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There has been controversy regarding the air pollutants emitted from sources closely related to the activities of daily life in China, such as cooking, setting off fireworks, sacrificial incense and joss paper burning, and barbecue (which have been named the five missing sources – FMSs), and the extent to which they impact the outdoor air quality. To date, due to the lack of both an activity dataset and emission factors, there have been no estimations of the emission of air pollutants from FMSs. In this work, we have attempted to combine questionnaire data, various statistical data, and data on points of interest to obtain a relatively complete set of activity data. The emission factors (EFs) of carbonaceous aerosols were tested in our lab. Emission inventories of carbonaceous aerosols with a high spatial–temporal resolution for FMSs were then established, and the spatial variation trend and driving forces were discussed. From 2000 to 2018, organic carbon (OC) emissions were in the range of 4268–4919 t. OC emissions from FMSs were between 1.5 ‰ and 2.2 ‰ of the total emissions in China. Black carbon (BC), elemental carbon (EC), and brown carbon (BrC) absorption cross-section (ACS BrC) emissions from FMSs were in the ranges of 22.6–43.9 t, 213–324 t, and 14.7–35.6 Gm 2 , respectively. Their emissions tended to be concentrated in certain periods and areas. The OC emission intensities in central urban areas were 3.85–50.5 times those in rural areas (due to the high density of human activity), while the ACS BrC emissions in rural regions accounted for 63.0–79.5 % of the total emissions (resulting from uncontrolled fireworks). A mass of fireworks led to much higher ACS BrC and EC emissions on Chinese New Year's Eve, with respective values that were 1444 and 262 times their corresponding yearly averages. Significant (p<0.01) correlations between the population's income and pollutant emissions were also found: these correlations were positive (r=0.94) and negative (r=-0.94) for urban and rural regions, respectively, indicating the necessity to regulate residents' lifestyles and increase residents' income in respective urban and rural regions. This study provides firsthand data to identify emissions, variation trends, and impacting factors from the FMSs. This is helpful for modeling works on air quality, the climate effect, and human health risks during specific periods or in specific regions as well as for modifying emission control policies. The data compiled in this work can found at 10.6084/m9.figshare.19999991.v2 (Cheng et al., 2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been controversy about the air pollutants emitted from sources closely related to people's daily life (such as cooking, fireworks burning, sacrificial incenses and joss paper burning, and barbecue, named as five missing sources, FMS) impacting the outdoor air quality to what extent. Till now, there is no emission estimation of air pollutants from FMS, as the missing of both activity dataset and emission factors. We attempted to combine the questionnaire data, various statistical data, and data of points of interest to obtain a relatively complete set of activity data. The emission factors (EFs) of carbonaceous aerosols were tested in our lab. Then, the emission inventories of carbonaceous aerosol with the high spatial-temporal resolution for FMS were established firstly, and the spatial-variation trend and driving forces were discussed. From 2000 to 2018, organic carbon (OC) increased from 4268 t to 4919 t. The OC emission from FMS was 1.48-2.18 - of its total emission in China. The emissions of black carbon, element carbon (EC), and brown carbon absorption cross-section (ACSBrC) emissions from FMS were in the ranges of 22.6-43.9 t, 213-324 t, and 14.7-35.6 Gm2, respectively. Their emissions tended to concentrate in special periods and areas. The OC emission intensities in central urban areas were 3.85-50.5 times that of rural areas due to the high density of human activities. While the ACSBrC emissions in rural regions accounted for 63.0-79.5% of the total emission result from uncontrolled fireworks burning. A mass of fireworks burning led to extremely higher ACSBrC and EC emissions on Chinese New Year's eve, as 1444 and 262 times their corresponding yearly average values. Interestingly, significant (p<0.01) correlations between human incomes and pollutant emissions were found, but they were positive (r = 0.94) and negative (r = -0.94) for urban and rural regions, indicating the necessity of regulating human lifestyle and increasing income for urban and rural peoples, respectively. This study provided the first-hand data for identifying the emissions, variation trends and impacting factors of FMS, which is helpful for modeling works on air quality, climate effect, and human health risks at specific periods or regions and for modifying their emission control policies. The data in this work could be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19999991.v1 (Cheng et al., 2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 3D building models, a large number of texture maps with different sizes increase the number of model data loading and drawing batches, which greatly reduces the drawing efficiency of the model. Therefore, this paper proposes a texture set mapping method based on vertex importance. Firstly, based on the 2D space boxing algorithm, the texture maps are merged and a series of Mipmap texture maps are generated, and then the vertex curvature, texture variability and location information of each vertex are calculated, normalized, and weighted to get the importance of each vertex, and then finally, different Mipmap-level textures are