Spatiotemporal changes in agricultural land cover in Nepal over the last 100 years

In order to advance land use and land cover change (LUCC) research in Nepal, it is essential to reconstruct both the spatiotemporal distribution of agricultural land cover as well as scenarios that can explain these changes at the national and regional levels. Because of rapid population growth, the status of agricultural land in Nepal has changed markedly over the last 100 years. Historical data is used in this study, encompassing soils, populations, climatic variables, and topography. Data were revised to a series of 30 m grid cells utilized for agricultural land suitability and allocation models and were analyzed using a suite of advanced geographical tools. Our reconstructions for the spatiotemporal distribution of agricultural land in Nepal reveal an increasing trend between 1910 and 2010 (from 151.2 × 10² km² to 438.8 × 10² km²). This expanded rate of increase in agricultural land has varied between different eco, physiographic, and altitudinal regions of the country, significantly driven by population changes and policies over the period of this investigation. The historical dataset presented in this paper fills an existing gap in studies of agricultural land change and can be applied to other carbon cycle and climate modeling studies, as well as to impact assessments of agricultural land change in Nepal.     

Voronoi tessellation on the ellipsoidal earth for vector data

Voronoi tessellation, and its dual the Delaunay triangulation, provide a cohesive framework for the study and interpretation of phenomena of geographical space in two and three dimensions. The planar and spherical solutions introduce errors in the positional accuracy of both Voronoi vertices and Voronoi edges due to errors in distance computations and the path connecting two locations with planar lines or great circle arcs instead of geodesics. For most geospatial applications the introduction of the above errors is insignificant or tolerable. However, for applications where the accuracy is of utmost importance, the ellipsoidal model of the Earth must be used. Characteristically, the introduction of any positional error in the delimitation of maritime zones and boundaries results in increased maritime space for one state at the expense of another. This is a situation that may, among others, have a serious impact on the financial activities and the relations of the states concerned. In the context of previous work on maritime delimitation we show that the Voronoi diagram constitutes the ideal solution for the development of an automated methodology addressing the problem in its entirety. Due to lack of a vector methodology for the generation of Voronoi diagram on the ellipsoid, the aforementioned solution was constrained by the accuracy of existing approaches. In order to fill this gap, in this paper we deal with the inherent attributes of the ellipsoidal model of the Earth, e.g. the fact that geodesics are open lines, and we elaborate on a methodology for the generation of the Voronoi diagram on the ellipsoid for a set of points in vector format. The resulting Voronoi diagram consists of vertices with positional accuracy that is only bounded by the user needs and edges that are comprised of geodesics densified with vertices equidistant to their generators. Finally, we present the implementation of the proposed algorithm in the Python programming language and the results of two case studies, one on the formation of closest service areas and one on maritime boundaries delimitation, with the positional accuracy set to 1 cm.     

太白山北坡成土因素及不同土壤垂直带谱的比较

在系统地考察太白山北坡地质、地貌、气候和植被等成土因素的基础上,总结和回顾了用土壤发生分类和土壤系统分类两种分类体系划定的太白山北坡土壤垂直带谱。根据最新的土壤系统分类,太白山北坡的土壤垂直带谱是:暗瘠寒冻雏形土(3500～3767m)———暗沃寒冻雏形土(3300～3500m)———酸性湿润雏形土(2500～3300m)———简育湿润淋溶土(1400～2500m)———简育干润淋溶土(<1400m)。分析、比较表明:两种体系有密切联系,均以成土因素为依据,建立在土壤发生学理论之上;与土壤地理发生分类相比,土壤系统分类用可以度量的诊断层和诊断特性进行土壤分类,不仅能够反映出山地土壤成土因素的垂直变化趋势,而且避免了太白山北坡土壤类型鉴定上的许多歧义。     

Vertical differentiation of land cover in the central Himalayas

Characterized by obvious altitudinal variation, habitat complexity, and diversity in land cover, the Mt. Qomolangma region within the central Himalayas is one of the most sensitive areas to climate change in the world. At the same time, because the Mt. Qomolangma region possesses the most complete natural vertical spectrum in the world, it is also an ideal place to study the vertical structure of alpine land cover. In this study, land cover data for 2010 along with digital elevation model data were used to define three methods for dividing the northern and southern slopes in the Mt. Qomolangma region, i.e., the ridgeline method, the sample transect method, and the sector method. The altitudinal distributions of different land cover types were then investigated for both the northern and southern slopes of the Mt. Qomolangma region by using the above three division methods along with Arc GIS and MATLAB tools. The results indicate that the land cover in the study region was characterized by obviously vertical zonation with the south-six and north-four pattern of vertical spectrum that reflected both the natural vertical structure of vegetation and the effects of human activities. From low to high elevation, the main land cover types were forests, grasslands, sparse vegetation, bare land, and glacier/snow cover. The compositions and distributions of land cover types differed significantly between the northern and southern slopes; the southern slope exhibited more complex land cover distributions with wider elevation ranges than the northern slope. The area proportion of each land cover type also varied with elevation. Accordingly, the vertical distribution patterns of different land cover types on the southern and northern slopes could be divided into four categories, with glaciers/snow cover, sparse vegetation, and grasslands conforming to unimodal distributions. The distribution of bare land followed a unimodal pattern on the southern slope but a bimodal pattern on the northern slope. Finally, the use of different slope division methods produced similar vertical belt structures on the southern slope but different ones on the northern slope. Among the three division methods, the sector method was better to reflect the natural distribution pattern of land cover.     

