Updated Trewartha climate classification with four climate change scenarios

The Updated Trewartha climate classification (TWCC) at global level shows the changes that are expected as a consequence of global temperature increase and imbalance of precipitation. This type of classification is more precise than the Köppen climate classification. Predictions included the increase in global tem perature (T in °C) and change in the amount of precipitation (PA in mm). Two climate models MIROC6 and IPSL-CM6A- LR were used, along with 4261 mete orological stations from which the data on temperature and precipitation were taken. These climate models were used because they represent the most extreme models in the CMIP6 database. Four scenarios of climate change and their terri tories were analysed in accordance with the TWCC classification. Four scenarios of representative concentration pathway (RCP) by 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5 W/m2 fol low the increase of temperature between 0.3°C and 4.3°C in relation to precipita tion and are being analysed for the periods 2021–2040, 2041–2060, 2061–2080 and 2081–2100. The biggest extremes are shown in the last grid for the period 2081– 2100, reflecting the increase of T up to 4.3°C. With the help of GIS (geographical information systems) and spatial analyses, it is possible to estimate the changes in climate zones as well as their movement. Australia and South East Asia will suffer the biggest changes of biomes, followed by South America and North America. Climate belts to undergo the biggest change due to such temperature according to TWCC are Ar, Am, Aw and BS, BW, E, Ft and Fi. The Antarctic will lose 11.5% of the territory under Fi and Ft climates within the period between 2081 and 2100. The conclusion is that the climates BW, Bwh and Bwk, which represent the de serts, will increase by 119.8% with the increase of T by 4.3°

Changing Land Use, Climate, and Hydrology in the Winooski

This study analyzes temporal trends and periodicity in seventy years of publicly available stream discharge and climate data for the Winooski River Basin of northern Vermont as well as lake level data for adjacent Lake Champlain. We also use random sampling and manual, point-based classification of recent and historical aerial imagery to quantify land use change over the past seventy years in the 2,704 km2 Winooski River Basin of northern Vermont. We find a general increase in annual precipitation, discharge, and mean lake level with time in the basin; discharge increases 18% over the period of record while precipitation increases by 14%. Over the last 70 years, mean annual temperature has increased at the Burlington Vermont station by 0.78 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit). Four sets of aerial photographs, taken at intervals of 12 to 29 years between 1937 and 2003 at thirty randomly selected sites, demonstrate that actively cleared land area has decreased by 14%, while forested land and impervious surfaces increased by 10% and 5%, respectively. Spectral analysis of precipitation, discharge and lake level data show a ~7.6 year periodicity, which is in phase with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO); higher than average precipitation and discharge are most likely when the NAO is in a positive mode. The NAO relationship demonstrates that discharge is largely controlled by precipitation; anthropogenic changing climate and changing land use over the past 70 years appear to have subtly changed the seasonality of discharge and caused an increase in base flow

A linearised pixel-swapping method for mapping rural linear land cover features from fine spatial resolution remotely sensed imagery

Accurate maps of rural linear land cover features, such as paths and hedgerows, would be useful to ecologists, conservation managers and land planning agencies. Such information might be used in a variety of applications (e.g., ecological, conservation and land management applications). Based on the phenomenon of spatial dependence, sub-pixel mapping techniques can be used to increase the spatial resolution of land cover maps produced from satellite sensor imagery and map such features with increased accuracy. Aerial photography with a spatial resolution of 0.25 m was acquired of the Christchurch area of Dorset, UK. The imagery was hard classified using a simple Mahalanobis distance classifier and the classification degraded to simulate land cover proportion images with spatial resolutions of 2.5 and 5 m. A simple pixel-swapping algorithm was then applied to each of the proportion images. Sub-pixels within pixels were swapped iteratively until the spatial correlation between neighbouring sub-pixels for the entire image was maximised. Visual inspection of the super-resolved output showed that prediction of the position and dimensions of hedgerows was comparable with the original imagery. The maps displayed an accuracy of 87%. To enhance the prediction of linear features within the super-resolved output, an anisotropic modelling component was added. The direction of the largest sums of proportions was calculated within a moving window at the pixel level. The orthogonal sum of proportions was used in estimating the anisotropy ratio. The direction and anisotropy ratio were then used to modify the pixel-swapping algorithm so as to increase the likelihood of creating linear features in the output map. The new linear pixel-swapping method led to an increase in the accuracy of mapping fine linear features of approximately 5% compared with the conventional pixel-swapping method.<br/