remapped according to the importance of the vertices. The experiment proves that the algorithm in this paper can reduce the amount of texture data on the one hand, and avoid the rendering pressure brought by the still large amount of data after merging on the other hand, so as to improve the rendering efficiency of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technological methods for digital documentation and the experimental best practice standards used to document and describe the many artistic objects determine the challenges and the numerous uses of today's cultural heritage.Because of this, it's crucial to preserve heritage by documenting it consciously and using conservation techniques that don't diminish or affect its worth. The study examines the issues we faced in disseminating all of the technical content we have, rather than focusing on the general importance of digital data for the technical staff. To share our heritage, we must make the digital legacy we have built over the last twenty years accessible. Starting from practical examples of dissemination projects in the context of conservation items, the analysis discusses an investigation into the findings and disciplinary culture that have resulted from research conducted by academics in the field of digital heritage on papers, conferences and EU projects produced and conducted between 2018 and 2022. The paper reviews the digital cultural heritage framework outlined by research up to this point.Our findings demonstrate that, despite the fact that the DCH area is constantly changing, we still primarily consider the technical side of digital without considering it as a genuine possibility for openness and sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to prepare a cellulose paper that was impregnated with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) for the purpose of water purification (disinfection and filtration). AgNP papers were prepared by chemical reduction of silver nitrate (AgNO3) with various concentrations (0.005 M , 0.015 M , 0.03 M , and 0.05 M) using sodium borohydride (NaBH4) as a reducing agent. Two ratios for NaBH4/AgNO3 of 2:1 and 10:1 were used to show the effect of reduction on the formation and removal efficiencies of AgNPs. AgNP papers were characterized using scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. An acid digestion using HCl acid followed by analyzing the samples in an atomic absorption spectrometer (ASS) was conducted to measure the silver concentration in AgNP papers. TEM images showed that the silver nanoparticle size in the papers varied from 1.3 to 75 nm. Water samples, after filtration through AgNP papers, were analyzed using ASS to measure the silver concentration in the effluent water. AgNP paper antibacterial efficiency ranged from 99 % to 100 % for both reduction ratios. The average silver content in the effluent water for the three replicates ranged from 0 to 0.082 mgL-1 , which meets the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) guideline for drinking water of less than 0.1 mgL-1. Turbidity tests showed that these papers can be usefully used as point-of-use filters as the turbidity reduced to less than 1 NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Units). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report key elements and figures related to the proceedings of the 2021 edition of the XXIVth ISPRS Congress. Similarly to 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused global travel challenges and restrictions for the first half of 2021. Consequently, the physical Congress re-scheduled from June 2020 to July 2021 was again postponed to June 2022, still in Nice (France). Papers were already submitted and the ISPRS Council decided to carry out the review process and the publication of the proceedings of the papers submitted under the label "2021 Edition". The authors of published papers had the opportunity to present their work during a Digital Event, this year scheduled the same week as the planned Congress (5–9 July 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct measurement of the acidity (pH) of ambient aerosol particles/droplets has long been a challenge for atmospheric scientists. A novel and facile method was introduced recently by Craig et al. (2018), where the pH of size-resolved aerosol droplets was directly measured by two types of pH-indicator papers (pH ranges: 0–2.5 and 2.5–4.5) combined with RGB-based colorimetric analyses using a model of G-B (G minus B) vs. pH2. Given the wide pH range of ambient aerosols, we optimize the RGB-based colorimetric analysis on pH papers with a wider detection range (pH ∼ 0 to 6). Here, we propose a new model to establish the linear relationship between RGB values and pH: pHpredict = a⋅Rnormal+b⋅Gnormal+c⋅Bnormal. This model shows a wider applicability and higher accuracy than those in previous studies and is thus recommended in future RGB-based colorimetric analyses on pH papers. Moreover, we identify one type of pH paper (Hydrion® Brilliant pH dip stiks, lot no. 3110, Sigma-Aldrich) that is more applicable for ambient aerosols in terms of its wide pH detection range (0 to 6) and strong anti-interference capacity. Custom-made impactors are used to collect lab-generated aerosols on this type of pH paper. Preliminary tests show that, with a collected particle size range of ∼ 0.4–2.2 µm , the pH paper method can be used to predict aerosol pH with an overall uncertainty ≤ 0.5 units. Based on laboratory tests, a relatively short sampling time (∼ 1 to 4 h) is speculated for pH prediction of ambient aerosols. More importantly, our design of the impactors minimizes potential influences of changed environmental conditions during pH paper photographing processes on