218 research outputs found
Modelling groundwater-dependent vegetation patterns using ensemble learning
International audienceVegetation patterns arise from the interplay between intraspecific and interspecific biotic interactions and from different abiotic constraints and interacting driving forces and distributions. In this study, we constructed an ensemble learning model that, based on spatially distributed environmental variables, could model vegetation patterns at the local scale. The study site was an alluvial floodplain with marked hydrologic gradients on which different vegetation types developed. The model was evaluated on accuracy, and could be concluded to perform well. However, model accuracy was remarkably lower for boundary areas between two distinct vegetation types. Subsequent application of the model on a spatially independent data set showed a poor performance that could be linked with the niche concept to conclude that an empirical distribution model, which has been constructed on local observations, is incapable to be applied beyond these boundaries
Systematic sampling strategy for monitoring water quality by integrating in-situ and remote sensing data
Vegetation composition and soil microbial community structural changes along a wetland hydrological gradient
Fluctuations in wetland hydrology create an interplay between aerobic and anaerobic conditions, controlling vegetation composition and microbial community structure and activity in wetland soils. In this study, we investigated the vegetation composition and microbial community structural and functional changes along a wetland hydrological gradient. Two different vegetation communities were distinguished along the hydrological gradient; <i>Caricetum gracilis</i> at the wet depression and <i>Arrhenatheretum elatioris</i> at the drier upper site. Microbial community structural changes were studied by a combined in situ <sup>13</sup>CO<sub>2</sub> pulse labeling and phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) based stable isotope probing approach, which identifies the microbial groups actively involved in assimilation of newly photosynthesized, root-derived C in the rhizosphere soils. Gram negative bacterial communities were relatively more abundant in the surface soils of the drier upper site than in the surface soils of the wetter lower site, while the lower site and the deeper soil layers were relatively more inhabited by gram positive bacterial communities. Despite their large abundance, the metabolically active proportion of gram positive bacterial and actinomycetes communities was much smaller at both sites, compared to that of the gram negative bacterial and fungal communities. This suggests much slower assimilation of root-derived C by gram positive and actinomycetes communities than by gram negative bacteria and fungi at both sites. Ground water depth showed a significant effect on the relative abundance of several microbial communities. Relative abundance of gram negative bacteria significantly decreased with increasing ground water depth while the relative abundance of gram positive bacteria and actinomycetes at the surface layer increased with increasing ground water depth
Accounting for seasonality in a soil moisture change detection algorithm for ASAR Wide Swath time series
A change detection algorithm is applied on a three year time series of ASAR Wide Swath images in VV polarization over Calabria, Italy, in order to derive information on temporal soil moisture dynamics. The algorithm, adapted from an algorithm originally developed for ERS scatterometer, was validated using a simple hydrological model incorporating meteorological and pedological data. Strong positive correlations between modelled soil moisture and ASAR soil moisture were observed over arable land, while the correlation became much weaker over more vegetated areas. In a second phase, an attempt was made to incorporate seasonality in the different model parameters. It was observed that seasonally changing surface properties mainly affected the multitemporal incidence angle normalization. When applying a seasonal angular normalization, correlation coefficients between modelled soil moisture and retrieved soil moisture increased overall. Attempts to account for seasonality in the other model parameters did not result in an improved performance
Calibration of the modified Bartlett-Lewis model using global optimization techniques and alternative objective functions
The calibration of stochastic point process rainfall models, such as of the Bartlett-Lewis type, suffers from the presence of multiple local minima which local search algorithms usually fail to avoid. To meet this shortcoming, four relatively new global optimization methods are presented and tested for their ability to calibrate the Modified Bartlett-Lewis Model. The list of tested methods consists of: the Downhill Simplex Method, Simplex-Simulated Annealing, Particle Swarm Optimization and Shuffled Complex Evolution. The parameters of these algorithms are first optimized to ensure optimal performance, after which they are used for calibration of the Modified Bartlett-Lewis model. Furthermore, this paper addresses the choice of weights in the objective function. Three alternative weighing methods are compared to determine whether or not simulation results (obtained after calibration with the best optimization method) are influenced by the choice of weights
Copula-based downscaling of spatial rainfall: a proof of concept
Fine-scale rainfall data is important for many hydrological applications. However, often the only data available is at a coarse scale. To bridge this gap in resolution, stochastic disaggregation methods can be used. Such methods generally assume that the distribution of the field is stationary, i.e. the distribution for the entire (fine-scale) field is the same as the distribution of a smaller region within the field. This assumption is generally incorrect and we provide a proof of concept of a method to estimate the distribution of a smaller region. In this method, a copula is used to construct a bivariate distribution describing the relation between the scales. This distribution is then used to estimate the distribution of the fine-scale rainfall within a single coarse-scale pixel, by conditioning on the coarse-scale rainfall depth
The future of Earth observation in hydrology
