AndreaBozzo/ceres-open-data-index huggingface dataset:
Where is the provenance? Ethical replicability and reproducibility in GIScience and its critical applications

As replicability and reproducibility (R&R) crises develop within emerging convergent inquiry, ethical use of provenance information is central to the establishment and preservation of trust in critical applications of GIScience and geospatial technologies. Today large volumes of geospatial data are generated at high velocity from satellite sensors and unmanned aircraft systems, citizen sensors, geolocation-based data services, global navigation satellite systems, and so on. The extensive use of these data for applications such as disaster and humanitarian response raises the issue of R&R from competing perspectives of location privacy and geospatial data quality. Although geospatial data can be integrated and linked with contextual information to identify individuals’ movements, steps taken to ensure privacy can complicate the multiuser development of high-quality geospatial workflows. Provenance information as digital records of historical (retrospective) and potential future (prospective) geospatial processes is often overlooked, misunderstood, or inadequately addressed. We explore the relationship between provenance information, location privacy, and geospatial data quality in the context of R&R with a focus on disaster analytics. We argue that in the era of big data and deep learning, GIScientists and associated institutions bear greater responsibility both for geospatial workflow quality and for location privacy. Given vastly heterogenous computational landscapes, we provide practical recommendations for ethically driven provenance and R&R research and development within the GIScience community and beyond.

Organization: ArkansasView
Assessing topographic controls on vegetation characteristics in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) from remotely sensed data

The study aimed at assessing multi-scale correlation between vegetation characteristics and topographic parameters in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh. Traditional shifting cultivation and its associated activities are considered unsuitable practices in CHT, therefore, the alternative land use systems e.g. agroforestry, tree farming, and afforestation are more suitable and sustainable in the region. We assessed the topographic controls on vegetation indices (NDII, NDVI, and EVI and their corresponding characteristics) to identify the potential sites for alternative land use practices. The result shows that NDII, EVI, and NDVI values vary 48%, 27%, and 23%, respectively, relative to their respective mean values. The soil moisture decreases with higher slope and elevation having the coefficient (R2) values of − 0.17 and − 0.19, respectively because the underlying soil cannot retain rainwater as run-off are comparatively faster in higher elevation and slope. Elevation and slope exert influence on all vegetation characteristics under consideration. Soil moisture is negatively paired with NDVI (R2 value of − 0.04) indicating, interestingly, that soil moisture content does not influence vegetation water content. Aspect has no significant correlation to any of the vegetation indices (R2 is ~ 0.02 in all cases) and, hence, while selecting sites for alternative agricultural practices, the topographic parameter of aspect can be ignored. NDII and EVI are significantly correlated more with elevation than slope. Thus, the potential site for the biomass or vegetation which retains moisture content should be in an area that is more susceptible to elevation followed by slope. In contrast, NDVI is significantly correlated with the soil moisture, slope, and altitude. Therefore, to get a generalized vigor of vegetation of higher green leaf content, primary production, chlorophyll content, and green leaf biomass, one must consider a combination of elevation and slope, as well as soil moisture, in CHT while selecting the potential sites for alternative agricultural practice.

Organization: AlabamaView
The Dynamical Linkage of Atmospheric Blocking to Drought, Heatwave and Urban Heat Island in Southeastern US: A Multi-Scale Case Study

Atmospheric blocking is a long standing structure stalled in the mid-troposphere which is often associated with extreme weather events such as droughts, heatwaves, flood and cold air outbreak. A striking atmospheric blocking is identified to persist over the US during 13–17 August 2007, exacerbating the existing drought over the Southeastern US. This pronounced blocking event not only intensified the concurrent drought conditions, but also led to a record-breaking heatwave over the Southeast of the US. The excessive heat observed during this heatwave is attributable to the subsidence-associated adiabatic warming as well as the dry-and-warm air advection over Alabama and the neighboring states. At the local scale, we choose Birmingham, AL, as the study area for exploring the blocking influence on urban heat island. Based on the remote sensing data, the surface (skin) urban heat island is found to be 8 ∘ C in this area on the block-onset day. This provides partial evidences that the surface urban heat island intensity is likely amplified by the blocking-induced heat waves. The present work provides a unique case study in which blocking, drought, heatwave and urban heat island all occur concurrently, and interplay across a spectrum of spatial scales. We conclude that atmospheric blocking is capable of reinforcing droughts, initiating heatwaves, and probably amplifying the urban heat island intensity during the concurrent period.