the predicted aerosol pH. We further show that the routinely adopted way of using pH color charts to predict aerosol pH may be biased by the mismatch between the standard colors on the color charts and the real colors of investigated samples. Thus, instead of using the producer-provided color charts, we suggest an in situ calibration of pH papers with standard pH buffers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to prepare a cellulose paper was impregnated with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) for the purpose of water purification (Disinfection (removal of Escherichia Coli, Staphylococcus Aureus, Enterococcus Faecalis, Enterobacter Aerogenes, Klebsiella Pneumoniae, and Proteus mirabilis) and filtration). AgNPs papers were prepared by chemical reduction of silver nitrate (AgNO3) with various concentrations (0.005 M, 0.015 M, 0.03 M, and 0.05 M) using sodium borohydride (NaBH4) as a reducing agent. Two ratios of NaBH4 / AgNO3 of 2 : 1 and 10 : 1 were used to show the effect of reduction on the formation and removal efficiencies of AgNPs. AgNPs papers were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). An acid digestion using HCL acid followed by analyzing the samples in Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (ASS) was conducted to measure the silver concentration in AgNPs papers. TEM images showed that the silver nanoparticles size in the papers varies from 1.3 to 75 nm. Water samples, after filtration through AgNPs papers, were analyzed using (ASS) to measure the silver concentration in the effluent water. AgNPs paper antibacterial efficiency ranged (99 % to 100 %) for both reduction ratios. The average silver content in the effluent water for the three replicates ranged from 0 to 0.082 mg/L which meets the United States- Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) guideline for drinking water of less than 0.1 mg/L Turbidity tests showed that these papers can be usefully used as a point of use filters as the turbidity reduced to less than 1 NTU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct measurement of the acidity (pH) of ambient aerosol particles/droplets has long been a challenge for atmospheric scientists. A novel and facile method was introduced recently by Craig et al. (2018), where the pH of size-resolved aerosol droplets was directly measured by two types of pH-indicator papers (pH ranges: 0–2.5 and 2.5–4.5) combined with RGB-based colorimetric analyses using a model of G − B (G minus B) versus pH². Given the wide pH range of ambient aerosols, we optimize the RGB-based colorimetric analysis on pH papers with a wider detection range (pH ~ 0 to 6). Here, we propose a new model to establish the linear relationship between RGB values and pH: pHpredict = a × Rnormal + b × Gnormal + c × Bnormal. This model shows a wider applicability and higher accuracy than those in previous studies, and is thus recommended in future RGB-based colorimetric analyses on pH papers. Moreover, we identify one type of pH paper (Hydrion® Brilliant pH dip stiks, Lot Nr. 3110, Sigma-Aldrich) that is more applicable for ambient aerosols in terms of its wide pH detection range (0 to 6) and strong anti-interference capacity. The determined minimum sample mass (~ 180 μg) highlights its potential to predict aerosol pH with a high time resolution (e.g., ≤ 1 hour). We further show that the routinely adopted way of using pH color charts to predict aerosol pH may be biased by the mismatch between the standard colors on the color charts and the real colors of investigated samples. Thus, instead of using the producer-provided color chart, we suggest an in-situ calibration of pH papers with standard pH buffers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report key elements and figures related to the proceedings of the 2020 edition of the XXIVth ISPRS Congress. The COVID-19 pandemic causes global travel challenges and restrictions for the full year 2020. Consequently, the Congress planned in June 2020 in Nice (France) was postponed to July 2021. Papers were already submitted and the review process was almost complete. Thus, it has been decided to achieve the publication of the proceedings of these papers under the label "2020 Edition". The authors of published papers have the opportunity to present their work during a Virtual Event (31 August – 2 September 2020), while the papers of the 2021 edition will be presented during the (physical) Congress in July 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims on an exploration of recent applications of drones in the Malaysian context. More specifically, to investigate the drone's application status and application areas. To search the academic literature and identify the included documents, we have followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. We conducted an overview study of the total number of 54 documents (out of 202) published since 2018, which were extracted from the Scopus database. The results of the bibliometric analysis of the included documents showed that drones in Malaysia are applied in different disciplines, including agriculture, mapping, forestry, river monitoring, transportation, construction, coastal management, flood management, and other applications. Among these, agriculture and mapping are the main application areas. MDPI published the most journal articles, and IGRSM conferences published the highest number of conference papers. Furthermore, scholars from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia have the highest contribution among others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores digital education for pupils in a humanities teaching-learning lab. So far, digital humanities educational approaches have been primarily aimed