In just the past 5 years, the field of Earth observation has progressed beyond the offerings of conventional space-agency-based platforms to include a plethora of sensing opportunities afforded by CubeSats, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and smartphone technologies that are being embraced by both for-profit companies and individual researchers. Over the previous decades, space agency efforts have brought forth well-known and immensely useful satellites such as the Landsat series and the Gravity Research and Climate Experiment (GRACE) system, with costs typically of the order of 1 billion dollars per satellite and with concept-to-launch timelines of the order of 2 decades (for new missions). More recently, the proliferation of smart-phones has helped to miniaturize sensors and energy requirements, facilitating advances in the use of CubeSats that can be launched by the dozens, while providing ultra-high (3-5 m) resolution sensing of the Earth on a daily basis. Start-up companies that did not exist a decade ago now operate more satellites in orbit than any space agency, and at costs that are a mere fraction of traditional satellite missions. With these advances come new space-borne measurements, such as real-time high-definition video for tracking air pollution, storm-cell development, flood propagation, precipitation monitoring, or even for constructing digital surfaces using structure-from-motion techniques. Closer to the surface, measurements from small unmanned drones and tethered balloons have mapped snow depths, floods, and estimated evaporation at sub-metre resolutions, pushing back on spatio-temporal constraints and delivering new process insights. At ground level, precipitation has been measured using signal attenuation between antennae mounted on cell phone towers, while the proliferation of mobile devices has enabled citizen scientists to catalogue photos of environmental conditions, estimate daily average temperatures from battery state, and sense other hydrologically important variables such as channel depths using commercially available wireless devices. Global internet access is being pursued via high-altitude balloons, solar planes, and hundreds of planned satellite launches, providing a means to exploit the "internet of things" as an entirely new measurement domain. Such global access will enable real-time collection of data from billions of smartphones or from remote research platforms. This future will produce petabytes of data that can only be accessed via cloud storage and will require new analytical approaches to interpret. The extent to which today's hydrologic models can usefully ingest such massive data volumes is unclear. Nor is it clear whether this deluge of data will be usefully exploited, either because the measurements are superfluous, inconsistent, not accurate enough, or simply because we lack the capacity to process and analyse them. What is apparent is that the tools and techniques afforded by this array of novel and game-changing sensing platforms present our community with a unique opportunity to develop new insights that advance fundamental aspects of the hydrological sciences. To accomplish this will require more than just an application of the technology: in some cases, it will demand a radical rethink on how we utilize and exploit these new observing systems
A doubly stochastic rainfall model with exponentially decaying pulses
We develop a doubly stochastic point process model with exponentially decaying pulses to describe the statistical properties of the rainfall intensity process. Mathematical formulation of the point process model is described along with second-order moment characteristics of the rainfall depth and aggregated processes. The derived second-order properties of the accumulated rainfall at different aggregation levels are used in model assessment. A data analysis using 15 years of sub-hourly rainfall data from England is presented. Models with fixed and variable pulse lifetime are explored. The performance of the model is compared with that of a doubly stochastic rectangular pulse model. The proposed model fits most of the empirical rainfall properties well at sub-hourly, hourly and daily aggregation levels
Potential evaporation at eddy-covariance sites across the globe
Potential evaporation (Ep) is a crucial variable for
hydrological forecasting and drought monitoring. However, multiple
interpretations of Ep exist, which reflect a diverse range of methods to
calculate it. A comparison of the performance of these methods against field
observations in different global ecosystems is urgently needed. In this
study, potential evaporation was defined as the rate of terrestrial
evaporation (or evapotranspiration) that the actual ecosystem would attain if it were to evaporate at
maximal rate for the given atmospheric conditions. We use eddy-covariance
measurements from the FLUXNET2015 database, covering 11Â different
biomes, to parameterise and inter-compare the most widely used
Ep methods and to uncover their relative performance. For each of the 107 sites, we isolate
days for which ecosystems can be considered unstressed, based on both an
energy balance and a soil water content approach. Evaporation measurements
during these days are used as reference to calibrate and validate the
different methods to estimate Ep. Our results indicate that a simple
radiation-driven method, calibrated per biome, consistently performs best
against in situ measurements (mean correlation of 0.93; unbiased RMSE of
0.56 mm dayâ1; and bias of â0.02 mm dayâ1). A Priestley and Taylor method,
calibrated per biome, performed just slightly worse, yet substantially and
consistently better than more complex Penman-based, PenmanâMonteith-based or
temperature-driven approaches. We show that the poor performance of
PenmanâMonteith-based approaches largely relates to the fact that the
unstressed stomatal conductance cannot be assumed to be constant in time at
the ecosystem scale. On the contrary, the biome-specific parameters required
by simpler radiation-driven methods are relatively constant in time and per
biome type. This makes these methods a robust way to estimate Ep and a
suitable tool to investigate the impact of water use and demand, drought
severity and biome productivity.</p
Tumoral CD105 is a novel independent prognostic marker for prognosis in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma
International audienceBackground: Angiogenesis is essential for tumour growth and metastasis. There are conflicting reports as to whether microvessel density (MVD) using the endothelial marker CD105 (cluster of differentiation molecule 105) in clear-cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCC) is associated with prognosis. Recently, CD105 has been described as a RCC cancer stem cell marker.Methods: A total of 102 ccRCC were analysed. Representative tumour sections were stained for CD105. Vascularity (endothelial CD105) was quantified by MVD. The immunohistochemistry analysis detected positive (if present) or negative (if absent) CD105 tumoral staining. This retrospective population-based study was evaluated using KaplanâMeier method, t-test and Cox proportional hazard model.Results: We found that the expression of endothelial CD105 (MVD) negatively correlated with nuclear grade (P<0.001), tumour stage (P<0.001) and Leibovitch score (P<0.001), whereas the expression of tumoral CD105 positively correlated with these three clinicopathological factors (P<0.001). In multivariate analysis, tumoral CD105 was found to be an independent predictor of poor overall survival (P=0.002).Conclusions: We have shown for the first time that tumoral CD105 is an independent predictive marker for death risk and unfavourable prognosis in patients with ccRCC after curative resection
- âŠ