LANDSLIDE SUSCEPTIBILITY MODELLING UNDER ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES: A CASE STUDY OF CAMERON HIGHLANDS, MALAYSIA

Modeling landslide susceptibility usually does not include multi temporal factors, e.g. rainfall, especially for medium scale. Landslide occurrences in Cameron Highlands, in particular, and in Peninsular Malaysia, in general, tend to increase during the peak times of monsoonal rainfall. Due to the lack of high spatial resolution of rainfall data, Normalized Different Vegetation Index (NDVI), soil wetness, and LST (Land Surface Temperature) were selected as replacement of multi temporal rainfall data. This research investigated their roles in landslide susceptibility modeling. In doing so, four Landsat 7 Enhanced Multi Temporal Plus (ETM+) images acquired during two peak times of rainy and dry seasons were used to derive multi temporal NDVI, soil wetness, and LST. Topographic, geology, and soil maps were used to derive ‘static’ factors namely slope, slope aspect, curvature, elevation, road network, river/lake, lithology, soil geology lineament maps. Landslide map was used to derive weighting system based on spatial relationship between landslide occurrences and landslide factor using bivariate statistical method. A non-statistical weighting system was also used for comparison purpose. Different scenarios of data processing were applied to allow evaluation on the roles of multi temporal factors in landslide susceptibility modeling in terms of the accuracy of the landslide susceptibility maps (LSMs), the appropriate weighting system of the models, the applicability of the model, the ability to confirm the relation between landslide occurrences and rainfall. The results show that the average accuracy of LSMs produced by the developed models with inclusion of multi temporal factors is 49.1% on the overall. Addition of LST tends to improve the accuracy of LSMs. NDVI can be a suitable replacement for rainfall data since it can explain the relation between landslides occurrences and rainfall cycle. Statistical-based weighting system produced more accurate LSMs than non-statistical-based one and is applicable for landslide susceptibility modeling elsewhere. Significant causative factors were proven to produce more accurate LSMs

Evaluating the Differences of Gridding Techniques for Digital Elevation Models Generation and Their Influence on the Modeling of Stony Debris Flows Routing: A Case Study From Rovina di Cancia Basin (North-Eastern Italian Alps)

Debris \ufb02ows are among the most hazardous phenomena in mountain areas. To cope with debris \ufb02ow hazard, it is common to delineate the risk-prone areas through routing models. The most important input to debris \ufb02ow routing models are the topographic data, usually in the form of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). The quality of DEMs depends on the accuracy, density, and spatial distribution of the sampled points; on the characteristics of the surface; and on the applied gridding methodology. Therefore, the choice of the interpolation method affects the realistic representation of the channel and fan morphology, and thus potentially the debris \ufb02ow routing modeling outcomes. In this paper, we initially investigate the performance of common interpolation methods (i.e., linear triangulation, natural neighbor, nearest neighbor, Inverse Distance to a Power, ANUDEM, Radial Basis Functions, and ordinary kriging) in building DEMs with the complex topography of a debris \ufb02ow channel located in the Venetian Dolomites (North-eastern Italian Alps), by using small footprint full- waveform Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data. The investigation is carried out through a combination of statistical analysis of vertical accuracy, algorithm robustness, and spatial clustering of vertical errors, and multi-criteria shape reliability assessment. After that, we examine the in\ufb02uence of the tested interpolation algorithms on the performance of a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based cell model for simulating stony debris \ufb02ows routing. In detail, we investigate both the correlation between the DEMs heights uncertainty resulting from the gridding procedure and that on the corresponding simulated erosion/deposition depths, both the effect of interpolation algorithms on simulated areas, erosion and deposition volumes, solid-liquid discharges, and channel morphology after the event. The comparison among the tested interpolation methods highlights that the ANUDEM and ordinary kriging algorithms are not suitable for building DEMs with complex topography. Conversely, the linear triangulation, the natural neighbor algorithm, and the thin-plate spline plus tension and completely regularized spline functions ensure the best trade-off among accuracy and shape reliability. Anyway, the evaluation of the effects of gridding techniques on debris \ufb02ow routing modeling reveals that the choice of the interpolation algorithm does not signi\ufb01cantly affect the model outcomes