at students. Teaching-learning labs, in which students design, implement and evaluate teaching offers for pupils, have so far almost exclusively existed in STEM subjects.Based on a classification in European frameworks and a literature analysis on teaching-learning labs of digital history education, the current state of the art on the topic is elucidated. Using concrete practical examples, the first results of involving students in digital history projects will be presented and suitable digital tools for teaching humanities content will be introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the first initiatives taken by the International Programme Committee of the XXIIIrd ISPRS Congress in Prague (Czech Republic) in 2016, modifications of the reviewing process of ISPRS events were further considered during the years 2017 and 2018. This evolution first targets to better fit such a process to the currents requirements and expectations of the ISPRS community. Secondly, it aims to provide unified guidelines for the different steps of the process. Under the aegis of the 2020 Congress Director and ISAC (International Science Advisory Committee) chair, several discussions were held in-between September 2017 and June 2018 with ISAC members, Technical Commission Presidents (TCP), council members, 2016 and 2020 Congress Programme Chairs. This document serves as a unique transparent basis that applies for all kinds of ISPRS events (from Congress and Geospatial Week to smaller workshops), and all categories of people that are bound to be involved in the evaluation process of scientific contributions (authors, reviewers, TCPs, …). It also specifies the evaluation criteria for the works submitted to ISPRS events, both for full papers and abstracts. Subsequently, it helps authors to improve the content and shape of their contributions. Eventually, this paper is targeted to help new chairs to smoothly prepare their future event. The following guidelines were first adopted for the 2018 Technical Commission Symposia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is experiencing an unprecedented rate of urbanisation, with 70% of its population expected to live in urban cities by 2050 (United Nations, 2018). This is driving demand for smart city development projects, that address city related issues such as traffic congestion, inadequate housing, excessive crime rates, strains on utilities like energy and water, amongst others. The volume and analysis of data associated with these activities, call for a mechanism for managing data in smart cities.This paper is aimed at developing a data governance framework for managing data generated by smart cities, and improving the way they operate as well as the quality of life of their citizens. The paper will highlight the characteristics of smart cities, the importance for cities to become smart, how the smartness of cities can be measured, and which cities around the world are considered smart. It will also discuss why data is important for the success of smart cities, the types and sources of data typically present in smart city settings and the data management challenges that plague smart cities globally.A sequential mixed methods research approach incorporating qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods was employed, following a multi-step approach starting with analysis of existing frameworks and interviews with subject matter experts. This was followed by a survey of industry professionals, for insights on key framework components, and the use of case studies and questionnaires for framework evaluation.Throughout the research process, the focus of smart cities on people rather than technology was prominent. As such, the most important theme of the framework was identified as "People", particularly in their roles as data stewards and data owners. The remaining five themes of the recommended data governance framework are, Process, Technology, Data, Protection and Valuable Insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peatland restoration and rehabilitation action has become more widely acknowledged as a necessary response to mitigating climate change risks and improving global carbon storage. Peatland ecosystems require restoration time spans of the order of decades and, thus, cannot be dependent upon the shorter-term monitoring often carried out in research projects. Hydrological assessments using geospatial tools provide the basis for planning restoration works as well as analysing associated environmental influences. "Restoration" encompasses applications to pre-restoration and post-restoration scenarios for both bogs and fens, across a range of environmental impact fields. The aim of this scoping review is to identify, describe, and categorize current process-based modelling uses in peatlands in order to investigate the applicability and appropriateness of ecohydrological and/or hydrological models for northern peatland restoration. Two literature searches were conducted using the entire Web of Science database in September 2022 and August 2023. Of the final 211 papers included in the review, models and their applications were categorized according to this review's research interests in seven distinct categories aggregating the papers' research themes and model outputs. Restoration site context was added by identifying 229 unique study site locations from the full database, which were catalogued and analysed against raster data for the Köppen–Geiger climate classification scheme. A majority of northern peatland sites were in temperate oceanic zones or humid continental zones that experienced snow. Over one in five models from the full database of papers were unnamed and likely intended for single use. Key themes