Deciphering potential groundwater zone in hard rock through the application of GIS

Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System has become one of the leading tools in the field of hydrogeological science, which helps in assessing, monitoring and conserving groundwater resources. It allows manipulation and analysis of individual layer of spatial data. It is used for analysing and modelling the interrelationship between the layers. This paper mainly deals with the integrated approach of Remote Sensing and geographical information system (GIS) to delineate groundwater potential zones in hard rock terrain. The remotely sensed data at the scale of 1:50,000 and topographical information from available maps, have been used for the preparation of ground water prospective map by integrating geology, geomorphology, slope, drainage-density and lineaments map of the study area. Further, the data on yield of aquifer, as observed from existing bore wells in the area, has been used to validate the groundwater potential map. The final result depicts the favourable prospective zones in the study area and can be helpful in better planning and management of groundwater resources especially in hard rock terrains.     

Assessing soil erosion in Mediterranean karst landscapes of Lebanon using remote sensing and GIS

Maps showing the potential for soil erosion at 1:100,000 scale are produced in a study area within Lebanon that can be used for evaluating erosion of Mediterranean karstic terrain with two different sets of impact factors built into an erosion model. The first set of factors is: soil erodibility, morphology, land cover/use and rainfall erosivity. The second is obtained by the first adding a fifth factor, rock infiltration. High infiltration can reflect high recharge, therefore decreasing the potential of surface runoff and hence the quantity of transported materials. Infiltration is derived as a function of lithology, lineament density, karstification and drainage density, all of which can be easily extracted from satellite imagery. The influence of these factors is assessed by a weight/rate approach sharing similarities between quantitative and qualitative methods and depending on pair-wise comparison matrix.The main outcome was the production of factorial maps and erosion susceptibility maps (scale 1:100,000). Spatial and attribute comparison of erosion maps indicates that the model that includes a measure of rock infiltration better represents erosion potential. Field investigation of rills and gullies shows 87.5% precision of the model with rock infiltration. This is 17.5% greater than the precision of the model without rock infiltration. These results indicate the necessity and importance of integrating information on infiltration of rock outcrops to assess soil erosion in Mediterranean karst landscapes.     

Comparative analyses of East Texas forest cover maps generated from Landsat and AVHRR data

Comparing satellite data derived map products are affected by differences in data characteristics, image acquisition dates, processing techniques, and classification schemes used for assigning pixels to a thematic class. By comparing two forest maps generated from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) images acquired on the same day, and processed using identical classification scheme and methods these differences were minimized. The ETM+ derived map had higher classification accuracy values and more precise area estimates than the AVHRR derived map. In the ETM+ derived map, 87 of the 599 verification data were misclassified, whereas in the AVHRR derived map, 155 of the 469 verification data were misclassified. Detailed error analyses by land cover class revealed that a land use based definition of forest accounted for 74% (64 out of 87) and 57% (89 out of 155) of the classification errors in ETM+ and AVHRR derived maps, respectively.     

Pervasive wetland flooding in the glacial drift prairie of North Dakota (USA)

This article describes a unique flood hazard, produced by the dramatic expansion of wetlands in Nelson County, located within the North American Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota, USA. There has been an unprecedented increase in the number, average size, and permanence of prairie wetlands, and a significant increase in the size of a closed lake (Stump Lake) due to a decade-long wet spell that began in 1993 following a prolonged drying trend. Base-line land cover information from the 1992 USGS National Land Cover Characterization dataset, and a Landsat TM scene acquired 9 July 2001 are used to assess the growth of the closed lake and wetland pond surface areas, and to analyze the type and area of various land cover classes inundated between 1992 and 2001. The open water profile in Nelson County changed from one marked by relatively comparable coverage of closed lake and wetland pond areas in 1992, to one in which wetland open water accounted for the vast majority of total open water in 2001. The bulk of the wetland pond area expansion occurred by displacing existing wetland vegetation and agricultural cropland. Producers responded to the flood hazard by filing Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) claims and enrolling cropland in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a federal land retirement program. Land taken out of agricultural production has had an enormous impact upon the agricultural sector that forms the economic base of the rural economy. In 2001 the land taken out of production due to CRP enrollment and preventive planting claims represented nearly 42% of Nelson County’s 205.2 K ha base agricultural land. The patterns obtained from this detailed study of Nelson County are likely to be the representative of the more publicized flood disaster occurring within the Devils Lake Basin of North Dakota.     

Remote estimation of surficial seafloor properties through the application Angular Range Analysis to multibeam sonar data

The variation of the backscatter strength with the angle of incidence is an intrinsic property of the seafloor, which can be used in methods for acoustic seafloor characterization. Although multibeam sonars acquire backscatter over a wide range of incidence angles, the angular information is normally neglected during standard backscatter processing and mosaicking. An approach called Angular Range Analysis has been developed to preserve the backscatter angular information, and use it for remote estimation of seafloor properties. Angular Range Analysis starts with the beam-by-beam time-series of acoustic backscatter provided by the multibeam sonar and then corrects the backscatter for seafloor slope, beam pattern, time varying and angle varying gains, and area of insonification. Subsequently a series of parameters are calculated from the stacking of consecutive time series over a spatial scale that approximates half of the swath width. Based on these calculated parameters and the inversion of an acoustic backscatter model, we estimate the acoustic impedance and the roughness of the insonified area on the seafloor. In the process of this inversion, the behavior of the model parameters is constrained by established inter-property relationships. The approach has been tested using a 300 kHz Simrad EM3000 multibeam sonar in Little Bay, NH. Impedance estimates are compared to in situ measurements of sound speed. The comparison shows a very good correlation, indicating the potential of this approach for robust seafloor characterization.     

海洋遥感四维测量应用

机载成象光谱仪遥感海洋是在轨星载海洋传感器定标校验的一种方法。本文研究了海洋航空遥感的四维测量方法，以及实现卫星、飞行遥感和船舶同步测量的重要意义。     

胶州湾东岸滩涂环境的遥感监测

利用低潮位陆地卫星TM影像对胶州湾东岸碱厂白水分布与扩散进行监测。对研究区的子区影像在ENVI中进行增强、变换处理，提取白水、白泥分布与扩散信息，制作大比例尺影像地图，在GIS软件中计算其面积。结合实地验证和历史数据，分析表明，该污染源10多年来面积扩大了4倍，     

多源遥感数据综合解译鄂尔多斯盆地杭锦旗地区地质构造

利用多源遥感数据假彩色合成、融合及纹理分析等增强处理方法提取研究区构造信息,进而对研究区进行综合解译;通过分析水系、色调、纹理、地貌及岩性等特征,判断出杭锦旗地区存在一小一大、内外相套的2个环形构造,发育的北西向、北东向2组共轭断层和一组北北西向断层,与环形构造相互构架,构成研究区特殊的构造体系。经分析预测,这些构造是受周边南北向构造应力共同挤压而形成。     

"5.12"汶川大地震震中区映秀镇地震灾情及次生地质灾害遥感初步调查

"5.12"四川汶川8级大地震发生后,中国国土资源航空物探遥感中心立即采用"赛斯纳"高空遥感飞机,携带高清晰彩色数码相机及先进的POS系统,迅速获取了重灾区的航摄图像数据。本文以震中附近的映秀镇地区为例,简要介绍了以该高质量航摄数据为基础,采用数字滑坡技术,快速进行震后重灾区灾情及次生地质灾害遥感调查的成果。