Geo-Spatial Analysis in Hydrology

Geo-spatial analysis has become an essential component of hydrological studies to process and examine geo-spatial data such as hydrological variables (e.g., precipitation and discharge) and basin characteristics (e.g., DEM and land use land cover). The advancement of the data acquisition technique helps accumulate geo-spatial data with more extensive spatial coverage than traditional in-situ observations. The development of geo-spatial analytic methods is beneficial for the processing and analysis of multi-source data in a more efficient and reliable way for a variety of research and practical issues in hydrology. This book is a collection of the articles of a published Special Issue Geo-Spatial Analysis in Hydrology in the journal ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. The topics of the articles range from the improvement of geo-spatial analytic methods to the applications of geo-spatial analysis in emerging hydrological issues. The results of these articles show that traditional hydrological/hydraulic models coupled with geo-spatial techniques are a way to make streamflow simulations more efficient and reliable for flood-related decision making. Geo-spatial analysis based on more advanced methods and data is a reliable resolution to obtain high-resolution information for hydrological studies at fine spatial scale

LANDSLIDE SUSCEPTIBILITY MODELLING UNDER ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES: A CASE STUDY OF CAMERON HIGHLANDS, MALAYSIA

Modeling landslide susceptibility usually does not include multi temporal factors, e.g. rainfall, especially for medium scale. Landslide occurrences in Cameron Highlands, in particular, and in Peninsular Malaysia, in general, tend to increase during the peak times of monsoonal rainfall. Due to the lack of high spatial resolution of rainfall data, Normalized Different Vegetation Index (NDVI), soil wetness, and LST (Land Surface Temperature) were selected as replacement of multi temporal rainfall data. This research investigated their roles in landslide susceptibility modeling. In doing so, four Landsat 7 Enhanced Multi Temporal Plus (ETM+) images acquired during two peak times of rainy and dry seasons were used to derive multi temporal NDVI, soil wetness, and LST. Topographic, geology, and soil maps were used to derive ‘static’ factors namely slope, slope aspect, curvature, elevation, road network, river/lake, lithology, soil geology lineament maps. Landslide map was used to derive weighting system based on spatial relationship between landslide occurrences and landslide factor using bivariate statistical method. A non-statistical weighting system was also used for comparison purpose. Different scenarios of data processing were applied to allow evaluation on the roles of multi temporal factors in landslide susceptibility modeling in terms of the accuracy of the landslide susceptibility maps (LSMs), the appropriate weighting system of the models, the applicability of the model, the ability to confirm the relation between landslide occurrences and rainfall. The results show that the average accuracy of LSMs produced by the developed models with inclusion of multi temporal factors is 49.1% on the overall. Addition of LST tends to improve the accuracy of LSMs. NDVI can be a suitable replacement for rainfall data since it can explain the relation between landslides occurrences and rainfall cycle. Statistical-based weighting system produced more accurate LSMs than non-statistical-based one and is applicable for landslide susceptibility modeling elsewhere. Significant causative factors were proven to produce more accurate LSMs

Semantic array programming in data-poor environments: assessing the interactions of shallow landslides and soil erosion