emerging from topics covered by papers in the database included the following: modelling restoration development from a bog growth perspective, the prioritization of modelling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions dynamics as a part of policymaking, the importance of spatial connectivity within or alongside process-based models to represent heterogeneous systems, and the increased prevalence of remote sensing and machine learning techniques to predict restoration progress with little physical site intervention. Models are presented according to their application to peatlands or broader ecosystem and organized from most to least complex. This review provides valuable context for the application of ecohydrological models in determining strategies for peatland restoration and evaluating post-intervention development over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a semi-quantitative assessment of the physical vulnerability of buildings to landslides in the Loures municipality, as well as an analysis of the landslide risk computed as the product of the vulnerability by the economic value of the buildings and by the landslide hazard. The physical vulnerability assessment, which was based on a questionnaire sent to a pool of Portuguese and European researchers, and the assessment of the subjectivity of their answers are innovative contributions of this work. The generalization of the vulnerability to the smallest statistical subsection was validated by changing the map unit and applying the vulnerability to all the buildings of a test site (approximately 800 buildings), which were inventoried during fieldwork. The economic value of the buildings of the Loures municipality was calculated using an adaptation of the Portuguese Tax Services formula. The hazard was assessed by combining the susceptibility of the slopes, the spatio-temporal probability and the frequency-magnitude relationship of the landslide. Finally, the risk was mapped for different landslide magni15 tudes and different spatio-temporal probabilities. The highest landslide risk was found for the landslide with a depth of 3m in the landslide body, and a height of 1m in the landslide foot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding carbon sources and sinks across the Earth's surface is fundamental in climate science and policy; thus, these topics have been extensively studied but have yet to be fully resolved and are associated with massive debate regarding the sign and magnitude of the carbon budget from global to regional scales. Developing new models and estimates based on state-of-the-art algorithms and data constraints can provide valuable knowledge and contribute to a final ensemble model in which various optimal carbon budget estimates are integrated, such as the annual global carbon budget paper. Here, we develop a new atmospheric inversion system based on the 4D local ensemble transform Kalman filter (4D-LETKF) coupled with the GEOS-Chem global transport model to infer surface-to-atmosphere net carbon fluxes from Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) V10r XCO 2 retrievals. The 4D-LETKF algorithm is adapted to an OCO-2-based global carbon inversion system for the first time in this work. On average, the mean annual terrestrial and oceanic fluxes between 2015 and 2020 are estimated as - 2.02 and - 2.34 GtC yr -1 , respectively, compensating for 21 % and 24 %, respectively, of global fossil carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions (9.80 GtC yr -1). Our inversion results agree with the CO 2 atmospheric growth rates reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and reduce the modeled CO 2 concentration biases relative to the prior fluxes against surface and aircraft measurements. Our inversion-based carbon fluxes are broadly consistent with those provided by other global atmospheric inversion models, although discrepancies still occur in the land–ocean flux partitioning schemes and seasonal flux amplitudes over boreal and tropical regions, possibly due to the sparse observational constraints of the OCO-2 satellite and the divergent prior fluxes used in different inversion models. Four sensitivity experiments are performed herein to vary the prior fluxes and uncertainties in our inversion system, suggesting that regions that lack OCO-2 coverage are sensitive to the priors, especially over the tropics and high latitudes. In the further development of our inversion system, we will optimize the data-assimilation configuration to fully utilize current observations and increase the spatial and seasonal representativeness of the prior fluxes over regions that lack observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Which published papers have transformed our understanding of the chemical processes in the troposphere and shaped the field of atmospheric chemistry? By way of expert solicitation and interactive peer review, this paper explores the influence of the ideas in peer-reviewed articles based on input from our community of atmospheric scientists. We explore how these papers have shaped the development of the field of atmospheric chemistry and identify the major landmarks in the field of atmospheric chemistry through the lens of those papers' impact on science, legislation and environmental events. We also explore the ways in which one can identify the papers that have most impacted the field and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches. Our work highlights the difficulty of creating a simple list, and we explore the reasons for this difficulty. The paper also provides a history of the development of our understanding of tropospheric chemistry and points some ways for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods kill numerous people every year in both developed and developing countries. The transfer of research findings from the academic community to practitioners, policy-makers and citizens may reduce the impact of floods on mortality. This systematic review analyzes 44 scientific articles extracted from WOS and SCOPUS databases written in English, published between 2010 and 2020, and focuses on flood fatalities. The first main finding of this review is the classification of drivers of flood mortality into two groups: the first group relates to the environment, and the second group relates to the fatalities. The second main finding is the identification of strategies to practically cope with the identified drivers of flood fatalities. The main shortcomings of the review concern (a) the unavailability of papers based on flood fatality occurrence in developing countries and (b) the absence of data focusing on people who have survived floods. This review amplifies useful findings, best practices and lessons learned that can be useful for administrators, risk managers, and teachers of primary and secondary schools to mitigate the impact of future floods on human life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chile has a very ambitious energy transition agenda and massive challenges ahead to accomplish it. To integrate the high solar energy potential in the north an the high wind power potential of the south of the country, considerable investments in the electrical grid and new balancing mechanism and storage capacities are necessary. This study addresses the potential of individual industries, particularly the paper industry, to provide flexibility to the electrical system on-site. To achieve this, an optimization model that minimizes energy provision costs is proposed. The model considers the demand of a company including its demand side management potential, combined heat and power generation capacities, as well as on-site renewable energy generation location potential from photovoltaics and wind power. The model is computed under multiple parametrization scenarios to estimate under which conditions it would be advantageous for the company to use renewable electricity. This allows to evaluate how much of the renewable electricity produced in high peaks can be used by the company, and in how far, demand side management and combined heat and power can compensate low generation periods of renewable electricity. The model is feeded with typical hourly electricity and heat demand profiles of a prototypic paper producing company, which were statistically derived from one and a half years of measurements. Moreover, electricity generation time series from photovoltaics and wind power are derived from physical models that rely on ERA5 reanalysis data. The latter data set allows to compute the model in locations all around Chilean territory in a 30 km x 30 km spatial grid. Results are presented in the form of maps of the shares of renewables that would be enabled at avery location by industries of the same characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractBiosludge is a solid waste of the pulp and paper industry, which is usually incinerated for energy recovery or landfilled. This study evaluates the energy balance and carbon footprint of using pulp and paper mill sludge in anaerobic digestion (AD) systems with alternative uses for the biogas, in different regions of the world, using Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (E-LCA). The digested residues from the AD are assumed to be used for biochar production, and subsequent incorporation into forest soils. Three scenarios based on alternative uses of biogas were investigated: (i) biogas for vehicle fuel in the transportation sector, (ii) biogas for heat and electricity in the power sector, and (iii) biogas for cooking in households. The E-LCA results demonstrate that both energy balance and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions abatement of biosludge treatment in the AD systems significantly improve relative to the baseline scenario of incineration. The displacement of fossil fuel with biogas, and carbon stabilized in biochar contribute largely to the truncation of the energy and carbon footprints. Therefore, a combination of AD and pyrolysis technologies as a novel energy-biochar production system could offer an opportunity for sustainable management of pulp and paper mill sludge. Regarding biogas, the local or national infrastructure determines possible uses, and this aspect was shown to affect E-LCA results. Keywords: Biochar, biogas, digested sludge, carbon footprint, energy balance, waste treatment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To mark the 20th anniversary of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS), an interdisciplinary and international journal dedicated to the public discussion and open-access publication of high-quality studies and original research on natural hazards and their consequences, we highlight 11 key publications covering major subject areas of NHESS that stood out within the past 20 years. The papers cover all the topics contemplated in the European Geosciences Union (EGU) Division on Natural Hazards including dissemination, education, outreach and teaching. The selected articles thus represent excellent scientific contributions in the major areas of natural hazards and risks and helped NHESS to become an exceptionally strong journal representing interdisciplinary areas of natural hazards and risks. At its 20th anniversary, we are proud that NHESS is not only used by scientists to disseminate research results and novel ideas but also by practitioners and decision-makers to present effective solutions and strategies for sustainable