Monitoring Oil Exploitation Infrastructure and Dirt Roads with Object-Based Image Analysis and Random Forest in the Eastern Mongolian Steppe

Information on the spatial distribution of human disturbance is important for assessing and monitoring land degradation. In the Eastern Mongolian Steppe Ecosystem, one of the major driving factors of human-induced land degradation is the expansion of road networks mainly due to intensifications of oil exploration and exploitation. So far, neither the extents of road networks nor the extent of surrounding grasslands affected by the oil industry are monitored which is generally labor consuming. This causes that no information on the changes in the area which is affected by those disturbance drivers is available. Consequently, the study aim is to provide a cost-effective methodology to classify infrastructure and oil exploitation areas from remotely sensed images using object-based classifications with Random Forest. By combining satellite data with different spatial and spectral resolutions (PlanetScope, RapidEye, and Landsat ETM+), the product delivers data since 2005. For the classification variables, segmentation, spectral characteristics, and indices were extracted from all above mentioned imagery and used as predictors. Results show that overall accuracies of land use maps ranged 73%–93% mainly depending on satellites’ spatial resolution. Since 2005, the area of grassland disturbed by dirt roads and oil exploitation infrastructure increased by 88% with its highest expansion by 47% in the period 2005–2010. Settlements and croplands remained relatively constant throughout the 13 years. Comparison of multiscale classification suggests that, although high spatial resolutions are clearly beneficial, all datasets were useful to delineate linear features such as roads. Consequently, the results of this study provide an effective evaluation for the potential of Random Forest for extracting relatively narrow linear features such as roads from multiscale satellite images and map products that are possible to use for detailed land degradation assessments

INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF RESOURCE-SAVING TECHNOLOGIES AND SUSTAINABLE USE OF NATURAL RESOURCES. 3rd INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL CONFERENCE

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Mappae Mundi: humans and their habitats in a long-term socio-ecological perspective ; myths, maps and models

Never before in history was the interaction between people and their natural environment as complex and problematic as it is today. A proliferation of scientific research has yielded valuable insights into various aspects of this interaction from the angle of many disciplines - the natural sciences, the social sciences, archaeology and history, ecological studies. The diversity of approaches has created a need for synthesis, for a study that transcends the boundaries of traditional fields of study. In this volume, authors from various academic backgrounds discuss the relations between human society and its physical environment in the course of history, highlighting a number of significant periods, throughout the world. The last chapter assesses our present situation and prospects for the future in the light of theoretical reflections based on the evidence from the past

Skill, social change, and survival in postsocialist Northern Mongolia

At the most general level, this dissertation is about postsocialist change. It is about how people living in a remote part of Northern Mongolia have experienced the recent changes to have occurred over the last ten to fifteen years since the postsocialist transition. My main argument is that while Mongolia’s postsocialist transition occurred over twenty years ago it is not clear what has come after socialism, or how we as anthropologists might conceptualise the contradictory, fuzzy, and often reversible experiences of people during the so-called postsocialist period. To this end I develop in this dissertation a new hermeneutic framework for elucidating the polydirectional experience of postsocialist change grounded in skilled practice. This approach envisions the transmission of skills as not only being reproduced between the generations, but also new skills learnt in articulation with change, as well as skills that are lost, forgotten, transformed, adapted, and transposed in relation to transforming social, economic, and political contexts. By observing transformations in skilled practice I argue we are afforded better insight into the polydirectional experiences characteristic of the late postsocialist context, and which can better reveal a more diverse range of processes as they are experienced by people in their everyday lives. NWOGlobal Challenges (FSW

Mappae Mundi

Never before in history was the interaction between people and their natural environment as complex and problematic as it is today. A proliferation of scientific research has yielded valuable insights into various aspects of this interaction from the angle of many disciplines - the natural sciences, the social sciences, archaeology and history, ecological studies. The diversity of approaches has created a need for synthesis, for a study that transcends the boundaries of traditional fields of study. In this volume, authors from various academic backgrounds discuss the relations between human society and its physical environment in the course of history, highlighting a number of significant periods, throughout the world. The last chapter assesses our present situation and prospects for the future in the light of theoretical reflections based on the evidence from the past

Traces of the Animal Past

Understanding the relationships between humans and animals is essential to a full understanding of both our present and our shared past. Across the humanities and social sciences, researchers have embraced the ‘animal turn,’ a multispecies approach to scholarship, with historians at the forefront of new research in human-animal studies that blends traditional research methods with interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks that decenter humans in historical narratives. These exciting approaches come with core methodological challenges for scholars seeking to better understand the past from non-anthropocentric perspectives. Whether in a large public archive, a small private collection, or the oral histories of living memories, stories of animals are mediated by the humans who have inscribed the records and organized archival collections. In oral histories, the place of animals in the past are further refracted by the frailty of human memory and recollection. Only traces remain for researchers to read and interpret. Bringing together seventeen original essays by a leading group of international scholars, Traces of the Animal Past showcases the innovative methods historians use to unearth and explain how animals fit into our collective histories. Situating the historian within the narrative, bringing transparency to methodological processes, and reflecting on the processes and procedures of current research, this book presents new approaches and new directions for a maturing field of historical inquiry