This research was conducted with the main objective to better integrate and quantify the role of water-induced shallow landslides within soil erosion processes, with a particular focus on data-poor conditions. To fulfil the objectives, catchment-scale studies on soil erosion by water and shallow landslides were conducted. A semi-quantitative method that combines heuristic, deterministic and probabilistic approaches is here proposed for a robust catchment-scale assessment of landslide susceptibility when available data are scarce. A set of different susceptibility-zonation maps was aggregated exploiting a modelling ensemble. Each susceptibility zonation has been obtained by applying heterogeneous statistical techniques such as logistic regression (LR), relative distance similarity (RDS), artificial neural network (ANN), and two different landslide-susceptibility techniques based on the infinite slope stability model. The good performance of the ensemble model, when compared with the single techniques, make this method suitable to be applied in data-poor areas where the lack of proper calibration and validation data can affect the application of physically based or conceptual models. A new modelling architecture to support the integrated assessment of soil erosion, by incorporating rainfall induced shallow landslides processes in data-poor conditions, was developed and tested in the study area. This proposed methodology is based on the geospatial semantic array programming paradigm. The integrated data-transformation model relies on a modular architecture, where the information flow among modules is constrained by semantic checks. By analysing modelling results within the study catchment, each year, on average, mass movements are responsible for a mean increase in the total soil erosion rate between 22 and 26% over the pre-failure estimate. The post-failure soil erosion rate in areas where landslides occurred is, on average, around 3.5 times the pre-failure value. These results confirm the importance to integrate landslide contribution into soil erosion modelling. Because the estimation of the changes in soil erosion from landslide activity is largely dependent on the quality of available datasets, this methodology broadens the possibility of a quantitative assessment of these effects in data-poor regions

Applications of Photogrammetry for Environmental Research

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information: special issue entitled "Applications of Photogrammetry for Environmental Research

Modeling grassland productivity through remote sensing products

Mixed grasslands in south Canada serve a variety of economic, environmental and ecological purposes. Numerical modeling has become a major method used to identify potential grassland ecosystem responses to environment changes and human activities. In recent years, the focus has been on process models because of their high accuracy and ability to describe the interactions among different environmental components and the ecological processes. At present, two commonly-used process models (CENTURY and BIOME-BGC) have significantly improved our understanding of the possible consequences and responses of terrestrial ecosystems under different environmental conditions. However, problems with these models include only using site-based parameters and adopting different assumptions on interactions between plant, environmental conditions and human activities in simulating such complex phenomenon. In light of this shortfall, the overall objective of this research is to integrate remote sensing products into ecosystem process model in order to simulate productivity for the mixed grassland ecosystem in the landscape level. Data used includes 4-years of field measurements and diverse satellite data (System Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT) 4 and 5, Landsat TM and ETM, Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) imagery). Using wavelet analyses, the study first detects that the dominant spatial scale is controlled by topography and thus determines that 20-30 m is the optimum resolution to capture the vegetation spatial variation for the study area. Second, the performance of the RDVI (Renormalized Difference Vegetation Index), ATSAVI (Adjusted Transformed Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index), and MCARI2 (Modified Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Index 2) are slightly better than the other VIs in the groups of ratio-based, soil-line-related, and chlorophyll-corrected VIs, respectively. By incorporating CAI (Cellulose Absorption Index) as a litter factor in ATSAVI, a new VI is developed (L-ATSAVI) and it improves LAI estimation capability by about 10%. Third, vegetation maps are derived from a SPOT 4 image based on the significant relationship between LAI and ATSAVI to aid spatial modeling. Fourth, object-oriented classifier is determined as the best approach, providing ecosystem models with an accurate land cover map. Fifth, the phenology parameters are identified for the study area using 22-year AVHRR data, providing the input variables for spatial modeling. Finally, the performance of popular ecosystem models in simulating grassland vegetation productivity is evaluated using site-based field data, AVHRR NDVI data, and climate data. A new model frame, which integrates remote sensing data with site-based BIOME-BGC model, is developed for the mixed grassland prairie. The developed remote sensing-based process model is able to simulate ecosystem processes at the landscape level and can simulate productivity distribution with 71% accuracy for 2005

Soil Water Erosion

The purpose of this book is to provide novel results related to soil water erosion that could help landowners and land-users, farmers, politicians, and other representatives of our global society to protect and, if possible, improve the quality and quantity of our precious soil resources. Published papers on the topics are related to new ways of mapping, maps with more detailed input data, maps about areas that have never been mapped before, sediment yield estimations, modelling sheets and gully erosion, USLE models, RUSLE models, dams which stop sediment runoff, sediment influx, solute transport, soil detachment capacities, badland morphology, freeze-thaw cycles, armed conflicts, use of rainfall simulators, rainfall erosivity, soil erodibility, etc