MORPHOLOGICAL SPATIAL PATTERN ANALYSIS: OPEN SOURCE RELEASE

Abstract. The morphological segmentation of binary patterns provides an effective method for characterising spatial patterns with emphasis on connections between their parts as measured at varying analysis scales. The method is widely used for the analysis of landscape patterns such as those related to the fragmentation of forests or other natural land cover classes. This can be explained by its effectiveness at capturing the complexity of binary patterns and their connections by partitioning the foreground pixels of the corresponding binary images into mutually exclusive classes. While the principles of the method are conceptually simple, the definition of the classes relies on a series of advanced mathematical morphology operations whose actual implementation is not straightforward. In this paper, we propose an open source code for MSPA and detail its main components in the form of pseudo-code. We demonstrate its effectiveness for asynchronous processing of tera-pixel images and the synchronous exploratory analysis and rendering with Jupyter notebooks

Connectivity of Natura 2000 forest sites in Europe

Background/Purpose: In the context of the European Biodiversity policy, the Green Infrastructure Strategy is one supporting tool to mitigate fragmentation, inter-alia to increase the spatial and functional connectivity between protected and unprotected areas. The Joint Research Centre has developed an integrated model to provide a macro-scale set of indices to evaluate the connectivity of the Natura 2000 network, which forms the backbone of a Green Infrastructure for Europe. The model allows a wide assessment and comparison to be performed across countries in terms of structural (spatially connected or isolated sites) and functional connectivity (least-cost distances between sites influenced by distribution, distance and land cover). Main conclusion: The Natura 2000 network in Europe shows differences among countries in terms of the sizes and numbers of sites, their distribution as well as distances between sites. Connectivity has been assessed on the basis of a 500 m average inter-site distance, roads and intensive land use as barrier effects as well as the presence of "green" corridors. In all countries the Natura 2000 network is mostly made of sites which are not physically connected. Highest functional connectivity values are found for Spain, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. The more natural landscape in Sweden and Finland does not result in high inter-site network connectivity due to large inter-site distances. The distribution of subnets with respect to roads explains the higher share of isolated subnets in Portugal than in Belgium.Comment: 9 pages, from a poster published in F1000Posters 2014, 5: 48

Análisis morfológico de la dinámica de fragmentos de Paspalum quadrifarium en una zona de la cuenca del río Salado del sur

A pesar de su gran distribución a nivel mundial, sólo un 4.6% de los pastizales templados figura dentro de los sistemas nacionales de áreas protegidas. En Argentina, esta situación es aún más alarmante ya que solamente el 1.05% se encuentra protegido. El área de estudio (zona central de la cuenca del río Salado del sur) posee una gran representatividad de pajonales de paja colorada (Paspalum quadrifarium), que son sometidos desde el siglo pasado a diversas prácticas de manejo. En este trabajo se aplicó el MSPA (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis) y su consecuencia de análisis de grafos, el análisis de redes para estimación de conectividad, con el fin de analizar el cambio en el tiempo (1975-2011) en los fragmentos de hábitat mencionados. Los resultados indican una disminución drástica de la representatividad de las zonas núcleo de estos hábitat, y de su conectividad, hecho que probablemente afecte la movilidad de especies de la fauna local.Despite its wide distribution worldwide, only 4.6% of temperate grasslands are contained within national systems of protected areas. In Argentina, this situation is even more alarming: only 1.05% is protected. The study area (central area of the southern Salado River basin) has a large representation of grasslands of Paspalum quadrifarium which has been target since the last century of a variety of management practices. In this work the MSPA (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis) and their consequence: network analysis applied to graphs, was performed for estimation of connectivity between patches in order to analyze the change in time (1975-2011) of the habitat fragments mentioned. The results indicate a drastic decrease of representativeness of the core of these habitat areas and its connectivity, which probably affects the mobility of some species of local fauna

Free and Open Source Software underpinning the European Forest Data Centre

Worldwide, governments are growingly focusing on free and open source software (FOSS) as a move toward transparency and the freedom to run, copy, study, change and improve the software. The European Commission (EC) is also supporting the development of FOSS [...]. In addition to the financial savings, FOSS contributes to scientific knowledge freedom in computational science (CS) and is increasingly rewarded in the science-policy interface within the emerging paradigm of open science. Since complex computational science applications may be affected by software uncertainty, FOSS may help to mitigate part of the impact of software errors by CS community- driven open review, correction and evolution of scientific code. The continental scale of EC science-based policy support implies wide networks of scientific collaboration. Thematic information systems also may benefit from this approach within reproducible integrated modelling. This is supported by the EC strategy on FOSS: "for the development of new information systems, where deployment is foreseen by parties outside of the EC infrastructure, [F]OSS will be the preferred choice and in any case used whenever possible". The aim of this contribution is to highlight how a continental scale information system may exploit and integrate FOSS technologies within the transdisciplinary research underpinning such a complex system. A European example is discussed where FOSS innervates both the structure of the information system itself and the inherent transdisciplinary research for modelling the data and information which constitute the system content. [...