Spatial-temporal super-resolution land cover mapping with a local spatial-temporal dependence model

The mixed pixel problem is common in remote sensing. A soft classification can generate land cover class fraction images that illustrate the areal proportions of the various land cover classes within pixels. The spatial distribution of land cover classes within each mixed pixel is, however, not represented. Super-resolution land cover mapping (SRM) is a technique to predict the spatial distribution of land cover classes within the mixed pixel using fraction images as input. Spatial-temporal SRM (STSRM) extends the basic SRM to include a temporal dimension by using a finer-spatial resolution land cover map that pre-or postdates the image acquisition time as ancillary data. Traditional STSRM methods often use one land cover map as the constraint, but neglect the majority of available land cover maps acquired at different dates and of the same scene in reconstructing a full state trajectory of land cover changes when applying STSRM to time series data. In addition, the STSRM methods define the temporal dependence globally, and neglect the spatial variation of land cover temporal dependence intensity within images. A novel local STSRM (LSTSRM) is proposed in this paper. LSTSRM incorporates more than one available land cover map to constrain the solution, and develops a local temporal dependence model, in which the temporal dependence intensity may vary spatially. The results show that LSTSRM can eliminate speckle-like artifacts and reconstruct the spatial patterns of land cover patches in the resulting maps, and increase the overall accuracy compared with other STSRM methods

Principles and methods of scaling geospatial Earth science data

The properties of geographical phenomena vary with changes in the scale of measurement. The information observed at one scale often cannot be directly used as information at another scale. Scaling addresses these changes in properties in relation to the scale of measurement, and plays an important role in Earth sciences by providing information at the scale of interest, which may be required for a range of applications, and may be useful for inferring geographical patterns and processes. This paper presents a review of geospatial scaling methods for Earth science data. Based on spatial properties, we propose a methodological framework for scaling addressing upscaling, downscaling and side-scaling. This framework combines scale-independent and scale-dependent properties of geographical variables. It allows treatment of the varying spatial heterogeneity of geographical phenomena, combines spatial autocorrelation and heterogeneity, addresses scale-independent and scale-dependent factors, explores changes in information, incorporates geospatial Earth surface processes and uncertainties, and identifies the optimal scale(s) of models. This study shows that the classification of scaling methods according to various heterogeneities has great potential utility as an underpinning conceptual basis for advances in many Earth science research domains. © 2019 Elsevier B.V

Integrating trees outside forests into national forest inventories

Trees Outside Forests (TOF) offer a wide range of ecological, economic, and social services. For example, they sequester carbon, provide wood for fuel and construction, protect soils from erosion, and contribute to the conservation of biological diversity. In particular in regions with low forest cover, TOF often have a substantial role in meeting society’s demands for resources such as wood and fodder. Information about trees is required for many purposes and at many geographical scales, and it has been recognised that substantial tree resources are overseen when focussing on forests alone. At the global scale, reporting obligations linked to agreements such as the Kyoto protocol are important. However, information is also needed for policy making at national scale and for integrated management by rural and urban planners. The focus of this thesis is the provision of national level information about TOF resources. From a literature review it was concluded that many national forest inventories have widened the scope of their inventories through including TOF. However, in general there is a shortage of information about TOF resources on a global scale. Further, very few methodological studies exist on how TOF could be integrated into national forest inventories. A central question of this thesis thus is how an integrative monitoring approach such as a national tree inventory would look like. Existing data from country-level TOF inventories across three continents were re-analysed. It was found that TOF contribute substantially to national tree biomass and carbon stocks. A method for simulating the spatial distribution of TOF elements at the landscape scale was investigated at selected study sites in Skåne, in the south of Sweden. The aim was to reconstruct existing patterns by methods from material sciences that might be used for modelling TOF patterns. Finally, a sampling simulation study was conducted to assess the potential of different inventory strategies to form the basis for national tree inventories. It was found that the combination of data from field sample plots and airborne laser scanning offers great potential in connection with model-assisted estimation. The results of this thesis may serve as a starting point for moving from a forest-centred view on tree monitoring towards integrative monitoring approaches that consider all trees that grow in a study region as valuable

Landscape functional connectivity and animal movement: application of remote sensing for increasing efficiency of road mitigation measures

