Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geographic Information Sciences
Global drivers of forest loss at 1 km resolution
Published: 2024-12-20
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing
Forests are in decline worldwide due to human activities such as agricultural expansion, urbanization, and mineral extraction. Forest loss due to generally temporary causes, such as wildfire and forest management, is important to distinguish from permanent land use conversion due to the differing ecological and climate impacts of these disturbances and for the purposes of developing effective [...]
Virtual laser scanning of dynamic scenes (VLS-4D): Current approaches and future perspectives in remote sensing
Published: 2024-10-07
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Virtual laser scanning (VLS) has proven to be a useful tool for survey planning, method development and training data generation in a variety of areas of Earth and environmental sciences. Until recently, most applications have used static representations of the real or a fictive environment, neglecting the inherent dynamics of our world, that also affect Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) [...]
Comprehensive Assessment of Flood Risk and Vulnerability for Essential Facilities: Iowa Case Study
Published: 2024-08-02
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science
Of all natural disasters that occur on this planet, flood events are universally one of the most common and most destructive. As climate change and human actions continue to cause the occurrence of flood events to rise, it becomes increasingly important that the effects of flooding are analyzed and understood. In this study, nine different types of critical amenities in the state of Iowa (such as [...]
River Morphology Information System: A Web Cyberinfrastructure for Advancing River Morphology Research
Published: 2024-05-23
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Databases and Information Systems, Geographic Information Sciences, Software Engineering
The study and management of river systems are increasingly challenged by the complexity and volume of data required to understand and predict river morphology changes. The River Morphology Information System (RIMORPHIS) is introduced as a transformative solution to these challenges, serving as an open-access web-based cyberinfrastructure designed to enable advanced research in river morphology [...]
The Challenges of Line Buffers: Issues and Methods
Published: 2024-02-15
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences
This paper discusses the challenges of flat-cap and other linestring buffers, emphasizing automated applications. The pitfalls of existing implementations are introduced, stemming from the lack of a satisfactory flat-cap buffer definition. The buffers’ roots in computational geometry are explored. Several candidate methods for robust buffer construction are described, and a novel method is [...]
Land transformation on multi-decadal timescales reveals expanding croplands and settlements at the expense of tree-covered areas and mangroves in Nigeria
Published: 2024-01-10
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Sustainability
Evaluating how land-cover is being transformed is essential to identify patterns necessary to infer the change trajectories and the driving factors. This study considers the case of Nigeria, where various natural ecosystems are being converted and for which a current national scale assessment is lacking. Producing Landsat-based time-series, we analyze change among land-cover types (i.e., [...]
Pygoda: a graphical interface to efficiently visualise and explore large sets of geolocated time series
Published: 2023-10-24
Subjects: Categorical Data Analysis, Climate, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Fresh Water Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces, Hydrology, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Statistics and Probability, Spatial Science
Modern-day data sets in geosciences may comprise hundreds or thousands of geolocated time series. Despite all the automated tools and new algorithms now available to process and prepare those data before using them in research projects, it can be useful or even necessary to visualise and investigate them manually. Whether it be for data quality assessment, for the preparation of a training data [...]
Mapping the Landscape of Water and Society Research: Promising Combinations of Compatible and Complementary Disciplines
Published: 2023-10-13
Subjects: Environmental Education, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Human Geography, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Spatial Science, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Coupled human-water systems (CHWS) are diverse and have been studied across a wide variety of disciplines. Integrating multiple disciplinary perspectives on CHWS provides a comprehensive and actionable understanding of these complex systems. While interdisciplinary integration has often remained elusive, specific combinations of disciplines might be comparably easier to integrate (compatible) [...]
Large-scale green grabbing for wind and solar PV development in Brazil
Published: 2023-08-22
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Large-scale wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) infrastructures are expanding rapidly in Brazil. These projects can exacerbate struggles for land rooted in weak land governance, with negative impacts for traditional populations due to loss of access to common lands. Here, we trace how green grabbing, i.e. the large-scale appropriation and control of (undesignated) public lands, both formally legal [...]
Information Sharing: The Missing Ingredient in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy of Pakistan-Agriculture Perspective
Published: 2023-08-22
Subjects: Agriculture, Food Science, Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the important role of information sharing in advancing innovation that is presently missing in National Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy of Pakistan approved in 2012. Information is a key resource for making innovations in science, technology and policies. Like other countries of the world, almost all government departments in Pakistan [...]
Social Vulnerability and Climate Risk Assessment for Agricultural Communities in The United States
Published: 2023-08-18
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Geographic Information Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Risk Analysis, Spatial Science
Floods and droughts significantly affect agricultural activities and pose a threat to food security by subsequently reducing agricultural production. The impact of flood events is distributed disproportionately among agricultural communities based on their socio-economic fabric. Understanding climate-related hazards is critical for planning mitigation measures to secure vulnerable communities. [...]
A Web-based Decision Support Framework for Optimizing Road Network Accessibility and Emergency Facility Allocation During Flooding
Published: 2023-08-03
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Risk Analysis
Transportation systems can be significantly affected by flooding, leading to physical damage and subsequent adverse impacts such as increased travel distance to essential services. Even though flooding is a frequently recurring phenomenon that can affect thousands of people per event, there are limited accessible online tools available for analyzing and visualizing flood risk for supporting [...]
OpenStreetMap for Multi-Faceted Climate Risk Assessments
Published: 2023-06-29
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Risk Analysis
Natural hazards pose significant risks to human lives, infrastructure, and ecosystems, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of climate risks for effective adaptation planning and risk management. However, climate risk assessments mostly focus on economic asset values and infrastructures such as roads and buildings, because publicly available data on more diverse exposures are scarce. The [...]
Towards Understanding the Geospatial Skills of ChatGPT: Taking a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Exam
Published: 2023-06-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Higher Education, Other Geography, Science and Mathematics Education, Spatial Science
This paper examines the performance of ChatGPT, a large language model (LLM), in a geographic information systems (GIS) exam. As LLMs like ChatGPT become increasingly prevalent in various domains, including education, it is important to understand their capabilities and limitations in specialized subject areas such as GIS. Human learning of spatial concepts significantly differs from LLM training [...]
ChatGPT as a mapping assistant: A novel method to enrich maps with generative AI and content derived from street-level photographs
Published: 2023-06-06
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Other Computer Sciences, Other Geography, Spatial Science
This paper explores the concept of leveraging generative AI as a mapping assistant for enhancing the efficiency of collaborative mapping. We present results of an experiment that combines multiple sources of volunteered geographic information (VGI) and large language models (LLMs). Three analysts described the content of crowdsourced Mapillary street-level photographs taken along roads in a small [...]