Land Use Change from Non-urban to Urban Areas

This reprint is related to land-use change and non-urban and urban relationships at all spatiotemporal scales and also focuses on land-use planning and regulatory strategies for a sustainable future. Spatiotemporal dynamics, socioeconomic implication, water supply problems and deforestation land degradation (e.g., increase of imperviousness surfaces) produced by urban expansion and their resource requirements are of particular interest. The Guest Editors expect that this reprint will contribute to sustainable development in non-urban and urban areas

A Review of Vegetation Phenological Metrics Extraction Using Time-Series, Multispectral Satellite Data

Vegetation dynamics and phenology play an important role in inter-annual vegetation changes in terrestrial ecosystems and are key indicators of climate-vegetation interactions, land use/land cover changes, and variation in year-to-year vegetation productivity. Satellite remote sensing data have been widely used for vegetation phenology monitoring over large geographic domains using various types of observations and methods over the past several decades. The goal of this paper is to present a detailed review of existing methods for phenology detection and emerging new techniques based on the analysis of time-series, multispectral remote sensing imagery. This paper summarizes the objective and applications of detecting general vegetation phenology stages (e.g., green onset, time or peak greenness, and growing season length) often termed “land surface phenology,” as well as more advanced methods that estimate species-specific phenological stages (e.g., silking stage of maize). Common data-processing methods, such as data smoothing, applied to prepare the time-series remote sensing observations to be applied to phenological detection methods are presented. Specific land surface phenology detection methods as well as species-specific phenology detection methods based on multispectral satellite data are then discussed. The impact of different error sources in the data on remote-sensing based phenology detection are also discussed in detail, as well as ways to reduce these uncertainties and errors. Joint analysis of multiscale observations ranging from satellite to more recent ground-based sensors is helpful for us to understand satellite-based phenology detection mechanism and extent phenology detection to regional scale in the future. Finally, emerging opportunities to further advance remote sensing of phenology is presented that includes observations from Cubesats, near-surface observations such as PhenoCams, and image data fusion techniques to improve the spatial resolution of time-series image data sets needed for phenological characterization

Assessing the relationship between the soil dielectric constant and electrical conductivity using 5TE sensors in the field conditions