Roads are a major threat to wildlife due to induced mortality and restrictions to animal movement. A central issue in conservation biology is the accurate site identification for the implementation of multispecies mitigation measures, on roads. Those measures entail high costs and methodological challenges and their efficiency highly depend on the right location. The aim of this PhD is to inform, through remote sensing and connectivity modelling, how to increase the efficiency of planning mitigation measures to reduce roadkill and promote connectivity; and demonstrate the usefulness of remote sensing in defining suitable areas for the conservation of an endangered species that often occurs in the vicinity of roads. To do so, we first assessed whether occurrence-based strategies were able to infer functional connectivity, compared to those more complex and financially demanding based on telemetry, with respect to daily and dispersal movements. Secondly, we assessed whether remote sensing data were sufficiently informative to identify key habitats for a threatened species around road verges. Thirdly, we assessed the predictive and prioritisation ability of road mitigation units intercepting multispecies corridors to prevent vulnerability to roadkill. Findings revealed that simple models are suitable as complex ones for both daily and dispersal movements, allowing for costly-effective connectivity assessments. Results demonstrated the ability of free remote sensing data to identify microhabitat conditions in verges and surrounding landscape, for a threatened rodent, allowing for the delimitation of refugee areas and definition of monitoring strategies for the species. Undemanding data (occurrence and remote sensing) were able to describe species-specific ecological requirements for birds, bats and non-flying mammals as well as roadkill patterns, possibly due to similar overlapping corridors and habitats, despite some mismatches that occurred for highly mobile species. This framework ensured high efficiency in prioritisation of multispecies roadkill mitigation planning, resilient to long-term landscape dynamics; Conectividade funcional da paisagem e movimento animal: aplicação da detecção remota para aumentar a eficiência de medidas de mitigação em estradas. Resumo: As estradas constituem uma enorme ameaça para a vida selvagem devido à mortalidade. Uma questão central é a identificação dos locais para implementar medidas de mitigação multiespécies, em estradas. Essas medidas envolvem custos elevados e desafios metodológicos e sua eficiência depende muito da localização correcta. O objetivo deste doutoramento é informar, através de detecção remota e conectividade, como aumentar a eficiência do planeamento de medidas de mitigação para reduzir atropelamentos e promover a conectividade; e demonstrar a utilidade da detecção remota na definição de áreas adequadas para a conservação de espécies ameaçadas que podem ocorrer nas proximidades de estradas. Portanto, primeiro avaliamos se os dados resultantes de amostragens simples eram capazes de inferir conectividade funcional, em comparação com estratégias complexas, respeito aos movimentos diários e de dispersão. Segundo, avaliamos se os dados de detecção remota eram suficientemente informativos para identificar habitats-chave para uma espécie ameaçada em torno das margens das estradas. Terceiro, avaliamos a capacidade preditiva e de prioritização das unidades de mitigação de estradas que cruzam corredores multi-espécies para reduzir o risco de atropelamentos. Os resultados revelaram que os modelos simples são adequados quanto os complexos para os movimentos diários e de dispersão. Os resultados demonstraram a capacidade dos dados de detecção remota gratuitos em identificar condições de microhabitats nos habitats de berma e na paisagem circundante, para um roedor ameaçado, permitindo a delimitação de áreas de refúgio. Dados pouco exigentes (ocorrência e detecção remota) foram capazes de descrever os requisitos ecológicos específicos de aves, morcegos e mamíferos não voadores, bem como padrões de atropelamentos, possivelmente devido a corredores e habitats semelhantes, apesar de haver algumas incompatibilidades para espécies de maior mobilidade. Essa estrutura foi capaz de garantir uma elevada eficiência na prioritização de planeamento de mitigação de atropelamentos para multi-espécies, resiliente à dinâmica da paisagem de longo prazo