disaster risk reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High resolution solar absorption spectra, taken within the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) in the mid-infrared spectral region are used to infer partial or total column abundances of many gases. In this paper we present the retrieval of a column averaged mole fraction of carbon dioxide from NDACC-IRWG spectra taken with a Fourier-Transform-Infra-Red (FTIR) spectrometer at the site in Ny-Ålesund, Spitsbergen. The retrieved time series is compared to co-located standard TCCON measurements of total column CO2. Comparing the NDACC and TCCON retrievals we find that the sensitivity of the NDACC retrieval is lower in the troposphere (by a factor of two) and higher in the stratosphere, compared to TCCON. Thus, the NDACC retrieval is less sensitive to tropospheric changes (e.g. the seasonal cycle) in the column average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Origami that can form various shapes by setting simple creases on the paper and folding along these creases has a lot of applications from the fields of art to engineering. The inverse problem of origami that determines the distribution of creases based on the desired shape is very complicated. In this paper, we use theoretical kinematics to systematically analyse an inverse folding problem of a toy about how to fold a piece of paper into a disc through a smaller hole without breaking it. The results show that some four-crease and six-crease patterns can achieve the expected function, and they can be easily folded with 1 degree of freedom (DOF). It not only opens up a new way to solve the inverse folding problem but also helps students to understand mechanisms and machine theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

River ice is a common occurrence in cold climate hydrological systems. The annual cycle of river ice formation, growth, decay and clearance can include low flows and ice jams, as well as mid-winter and spring break-up events. Reports and associated data on river ice occurrence are often limited to site and season-specific studies. Within Canada, the National Hydrometric Program (NHP) operates a network of gauging stations with water level as the primary measured variable to derive discharge. In the late 1990s, the Water Science and Technology Directorate of Environment and Climate Change Canada initiated a long-term effort to compile, archive and extract river ice related information from NHP hydrometric records. This data article describes the original research data set produced by this near 20-year effort: the Canadian River Ice Database (CRID). The CRID holds almost 73,000 variables from a network of 196 NHP stations throughout Canada that were in operation within the period 1894 to 2015. Over 100,000 paper and digital files were reviewed representing 10,378 station-years of active operation. The task of compiling this database involved manual extraction and input of more than 460,000 data entries on water level, discharge, date, time and data quality rating. Guidelines on the data extraction, rating procedure and challenges are provided. At each location, a time series of up to 15 variables specific to the occurrence of freeze-up and winter-low events, mid-winter break-up, ice thickness, spring break-up and maximum open-water level were compiled. This database follows up on several earlier efforts to compile information on river ice, which are summarized herein, and expands the scope and detail for use in Canadian river ice research and applications. Following the Government of Canada Open Data initiative, this original river ice data set is available at: https://doi.org/10.18164/c21e1852-ba8e-44af-bc13-48eeedfcf2f4 (de Rham et al., 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Version 1.1 of the editorial of Geoscientific Model Development (GMD), published in 2015 , introduced clarifications to the policy on publication of source code and input data for papers published in the journal. Three years of working with this policy has revealed that it is necessary to be more precise in the requirements of the policy and in the narrowness of its exceptions. Furthermore, the previous policy was not specific in the requirements for suitable archival locations. Best practice in code and data archiving continues to develop and is far from universal among scientists. This has resulted in many manuscripts requiring improvement in code and data availability practice during the peer-review process. New researchers continually start their professional lives, and it remains the case that not all authors fully appreciate why code and data publication is necessary. This editorial provides an opportunity to explain this in the context of GMD. The changes in the code and data policy are summarised as follows: The requirement for authors to publish source code, unless this is impossible for reasons beyond their control, is clarified. The minimum requirements are strengthened such that all model code must be made accessible during the review process to the editor and to potentially anonymous reviewers. Source code that can be made public must be made public, and embargoes are not permitted. Identical requirements exist for input data and model evaluation data sets in the model experiment descriptions. The scope of the code and data required to be published is described. In accordance with Copernicus' own data policy, we now specifically strongly encourage all code and data used in any analyses be made available. This will have particular relevance for some model evaluation papers where editors may now strongly request this material be made available. The requirements of suitable archival locations are specified, along