The SIKS/BiGGrid Big Data Tutorial

The School for Information and Knowledge Systems SIKS and the Dutch e-science grid BiG Grid organized a new two-day tutorial on Big Data at the University of Twente on 30 November and 1 December 2011, just preceding the Dutch-Belgian Database Day. The tutorial is on top of some exciting new developments in large-scale data processing and data centers, initiated by Google, and followed by many others such as Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook. The course teaches how to process terabytes of data on large clusters, and discusses several core computer science topics adapted for big data, such as new file systems (Google File System and Hadoop FS), new programming paradigms (MapReduce), new programming languages and query languages (Sawzall, Pig Latin), and new 'noSQL' databases (BigTable, Cassandra and Dynamo)

A global analysis of how human infrastructure squeezes sandy coasts

Coastal ecosystems provide vital services, but human disturbance causes massive losses. Remaining ecosystems are squeezed between rising seas and human infrastructure development. While shoreline retreat is intensively studied, coastal congestion through infrastructure remains unquantified. Here we analyse 235,469 transects worldwide to show that infrastructure occurs at a median distance of 392 meter from sandy shorelines. Moreover, we find that 33% of sandy shores harbour less than 100 m of infrastructure-free space, and that 23–30% of this space may be lost by 2100 due to rising sea levels. Further analyses show that population density and gross domestic product explain 35–39% of observed squeeze variation, emphasizing the intensifying pressure imposed as countries develop and populations grow. Encouragingly, we find that nature reserves relieve squeezing by 4–7 times. Yet, at present only 16% of world’s sandy shores have a protected status. We therefore advocate the incorporation of nature protection into spatial planning policies

Basiphilous pioneer vegetation in dune slacks on the Dutch Wadden Sea islands

The central issue of this thesis is the identification of key factors controlling the occurrence of basiphilous pioneer vegetation in dune slacks on the Dutch Wadden Sea islands. ... Zie: Summary

A global analysis of how human infrastructure squeezes sandy coasts - Scripts & Data

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>Coastal ecosystems provide vital services, but human disturbances cause massive losses. In particular the nearshore development of infrastructure constrains the space for these ecosystems to adapt to shoreline retreat – called <i>coastal squeeze</i>. Nevertheless, coastal squeeze through infrastructure remains unquantified. Here we analyse 235,469 transects worldwide and show that infrastructure is situated at a median distance of 392 meter from sandy shorelines. 33% of sandy shores harbour less than 100 m of infrastructure-free space, and projections suggest that 23-30% of the infrastructure-free space will be lost by 2100 due to rising sea levels. Additionally, population density and gross domestic product explain 35-39% of observed squeeze variation,  emphasizing the increasing pressures imposed as countries develop and populations expand. Although sandy shores are 4-7 times less squeezed in nature reserves, only 16% of world's sandy shores has a protected status. We therefore advocate incorporating protection in spatial planning to safeguard these critical ecosystems.</p><p>==============================================</p><p><strong>Methods</strong></p><p>The analyses rely on the following freely available datasets:</p><ul><li>OpenStreetMap - streets: <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=7/52.154/5.295">https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=7/52.154/5.295</a> </li><li>OpenStreetMap - shoreline: <a href="https://osmdata.openstreetmap.de/data/land-polygons.html">https://osmdata.openstreetmap.de/data/land-polygons.html</a></li><li>Global Urban Footprint: <a href="https://www.dlr.de/eoc/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-9628/16557_read-40454/">https://www.dlr.de/eoc/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-9628/16557_read-40454/</a></li><li>World population: <a href="https://data.humdata.org/dataset/worldpop-population-counts-for-world/resource/677d30ab-896e-44e5-9a31-05452bc3124b">https://data.humdata.org/dataset/worldpop-population-counts-for-world/resource/677d30ab-896e-44e5-9a31-05452bc3124b</a></li><li>GDP per capita: <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD">https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD</a></li><li>Protected areas: <a href="https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/thematic-areas/wdpa?tab=WDPA">https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/thematic-areas/wdpa?tab=WDPA</a></li><li>Projected shoreline change: <a href="https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset/18eb5f19-b916-454f-b2f5-88881931587e">https://data.jrc.ec.europa.eu/dataset/18eb5f19-b916-454f-b2f5-88881931587e</a></li><li>CoastalDEM: <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/coastaldem-v2.1">https://www.climatecentral.org/coastaldem-v2.1</a></li></ul><p>In addition, we requested the sandy shoreline data from:</p><ul><li>Luijendijk et al. (2018) "The State of the World's Beaches", Scientific Reports 8: 6641; <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-24630-6">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-24630-6</a></li></ul><p>The deposited folder contains 4 subfolders based on the separate analyses presented in the paper. In each subfolder you find a Matlab script to run and accompanying datasets to load. A readme file is included, which further explains the scripts and datasets.</p><p><strong>Source data file</strong></p><p>In the data file <i>Source_Data.xlsx</i>, each sheet contains the data for one figure or table of the manuscript.</p&gt

Tales of island tails : biogeomorphic development and management of barrier islands

The Frisian islands (Southern North Sea) have extensive island tails, i.e. the entire downdrift side of an island consisting of salt marshes, dunes, beaches and beach plains, and green beaches. Currently, large parts of these tails are ageing and losing dynamics, partly due to human influence. This may mean a loss of young stages on the long term, and current management is not enough to counteract this. To aid the development of new interventions aiming at (re)introducing natural dynamics, a conceptual model of island-tail development under natural and disturbed conditions was developed, based on existing data, field visits and literature. The development of an island tail follows the general pattern of biogeomorphic succession. The first phase consists of a bare beach plain. In the second phase, embryonic dunes form. In the third phase, green beaches, dunes and salt marshes form, including drainage by creeks and washovers. In the fourth phase, vegetation succession continues and the morphology stabilises. Human interference (such as sand dikes and embankments) reduces natural dynamics and increases succession speed, leading to a reduction in the diversity in landforms and vegetation types. Both for natural and human-influenced island tails, succession is the dominant process and large-scale rejuvenation only occurs spontaneously when large-scale processes cause erosion or sedimentation. Island tails cannot be kept permanently in a young successional stage by reintroducing natural dynamics through management interventions, as biogeomorphic succession is dominant. However, such interventions may result in local and temporal rejuvenation when tailored to the specific situation

A global analysis of how human infrastructure squeezes sandy coasts

Coastal ecosystems provide vital services, but human disturbance causes massive losses. Remaining ecosystems are squeezed between rising seas and human infrastructure development. While shoreline retreat is intensively studied, coastal congestion through infrastructure remains unquantified. Here we analyse 235,469 transects worldwide to show that infrastructure occurs at a median distance of 392 meter from sandy shorelines. Moreover, we find that 33% of sandy shores harbour less than 100 m of infrastructure-free space, and that 23–30% of this space may be lost by 2100 due to rising sea levels. Further analyses show that population density and gross domestic product explain 35–39% of observed squeeze variation, emphasizing the intensifying pressure imposed as countries develop and populations grow. Encouragingly, we find that nature reserves relieve squeezing by 4–7 times. Yet, at present only 16% of world’s sandy shores have a protected status. We therefore advocate the incorporation of nature protection into spatial planning policies.Coastal Engineerin