Postprint (published version

Explainable machine learning in soil mapping: Peeking into the black box

Während des Anthropozäns und insbesondere in den letzten Jahrzehnten hat sich die Umwelt der Erde stark verändert. Die planetarischen Grenzen stehen zunehmend unter Druck. Da der Boden als wichtiger Teil der Kohlenstoff- und Stickstoffkreisläufe das Klima beeinflusst, ist er eine wichtige Ressource bei der Bewältigung dieser Umweltprobleme. Folglich spielt das Wissen über den Boden, Bodenprozesse und Bodenfunktionen eine wesentliche Rolle bei der Erforschung und Lösung dieser schwerwiegenden ökologischen und sozioökonomischen Herausforderungen. Die Kartierung und Modellierung des Bodens liefert räumliche Kenntnis über den Zustand des Bodens und seine Veränderungen im Laufe der Zeit. Dies ermöglicht es, Methoden der Bodenbewirtschaftung und Lösungsansätze für Umweltprobleme zu beurteilen und zu bewerten. Methoden des maschinellen Lernens haben sich für die räumliche Kartierung und Modellierung des Bodens als geeignet erwiesen. Oft handelt es sich dabei aber um Black Boxes und die Modellentscheidungen und -ergebnisse werden nicht erklärt. Allerdings würden erklärbare Bodenmodelle auf der Grundlage des maschinellen Lernens die Erkennung von Umweltveränderungen erleichtern, zur Entscheidungsfindung für den Umweltschutz beitragen und die Akzeptanz von Wissenschaft, Politik in Gesellschaft fördern. Daher sind die jüngsten Bemühungen im Bereich des maschinellen Lernens darauf ausgerichtet, den konventionellen Rahmen des maschinellen Lernens auf er¬klärbares maschinelles Lernen zu erweitern, um 1) Entscheidungen zu begründen, 2) die Modelle besser zu steuern und 3) zu verbessern und 4) neues Wissen zu generieren. Die Kernelemente für erklärbares maschinelles Lernen sind Transparenz, Interpretierbarkeit und Erklärbarkeit. Darüber hinaus sind domain knowledge und wissenschaftliche Konsistenz entscheidend. Bei der Bodenmodellierung spielten die Konzepte des erklärbaren maschinellen Lernens jedoch bisher eine geringe Rolle. Ziel dieser Arbeit war es, zu untersuchen und zu beschreiben, wie Transparenz, Interpretierbarkeit und Erklärbarkeit im Rahmen der Bodenmodellierung erreicht werden können. Die Fallbeispiele zeigten, wie Konsistenz mit Modellvergleichen bewertet werden kann und domain knowledge in die Modelle einfließt. Ebenso zeigten die Studien, wie Transparenz mit reproduzierbarer Proben- und Variablenauswahl erreicht werden kann und wie die Interpretation der Modelle mit domain knowledge verknüpft werden kann, um die Modellergebnisse besser zu erklären und in Bezug zu bodenkundlichem Wissen zu setzen sind.During the Anthropocene and especially in the past decades earth’s environment has undergone major changes. The planetary boundaries are increasingly under pressure. Since soil affects climate as compartment of the carbon and nitrogen cycles, it is an important resource in approaching these environmental problems. Consequently, knowledge about soil, soil processes and soil functions plays an essential role in research on and solutions for these severe environmental and socio-economic challenges. The mapping and modelling of soil provides spatial knowledge of soil status and changes over time, which allows to assess and evaluate soil management practices and attempts to solve to environmental problems. Machine learning methods have proven to be suitable for spatial mapping and modelling of soil, but often are black boxes and the model decisions and prediction results remain unexplained. However, explainable soil models based on machine learning would facilitate detection of environmental changes, contribute to decision making for environmental protection and foster acceptance in science, politics, and society. Therefore, latest efforts in machine learning were to expand the conventional machine learning framework to explainable machine learning to 1) justify decisions, 2) control, and 3) improve models and 4) to discover new knowledge. The core elements for explainable machine learning are transparency, interpretability and explainability. Additionally, domain knowledge and scientific consistency are crucial. However, to date the concepts of explainable machine learning played a marginal role in soil modelling and mapping. Objective of this thesis was to explore and describe how transparency, interpretability and explainability can be achieved in the soil mapping framework. The example studies showed how scientific consistency can be evaluated with model comparison and domain knowledge was and incorporated in DSM models. The studies showed how transparency can be accomplished with reproducible sample and covariate selection, and how interpretation of the models can be linked with domain knowledge about soil formation and processes to explain the model results

XXXV Congress of the International Association of Hydrogeologists, Groundwater and Ecosystems – Abstract Book

Resumos das comunicações do XXXV Congresso da Associação Internacional de Hidrogeólogos (IAH

The inter-relationships between natural site conditions, environmental controls, and the design process,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Thesis. 1973. M.Arch.MICROFICHE COPY ALSO AVAILABLE IN ROTCH LIBRARY.Includes bibliographies.by Peter P. Stuart and William B. Finch.M.Arch

Knowledge Capturing in Design Briefing Process for Requirement Elicitation and Validation

Knowledge capturing and reusing are major processes of knowledge management that deal with the elicitation of valuable knowledge via some techniques and methods for use in actual and further studies, projects, services, or products. The construction industry, as well, adopts and uses some of these concepts to improve various construction processes and stages. From pre-design to building delivery knowledge management principles and briefing frameworks have been implemented across project stakeholders: client, design teams, construction teams, consultants, and facility management teams. At pre-design and design stages, understanding the client’s needs and users’ knowledge are crucial for identifying and articulating the expected requirements and objectives. Due to underperforming results and missed goals and objectives, many projects finish with highly dissatisfied clients and loss of contracts for some organizations. Knowledge capturing has beneficial effects via its principles and methods on requirement elicitation and validation at the briefing stage between user, client and designer. This paper presents the importance and usage of knowledge capturing and reusing in briefing process at pre-design and design stages especially the involvement of client and user, and explores the techniques and technologies that are usable in briefing process for requirement elicitation

