Spatial Analysis of Land Subsidence in the San Luis Potosi Valley Induced by Aquifer Overexploitation Using the Coherent Pixels Technique (CPT) and Sentinel-1 InSAR Observation

The San Luis Potosi metropolitan area has suffered considerable damage from land subsidence over the past decades, which has become visible since 1990. This paper seeks to evaluate the effects of groundwater withdrawal on land subsidence in the San Luis Potosi Valley and the development of surface faults due to the differential compaction of sediments. For this purpose, we applied the Coherent Pixels Technique (CPT), a Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) technique, using 112 Sentinel-1 acquisitions from October 2014 to November 2019 to estimate the deformation rate. The results revealed that the deformation areas in the municipality of Soledad de Graciano Sánchez mostly exhibit subsidence values between −1.5 and −3.5 cm/year; whereas in San Luis Potosi these values are between −1.8 and −4.2 cm/year. The PSI results were validated by five Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) benchmarks available, providing a data correlation between the results obtained with both techniques of 0.986. This validation suggests that interferometric derived deformations agree well with results obtained from GNSS data. The strong relationship between trace fault, land subsidence,e and groundwater extraction suggests that groundwater withdrawal is resulting in subsidence induced faulting, which follows the pattern of structural faults buried by sediments.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (MINECO), the State Agency of Research (AEI) and European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER) under project TEMUSA (TEC2017-85244-C2-1-P and TEC2017-85244-C2-2-P) and by Mexican Council of Science and technology (CONACYT). This paper is also funded by the PRIMA programme supported by the European Union under grant agreement No 1924, project RESERVOIR. It also has been supported by the CommSensLab, which is Unidad de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu MDM-2016-0600 financed by the Agencia Estatal de Investigacion, Spain

Analysis of regional large-gradient land subsidence in the Alto Guadalentín Basin (Spain) using open-access aerial LiDAR datasets

Land subsidence associated with groundwater overexploitation in the Alto Guadalentín Basin (Spain) aquifer system has been detected during the last decades. In this work, for the first time, we propose a new point cloud differencing methodology to detect land subsidence at basin scale, based on the multiscale model-to-model cloud comparison (M3C2) algorithm. This method is applied to two open-access airborne LiDAR datasets acquired in 2009 and 2016, respectively. First the internal edge connection errors in the different flight lines were addressed by means of a smoothing point cloud method. LiDAR datasets capture information from ground and non-ground points. Therefore, a method combining gradient filtering and cloth simulation filtering (CSF) algorithms was applied to remove non-ground points. The iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm was used for point cloud registration of both point clouds exhibiting a very stable and robust performance. The results show that vertical deformation rates are up to −14 cm/year in the basin from 2009 to 2016, in agreement with the displacement reported by previous studies. LiDAR results have been compared to the velocity measured by continuous GNSS stations and an InSAR dataset. For the GNSS-LiDAR and InSAR-LiDAR comparison, we computed a common 100 × 100 m grid in order to assess any similarities and discrepancies. The results show a good agreement between the vertical displacements obtained from the three different surveying techniques. Furthermore, LiDAR results were compared with the distribution of compressible soil thickness showing a clear relationship. The study underlines the potential of open-access and non-customized LiDAR to monitor the distribution and magnitude of vertical deformations in areas prone to be affected by groundwater-withdrawal-induced land subsidence.This research was funded by the ESA-MOST China DRAGON-5 project (ref. 59339) and by a Chinese Scholarship Council studentship awarded to Liuru Hu (Ref. 202004180062). María I. Navarro-Hernández and Guadalupe Bru are funded by the PRIMA programme supported by the European Union under grant agreement No 1924, project RESERVOIR

Advances on the investigation of landslides by space-borne synthetic aperture radar interferometry

