Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Remote Sensing
Can multi-scale thermal infrared imaging help validate and monitor water stress in alluvial forests?
Published: 2024-04-13
Subjects: Geomorphology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Alluvial forests are fragile and sensitive to drought induced by climate change and exacerbated by altered flow regimes. Our ability to detect and map their sensitivity to drought is therefore crucial to evaluate the effects of climate change and adjust management practices. In such a context, we explore the potential of multi-scale thermal infrared imagery (TIR) to diagnose the sensitivity of [...]
Satellite-based surveys reveal substantial methane point-source emissions in major oil & gas basins of North America during 2022-2023
Published: 2024-02-28
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Remote Sensing
Utilizing imaging spectroscopy technology to identify methane super-emitters plays a vital role in mitigating methane emissions in the Oil & Gas (O&G) sector. While earlier research has uncovered significant point-source methane emissions from O&G production in the US and Canada, which are key regions with large methane emissions, a comprehensive post-COVID-19 survey has been notably [...]
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., [...]
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 [...]
Assessing vertical accuracy and spatial coverage of ICESat-2 and GEDI spaceborne lidar for creating global terrain models
Published: 2023-07-06
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Geomorphology, Remote Sensing
Digital elevation models (DEMs) are a necessity for modelling many large-scale environmental processes. In this study, we investigate the potential of two spaceborne lidar altimetry instruments, ICESat-2 and GEDI—with respect to their vertical accuracies and planimetric data collection patterns—as sources for rasterisation towards global DEMs. We validate the terrain measurements of both missions [...]
Lidar-based MaxEnt models to support conservation planning for endangered Red-cockaded Woodpeckers in urbanizing environments
Published: 2023-05-28
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Sensitive and intensively managed species require carefully thought-out management plans to promote and maintain specific habitat conditions. Urban features and land-use change must be assimilated into these habitat management plans, as they become increasingly present globally. As a case study, several MaxEnt species distribution models were developed that could enable habitat management efforts [...]
Limitations in the Landsat satellite archive bias SDG monitoring
Published: 2023-05-19
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Sustainability
Satellite remote sensing is vital for monitoring, research, and policy addressing sustainability challenges from climate and ecosystem changes to food and water security. Here, Landsat satellite data play a crucial role, thanks to their unique global, long-term, and high-resolution coverage. Yet, gaps and quality limitations in the Landsat data archive may propagate into derived remote-sensing [...]
Estimating cooling capacities from aerial images using convolutional neural networks
Published: 2023-04-17
Subjects: Remote Sensing
In recent decades, the global cooling demand has significantly increased and is expected to grow even further in the future. However, knowledge regarding the spatial distribution of cooling demand is sparse. Most existing studies are based on statistical modelling, which lack in small-scale details and cannot accurately identify individual large cooling producers. In this study, we implement and [...]
A high-resolution temporal framework to understand the reach-scale controls on wood budgeting
Published: 2023-04-07
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Large active channels usually store more wood than channels with a narrow flow because of the availability of large unvegetated bars for wood deposition and inner functioning that usually supplies more wood through channel shifting. However, the dynamics of the wood supply (wood input, output, or stability) can vary substantially over time and the drivers are largely unknown. To explore them, we [...]
Rapid seaward expansion of seaport footprints worldwide
Published: 2023-02-25
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Geographic Information Sciences, Geomorphology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Sustainability
As global maritime traffic increases, seaports grow to accommodate and compete for higher volumes of trade throughput. However, growth trajectories of seaport footprints around the world have gone unmeasured, likely because of a lack of readily available spatio-temporal data. Here, we use geospatial analysis of global satellite imagery from 1990–2020 to show that 65 seaports among the world's top [...]
Fisher Discriminant Analysis for Extracting Interpretable Phenological Information from Multivariate Time Series Data
Published: 2022-10-24
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Remote Sensing
For many applications in environmental remote sensing, the interpretation of a given measurement depends strongly on what time of year the measurement was taken. This is particularly the case for phenology studies concerned with identifying when plant developmental transitions occur, but it is also true for a wide range of applications including vegetation species classification, crop yield [...]
The Openscapes Flywheel: A framework for managers to facilitate and scale inclusive Open science practices
Published: 2022-10-10
Subjects: Adult and Continuing Education, Environmental Studies, Remote Sensing
Solutions to large-scale environmental and social challenges require radical collaboration that blends technology and people — and the Open science movement is answering that call by transforming how we work together. While often the focus is on data, publications, code, software developers, and researchers, the transition to Open involves investment across agencies and organizations of all [...]
Developing seagrass index for long term monitoring of Zostera japonica seagrass bed: a case study in Yellow River Delta, China
Published: 2022-06-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Seagrass beds offer unique and vital ecological services as an important blue carbon ecosystem in coastal wetlands. Zostera japonica is an intertidal seagrass species native to eastern Asia and is one of the most widely distributed seagrass species in China. However, little is known on the long-term variations of Z. japonica extents. Automatic mapping method for Z. japonica seagrass beds is in [...]
Contemporary Remote Sensing Tools for Integrated Assessment and Conservation Planning of Ice-free Antarctica
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Natural Resources and Conservation, Remote Sensing
Monitoring and understanding Antarctica is critical for conservation of its values. Remote sensing has been increasingly employed to observe large areas at higher frequency than traditional monitoring methods, enabling systematic assessments at low cost. However, currently there are limitations in the ability of the available remote sensing tools to answer the most pressing scientific, [...]
Cutting down trees does not build prosperity: On the continued decoupling of Amazon deforestation and economic development in 21st century Brazil
Published: 2022-05-13
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Forest Management, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Remote Sensing
Background and aims: We present evidence examining spatial and temporal patterns in forest cover changes and economic progress in Brazilian Amazonia. Specifically we tested two predictions embedded in arguments used by influential interest groups: i) where there is less forest cover economic progress should increase and ii) areas with most recent deforestation should have increased economic [...]