index had the highest agreement between predicted and reference (R² = 0.74, %RMSE = 23.1%), followed by stand age (R² = 0.62, %RMSE = 35.6%), and stem density (R² = 0.33, %RMSE = 65.2%). Inventory attributes mapped at the image-derived unit level captured much finer details than traditional polygon-based inventory, yet can be readily reassembled into these larger units for strategic forest planning purposes. Based upon this work, we conclude that in a multi-source forest monitoring program, spatially localized and detailed characterizations enabled by time series of Landsat observations in conjunction with ancillary data can be used to support strategic inventory activities over large areas.     

Integration of remote sensing,county-level census,and machine learning for century-long regional cropland distribution data reconstruction

The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) was home to about ten million hectare bottomland hardwood (BLH) forests in the Southern U.S. It experienced over 80 % area loss of the BLH forests in the past centuries and large-scale afforestation in recent decades. Due to the lack of a high-resolution cropland dataset, impacts of land use change (LUC) on the LMAV ecosystem services have not been fully understood. In this study, we developed a novel framework by integrating the machine learning algorithm, county-level agricultural census, and satellite-based cropland products to reconstruct the LMAV cropland distribution during 1850–2018 at a 30-m resolution. Results showed that the LMAV cropland area increased from 0.78 × 10⁴ km² in 1850 to 6.64 × 10⁴ km² in 1980 and then decreased to 6.16 × 10⁴ km² in 2018. Cropland expansion rate was the largest in the 1960s (749 km² yr⁻¹) but decreased rapidly thereafter, whereas cropland abandonment rate increased substantially in recent decades with the largest rate of 514 km² yr⁻¹ in the 2010s. Our dataset has three notable features: (1) the depiction of fine spatial details, (2) the integration of the county-level census, and (3) the inclusion of a machine-learning algorithm trained by satellite-based land cover product. Most importantly, our dataset well captured the continuous increasing trend in cropland area from 1930–1960, which was misrepresented by other cropland datasets reconstructed from the state-level census. Our dataset would be important to accurately evaluate the impacts of historical deforestation and recent afforestation efforts on regional ecosystem services, attribute the observed hydrological changes to anthropogenic and natural driving factors, and investigate how the socioeconomic factors control regional LUC pattern. Our framework and dataset are crucial to developing managerial and policy strategies for conserving natural resources and enhancing ecosystem services in the LMAV.     

基于3S的荣成湾沿岸土地覆被变化及驱动力研究

运用3S技术对最近40年来荣成湾沿岸土地覆被动态变化及驱动力进行研究.结果表明,该区海岸湿地土地覆被总面积和陆域土地覆被总面积变化不大,但其各自类型结构和分布均发生了显著调整,而且二者变化在时间上不同步.从面积上讲,前者以1981年为界,渴湖和沙地先减少后波动增加,滩涂和沼泽地先增加后波动减少;养殖池从无到有并迅速增加...     

中国卫星海洋观测系统及其传感器(1988—2025)

全面收集1988—2025年中国地球观测卫星(和飞船)计划,包括历史的、运行中的和列入未来计划的。详细介绍风云卫星系列(FY-n)、海洋卫星系列(HY-n)、资源卫星系列(ZY-n)、环境卫星系列(HJ-n)、中国遥感卫星系列(CRS-n)、灾害监测星座/北京小卫星(DMC/BJ-1)、神舟飞船系列(SZ-n)和天宫空间站系列(TG-n)等8个卫星(和飞船、空间站)系列。这些卫星(和飞船、空间站)系列都提供对海洋的观测,从而构成中国卫星海洋观测系统。按装载的传感器分类,进而给出中国的海色、海表温度、海面高度、海面风场和合成孔径雷达(SAR)卫星观测系统。对中国海洋观测卫星与国际海洋观测卫星装载的传感器性能作了比较和讨论,指出差距。列出目前在轨运行的中国海洋卫星观测系统38个传感器及其类似的国外卫星传感器。     

我国海啸灾害及预警现状与建议

本文给出了海啸定义及其它有关概念与术语,简要给出了我国及全球的海啸灾害.全面介绍了我国海啸监测能力、预警现状、研究成果以及有关国际合作的情况,重点介绍了我国自主研制的海啸数值模式,利用该模式我们模拟了2004年12月26日发生在印度洋大海啸以及假想的发生在我国南海的海啸对周边国家的影响.对海啸预警中存在的问题及未来急需开展的工作,作者也将一一给予阐述.     

Ecological classification of European transitional waters in the North-East Atlantic eco-region

A new methodology to classify European North-East Atlantic transitional waters into ecological types has been developed based on the most important hydrological and morphological features that are likely to determine the ecology of aquatic systems in transitional waters. Hydrological indicators help identifying if a transitional water area is dominated by fresh or sea water and/or by intertidal or subtidal areas, while morphological indicators allow an estimation of the complexity of the transitional water and the diversity of the habitats involved. Twelve transitional waters of the southern Bay of Biscay were classified using this methodology and the five hydro-morphological types obtained were validated with benthic macro-invertebrate data. Transitional waters with a complex morphology showed the highest values of species diversity, while those with a smaller tidal influence showed lower species diversity. The ‘Scrobicularia’ and ‘Abra’ assemblages, previously identified in the study area, were found to be related to different types of transitional waters. The ‘Abra’ assemblage only appeared in estuaries with a complex morphology and dominated by tidal influences, while the ‘Scrobicularia’ assemblage was detected in all the transitional waters except for a single coastal lagoon. This classification of transitional waters may therefore be useful to establish the biological reference conditions needed for European Directives.     

Tangled lines in New Zealand's quota management system: The process of including recreational fisheries

This article uses New Zealand as a case study of processes relating to the inclusion of recreational fisheries in modern fisheries management systems based on Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs). The New Zealand case highlights challenges governments often meet when attempting to integrate the recreational sector into fisheries management, including: (a) resistance to restrictions on what has historically been free-of-charge public access to fish for recreational purposes and (b) the fragmented character of the recreational sector, which makes it difficult to have recreational interests attend to their management role and responsibilities.     

Understanding marine ecosystem based management: A literature review

Ecosystem based management takes into account the interconnectedness and interdependent nature of ecosystem components and emphasizes the importance of ecosystem structures and functions which provide a range of services. The concept has now been adopted by many international agreements and national governments and is in the process of being implemented. This paper seeks to review the literature and to analyze the understanding of the subject. The term is defined and its implementation in fisheries and for all marine uses is analyzed. It has been concluded that to understand marine ecosystem based management one must consider ecosystems as complex adaptive systems which can show changes at higher levels from actions and processes occurring at lower levels. Recognizing that humans are part of these complex adaptive systems is vital in that their actions along with other processes can lead to transformations in ecosystem functioning. This recognition is also important to show how society can sustainably exploit these resources and that the inclusion of all stakeholders in the management process is necessary to legitimize the process. The uses of the precautionary principle along with adaptive management are seen to be useful tools in implementing these insights into the management of natural resources. Finally, the need for reducing consumption of fish is considered.