Forest Landscape in Europe: Pattern, Fragmentation and Connectivity

The JRC demonstrated the feasibility to assess and report in a harmonized manner, forest landscape pattern and fragmentation in Europe, on the basis of an easily reproducible set of indices. Results were used in the Forest EUROPE, UN ECE and FAO joint ministerial reporting process on the protection of forests in Europe where data on forest pattern do not exist from national forest inventories. In the EU, 40% of the forest lands are within a 100m distance from other lands, thus potentially less suitable as interior habitat and more likely to be exposed to invasive species, pests and diseases. Forest edges are also mainly (60%) along intensive land uses. In Europe, 40% of woodlands have in their 1km2 surroundings a mosaic landscape of other natural/semi-natural lands, agriculture and artificial lands, 15% of woodlands are strongly fragmented by mainly intensive land uses. Landscapes with woodlands poorly connected represent 70% of the European territory and are potentially more vulnerable to further fragmentation in the future. National profiles of forest pattern were also provided. The mitigation of ecosystem fragmentation is also important in new targets of the European Biodiversity strategy to 2020. By affecting ecological processes, fragmentation affects ecosystem services such as habitat provision, pollination, and has also an impact on pest propagation in different ways. Forest area is still increasing in Europe at an annual rate of 0.4% but the JRC assessment showed that new forest areas do not always enhance connectivity. For example, in the Iberian Peninsula, the net forest gain in the 1990-2006 period had no impact on connectivity for nearly 10% of the landscapes. Further, the forest fragmentation processes that were found need to be captured at landscape level. They consist of minor forest losses due to intensive agriculture, transport infrastructures, settlements and fires. These findings support the consideration of forest spatial pattern in sustainable forest management plans for a regional landscape planning of clearings and re/afforestation measures.JRC.H.3-Forest Resources and Climat

A Network Approach to Green Infrastructure: How to Enhance Ecosystem Services Provision?

Landscape fragmentation is increasingly undermining the capacity of ecosystems to provide services and benefits to humans. The development of a green infrastructure network can enhance the provision of ecosystem services connecting ecosystem features. We review and explore the concepts, methodologies, and applications that allow to analyse connectivity of green infrastructure networks and the role of spatial connectivity for supporting and maintaining ecosystem services. Together with connectivity, the quality, quantity, diversity, redundancy, and distances of ecosystem elements result to be important characteristics to support the provision of services. We report how spatial and connectivity-based methodologies (for example, network indices and spatial pattern analysis) can support characterisation and prioritization of green infrastructure networks for crucial interventions, both for preserving and restoring connection elements

Forest Cover Changes in North Korea Since the 1980s

North Korea used to have abundant forest stocks but underwent substantial deforestation and degradation of forest in recent decades. This study examined morphological changes of forest cover in North Korea between the 1980s and 2000s. Land cover data based on Landsat TM imagery were obtained as images from the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Environment. The images were processed and used for the Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis and network analysis. MSPA classified the forest cover into morphological classes such as core, islet, bridge, perforation, edge, loop, and branch. The network analysis identified individual networks of forest, each of which represents a patch of connected forest. The results are summarized as follows: (1) Forest cover sharply decreased between the 1990s and 2000s, particularly in western provinces; (2) Morphological classes indicating forest fragmentation such as islet, branch and edge consistently increased in their fraction to the total area between the 1980s and 2000s; (3) Islet, branch and edge also increased in number during the same period; (4) Forest networks shrank in size and increased in number. Overall, the results demonstrate that deforestation and fragmentation of forest occurred simultaneously in North Korea during the time

TACKLING THE CHALLENGES OF SOFTWARE PROVISION

Abstract. In this perspective, we investigate the less documented topic of software provision, aimed at bridging the community of software developers to the one of software end-users. We outline aspects of the circular flow of software development, starting from the source code, software packaging, the target platform, licensing, program documentation, and feedback. Next, we highlight challenges and opportunities of these aspects and how they contribute to the overall success and adoption of a software application. Finally, we exemplify and illustrate how these aspects were addressed with the provision of the software GWB on FAO's cloud computing platform SEPAL. The outlined reflections on software provision are of generic nature and, depending on a given software, may include many more, or different aspects. Yet, we hope that this perspective may trigger more interest and dedication to the topic of software provision and its integral function to promote and improve software development

Methodologies for Analyzing Impact of Urbanization on Irrigation Districts

The region of Texas along the Mexican border has been experiencing rapid urban growth. This has caused fragmentation of many irrigation districts who are struggling to address the resulting challenges. In this paper, we analyze the growth of urban area and its impact on water distribution networks in three Texas border counties over the ten year period, 1996 to 2006. In particular, we discuss alternative procedures to assess such impacts, and we evaluate their effectiveness in identifying critical areas. Identification of urbanized areas was carried out starting from aerial photographs using two different approaches: manual identification of areas “no longer in agricultural use” and automatic extraction based on the analysis of radiometric and structural image information. By overlapping urbanization maps to the water distribution network, we identified critical areas of impact. This impact was expressed as density of network fragments per unit area, or Network Fragmentation Index (NFI). A synthetic index per each district, District Fragmentation Index (DFI) was obtained by dividing the number of network fragments by the total district length of network. Results obtained starting from manual and automatic maps were comparable, indicating that the automatic urbanization analysis can be used to evaluate impact on the water distribution network. To further identify critical areas of impact, we categorized urban areas with the Morphological Segmentation method, using a software available online (GUIDOS). The obtained categories (Core, Edge, Bridge, Loop, Branch, and Islet) not only improved the description of urban fragmentation, but also permitted assigning different weights to further describe the impact on the irrigation distribution networks. The application of this procedure slightly shifted the areas of impact and grouped them in more easy-to-interpret clusters. We simplified urbanization analysis by identifying a probability of network fragmentation from network and urbanization density maps. Although results were comparable to the ones obtained with the other methods, additional validation is recommended. These methods look promising in improving the analysis of the impact of urban growth on irrigation district activity. They help to identify urbanization and areas of impact, interpret growth dynamics, and allow for partial automation of analysis. It would be interesting to collaborate with irrigation districts to determine the correlation between the real impact on the district operation and the elements of the water distribution network included in the analysis