Review on Montane Forest Eco-hydrology in Arid Area

Since the forest eco-hydrology of arid area shows a well sensitivity of the global climate change, the relationship between forest and water and the hydrological function has attracted the attention of academic communites and management departments. This paper expounds the research progress in arid mountain forest eco-hydrology, and analyses the formation and stable mechanism of forest patch pattern, the relationship between forest and water yield and the response of forest eco-hydrology to climate change from three aspects: Forest spatial pattern, hydrological process and its response to climate change. In addition, combined with the current research progress, the research emphases in the future are put forward: Strengthening the research on the coupling of vegetation pattern and hydrological process; solving the scale problem by using remote sensing technique and model; enhancing the understanding towards the hydrological function of forest; determining the suitable forest scale which can balance the relationship of ecology and hydrological effect.     

北京飞云瀑景点崩塌地质灾害分析及防治方法研究

近15年来,北京飞云瀑景点附近发生过2次大规模崩塌,崩塌堆积岩块体积累计达450 m3,崩塌岩块已滚落覆盖至景区小路。经勘查,确定了1处危岩体及1处危岩带,该危岩体及危岩带对本景点的正常观赏及过往游人构成极大威胁。本文对该景点的崩塌地质灾害地质特征进行了简要介绍;对地质灾害成因、自然发展趋势等进行了初步探讨;对危岩体(带)的稳定性进行了计算、分析及评价;对可能采用的治理方法进行了比选分析。为了最大程度地保护景观资源,最终选择了以避让为主的治理措施,并对选定的治理方案及计算进行了阐述。     

Reefs at the edge: coral community structure around Rapa,southernmost French Polynesia

Rapa (27°36′ S, 144°20′ W) is a small (~40 km²) volcanic island isolated in the Southern Austral Archipelago, where direct anthropogenic stressors are extremely limited. Here, we present the results of the first quantitative survey of coral community structure across habitats and depths around the island. Despite its geographical isolation in the depauperate South Central Pacific, its small size and unfavourable environmental conditions (competition with macroalgae, low sea surface temperatures, reduced reef accretion), the diversity of scleractinian corals at Rapa is particularly high (112 species from 32 genera, including 37 species of Acropora) in comparison to other French Polynesian islands and subtropical Pacific locations. Our results indicate that the abundance (>100 colonies per 10 m² recorded at nine of the 17 sampling stations) and cover (>40% at four stations) of corals are relatively high for a marginal reef location. Strong spatial heterogeneity was found, with high variation in diversity, abundance, cover and community composition among stations. Variation in community composition was related to habitat types, with distinct assemblages among fringing reefs within bays, reef formations at bay entrances, and those on the submerged platform surrounding the island. On the platform, a depth gradient was detected, with generic richness, abundance and cover generally greater at deeper stations (18–20 m depth) compared with medium‐depth (10–12 m) and shallow (1–3 m) stations. A gradient was also recorded along bays, with increasing coral diversity and abundance from the bay heads to the bay entrances. The coral community at Rapa was characterized by the presence of several taxa not found in other French Polynesian archipelagos and the rarity of others that are common and abundant in the Society and the Tuamotu islands. Another distinctive feature of reef communities at Rapa is the high cover and dominance of macroalgae, particularly in the shallower parts of the surrounding platform, which probably explains the lower densities of coral colonies recorded there. These characteristics of the diversity and biogeographical composition of coral assemblages at Rapa provide considerable ecological grounds for its conservation.     

50年来北海市滨海湿地景观格局变化及其驱动机制

以1955~2004年遥感影像为数据源,结合野外调查,运用景观生态学原理,研究50 a间北海市滨海湿地的景观格局及其动态变化。结果表明,50 a间北海市滨海湿地呈整体退化趋势,潮间砂质海滩、潮间淤泥质海滩、红树林滩、小型岛屿湿地减少;景观格局指数显示1977年、1998年是北海市滨海湿地较明显变化的拐点。1977年人类活动影响增加,滨海湿地稍有退化,湿地景观多样性指数减小,优势度指数增加,均匀度指数减小、景观总面积指数降至最低值。1988年湿地保护力度加大,湿地略为好转,景观多样性指数、优势度指数、均匀度指数则呈相反规律。1998年湿地受到的极端气候灾害、人类干扰程度加大,平均斑块分形维数下降,斑块密度指数、景观斑块数破碎化指数呈最高值。湿地景观格局指数的变化,反映了围垦改造、互花米草的生物入侵、城市污染、极端气候灾害等对景观格局的影响,人类活动是北海市滨海湿地景观格局变化的主要驱动因子。     

不同饵料种类、投喂方式及环境条件对凡纳滨对虾相对摄食量的影响

为提高对虾养殖过程中的饵料利用率并减少养殖废水的排放,作者以凡纳滨对虾(Litopenaeus vannamei)为实验对象,研究了不同饵料种类、投喂方式、体质量、充气量、光照强度、水温及盐度对其相对摄食量的影响。结果表明:配合饲料组对虾的相对摄食量显著高于冰鲜虾肉组;连续单颗投喂时对虾的相对摄食量较高;相对摄食量随对对虾体重升高而显著(P0.01)下降,而且不同规格的对虾在竞争条件下平均相对摄食量会降低;充气量6 L/min组对虾的相对摄食量明显高于另外两组;弱光环境下对虾的相对摄食量较高;水温和盐度对相对摄食量的影响极显著(P0.01),在32℃时对虾获得最大相对摄食量,在盐度为5时相对摄食量最小,高盐度下组间差异不显著(P0.05)。因此,在实际生产中应采取少量多次的投饵策略,并根据环境条件的变化合理的调整投饵量。     