Landslides are destructive geohazards to people and infrastructure, resulting in hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars of damage every year. Therefore, mapping the rate of deformation of such geohazards and understanding their mechanics is of paramount importance to mitigate the resulting impacts and properly manage the associated risks. In this paper, the main outcomes relevant to the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Dragon-5 initiative cooperation project ID 59,339 “Earth observation for seismic hazard assessment and landslide early warning system” are reported. The primary goals of the project are to further develop advanced SAR/InSAR and optical techniques to investigate seismic hazards and risks, detect potential landslides in wide regions, and demonstrate EO-based landslide early warning system over selected landslides. This work only focuses on the landslide hazard content of the project, and thus, in order to achieve these objectives, the following tasks were developed up to now: a) a procedure for phase unwrapping errors and tropospheric delay correction; b) an improvement of a cross-platform SAR offset tracking method for the retrieval of long-term ground displacements; c) the application of polarimetric SAR interferometry (PolInSAR) to increase the number and quality of monitoring points in landslide-prone areas; d) the semiautomatic mapping and preliminary classification of active displacement areas on wide regions; e) the modeling and identification of landslides in order to identify triggering factors or predict future displacements; and f) the application of an InSAR-based landslide early warning system on a selected site. The achieved results, which mainly focus on specific sensitive regions, provide essential assets for planning present and future scientific activities devoted to identifying, mapping, characterizing, monitoring and predicting landslides, as well as for the implementation of early warning systems.This work was supported by the ESA-MOST China DRAGON-5 project with ref. 59339, by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, the State Agency of Research (AEI), and the European Funds for Regional Development under grant [grant number PID2020-117303GB-C22], by the Conselleria de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital in the framework of the project CIAICO/2021/335, by the Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 41874005 and 41929001], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University [grant numbers 300102269712 and 300102269303], and China Geological Survey Project [grant numbers DD20190637 and DD20190647]. Xiaojie Liu and Liuru Hu have been funded by Chinese Scholarship Council Grants Ref. [grant number 202006560031] and [grant number 202004180062], respectively

Imaging land subsidence in the Guadalentín River Basin (SE Spain) using Advanced Differential SAR Interferometry

Aquifer overexploitation can lead to the irreversible loss of groundwater storage caused by the compaction or consolidation of unconsolidated fine-grained sediments resulting in land subsidence. Advanced Differential SAR Interferometry (A-DINSAR) is particularly efficient to monitor progressive ground movements, making it an appropriate method to study depleting aquifers undergoing overexploitation and land subsidence. The Guadalentín River Basin (Murcia, Spain) is a widely recognized subsiding area that exhibits the highest rates of groundwater-related land subsidence recorded in Europe (>10 cm/yr). The basin covers an extension of more than 500 km2 and is underlain by an overexploited aquifer-system formed by two contiguous hydraulically connected units (Alto Guadalentín and Bajo Guadalentín). Although during the last years the piezometric levels have partially stabilized, the ongoing aquifer-system deformation is evident and significant, as revealed by the A-DInSAR analysis presented. In this work, we submit the first vertical and horizontal (E-W) decomposition results of the LOS velocity and displacement time series of the whole Guadalentín Basin obtained from two datasets of Sentinel-1 SAR acquisitions in ascending and descending modes. The images cover the period from 2015 to 2021 and they were processed using the Parallel Small BAseline Subset (P-SBAS) implemented by CNRIREA in the Geohazards Exploitation Platform (GEP) on-demand web tool, which is funded by the European Space Agency. The output ascending and descending measurement points of P-SBAS lie on the same regular grid, which is particularly suited for the geometrical decomposition. Time series displacements are compared to a permanent GNSS station located in the Bajo Guadalentín basin.This study has received funding in framework of the RESERVOIR project (Sustainable groundwater RESources managEment by integrating eaRth observation deriVed monitoring and flOw modelIng Results), funded by the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) programme supported by the European Union (Grant Agreement 1924; https://reservoir-prima.org/). The study has also been supported by the Grant FPU19/03929 (funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “FSE invests in your future”); the Project CGL2017-83931-C3-3-P (funded by MCIN/ AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”); the ESA-MOST China DRAGON-5 Project (ref. 59339) and the SARAI Project PID2020-116540RB-C22 (funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033). Copernicus Sentinel-1 IW SAR data were provided and processed in ESA’s Geohazards Exploitation Platform (GEP), in the framework of the GEP Early Adopters Programme

Uso la plataforma H5P de creación de contenido interactivo como herramienta para la creación de un laboratorio de bioquímica virtual e interactivo

En este proyecto de innovación docente está diseñado para que el alumnado se acerque a un laboratorio de bioquímica virtual e interactivo y conozca los diferentes métodos y técnicas experimentales que se utilizan en ciertos análisis clínicos