Organization: AlabamaView
Identification and classification of geographically isolated wetlands in North Alabama using geographic object based image analysis (GeOBIA)

Due to recent Supreme Court rulings, there has been an increased interest in the isolated wetlands of the United States. These types of wetlands serve vital ecological roles such as water quality regulation and as a habitat of biological diversity. This study focuses specifically on mapping of geographically isolated wetlands, or those that are separated from traditional wetlands by a given spatial extent, using Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GeOBIA). GeOBIA is a type of remote sensing analysis that identifies objects and features in data-sets via automated methodologies. This type of analysis offers the opportunity to increase the efficiency of what has traditionally been a very labour intensive process of manual photo-interpretation. This analysis resulted in the delineation of 26,424 areas as geographically isolated wetlands. These results were assessed for accuracy through both manual inspection of aerial imagery and field verification which yielded accuracies of 83.7 and 87.7%, respectively.

Organization: AlabamaView
Simulating micro-scale thermal interactions in different building environments for mitigating urban heat islands

Tropical cities are more susceptible to the suggested fall outs from projected global warming scenarios as they are located in the Torrid Zone and growing at rapid rates. Therefore, research on the mitigation of urban heat island (UHI) effects in tropical cities has attained much significance and increased immensely over recent years. The UHI mitigation strategies commonly used for temperate cities need to be examined in the tropical context since the mechanism of attaining a surface energy balance in the tropics is quite different from that in the mid-latitudes. The present paper evaluates the performance of four different mitigation strategies to counterbalance the impact of UHI phenomena for climate resilient adaptation in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA), India. This has been achieved by reproducing the study sites, selected from three different urban morphologies of open low-rise, compact low-rise and mid-rise residential areas, using ENVI-met V 4.0 and simulating the effects of different mitigation strategies- cool pavement, cool roof, added urban vegetation and cool city (a combination of the three former strategies), in reducing the UHI intensity. Simulation results show that at a diurnal scale during summer, the green city model performed best at neighborhood level to reduce air temperature (Ta) by 0.7 °C, 0.8 °C and 1.1 °C, whereas the cool city model was the most effective strategy to reduce physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) by 2.8° – 3.1 °C, 2.2° – 2.8 °C and 2.8° – 2.9 °C in the mid-rise, compact low-rise and open low-rise residential areas, respectively. It was observed that (for all the built environment types) vegetation played the most significant role in determining surface energy balance in the study area, compared to cool roofs and cool pavements. This study also finds that irrespective of building environments, tropical cities are less sensitive to the selected strategies of UHI mitigation than their temperate counter parts, which can be attributed to the difference in magnitude of urbanness.

Organization: AlabamaView
MI-Environment: Geospatial patterns and inequality of relative heat stress vulnerability in Michigan

Heat stress causes morbidity and mortality and is increasing with climate change. Heat stress can pose particular challenges in northern regions not well adapted to heat. To assist decision makers, we identified the relative vulnerability of census tracts within Michigan to factors that increase exposure to heat stress or reflect susceptibilities in the population based on a California heat vulnerability index. In the MI-Environment assessment, we used a Geographic Information System (GIS) to combine future ensemble climate model projections to create a total of 9 geospatial and demographic variables. As part of a broader planned cumulative environmental exposure assessment, the statewide heat vulnerability index (HVI) maps display the location and relative magnitude of exposure on three metrics: built environment (Place), future expected long-term temperature averages (Temperature), and population susceptibility (People). We observed varied and distinct patterns for each of the three component indices. We assessed how equitably those exposures are distributed by racial and socioeconomic factors. This analysis showed that each of the component indices and the aggregate HVI are disproportionately distributed along racial and socioeconomic lines in Michigan. Census tracts with higher percentages of people of color had larger exposure to HVI factors with a deviation from equity of -0.115 [95% CI -0.108, -0.122]. Similarly, for census tracts with higher percentage of people experiencing poverty, the deviation from equity was -0.101 [95% CI -0.094, -0.107]. The MI-Environment visualization tool can help communities prepare for climate change and resolve inequities by identifying census tracts with the most vulnerable residents and highest potential exposures.

Organization: MichiganView
KU Students Wrap Up Course in Aerial Mapping Using Drones

LAWRENCE — Fall break is barely behind us, but a group of University of Kansas students has just finished an innovative eight-week course in using drones to develop aerial maps. Over the past two months, they’ve visited sites in KU's West District and at the Baker Wetlands, taking still images and videos over those areas.

“The drone mapping course has been excellent in providing a hands-on experience with the drones,” said Siddharth Shankar, graduate student from Lucknow, India. “The course has focused not just on drones and how to fly them but also has made us aware of the FAA rules and regulations about drone flying and safety precautions.

“My research has been in glaciology, with the study of icebergs in Greenland. The drone mapping course has provided new insights into incorporating it with my research in the near future.”

