Cornell University remote sensing program

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration- Providing Secure Land Rights at Scale. Volume 2: Country Implementation

This Special Issue provides an insight, collated from 26 articles, focusing on various aspects of the Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) concept and its application. It presents some influential and innovative trends and recommendations for designing, implementing, maintaining and further developing Fit-For-Purpose solutions for providing secure land rights at scale. The first group of 14 articles is published in Volume One and discusses various conceptual innovations related to spatial, legal and institutional aspects and its wider applications within land use management. The second group of 12 articles is published in Volume Two and focuses on case studies from various countries throughout the world, providing evidence and lessons learned from the FFPLA implementation process

Fringe Benefits

This study tests the hypothesis that increased rugosity (the ratio between urban perimeter and farmland area) of the rural-urban fringe allows farms to create greater value for their regions through greater access to urban markets. Findings show that increased rugosity is not associated with farmland loss despite correlating with greater population growth. Rugosity is, instead, associated with higher agricultural sales per acre and more farm-to-city networks. Using the urban interface as a variable to understand farm production and stabilization, this paper includes a spatial statistical analysis of county-level metro-area farm products, farmland loss, and demographics in relation to the concentricity of urban morphology in the United States. Four case studies reveal spatial and social network patterns of direct farm sales and donations of raw product. Farm-to-city market director interviews ground-truth these farm-city functions in relation to county and state-level policies that govern urban and farmland morphologies and function

Utilizing Skylab data in on-going resources management programs in the state of Ohio

The author has identified the following significant results. The use of Skylab imagery for total area woodland surveys was found to be more accurate and cheaper than conventional surveys using aerial photo-plot techniques. Machine-aided (primarily density slicing) analyses of Skylab 190A and 190B color and infrared color photography demonstrated the feasibility of using such data for differentiating major timber classes including pines, hardwoods, mixed, cut, and brushland providing such analyses are made at scales of 1:24,000 and larger. Manual and machine-assisted image analysis indicated that spectral and spatial capabilities of Skylab EREP photography are adequate to distinguish most parameters of current, coal surface mining concern associated with: (1) active mining, (2) orphan lands, (3) reclaimed lands, and (4) active reclamation. Excellent results were achieved when comparing Skylab and aerial photographic interpretations of detailed surface mining features. Skylab photographs when combined with other data bases (e.g., census, agricultural land productivity, and transportation networks), provide a comprehensive, meaningful, and integrated view of major elements involved in the urbanization/encroachment process

Assessing developmental footprint within an agricultural system using multi-temporal remotely sensed data.

M. Sc. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2014.The advent of the new political dispensation in South Africa has seen an exponential growth in the rate of land transformation and encroachment by other land uses into agricultural land in the uMngeni Local Municipality. Accurate evaluation of the rate of transformation is necessary for effective monitoring and management of the natural agricultural resources. In this regard, the use of multi-temporal remote sensing data provides efficient and cost-effective method. The current research assesses the extent to which the development footprint in uMngeni Local Municipality has affected agricultural land categories or zones, using multi-temporal remote sensing data. The study endeavoured to map and quantify the magnitude of change in built-up land cover and other infrastructure by focusing on two time intervals: the periods from 1993 – 2003 and 2003 – 2013. Medium spatial resolution Landsat image data acquired for these periods were analysed to classify and extract the built-up features to appraise the level of change. Results revealed positive change in built-up infrastructure: ~13% increase between 1993 and 2003, ~38% increase from 2003 – 2013, with overall ~32% for the 20 years (1993 – 2013) period under consideration. Next, factors possibly contributing to the encroachment of other land uses into the agricultural landscape and the potential threats to the sustainability of the agricultural system are highlighted

The application of Earth Observation for mapping soil saturation and the extent and distribution of artificial drainage on Irish farms

Artificial drainage is required to make wet soils productive for farming. However, drainage may have unintended environmental consequences, for example, through increased nutrient loss to surface waters or increased flood risk. It can also have implications for greenhouse gas emissions. Accurate data on soil drainage properties could help mitigate the impact of these consequences. Unfortunately, few countries maintain detailed inventories of artificially-drained areas because of the costs involved in compiling such data. This is further confounded by often inadequate knowledge of drain location and function at farm level. Increasingly, Earth Observation (EO) data is being used map drained areas and detect buried drains. The current study is the first harmonised effort to map the location and extent of artificially-drained soils in Ireland using a suite of EO data and geocomputational techniques. To map artificially-drained areas, support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) machine learning image classifications were implemented using Landsat 8 multispectral imagery and topographical data. The RF classifier achieved overall accuracy of 91% in a binary segmentation of artifically-drained and poorly-drained classes. Compared with an existing soil drainage map, the RF model indicated that ~44% of soils in the study area could be classed as “drained”. As well as spatial differences, temporal changes in drainage status where detected within a 3 hectare field, where drains installed in 2014 had an effect on grass production. Using the RF model, the area of this field identified as “drained” increased from a low of 25% in 2011 to 68% in 2016. Landsat 8 vegetation indices were also successfully applied to monitoring the recovery of pasture following extreme saturation (flooding). In conjunction with this, additional EO techniques using unmanned aerial systems (UAS) were tested to map overland flow and detect buried drains. A performance assessment of UAS structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry and aerial LiDAR was undertaken for modelling surface runoff (and associated nutrient loss). Overland flow models were created using the SIMWE model in GRASS GIS. Results indicated no statistical difference between models at 1, 2 & 5 m spatial resolution (p< 0.0001). Grass height was identified as an important source of error. Thermal imagery from a UAS was used to identify the locations of artifically drained areas. Using morning and afternoon images to map thermal extrema, significant differences in the rate of heating were identified between drained and undrained locations. Locations of tiled and piped drains were identified with 59 and 64% accuracy within the study area. Together these methods could enable better management of field drainage on farms, identifying drained areas, as well as the need for maintenance or replacement. They can also assess whether treatments have worked as expected or whether the underlying saturation problems continues. Through the methods developed and described herein, better characterisation of drainage status at field level may be achievable

Earth Resources: A continuing bibliography with indexes, issue 40

This bibliography lists 423 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system between October 1 and December 31, 1983. Emphasis is placed on the use of remote sensing and geophysical instrumentation in spacecraft and aircraft to survey and inventory natural resources and urban areas. Subject matter is grouped according to agriculture and forestry, environmental changes and cultural resources, geodesy and cartography, geology and mineral resources, hydrology and water management, data processing and distribution systems, instrumentation and sensors, and economical analysis