Modelización de la función de covarianza en procesos espacio-temporales : análisis y aplicaciones

Desde sus orígenes durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX hasta la actualidad ha quedado suficientemente demostrada la validez de las técnicas geoestadísticas para el estudio de todo tipo de procesos naturales que se manifiestan sobre localizaciones espaciales. Durante los últimos años del siglo pasado y principios de este se observa en la literatura especializada una creciente demanda de técnicas estadísticas espacio-temporales que generalicen los procedimientos meramente espaciales para fenómenos espaciales de los que se conoce su evolución temporal. Es especialmente reseñable las numerosas aportaciones realizadas por los investigadores para la construcción de funciones de covarianza espacio-temporales lo suficientemente realistas que describan la evolución de procesos medioambientales en el espacio y tiempo, capturando simultáneamente el comportamiento de ambas componentes y su posible interacción. A pesar de ello, queda un largo camino por recorrer en el análisis de la capacidad predictiva de muchos de estos nuevos modelos y en el desarrollo de herramientas estadísticas que permitan la comparación y selección de aquellos modelos más adecuados. En la presente memoria se pretenden alcanzar diferentes objetivos en este sentido: recopilar, organizar y describir los diferentes modelos de funciones de covarianza espacio-temporales introducidos en la literatura especializada; contribuir al crecimiento de esta batería de modelos disponibles con el aporte de un nuevo modelo de función de covarianza espacio-temporal, el modelo suma de productos generalizado; comparar algunos de los principales modelos espacio-temporales utilizados en la práctica geoestadística mediante un exhaustivo estudio de simulación; y aplicar algunos de los modelos espacio-temporales descritos sobre determinadas situaciones reales, llevados a cabo durante el periodo de elaboración de la presente memoria

Enhancing the information content of geophysical data for nuclear site characterisation

Our knowledge and understanding to the heterogeneous structure and processes occurring in the Earth’s subsurface is limited and uncertain. The above is true even for the upper 100m of the subsurface, yet many processes occur within it (e.g. migration of solutes, landslides, crop water uptake, etc.) are important to human activities. Geophysical methods such as electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) greatly improve our ability to observe the subsurface due to their higher sampling frequency (especially with autonomous time-lapse systems), larger spatial coverage and less invasive operation, in addition to being more cost-effective than traditional point-based sampling. However, the process of using geophysical data for inference is prone to uncertainty. There is a need to better understand the uncertainties embedded in geophysical data and how they translate themselves when they are subsequently used, for example, for hydrological or site management interpretations and decisions. This understanding is critical to maximize the extraction of information in geophysical data. To this end, in this thesis, I examine various aspects of uncertainty in ERT and develop new methods to better use geophysical data quantitatively. The core of the thesis is based on two literature reviews and three papers. In the first review, I provide a comprehensive overview of the use of geophysical data for nuclear site characterization, especially in the context of site clean-up and leak detection. In the second review, I survey the various sources of uncertainties in ERT studies and the existing work to better quantify or reduce them. I propose that the various steps in the general workflow of an ERT study can be viewed as a pipeline for information and uncertainty propagation and suggested some areas have been understudied. One of these areas is measurement errors. In paper 1, I compare various methods to estimate and model ERT measurement errors using two long-term ERT monitoring datasets. I also develop a new error model that considers the fact that each electrode is used to make multiple measurements. In paper 2, I discuss the development and implementation of a new method for geoelectrical leak detection. While existing methods rely on obtaining resistivity images through inversion of ERT data first, the approach described here estimates leak parameters directly from raw ERT data. This is achieved by constructing hydrological models from prior site information and couple it with an ERT forward model, and then update the leak (and other hydrological) parameters through data assimilation. The approach shows promising results and is applied to data from a controlled injection experiment in Yorkshire, UK. The approach complements ERT imaging and provides a new way to utilize ERT data to inform site characterisation. In addition to leak detection, ERT is also commonly used for monitoring soil moisture in the vadose zone, and increasingly so in a quantitative manner. Though both the petrophysical relationships (i.e., choices of appropriate model and parameterization) and the derived moisture content are known to be subject to uncertainty, they are commonly treated as exact and error‐free. In paper 3, I examine the impact of uncertain petrophysical relationships on the moisture content estimates derived from electrical geophysics. Data from a collection of core samples show that the variability in such relationships can be large, and they in turn can lead to high uncertainty in moisture content estimates, and they appear to be the dominating source of uncertainty in many cases. In the closing chapters, I discuss and synthesize the findings in the thesis within the larger context of enhancing the information content of geophysical data, and provide an outlook on further research in this topic

Handbook of Mathematical Geosciences

This Open Access handbook published at the IAMG's 50th anniversary, presents a compilation of invited path-breaking research contributions by award-winning geoscientists who have been instrumental in shaping the IAMG. It contains 45 chapters that are categorized broadly into five parts (i) theory, (ii) general applications, (iii) exploration and resource estimation, (iv) reviews, and (v) reminiscences covering related topics like mathematical geosciences, mathematical morphology, geostatistics, fractals and multifractals, spatial statistics, multipoint geostatistics, compositional data analysis, informatics, geocomputation, numerical methods, and chaos theory in the geosciences

Air pollution prediction using Matérn function based extended fractional Kalman filtering

© 2014 IEEE. It is essential to maintain air quality standards and inform people when air pollutant concentrations exceed permissible limits. For example, ground-level ozone, a harmful gas formed by NOx and VOCs emitted from various sources, can be estimated through integration of observation data obtained from measurement sites and effective air-quality models. This paper addresses the problem of predicting air pollution emissions over urban and suburban areas using The Air Pollution Model with Chemical Transport Model (TAPM-CTM) coupled with the Extended Fractional Kaiman Filter (EFKF) based on a Matern covariance function. Here, the ozone concentration is predicted in the airshed of Sydney and surrounding areas, where the length scale parameter I is calculated using station coordinates. For improvement of the air quality prediction, the fractional order of the EFKF is tuned by using a Genetic Algorithm (GA). The proposed methodology is validated at monitoring stations and applied to obtain a spatial distribution of ozone over the region

Proceedings of the 36th International Workshop Statistical Modelling July 18-22, 2022 - Trieste, Italy

The 36th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling (IWSM) is the first one held in presence after a two year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This edition was quite lively, with 60 oral presentations and 53 posters, covering a vast variety of topics. As usual, the extended abstracts of the papers are collected in the IWSM proceedings, but unlike the previous workshops, this year the proceedings will be not printed on paper, but it is only online. The workshop proudly maintains its almost unique feature of scheduling one plenary session for the whole week. This choice has always contributed to the stimulating atmosphere of the conference, combined with its informal character, encouraging the exchange of ideas and cross-fertilization among different areas as a distinguished tradition of the workshop, student participation has been strongly encouraged. This IWSM edition is particularly successful in this respect, as testified by the large number of students included in the program

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen