Incorporating GIS Building Data and Census Housing Statistics for Sub-Block-Level Population Estimation

This article presents a deterministic model for sub-block-level population estimation based on the total building volumes derived from geographic information system (GIS) building data and three census block-level housing statistics. To assess the model, we generated artificial blocks by aggregating census block areas and calculating the respective housing statistics. We then applied the model to estimate populations for sub-artificial-block areas and assessed the estimates with census populations of the areas. Our analyses indicate that the average percent error of population estimation for sub-artificial-block areas is comparable to those for sub-census-block areas of the same size relative to associated blocks. The smaller the sub-block-level areas, the higher the population estimation errors. For example, the average percent error for residential areas is approximately 0.11 percent for 100 percent block areas and 35 percent for 5 percent block areas.     

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.     

Atmospheric,weathering and biological contributions in the chemical signature of stream water: the upper Iskar Reka watershed,Bulgaria

Abstract

The chemical signature of stream water is influenced by several factors: atmospheric input, weathering of bedrock and soils, biological uptake, soil storage, and decomposition of organic matter. The importance of weathering and biological activity, according to season, can be assessed by subtracting atmospheric input. In the upper Iskar Reka watershed, Bulgaria, results show that Na and Ca are mainly exported out of the basin (weathering is dominant), while nitrate and sulphate are consumed/stored. The behaviour of K suggests that biological activity is dominated by vegetation uptake in spring and by bacterial activity in autumn. In summer, the weathering load of Mg is compensated by reactions with clays. The low nutrient input from weathering due to low reserves in the soil may lead to a biomass production closely linked to a rapid internal cycle and also to a relative sensitivity of the ecosystem to any change in vegetation cover and atmospheric input.

Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz

Citation Gassama, N. and Violette, S., 2012. Atmospheric, weathering and biological contributions in the chemical signature of stream water: the Upper Iskar Reka watershed, Bulgaria. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 57 (3), 535–546.     

内蒙古扎鲁特旗伊和布拉格多金属矿地球物理、地球化学特征及找矿预测

内蒙古自治区扎鲁特旗伊和布拉格多金属矿位于额济纳旗-大兴安岭成矿区之突泉-林西华力西燕山期铁（锡）铜、铅、锌、银、铌（钽）成矿带。区内共发现7条矿化蚀变带,土壤地球化学测量圈定了元素组合异常4个。矿化蚀变带受NE-SW向断裂构造控制,其中Ⅲ号矿化蚀变带、Ⅴ号矿化蚀变带位于该区近东西向和近南北向断裂带的交汇处。矿化蚀变主要产于下二叠统或上侏罗统,成矿作用与燕山中晚期岩浆侵入活动相关。矿化蚀变带与地球化学异常及低电阻率,高极化激电异常均相关性,其中Ⅲ号蚀变带深部已见多层银铅锌矿体。从地质、物化探资料分析并与有关同类型的矿床类比,区内多条矿化蚀变带均具有寻找中-大型银铅锌多金属矿潜力。     

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。     

增强现实及其在导航与位置服务中的应用

对增强现实从概念内涵、发展历程、关键技术及应用领域等方面进行了论述;对如何使其为导航与位置服务带来个性化的深度服务,并延伸至泛在测绘等领域进行了探讨;最后就增强现实的发展趋势和待解决的问题阐述了观点。