Stakeholders’ Perspective on Groundwater Management in Four Water-Stressed Mediterranean Areas: Priorities and Challenges

Recent studies highlight the fragility of the Mediterranean basin against climate stresses and the difficulties of managing the sustainable development of groundwater resources. In this work, the main issues related to groundwater management have been identified from the stakeholder’s perspective in the following four representative water-stressed Mediterranean areas: the coastal aquifer of Comacchio (Italy), the Alto Guadalentín aquifer (Spain), the alluvial aquifer of the Gediz River basin (Turkey), and the Azraq aquifer (Azraq Wetland Reserve, Jordan). This has been achieved by designing a methodology to involve and engage a representative set of stakeholders, including a questionnaire to learn their point of view concerning the current management of aquifer systems and their experience with the already available tools for groundwater resource management, such as monitoring networks and numerical models. The outcome of the survey has allowed us to identify both particular and common challenges among the four study sites and among the various groups of stakeholders. This information provides valuable insights to improve the transfer of scientific knowledge from the research centers to the authorities managing the groundwater resources and it will help to plan more effective research activities on aquifer management. The proposed methodology could be applied in other aquifers facing similar problems.This study has received funding in the framework of the RESERVOIR project: (sustainable groundwater RESources managEment by integrating eaRth observation deriVed monitoring and flOw modelIng Results), funded by the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA) programme supported by the European Union (Grant Agreement 1924; https://reservoir-prima.org/, accessed on 13 March 2022). The research was also funded by the University of Pavia in the framework of a research grant award “assegno di tipo A premiale” for research activities at the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences, within the research project entitled “Sustainable groundwater resources management by integrating A-DInSAR derived monitoring and flow modeling results” assigned to Roberta Bonì from March 2019 to February 2021

Stakeholders’ Perspective on Groundwater Management in Four Water-Stressed Mediterranean Areas: Priorities and Challenges

none21sìopenBonì, Roberta; Teatini, Pietro; Zoccarato, Claudia; Guardiola-Albert, Carolina; Ezquerro, Pablo; Bru, Guadalupe; Tomás, Roberto; Valdes-Abellan, Javier; Pla, Conception; Navarro-Hernández, María I.; Elçi, Alper; Çaylak, Baris; Ören, Ali Hakan; Shatanawi, Khaldoun; Mohammad, Alsharifa Hind; Hajar, Husam Abu; Letterio, Tommaso; Genovesi, Roberto; Hreisha, Hazem; Al-Mimi, Qamar; Meisina, ClaudiaBonì, Roberta; Teatini, Pietro; Zoccarato, Claudia; Guardiola-Albert, Carolina; Ezquerro, Pablo; Bru, Guadalupe; Tomás, Roberto; Valdes-Abellan, Javier; Pla, Conception; Navarro-Hernández, María I.; Elçi, Alper; Çaylak, Baris; Ören, Ali Hakan; Shatanawi, Khaldoun; Mohammad, Alsharifa Hind; Hajar, Husam Abu; Letterio, Tommaso; Genovesi, Roberto; Hreisha, Hazem; Al-Mimi, Qamar; Meisina, Claudi

Aplicación móvil para la corrección automática de tests y encuestas con visión artificial

Memoria ID-197. Ayudas de la Universidad de Salamanca para la innovación docente, curso 2018-2019