The course, offered annually during the fall semester, is designed to teach students about the rapidly growing technology of small unmanned aerial systems, referred to as drones, and its wide-ranging applications — which include search-and-rescue, real estate and environmental monitoring.

Students in the course come from a variety of disciplines including geography & atmospheric science, geology, ecology & evolutionary biology and civil engineering. Enthusiasm for the course has been very high, and it has filled rapidly each time it has been offered.

Organization: KansasView
Modeling and Visualizing Ecosystem Services for 3D Urban Planning

This study integrated ecosystem services (ES) and 3D geo-visualization with urban design practices to inform future development in Pocatello, Idaho. Pocatello is a medium-sized city in southeastern Idaho that faces a range of challenges for sustainable future growth. It is important to understand what different urban designs can contribute to local ES. The objectives for this study were: building a 3D model for Pocatello Old Town, integrating key attributes in the model for planning and geodesign, visualizing in 3D using VR, and WebGL, and further, creating and analyzing the changes on local ES via future scenarios.The results showed that planting more treesand replacing impervious parking lots with green parking lots could reduce land surface temperature and improve air quality by removing particulate matter. With this approach, the decision makers in the City of Pocatello can analyze future scenarios both visually and statistically.

Organization: IdahoView
From pixel to yield: forecasting potato productivity in Lebanon and Idaho

 Idaho and Lebanon rely on potatoes as an economically important crop. NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), GNDVI (Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), SAVI (Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index), and MSAVI2 (Modified Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index 2) indices were calculated from PlanetScope satellite imagery for the 2017 growing season cloud free days. Variations in vegetation health were tracked over time and correlated to yield data provided by growers in Idaho. Based on ordinary least squares regression an Idaho yield forecast model was developed. Vegetation response during the growth stage at which potato tubers were filling out was significant in predicting yield for both the Norkotah and Russet potato variety. This corresponded to a week with high recorded temperatures that impacted the health status of the crops. The yield forecasting model was validated with a cross validation approach and then applied to potato fields in Lebanon. The Idaho model successfully displayed yield variation in crops for Lebanon. Spectral indices along with field topography allow the prediction of yield based on the crop type and variety.

Organization: IdahoView
Land Cover Change and Habitat Monitoring of Columbian Sharp- tailed Grouse in Southeast Idaho

Anthropogenic forces of land use and land cover change have affected Columbian Sharp-tailed grouse habitats in southeastern Idaho over the past century, with the assumption that the decline in bird counts at lek sites relates to the increase and distribution of agricultural operations. This study performed an analysis of areas surrounding lek locations to highlight the effect that land management practices have on grouse habitat. This work examines land cover change between 2001 and 2016 using the National Land Cover Dataset to evaluate the relationship between the change in bird counts at 69 lek sites and the reduction in habitat. For the time period there was a 5.8% change to agriculture resulting in no significant correlation between lek count numbers andland cover change. Smallunmanned aerial systems (sUAS) equipped with hyperspectral sensors were deployed to map and classify the vegetative composition, resulting in high resolution habitat maps



Organization: IdahoView
Applications of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Best Practices and Case Studies

Chapter 6: sUAS for Wildlife Conservation – Assessing Habitat Quality of the Endangered Black-Footed Ferret

Donna M. Delparte, Kristy Bly, Travis Stone, Sarah Olimb, Michael Kinsey, Matthew Belt, Thomas Calton

Advances in high spatial resolution mapping capabilities and the new rules established by the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States for the operation of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) have provided new opportunities to acquire aerial data at a lower cost and more safely versus other methods. A similar opening of the skies for sUAS applications is being allowed in countries across the world. Also, sUAS can access hazardous or inaccessible areas during disaster events and provide rapid response when needed. Applications of Small Unmanned Aircraft systems: Best Practices and Case Studies is the first book that brings together the best practices of sUAS applied to a broad range of issues in high spatial resolution mapping projects. Very few sUAS pilots have the knowledge of how the collected imagery is processed into value added mapping products that have commercial and/or academic import. Since the field of sUAS applications is just a few years old, this book covers the need for a compendium of case studies to guide the planning, data collection, and most importantly data processing and map error issues, with the range of sensors available to the user community.

Written by experienced academics and professionals, this book serves as a guide on how to formulate sUAS based projects, from choice of a sUAS, flight planning for a particular application, sensors and data acquisition, data processing software, mapping software and use of the high spatial resolution maps produced for particular types of geospatial modeling.

