Towards Daily High-resolution Inundation Observations using Deep Learning and EO

Satellite remote sensing presents a cost-effective solution for synoptic flood monitoring, and satellite-derived flood maps provide a computationally efficient alternative to numerical flood inundation models traditionally used. While satellites do offer timely inundation information when they happen to cover an ongoing flood event, they are limited by their spatiotemporal resolution in terms of their ability to dynamically monitor flood evolution at various scales. Constantly improving access to new satellite data sources as well as big data processing capabilities has unlocked an unprecedented number of possibilities in terms of data-driven solutions to this problem. Specifically, the fusion of data from satellites, such as the Copernicus Sentinels, which have high spatial and low temporal resolution, with data from NASA SMAP and GPM missions, which have low spatial but high temporal resolutions could yield high-resolution flood inundation at a daily scale. Here a Convolutional-Neural-Network is trained using flood inundation maps derived from Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar and various hydrological, topographical, and land-use based predictors for the first time, to predict high-resolution probabilistic maps of flood inundation. The performance of UNet and SegNet model architectures for this task is evaluated, using flood masks derived from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, separately with 95 percent-confidence intervals. The Area under the Curve (AUC) of the Precision Recall Curve (PR-AUC) is used as the main evaluation metric, due to the inherently imbalanced nature of classes in a binary flood mapping problem, with the best model delivering a PR-AUC of 0.85

Effect of Headgroup on DNA−Cationic Surfactant Interactions

The interaction behavior of DNA with different types of hydroxylated cationic surfactants has been studied. Attention was directed to how the introduction of hydroxyl substituents at the headgroup of the cationic surfactants affects the compaction of DNA. The DNA−cationic surfactant interaction was investigated at different charge ratios by several methods like UV melting, ethidium bromide exclusion, and gel electrophoresis. Studies show that there is a discrete transition in the DNA chain from extended coils (free chain) to a compact form and that this transition does not depend substantially on the architecture of the headgroup. However, the accessibility of DNA to ethidium bromide is preserved to a significantly larger extent for the more hydrophilic surfactants. This was discussed in terms of surfactant packing. Observations are interpreted to reflect that the surfactants with more substituents have a larger headgroup and therefore form smaller micellar aggregates; these higher curvature aggregates lead to a less efficient, “patch-like” coverage of DNA. The more hydrophilic surfactants also presented a significantly lower cytotoxicity, which is important for biotechnological applications

Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY): conceptualizing a transdisciplinary framework for citizen science addressing hydrological challenges

Widely available digital technologies are empowering citizens who are increasingly well informed and involved in numerous water, climate, and environmental challenges. Citizen science can serve many different purposes, from the "pleasure of doing science" to complementing observations, increasing scientific literacy, and supporting collaborative behaviour to solve specific water management problems. Still, procedures on how to incorporate citizens' knowledge effectively to inform policy and decision-making are lagging behind. Moreover, general conceptual frameworks are unavailable, preventing the widespread uptake of citizen science approaches for more participatory cross-sectorial water governance. In this work, we identify the shared constituents, interfaces, and interlinkages between hydrological sciences and other academic and non-academic disciplines in addressing water issues. Our goal is to conceptualize a transdisciplinary framework for valuing citizen science and advancing the hydrological sciences. Joint efforts between hydrological, computer, and social sciences are envisaged for integrating human sensing and behavioural mechanisms into the framework. Expanding opportunities of online communities complement the fundamental value of on-site surveying and indigenous knowledge. This work is promoted by the Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY) Working Group established by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS)

Connecting hydrological modelling and forecasting from global to local scales: perspectives from an international joint virtual workshop

The unprecedented progress in ensemble hydro-meteorological modelling and forecasting on a range of temporal and spatial scales, raises a variety of new challenges which formed the theme of the Joint Virtual Workshop, "Connecting global to local hydrological modelling and forecasting: challenges and scientific advances”. Held from 29 June to 1 July 2021, this workshop was co-organized by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the Copernicus Emergency Management (CEMS) and Climate Change (C3S) Services, the Hydrological Ensemble Prediction EXperiment (HEPEX), and the Global Flood Partnership (GFP). This paper aims to summarize the state-of-the-art presented at the workshop and provide an early career perspective. Recent advances in hydrological modelling and forecasting, reflections on the use of forecasts for decision-making across scales, and means to minimise new barriers to communication in the virtual format are also discussed. Thematic foci of the workshop included hydrological model development and skill assessment, uncertainty communication, forecasts for early action, co-production of services and incorporation of local knowledge, Earth Observation, and data assimilation. Connecting hydrological services to societal needs and local decision-making through effective communication, capacity-building and co-production was identified as critical. Multidisciplinary collaborations emerged as crucial to effectively bring newly developed tools to practice

