Investigation of acupuncture sensation patterns under sensory deprivation using a geographic information system

The study of acupuncture-related sensations, like deqi and propagated sensations along channels (PSCs), has a long tradition in acupuncture basic research. The phenomenon itself, however, remains poorly understood. To study the connection between PSC and classical meridians, we applied a geographic information system (GIS) to analyze sketches of acupuncture sensations from healthy volunteers after laser acupuncture. As PSC can be subtle, we aimed at reducing the confounding impact of external stimuli by carrying out the experiment in a floatation tank under restricted environmental stimulation. 82.4% of the subjects experienced PSC, that is, they had line-like or 2-dimensional sensations, although there were some doubts that these were related to the laser stimulation. Line-like sensations on the same limb were averaged to calculate sensation mean courses, which were then compared to classical meridians by measuring the mean distance between the two. Distances ranged from 0.83 cm in the case of the heart (HT) and spleen (SP) meridian to 6.27 cm in the case of the kidney (KI) meridian. Furthermore, PSC was observed to “jump” between adjacent meridians. In summary, GIS has proven to be a valuable tool to study PSC, and our results suggest a close connection between PSC and classical meridians

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for monitoring soil erosion in Morocco

This article presents an environmental remote sensing application using a UAV that is specifically aimed at reducing the data gap between field scale and satellite scale in soil erosion monitoring in Morocco. A fixed-wing aircraft type Sirius I (MAVinci, Germany) equipped with a digital system camera (Panasonic) is employed. UAV surveys are conducted over different study sites with varying extents and flying heights in order to provide both very high resolution site-specific data and lower-resolution overviews, thus fully exploiting the large potential of the chosen UAV for multi-scale mapping purposes. Depending on the scale and area coverage, two different approaches for georeferencing are used, based on high-precision GCPs or the UAV’s log file with exterior orientation values respectively. The photogrammetric image processing enables the creation of Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) and ortho-image mosaics with very high resolution on a sub-decimetre level. The created data products were used for quantifying gully and badland erosion in 2D and 3D as well as for the analysis of the surrounding areas and landscape development for larger extents

Monitoring soil erosion in the Souss basin, Morocco, with a multiscale object-based remote sensing approach using UAV and satellite data

This article presents a multiscale approach for detecting and monitoring soil erosion phenomena (i.e. gully erosion) in the agro-industrial area around the city of Taroudannt, Souss basin, Morocco. The study area is characterized as semi-arid with an annual average precipitation of 200 mm. Water scarcity, high population dynamics and changing land use towards huge areas of irrigation farming present numerous threats to sustainability. The agro-industry produces citrus fruits and vegetables in monocropping, mainly for the European market. Badland areas strongly affected by gully erosion border the agricultural areas as well as residential areas. To counteract the significant loss of land, land-leveling measures are attempted to create space for plantations and greenhouses. In order to develop sustainable approaches to limit gully growth the detection and monitoring of gully systems is fundamental. Specific gully sites are monitored with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) taking small-format aerial photographs (SFAP). This enables extremely high-resolution analysis (SFAP resolution: 2-10 cm) of the actual size of the gully channels as well as a detailed continued surveillance of their growth. Transferring the methodology on a larger scale using Quickbird satellite data (resolution: 60 cm) leads to the possibility of a large-scale analysis of the whole area around the city of Taroudannt (Area extent: ca. 350 km²). The results will then reveal possible relationships of gully growth and agro-industrial management and may even illustrate further interdependencies. The main objective is the identification of areas with high gully-erosion risk due to non-sustainable land use and the development of mitigation strategies for the study area

El proyecto EPRODESERT. Cambios de uso del suelo y morfodinámica en el Nordeste de España

The project EPRODESERT (Evaluation of Processes Leading to Land degradation and Desertification under Extensified Farming Systems) investigates the vegetation succession/morphodynamic/land-use complex in Aragón (NE Spain). Socioeconomic investigation studies the reasons and the dynarnics of land-use change. The evolution of the abandoned fields is suiveyed using large scale aerial photographies taken from a hot air blimp and combining them with a monitoring of geomorphodinamics and vegetation. Experimental studies about infiltration, runoff and eolic erosion cuantify the processes. First results mark the different behaviour, regarding rainfall, of fields with diferent time of abandonment and the different crust types.El proyecto EPRODESERT (Evaluation of Processes Leading to Land degradation and Desertfication under Extensified Farming Systems) estudia el complejosucesión de vegetación/morfodinámica/uso del suelo en Aragón. Un primer análisis socioeconómico considera las razones y la dinámica del abandono de tierras. Utilizando fotos aéreas a gran escala, tomadas desde un zeppelin aerostática teledirigido y combinándolas con una clasificación de la morfodinámicay la vegetación, se estudia detalladamente la evolución de los campos abandonados. Con métodos experimentales se cuantifican los procesos de infiltración, escorrentía y erosión hídrica. Destaca como primer resultado el diverso comportamiento ante la precipitación de los campos abandonadns de diferente antigüedad y de las costras edáficas que los cubren

Global application of an unoccupied aerial vehicle photogrammetry protocol for predicting aboveground biomass in non‐forest ecosystems