Organization: IdahoView
Utilizing Sentinel-2 Satellite Imagery for Precision Agriculture over Potato Fields in Lebanon

Lebanon has traditionally been a major potato producer with 451,860 tons produced in 2014. Generally, potatoes make
up 30% of the total Lebanese agricultural exports where approximately 60% of the potato production is exported to
the Arab region, the UK and Brazil. The purpose of this study is to promote precision agriculture techniques in
Lebanon that will help local farmers in the central Bekaa Valley with land management decisions. The European
Space Agency’s satellite missions Sentinel-2A, launched June 23rd 2015, and the Sentinel-2B, recently launched on
March 7th 2017, are multispectral high resolution imaging systems that provide global coverage every 5 days. The
Sentinel program is a land monitoring program that includes an aim to improve agricultural practices. The imagery is
13 band data in the visible, near infrared and short wave infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and ranges
from 10-20 m including three 60 m bands pixel resolution. Sentinel is freely available data that has the potential to
empower farmers with information to respond quickly to maximize crop health. Due to the political and security
conflicts in the region, utilizing satellite imagery for Lebanon is more reasonable and realistic than operating
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for high resolution remote sensing. During the 2017 growing season, local farmers
provided detailed information in designated fields on their farming practices, crop health, and pest threats. In parallel,
Sentinel-2 imagery was processed to study crop health using the following vegetation indices: Normalized Difference
Vegetation Index, Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index and Modified Soil
Adjusted Vegetation Index 2. Most Lebanese farmers inherit their land from their parents over generations, and as a
result most still use traditional farming techniques for irrigation, where decisions are based on prior generations’
practices. However, with the changes in climate conditions within the region, these practices are no longer as efficient
as they used to be. Normalized Difference Water Indices are calculated from satellite bands in the near-infrared and
short-wave infrared to provide a better understanding about the water stress status of crops within the field. Preliminary
results demonstrate that Sentinel-2 data can provide detailed and timely data for farmers to effectively manage fields.
Despite the fact that most Lebanese farmers rely on traditional farming methods, providing them with crop health
information on their mobile phones and allowing them to test its efficiency has the potential to be a catalyst to help
them improve their farming practices. 

Organization: IdahoView
sUAS:  Mastering the Aeronautical Charts

This video tutorial series (6 videos) provides an introduction to VFR sectionals for unmanned aerial systems operators. These videos are appropriate for individuals who are learning about VFR sectionals in preparation for the FAA Remote Pilot Certification.  The videos are appropriate for professionals, as well as high school drone clubs.  Each video is between between 6 - 9.5 minutes in length.  

Organization: VirginiaView
Precision Agriculture for Improving Potato Crop Management in Lebanon

High spatial and temporal resolution satellite imagery provides a reliable resource for crop monitoring throughout the growing season. Spectral indices including NDVI, SAVI and NDWI deliver crucial information about crop health to aid growers with decision making for precision agriculture practices. These vegetation and water indices show crops’ response to changing weather conditions and indicate critical times where extra irrigation or nutrients are needed. NDVI and slope are critical indicators for yield prediction. Using the Idaho potato yield data and taking into consideration different potato varieties, we are able to predict yield values for crops in Lebanon.

Organization: IdahoView
Satellite-Based Fire Progression Mapping: A Comprehensive Assessment for Large Fires in Northern California

Satellite-based active fire (AF) products provide opportunities for constructing continuous fire progression maps, a critical dataset needed for improved fire behavior modeling and fire management. This study aims to investigate the geospatial interpolation techniques in mapping the daily fire progression and assess the accuracy of the derived maps from multisensor AF products. We focused on 42 large wildfires greater than 5000 acres in Northern California from 2017 to 2018, where the USDA Forest Service National Infrared Operations (NIROPS) daily fire perimeters were available for the comparison. The standard AF products from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS), the visible infrared imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS), and the combined products were used as inputs. We found that the estimated fire progression areas generated by the natural neighbor method with the combined MODIS and VIIRS AF input layers performed the best, with R 2 of 0.7 ± 0.31 and RMSE of 1.25 ± 1.21 (10 3 acres) at a daily time scale; the accuracy was higher when assessed at a two-day rolling window, e.g., R 2 of 0.83 ± 0.20 and RMSE of 0.74 ± 0.94 (10 3 acres). A relatively higher spatial accuracy was found using the 375 m VIIRS AF product as inputs, with a kappa score of 0.55 and an overall accuracy score of 0.59, when interpolated with the natural neighbor method. Furthermore, the locational pixel-based comparison showed 61% matched to a single day and an additional 25% explained within ±1 day of the estimation, revealing greater confidence in fire progression estimation at a two-day moving time interval. This study demonstrated the efficacy and potential improvements of daily fire progression mapping at local and regional scales.

Organization: CaliforniaView