山体效应及其对林线分布的影响(英文)

The concept of mass elevation effect(massenerhebungseffect,MEE) was intro-duced by A.de Quervain about 100 years ago to account for the observed tendency for temperature-related parameters such as tree line and snowline to occur at higher elevations in the central Alps than on their outer margins.It also has been widely observed in other ar-eas of the world,but there have not been significant,let alone quantitative,researches on this phenomenon.Especially,it has been usually completely neglected in developing fitting mod-els of timberline elevation,with only longitude or latitude considered as impacting factors.This paper tries to quantify the contribution of MEE to timberline elevation.Considering that the more extensive the land mass and especially the higher the mountain base in the interior of land mass,the greater the mass elevation effect,this paper takes mountain base elevation(MBE) as the magnitude of MEE.We collect 157 data points of timberline elevation,and use their latitude,longitude and MBE as independent variables to build a multiple linear regres-sion equation for timberline elevation in the southeastern Eurasian continent.The results turn out that the contribution of latitude,longitude and MBE to timberline altitude reach 25.11%,29.43%,and 45.46%,respectively.North of northern latitude 32°,the three factors’ contribu-tion amount to 48.50%,24.04%,and 27.46%,respectively;to the south,their contribution is 13.01%,48.33%,and 38.66%,respectively.This means that MBE,serving as a proxy indi-cator of MEE,is a significant factor determining the elevation of alpine timberline.Compared with other factors,it is more stable and independent in affecting timberline elevation.Of course,the magnitude of the actual MEE is certainly determined by other factors,including mountain area and height,the distance to the edge of a land mass,the structures of the mountains nearby.These factors need to be included in the study of MEE quantification in the future.This paper could help build up a high-accuracy and multi-scale elevation model for alpine timberline and even other altitudinal belts.     

黑河上游祁连山区植物群落随海拔生境的变化特征

基于79个样地的野外调查数据,采用双向指示种分析(TWINSPAN)等方法,研究了黑河上游祁连山浅山区、阴坡、阳坡3种典型类型植物群落随海拔梯度的变化特征.结果表明:浅山区植被属于山地荒漠类型;阴坡植被沿海拔升高依次分异为山地荒漠、山地森林和高山灌丛,海拔2 500m和3 300m是它们的海拔分界线;阳坡植被在海拔3 200m截然分异为干旱类型和湿润类型.乔木物种多样性随海拔变化难于形成一定的格局;灌木物种丰富度随海拔升高呈现多峰分布格局,总体上高海拔低、低海拔高;草本植物物种多样性随海拔升高呈单峰变化.以上生态型的各优势种分别占据不同的海拔范围,祁连山主要乔木青海云杉分布在海拔2 500～3 500m的阴坡,其郁闭度随海拔升高而降低,在海拔3 300m以上海拔区域为零星分布.     

学习实践“改造成矿作用”理论——以滇中砂岩铜矿为例兼论改造作用的上、下限问题

"改造成矿作用"是涂光炽院士提出的新理论。这一理论有如下基本论点和鲜明特色:矿质来源的广泛性;成矿流体的特殊性;成矿元素的活泼性;改造作用的内生性;断裂构造的主导性;赋矿岩石的多样性;改造矿床的普遍性;成矿作用的独特性与应有地位——矿床分类的四分法。滇中大姚-牟定式砂岩铜矿是典型的沉积-成岩-后生-改造成因。其主要论据与以下要素有关:裂谷成矿背景;矿源层(K、J)、矿源岩(元谋古陆);矿体受地层层位、岩相、岩性控制,其生成与煤系(提供有机质)、盐层(提供卤素)密切相关;矿体形态产状、矿石结构构造、成矿流体性状与水的来源、有机质类型及其作用在不同成矿期、成矿阶段显著不同。从岩石学的名词概念来解读和划分"改造成矿作用"的上限与下限:上限确定在后生作用之后,下限在变生作用之末。     

SHORT COMMUNICATION CLASSIFICATION METHODS FOR MULTIVARIATE QUALITY PARAMETERS

There are many chemical products where product conformity is decided upon by qualitative humanjudgements of overall product quality.Nowadays,quantitative instrumentally determined qualityparameters become available which are intended to replace such qualitative judgements by means ofautomatic decision rules using multivariate specification limits.Six classification methods to derive suchlimits are compared in terms of their power to predict corresponding human judgements on overall colorconformity of 17 dyestuffs based on historical quality data.Standard statistical classification methodsturned out to be unacceptable for the routine generation of decision rules because of the frequent distinctsuboptimality of their predictive power.Instead,a simple non-statistical classification method utilizinga priori knowledge about the underlying data structure yielded uniformly satisfactory decision rules.     

应用多种测量软件对地图后期处理

随着电子地图的出现和各种测量软件的开发，地形图实现了美观化和统一化。而各种测绘软件提供的开放性，也使我们可以在不同的测绘软件中对地形图加以编辑和修改，充分利用各个测绘软件的优势。本文结合实际工作经验，针对具体工作中遇到的一些问题，利用各种测绘软件的结合，使一些问题得到解决，并使图形更趋于美观化。