P. 1-15Non-forest ecosystems, dominated by shrubs, grasses and herbaceous plants, provide ecosystem services including carbon sequestration and forage for grazing, and are highly sensitive to climatic changes. Yet these ecosystems are poorly represented in remotely sensed biomass products and are undersampled by in situ monitoring. Current global change threats emphasize the need for new tools to capture biomass change in non-forest ecosystems at appropriate scales. Here we developed and deployed a new protocol for photogrammetric height using unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV) images to test its capability for delivering standardized measurements of biomass across a globally distributed field experiment. We assessed whether canopy height inferred from UAV photogrammetry allows the prediction of aboveground biomass (AGB) across low-stature plant species by conducting 38 photogrammetric surveys over 741 harvested plots to sample 50 species. We found mean canopy height was strongly predictive of AGB across species, with a median adjusted R2 of 0.87 (ranging from 0.46 to 0.99) and median prediction error from leave-one-out cross-validation of 3.9%. Biomass per-unit-of-height was similar within but different among, plant functional types. We found that photogrammetric reconstructions of canopy height were sensitive to wind speed but not sun elevation during surveys. We demonstrated that our photogrammetric approach produced generalizable measurements across growth forms and environmental settings and yielded accuracies as good as those obtained from in situ approaches. We demonstrate that using a standardized approach for UAV photogrammetry can deliver accurate AGB estimates across a wide range of dynamic and heterogeneous ecosystems. Many academic and land management institutions have the technical capacity to deploy these approaches over extents of 1–10 ha−1. Photogrammetric approaches could provide much-needed information required to calibrate and validate the vegetation models and satellite-derived biomass products that are essential to understand vulnerable and understudied non-forested ecosystems around the globe.S

El proyecto EPRODESERT: cambios de uso del suelo y morfodinámica en el Nordeste de España

El proyecto eprodesert (evaluation of processes leading to landdegradation and desertification under extensified farming systems) estudia el complejo sucesión de vegetación / morfodinámica / uso del suelo en Aragón. Un primer análisis socioeconómico considera las razones y la dinámica del abandono de tierras. Utilizando fotos aéreas a gran escala, tomadas desde un zeppelin aerostático teledirigido y combinándolas con una clasificación de la morfodinámica y la vegetación, se estudia detalladamente la evolución de los campos abandonados. Con métodos experimentales se cuantifican los procesos de infiltración, escorrentía y erosión eólica. Destaca como primer resultado el diverso comportamiento ante la precipitación de los campos abandonados de diferente antigüedad y de las costras edáficas que los cubren

Influencia del pastoreo en la cubierta vegetal y la geomorfodinámica en el transecto Depresión del Ebro-Pirineos

El pastoreo extensivo de campos en barbecho o abandonados entre la Depresión Central del Ebro y el Pirineo Central impide la regeneración de la cubierta vegetal. Se desarrolla un patrón típico de áreas con geomorfodinámica muy activa en los senderos del ganado, junto a otras extensas superficies estables. En el Prepirineo y el Pirineo Central, se puede incluso observar la reducción de la cubierta de matorral ya existente, de forma simultánea al incremento de la geomorfodinámica. Las zonas afectadas por fuerte erosión lineal aumentan a lo largo de los senderos, ya que éstos muestran tasas de escorrentía superficial y de erosión muy altas. A causa de estos efectos, los incentivos comunitarios a la ganadería ovina han de ser revisados de forma crítica

Short to medium-term gully development: Human activity and gully erosion variability in selected Spanish gully catchments

This study investigates how medium-term gully-development data differ from short-term data, and which factors are responsible for their spatial and temporal variability. Eight actively retreating bank gullies situated in Spanish basin landscapes were monitored for up to 11 years with high-resolution aerial photographs using unmanned remote-controlled platforms. The results of planimetric and volumetric change analysis using GIS and photogrammetry systems show a high variability of annual gully retreat rates both between gullies and between observation periods. The varying influences of land use and human activities with their positive or negative effects on runoff production and connectivity appears to play the most important role in these study areas, both for short-term variability and medium-term difference in gully development. The study demonstrates the importance of capturing spatially continuous, high-resolution three-dimensional data for detailed gully monitoring. It also confirms that short-term data are not representative of longer-term gully development, but they are still required to understand the processes – particularly human activity at varying time scales – causing gully-erosion variability.status: publishe

Short-term versus medium-term monitoring for detecting gully-erosion variability in a Mediterraneaen environment

This study investigates how medium‐term gully‐development data differ from short‐term data, and which factors influence their spatial and temporal variability at nine selected actively retreating bank gullies situated in four Spanish basin landscapes. Small‐format aerial photographs using unmanned, remote‐controlled platforms were taken at the gully sites in short‐term intervals of one to two years over medium‐term periods of seven to 13 years and gully change during each period was determined using stereophotogrammetry and a geographic information system. Results show a high variability of annual gully retreat rates both between gullies and between observation periods. The mean linear headcut retreat rates range between 0·02 and 0·26m a–1. Gully area loss was between 0·8 and 22 m² a–1 and gully volume loss between 0·5 to 100 m³ a–1, of which sidewall erosion may play a considerable part. A non‐linear relationship between catchment area and medium‐term gully headcut volume change was found for these gullies. The short‐term changes observed at the individual gullies show very high variability: on average, the maximum headcut volume change observed in 7–13 years was 14·3 times larger than the minimum change. Dependency on precipitation varies but is clearly higher for headcuts than sidewalls, especially in smaller and less disturbed catchments. The varying influences of land use and human activities with their positive or negative effects on runoff production and connectivity play a dominant role in these study areas, both for short‐term variability and medium‐term difference in gully development. The study proves the value of capturing spatially continuous, high‐resolution three‐dimensional data using small‐format aerial photography for detailed gully monitoring. Results confirm that short‐term data are not representative of longer‐term gully development and demonstrate the necessity for medium‐ to long‐term monitoring. However, short‐term data are still required to understand the processes – particularly human activity at varying time scales – causing fluctuations in gully erosion ratesstatus: publishe