Estimating attendance from cellular network data

An automatic estimate of the number of attendees to events happening in the city can provide valuable information to geographic information systems and geo-located applications. We present a methodology to estimate the number of events’ attendees from cellular network data. In this work, we used anonymized Call Detail Records (CDRs) comprising data on where and when users access the cellular network. Our approach is based on two key ideas: (1) we identify the network cells associated with the event location. (2) We verify the attendance of each user, as a measure of whether (s)he generates CDRs during the event, but not during other times. We evaluate our approach to estimate the number of attendees to a number of events ranging from football matches in stadiums to concerts and festivals in open squares. Comparing our results with the best groundtruth data available, our estimates provide a median error of less than 15% of the actual number of attendees.     

Possibilities of land use change analysis in a mountainous rural area: a methodological approach

Decreasing population density is a current trend in the European Union, and causes a lower environmental impact on the landscape. However, besides the desirable effect on the regeneration processes of semi-natural forest ecosystems, the lack of traditional management techniques can also lead to detrimental ecological processes. In this study we investigated the land use pattern changes in a micro-region (in North-Eastern Hungary) between 1952 and 2005, based on vectorised land use data from archive aerial photos. We also evaluated the methodology of comparisons using GIS methods, fuzzy sets and landscape metrics. We found that both GIS methods and statistical analysis of landscape metrics resulted in more or less the same findings. Differences were not as relevant as was expected considering the general tendencies of the past 60 years in Hungary. The change in the annual rate of forest recovery was 0.12%; settlements extended their area by an annual rate of 3.04%, while grasslands and arable lands had a net loss in their area within the studied period (0.60% and 0.89%, respectively). The kappa index showed a smaller similarity (~60%) between these dates but the fuzzy kappa and the aggregation index, taking into account both spatial and thematic errors, gave a more reliable result (~70–80% similarity). Landscape metrics on patch and class level ensured the possibility of a detailed analysis. We arrived at a similar outcome but were able to verify all the calculations through statistical tests. With this approach we were able to reveal significant (p < 0.05) changes; however, effect sizes did not show large magnitudes. Comparing the methods of revealing landscape change, the approach of landscape metrics was the most effective approach, as it was independent of spatial errors and ensuring a multiple way of interpretation.     

Unsupervised regionalization of the United States into landscape pattern types

We present a pattern-based regionalization of the conterminous US – a partitioning of the country into a number of mutually exclusive and exhaustive regions that maximizes the intra-region stationarity of land cover patterns and inter-region disparity between those patterns. The result is a discretization of the land surface into a number of landscape pattern types (LPTs) – spatial units each containing a unique quasi-stationary pattern of land cover classes. To achieve this goal, we use a recently developed method which utilizes machine vision techniques. First, the entire National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) is partitioned into a grid of square-size blocks of cells, called motifels. The size of a motifel defines the spatial scale of a local landscape. The land cover classes of cells within a motifel form a local landscape pattern which is mathematically represented by a histogram of co-occurrence features. Using the Jensen–Shannon divergence as a dissimilarity function between patterns we group the motifels into several LPTs. The grouping procedure consists of two phases. First, the grid of motifels is partitioned spatially using a region-growing segmentation algorithm. Then, the resulting segments of this grid, each represented by its medoid, are clustered using a hierarchical algorithm with Ward’s linkage. The broad-extent maps of progressively more generalized LPTs resulting from this procedure are shown and discussed. Our delineated LPTs agree well with the perceptual patterns seen in the NLCD map.     

Interactive discovery of sequential patterns in time series of wind data

Wind speed and direction vary over space and time due to the interactions between different pressures and temperature gradients within the atmospheric layers. Near the earth’s surface, these interactions are modulated by topography and artificial structures. Hence, characterizing wind behaviour over large areas and long periods is a complex but essential task for various energy-related applications. In this study, we present a novel approach to discover wind patterns by integrating sequential pattern mining and interactive visualization techniques. The approach relies on the use of the Linear time Closed pattern Miner sequence algorithm in conjunction with a time sliding window that allows the discovery of all sequential patterns present in the data. These patterns are then visualized using integrated 2D and 3D coordinated multiple views and visually explored to gain insight into the characteristics of the wind from a spatial, temporal and attribute (type of wind pattern) point of view. This proposed approach is used to analyse 10 years of hourly wind speed and direction data for 29 weather stations in the Netherlands. The results show that there are 15 main sequential patterns in the data. The spatial task shows that weather stations located in the same region do not necessarily experience similar wind pattern. For within the selected time interval, similar wind patterns can be observed in different stations and in the same station at different times of occurrence. The attribute task discovered that the repetitive occurrences of chosen pattern indicate as regular wind behaviour at different weather stations that persisted continuously over time. The results of these tasks show that the proposed interactive discovery facilitates the understanding of wind dynamics in space and time.