An Investigation on Benefit-Cost Analysis of Greenhouse Structures in Antalya

Significant population increase across the world, loss of cultivable land and increasing demand for food put pressure on agriculture. To meet the demand, greenhouses are built, which are, light structures with transparent cladding material in order to provide controlled microclimatic environment proper for plant production. Conceptually, greenhouses are similar with manufacturing buildings where a controlled environment for manufacturing and production have been provided and proper spaces for standardized production processes have been enabled. Parallel with the trends in the world, particularly in southern regions, greenhouse structures have been increasingly constructed and operated in Turkey. A significant number of greenhouses are located at Antalya. The satellite images demonstrated that for over last three decades, there has been a continuous invasion of greenhouses on all cultivable land. There are various researches and attempts for the improvement of greenhouse design and for increasing food production by decreasing required energy consumption. However, the majority of greenhouses in Turkey are very rudimentary structures where capital required for investment is low, but maintenance requirements are high when compared with new generation greenhouse structures. In this research paper, life-long capital requirements for construction and operation of greenhouse buildings in Antalya has been investigated by using benefit-cost analysis study

EVOLUTION OF THE SUBCONTINENTAL LITHOSPHERE DURING MESOZOIC TETHYAN RIFTING: CONSTRAINTS FROM THE EXTERNAL LIGURIAN MANTLE SECTION (NORTHERN APENNINE, ITALY)

Our study is focussed on mantle bodies from the External Ligurian ophiolites, within the Monte Gavi and Monte Sant'Agostino areas. Here, two distinct pyroxenite-bearing mantle sections were recognized, mainly based on their plagioclase-facies evolution. The Monte Gavi mantle section is nearly undeformed and records reactive melt infiltration under plagioclase-facies conditions. This process involved both peridotites (clinopyroxene-poor lherzolites) and enclosed spinel pyroxenite layers, and occurred at 0.7–0.8 GPa. In the Monte Gavi peridotites and pyroxenites, the spinel-facies clinopyroxene was replaced by Ca-rich plagioclase and new orthopyroxene, typically associated with secondary clinopyroxene. The reactive melt migration caused increase of TiO2 contents in relict clinopyroxene and spinel, with the latter also recording a Cr2O3 increase. In the Monte Gavi peridotites and pyroxenites, geothermometers based on slowly diffusing elements (REE and Y) record high temperature conditions (1200-1250 °C) related to the melt infiltration event, followed by subsolidus cooling until ca. 900°C. The Monte Sant'Agostino mantle section is characterized by widespread ductile shearing with no evidence of melt infiltration. The deformation recorded by the Monte Sant'Agostino peridotites (clinopyroxene-rich lherzolites) occurred at 750–800 °C and 0.3–0.6 GPa, leading to protomylonitic to ultramylonitic textures with extreme grain size reduction (10–50 μm). Compared to the peridotites, the enclosed pyroxenite layers gave higher temperature-pressure estimates for the plagioclase-facies re-equilibration (870–930 °C and 0.8–0.9 GPa). We propose that the earlier plagioclase crystallization in the pyroxenites enhanced strain localization and formation of mylonite shear zones in the entire mantle section. We subdivide the subcontinental mantle section from the External Ligurian ophiolites into three distinct domains, developed in response to the rifting evolution that ultimately formed a Middle Jurassic ocean-continent transition: (1) a spinel tectonite domain, characterized by subsolidus static formation of plagioclase, i.e. the Suvero mantle section (Hidas et al., 2020), (2) a plagioclase mylonite domain experiencing melt-absent deformation and (3) a nearly undeformed domain that underwent reactive melt infiltration under plagioclase-facies conditions, exemplified by the the Monte Sant'Agostino and the Monte Gavi mantle sections, respectively. We relate mantle domains (1) and (2) to a rifting-driven uplift in the late Triassic accommodated by large-scale shear zones consisting of anhydrous plagioclase mylonites. Hidas K., Borghini G., Tommasi A., Zanetti A. & Rampone E. 2021. Interplay between melt infiltration and deformation in the deep lithospheric mantle (External Liguride ophiolite, North Italy). Lithos 380-381, 105855