Online prognosis for priority power supply restoration

Automatic monitoring of the vulnerability of the power supply to a high-priority facility has important practical considerations. As opposed to the well studied optimization task for power supply restoration which is carried out after a fault has happened, the task of analyzing the restorability of a high-priority line under possible fault conditions is a decision problem that has to be solved periodically as the load conditions in the network change. The outcome of this decision problem may be used to alert the high-priority facility about the vulnerability of the state of the network, in the sense that some faults may cause a non-restorable outage to the line supplying that facility. This paper studies the prognosis of a high-priority line in a network in terms of power supply restorability and proposes the first method for this problem

Analyzing Gradual Vegetation Changes in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region Using Landsat Data

Oil sand mining in northern Alberta/Canada in the Athabasca region is a major intrusion into the otherwise pristine natural environment. The various types of oil sands mining, transport, and processing are causing large-scale discharge of pollutants. Accordingly, this study examined the gradual changes in the physically undisturbed vegetation, that occurred from 1984 to 2021 in the Athabasca oil sands monitoring region. First, the abrupt changes were masked out with the help of auxiliary and Landsat data. Subsequently, a normalized burn ratio Landsat time-series was applied to the LandTrendr algorithm on the Google Earth Engine. In order to interpret gradual changes, measurement criteria were used to describe vegetation development, vulnerability, and variability. In addition, the spatial and temporal relationship of these to oil sand opencast mines, processing facilities, and steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) mines was examined. The results showed that a major part of the vegetation in the Athabasca oil sand monitoring region underwent a positive development (65.9%). However, around the opencast mines a negative vegetation development and stability within a radius of 10 km could be observed. In the surroundings of processing facilities, the development and stability of vegetation was disturbed within a radius of 2 km. Thereby the analysis of land cover classes showed that deciduous, coniferous, and mixed forest are disproportionately affected. Conversely, no negative influences on neighboring vegetation could be detected around SAGD mines. The temporal analysis showed that vegetation disturbance was most pronounced between 1990 and 2000, but recovered in recent years

Improved activity of horseradish peroxidase (HRP) in 'specifically designed' ionic liquid

The ionic liquid (IL), tetrakis (2-hydroxyethyl) ammonium triflouromethanesulfonate is rationally designed for horseradish peroxidase (HRP) on the basis of its stability and activity in the presence of an excipient, tris(hydroxymethyl)aminoethane (TRIS) in different ILs. The activity of HRP in this tailor made IL is at least 30–240-fold higher than that in conventional ILs. Also, the activity is more than 10 times greater than that in methanol, a common organic solvent used for HRP

Probing the relationship between interfacial concentrations and lipase activity in cationic W/O microemulsions: a quantitative study by chemical trapping

Interfacial concentrations and/or space:  which one is the predominant factor in regulating lipase activity at the water−oil interface? This work is an endeavor toward probing the relationship between lipase activity and interfacial concentrations in cationic water-in-oil (W/O) microemulsions through quantitative study by a chemical trapping method. The interfacial concentrations of water ([H2Oi]), bromide ([Bri-]), and n-hexanol ([HexOHi]) were estimated in the W/O microemulsions of six surfactants with varying headgroup architecture and hydrophilicity across a wide Wo ([H2O]/[surfactant]) range. The surfactants were prepared by the replacement of methyl groups of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (1) by n-propyl (2−4), one hydroxyethyl (5), and one methoxyethyl (6) group. The estimated [H2Oi] was found not to change much (30.0−36.7 M) with the variation in headgroup hydrophilicity or size from 1−5. However, [Bri-] was found to increase with a decrease in the degree of dissociation (α), being higher for 1 and 5 (2.4−3.3 M) and relatively lower (0.9−1.9 M) for others depending on Wo. Interestingly, [H2Oi] was found to be little higher (41.5−42.2 M) in the case of 6. The present study elucidates the importance of interfacial water and counterion concentrations in modulating the lipase activity in reverse micelles. In our previous report, the lipase activity was found to increase from 1−4 and in 6, whereas that observed in 5 was comparable with 1, being largely regulated by the surfactant head group size (Das, D.; Roy, S.; Mitra, R. N.; Dasgupta, A.; Das, P. K. Chem. Eur. J. 2005, 11, 4881). The only other parameter that increased distinctly with lipase activity is the headgroup size, not [H2Oi]. Thus, the role of [H2Oi] in comparison to the surfactant's headgroup size is not found to be that significant. Moreover, the lower [Bri-] in 2−4 and 6 perhaps enhances the probability of enzyme and substrate localization at the interface, leading to higher lipase activity