Super-resolution mapping

Super-resolution mapping is becoming an increasing important technique in remote sensing for land cover mapping at a sub-pixel scale from coarse spatial resolution imagery. The potential of this technique could increase the value of the low cost coarse spatial resolution imagery. Among many types of land cover patches that can be represented by the super-resolution mapping, the prediction of patches smaller than an image pixel is one of the most difficult. This is because of the lack of information on the existence and spatial extend of the small land cover patches. Another difficult problem is to represent the location of small patches accurately. This thesis focuses on the potential of super-resolution mapping for accurate land cover mapping, with particular emphasis on the mapping of small patches. Popular super-resolution mapping techniques such as pixel swapping and the Hopfield neural network are used as well as a new method proposed. Using a Hopfield neural network (HNN) for super-resolution mapping, the best parameters and configuration to represent land cover patches of different sizes, shapes and mosaics are investigated. In addition, it also shown how a fusion of time series coarse spatial resolution imagery, such as daily MODIS 250 m images, can aid the determination of small land cover patch locations, thus reducing the spatial variability of the representation of such patches. Results of the improved HNN using a time series images are evaluated in a series of assessments, and demonstrated to be superior in terms of mapping accuracy than that of the standard techniques. A novel super-resolution mapping technique based on halftoning concept is presented as an alternative solution for the super-resolution mapping. This new technique is able to represent more land cover patches than the standard techniques

Super-resolution mapping

Super-resolution mapping is becoming an increasing important technique in remote sensing for land cover mapping at a sub-pixel scale from coarse spatial resolution imagery. The potential of this technique could increase the value of the low cost coarse spatial resolution imagery. Among many types of land cover patches that can be represented by the super-resolution mapping, the prediction of patches smaller than an image pixel is one of the most difficult. This is because of the lack of information on the existence and spatial extend of the small land cover patches. Another difficult problem is to represent the location of small patches accurately. This thesis focuses on the potential of super-resolution mapping for accurate land cover mapping, with particular emphasis on the mapping of small patches. Popular super-resolution mapping techniques such as pixel swapping and the Hopfield neural network are used as well as a new method proposed. Using a Hopfield neural network (HNN) for super-resolution mapping, the best parameters and configuration to represent land cover patches of different sizes, shapes and mosaics are investigated. In addition, it also shown how a fusion of time series coarse spatial resolution imagery, such as daily MODIS 250 m images, can aid the determination of small land cover patch locations, thus reducing the spatial variability of the representation of such patches. Results of the improved HNN using a time series images are evaluated in a series of assessments, and demonstrated to be superior in terms of mapping accuracy than that of the standard techniques. A novel super-resolution mapping technique based on halftoning concept is presented as an alternative solution for the super-resolution mapping. This new technique is able to represent more land cover patches than the standard techniques

Entwicklung einer übertragbaren, synergistischen Methode zur Kartierung von Biotoptypen anhand von hochauflösenden optischen und Radar-basierten Daten

Das übergeordnete Ziel der Arbeit war es zu evaluieren, in welchem Umfang die synergistische Verwendung von modernen Erdbeobachtungsdaten und -methoden zur Kartierung von Biotoptyp- und Landnutzungsinformationen beitragen kann. Anhand einer umfangreichen Literaturrecherche wurden die traditionellen Methoden der Biotoptypenkartierung und der Stand der Forschung im Bereich der Verwendung von Fernerkundungsinformationen für die Biotoptypenkartierung analysiert und Forschungsdefizite aufgezeigt, sowie Ansatzpunkte für eine Weiterentwicklung definiert. Hieraus ergaben sich die folgenden vier übergeordneten Forschungs- beziehungsweise Arbeitsschwerpunkte, welche im Verlauf der Arbeit noch weiter unterteilt wurden: 1. Die Analyse und Extraktion von potenziellen Informationen (Merkmalen) aus den vorliegenden Geoinformationen und die anschließende Reduktion der potenziellen Merkmale auf die relevanten Merkmale für die Kartierung der Biotoptyp- und Landnutzungsinformationen. 2. Die Entwicklung eines Klassifikationsansatzes für die Erfassung der Biotoptypen- und Landnutzungsinformationen anhand eines Entwicklungsdatensatzes. 3. Die Evaluation der Robustheit der Methode mittels Übertragung auf zwei weitere Datensätze. 4. Die Evaluation der Synergie der zugrundliegenden Geoinformationen. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass das Ziel der Entwicklung einer übertragbaren, synergistischen Methode zur Kartierung von Biotoptypen anhand von hochauflösenden optischen und Radar-basierten Daten erreicht werden konnte. Die entstandenen Karten können als Hilfe für die Entscheidungsfindung im Bereich der Anforderungen der nationalen und internationalen Naturschutzrichtlinien dienen. Die gezeigten Ergebnisse im Bereich der Übertragbarkeit lassen darauf hoffen, dass die entwickelte Methode und die daraus entstehenden Ergebnisse auch in anderen Ökoregionen einsetzbar sind