I.amAble: la ciencia (química) al alcance de toda la sociedad

En este proyecto de innovación, que nace con vocación de continuar en años sucesivos, se persigue mejorar la calidad de la formación de los estudiantes de la Facultad de Ciencias Químicas (F. CC.QQ.) en el ámbito de la docencia teórico-práctica y de la divulgación científica. El trabajo ha consistido en la preparación de unos experimentos prácticos para llevarlos a cabo en centros educativos no universitarios en los que se ha tenido en cuenta la participación conjunta de personas con y sin diversidad funcional, desde una perspectiva inclusiva colaborativa. Estas actividades las han realizado los estudiantes bajo la supervisión de profesores (PDI) y personal de administración y servicios (PAS). Los experimentos se han recogido en fichas didácticas para facilitar su desarrollo y aplicación por parte de otros usuarios. En estas fichas se explica detalladamente cómo realizar las experiencias en formato de taller. Las fichas de los talleres realizados están disponibles en una página web vinculada a la Universidad Complutense bajo el título I.amAble (iamable.ucm.es). Está página ha sido construida por un estudiante de la Facultad de Informática , bajo la supervisión de profesionales, tanto de esa facultad como del Instituto de Tecnología del Conocimiento, y está abierta a contribuciones similares de otras facultades y otras instituciones. La página web está diseñada de manera que resulte lo más intuitiva y accesible posible para todo tipo de público. Entre todos los experimentos se han elegido cuatro para llevarlos a la práctica en centros educativos como actividades inclusivas en las que han participado conjuntamente personas con y sin discapacidad. Con este proyecto se pretende mejorar la calidad docente al ofrecer a los estudiantes la posibilidad de aprender enseñando mediante una actividad semipresencial. El desarrollo por parte de los estudiantes de competencias transversales en educación y en divulgación de la ciencia facilitarán algunas salidas profesionales en el ámbito educativo formal (centros de enseñanza) o informal (museos, animación sociocultural). Otro aspecto importante a resaltar es la potenciación de la colaboración entre todos los miembros de la institución universitaria. Este proyecto pretende contribuir a la mejora de la cultura científica, así como al establecimiento de puentes entre la UCM y la sociedad a la que debe servir. Finalmente, es importante subrayar que incidirá en la inclusión de las personas con discapacidad como parte de la sociedad, a través del acercamiento compartido a la ciencia (Dimensiones de inclusión social y derechos de Schalock; NAVAS MACHO, P. y otros, 2012. Derechos de las personas con discapacidad intelectual: implicaciones de la Convención de Naciones Unidas. Siglo Cero. 43 (243): 7-28.)

Compromising between European and US allergen immunotherapy schools: Discussions from GUIMIT, the Mexican immunotherapy guidelines

Background: Allergen immunotherapy (AIT) has a longstanding history and still remains the only disease-changing treatment for allergic rhinitis and asthma. Over the years 2 different schools have developed their strategies: the United States (US) and the European. Allergen extracts available in these regions are adapted to local practice. In other parts of the world, extracts from both regions and local ones are commercialized, as in Mexico. Here, local experts developed a national AIT guideline (GUIMIT 2019) searching for compromises between both schools. Methods: Using ADAPTE methodology for transculturizing guidelines and AGREE-II for evaluating guideline quality, GUIMIT selected 3 high-quality Main Reference Guidelines (MRGs): the European Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (EAACI) guideines, the S2k guideline of various German-speaking medical societies (2014), and the US Practice Parameters on Allergen Immunotherapy 2011. We formulated clinical questions and based responses on the fused evidence available in the MRGs, combined with local possibilities, patient's preference, and costs. We came across several issues on which the MRGs disagreed. These are presented here along with arguments of GUIMIT members to resolve them. GUIMIT (for a complete English version, see Supplementary data) concluded the following: Results: Related to the diagnosis of IgE-mediated respiratory allergy, apart from skin prick testing complementary tests (challenges, in vitro testing and molecular such as species-specific allergens) might be useful in selected cases to inform AIT composition. AIT is indicated in allergic rhinitis and suggested in allergic asthma (once controlled) and IgE-mediated atopic dermatitis. Concerning the correct subcutaneous AIT dose for compounding vials according to the US school: dosing tables and formula are given; up to 4 non-related allergens can be mixed, refraining from mixing high with low protease extracts. When using European extracts: the manufacturer's indications should be followed; in multi-allergic patients 2 simultaneous injections can be given (100% consensus); mixing is discouraged. In Mexico only allergoid tablets are available; based on doses used in all sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) publications referenced in MRGs, GUIMIT suggests a probable effective dose related to subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT) might be: 50–200% of the monthly SCIT dose given daily, maximum mixing 4 allergens. Also, a table with practical suggestions on non-evidence-existing issues, developed with a simplified Delphi method, is added. Finally, dissemination and implementation of guidelines is briefly discussed, explaining how we used online tools for this in Mexico. Conclusions: Countries where European and American AIT extracts are available should adjust AIT according to which school is followed