Guideline for Groundwater Resource Management Using the GIS Tools in Arid to Semi Arid Climate Regions

International audienceFood security emerged as an issue in the first decade of the 21st Century, questioning the sustainability of thehuman race, which is inevitably related directly to the agricultural water management that has multifaceteddimensions and requires interdisciplinary expertise in order to be dealt with

A Machine-Learning-Based Approach to Predict Deforestation Related to Oil Palm: Conceptual Framework and Experimental Evaluation

Deforestation is recognized as an issue that has negative effects on the ecosystem. Predicting deforestation and defining the causes of deforestation is an important process that could help monitor and prevent deforestation. Deforestation prediction has been boosted by recent advances in geospatial technologies and applications, especially remote sensing technologies and machine learning techniques. This paper highlights the issue of predicting deforestation related to oil palm, which has not been focused on in existing research studies. The paper proposes an approach that aims to enhance the prediction of deforestation related to oil palm plantations and palm oil production. The proposed approach is based on a conceptual framework and an assessment of a set of criteria related to such deforestation. The criteria are assessed and validated based on a sensitivity analysis. The framework is based on machine learning and image processing techniques. It consists of three main steps, which are data preparation, model training, and validation. The framework is implemented in a case study in the Aceh province of Indonesia to show the feasibility of our proposed approach in predicting deforestation related to oil palm. The implementation of the proposed approach shows an acceptable accuracy for predicting deforestation

A GIS-remote sensing approach for forest fire risk assessment: case of Bizerte region, Tunisia

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GIS Based Multi-criteria Analysis for Flood Risk Assessment: Case of Manouba Essijoumi Basin, NE Tunisia

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A GIS-based susceptibility indexing method for irrigation and drinking water management planning : Application to Chebba-Mellouleche Aquifer, Tunisia.

International audienceLocating high quality groundwater resources in semi-arid regions with growing population and agricultural development is an expensive undertaking. Simple susceptibility indexing method, based oil vulnerability and quality index, can be used to facilitate this application. The GIS technique provides an efficient environment to reach this objective. The contamination susceptibility index was calculated by taking the product of the vulnerability index (VI) and the quality index (QI). The VI index was calculated using DRASTIC method to evaluate the hydrogeological characteristics of the Aquifer. The quality index calculation procedure, based on the water classification, was introduced to evaluate hydrochemical data. The susceptibility indexing method was applied in the Chebba-Mellouleche Aquifer, located in Eastern Tunisia. The results show a clear degradation of the water quality throughout the Aquifer. In addition, the susceptibility indexing map which incorporates hydrogeological and hydrochemical datasets reveals a similarity with areas of high anthropogenic activities. Thus, it is more realistic to estimate the groundwater contamination. The main aim of this study is to give an overview of the drinking and irrigation water quality in relation to the hydrogeological characteristics of the Chebba-Mellouleche Aquifer. This overview can form the basis for further investigation

A GIS-based susceptibility indexing method for irrigation and drinking water management planning: Application to Chebba-Mellouleche Aquifer, Tunisia

Locating high quality groundwater resources in semi-arid regions with growing population and agricultural development is an expensive undertaking. Simple susceptibility indexing method, based on vulnerability and quality index, can be used to facilitate this application. The GIS technique provides an efficient environment to reach this objective. The contamination susceptibility index was calculated by taking the product of the vulnerability index (VI) and the quality index (QI). The VI index was calculated using DRASTIC method to evaluate the hydrogeological characteristics of the Aquifer. The quality index calculation procedure, based on the water classification, was introduced to evaluate hydrochemical data. The susceptibility indexing method was applied in the Chebba-Mellouleche Aquifer, located in Eastern Tunisia. The results show a clear degradation of the water quality throughout the Aquifer. In addition, the susceptibility indexing map which incorporates hydrogeological and hydrochemical datasets reveals a similarity with areas of high anthropogenic activities. Thus, it is more realistic to estimate the groundwater contamination. The main aim of this study is to give an overview of the drinking and irrigation water quality in relation to the hydrogeological characteristics of the Chebba-Mellouleche Aquifer. This overview can form the basis for further investigations.Susceptibility index Chebba-Mellouleche Aquifer Water quality DRASTIC

GIS-based multi-criteria analysis and vulnerability method for the potential groundwater recharge delineation, case study of Manouba phreatic aquifer, NE Tunisia

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DEM-Based GIS Algorithms and 3D Geospatial Mapping for Creation of Hydrogeological Models Data in Foussana Basin (Central Tunisia)

Copyright © 2013 Sami Khemiri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. There are many factors which affect the hydrological, geomorphologic and hydrogeological condition of the area. In order to better comprehend all processes, a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) was developed based on Geographical Information System. This latter appears as an essential tool to facilitate the decision support and can provide very important geological information. In fact, the use of the DEM is growing dramatically with the use of the GIS and the improvement of information extracted from elevation data such as mapping of floods, forest areas, erosion, and lineaments. The spatial distribution of topographic attributes can often be used as an indirect measure of the spatial variability of these processes and allows them to be mapped using relatively simple techniques. The main purpose of this study is to model the natural surface of the earth as the most accurate and the most precise. For this end we have tried in this work to develop various types of Digital Elevation Models DEM of the Foussana rift in Central Tunisia and to demonstrat

Effects of Dichlorvos on cardiac cells: Toxicity and molecular mechanism of action

International audienceIn this study we aimed to understand the underlying mechanism of Dichlorvos-induced toxicity in cardiac cells. For this end, cells were treated by 170 μM of Dichlorvos (DDVP) (corresponding to the IC50) and molecular events were monitored by flow cytometry and western blotting. We have first demonstrated that cell exposure to DDVP for 24 h induced cell death by necroptosis. In fact, cell treatment with DDVP upregulated RIP1 expression and we have shown that chemical inhibition of RIP1 kinase activity by necrostatin-1 (Nec-1) greatly prevented from the induced cell death. Besides, we have demonstrated that, while there was no observed cell death following short exposure to DDVP (6 h), autophagy was enhanced, as proven by the increase in the level of both Beclin-1 and LC3-II and the accumulation of the CytoID® autophagy detection probe. Besides, when autophagy was inhibited by chloroquine (CQ) the percentage of necroptosis was significantly increased, suggesting that autophagy acts to protect cardiac cells against the toxicity induced by this pesticide. Concurrently, we have shown that the inhibition of the deacetylase sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) by EX527 or its knockdown by siRNA significantly increased DDVP-induced necroptosis, whereas when SIRT1 was activated by resveratrol (RSV) a significant decrease in DDVP-induced cell death was observed. In addition, we revealed that when the autophagy was inhibited by CQ, we can't reveal the protective effect of RSV anymore. Altogether, these results suggest that activation of SIRT1 protects cardiac cells from the toxicity of DDVP through an autophagy-dependent pathway