with the recommendation that Zenodo is often a good choice. In addition, since the last editorial, an "Author contributions" section must now be included in all manuscripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis technologies could be a novel energy-biochar production system to maximize energy and nutrient recovery from pulp and paper mill sludge. Herein, the life-cycle energy production and emissions reduction of sludge treatment from a typical pulp and paper mill were investigated, in which alternative uses of biogas for industrial or household application, in different regions of the world, were assessed. The three scenarios considered for different end-uses of biogas are: (A) biogas for vehicle fuel in the transportation sector in Sweden, (B) biogas for heat and electricity in the power sector in Brazil, and (C) biogas for cooking in households in China. The results of Environmental Life-Cycle Assessment (E-LCA) show that for all these three scenarios, the use of biogas and pyrolysis gas contributes most to emissions mitigation, while the dewatering and drying processes carried out on the sludge, contribute the most to the environmental emissions. Addition of biochar to the soil, contributes significantly to a reduction in global warming by sequestering carbon in the soil. Compared to scenarios B and C, Scenario A, in which biogas substitutes gasoline in transportation, and heat from combusted pyrolysis gases is used for district heating in Sweden, demonstrates the highest environmental performance for all the evaluated impact categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding carbon dioxide (CO2) biospheric processes is of great importance because the terrestrial exchange drives the seasonal and inter-annual variability of CO2 in the atmosphere. Atmospheric inversions based on CO2 concentration measurements alone can only determine net biosphere fluxes, but not differentiate between photosynthesis (uptake) and respiration (production). Carbonyl sulfide (OCS) could provide an important additional constraint: it is also taken up by plants during photosynthesis but not emitted during respiration, and therefore is a potential mean to differentiate between these processes. Solar absorption Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) spectrometry allows for the retrievals of the atmospheric concentrations of both CO2 and OCS from measured solar absorption spectra. Here, we investigate co-located and quasi-simultaneous FTIR measurements of OCS and CO2 performed at three selected sites located in the Northern Hemisphere. These measurements are compared to simulations of OCS and CO2 using a chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem). The OCS simulations are driven by different land biospheric fluxes to reproduce the seasonality of the measurements. Increasing the plant uptake of Kettle et al. (2002a) by a factor of three resulted in the best comparison with FTIR measurements. However, there are still discrepancies in the latitudinal distribution when comparing with HIPPO (HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations) data spanning both hemispheres. The coupled biospheric fluxes of OCS and CO2 from the simple biosphere model (SiB) are used in the study and compared to measurements. The CO2 simulation with SiB fluxes agrees with the measurements well, while the OCS simulation reproduced a weaker drawdown than FTIR measurements at selected sites, and a smaller latitudinal gradient in the Northern Hemisphere during growing season. An offset in the timing of the seasonal cycle minimum between SiB simulation and measurements is also seen. Using OCS as a photosynthesis proxy can help to understand how the biospheric processes are reproduced in models and to further understand the carbon cycle in the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding carbon dioxide (CO2) biospheric processes is of great importance because the terrestrial exchange drives the seasonal and inter-annual variability of CO2 in the atmosphere. Atmospheric inversions based on CO2 concentration measurements alone can only determine net biosphere fluxes, but not differentiate between photosynthesis (uptake) and respiration (production). Carbonyl sulfide (OCS) could provide an important additional constraint: it is also taken up by plants during photosynthesis but not emitted during respiration, and therefore is a potential mean to differentiate between these processes. Solar absorption Fourier Transform InfraRed (FTIR) spectrometry allows for the retrievals of the atmospheric concentrations of both CO2 and OCS from measured solar absorption spectra. Here, we investigate co-located and quasi-simultaneous FTIR measurements of OCS and CO2 performed at three selected sites located in the Northern Hemisphere. These measurements are compared to simulations of OCS and CO2 using a chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem). The OCS simulations are driven by different land biospheric fluxes to reproduce the seasonality of the measurements. Increasing the plant uptake of Kettle et al. (2002a) by a factor of three resulted in the best comparison with FTIR measurements. However, there are still discrepancies in the latitudinal distribution when comparing with HIPPO (HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations) data spanning both hemispheres. The coupled biospheric fluxes of OCS and CO2 from the simple biosphere model (SiB) are used in the study and compared to measurements. The CO2 simulation with SiB fluxes agrees with the measurements well, while the OCS simulation reproduced a weaker drawdown than FTIR measurements at selected sites, and a smaller latitudinal gradient in the Northern Hemisphere during growing season. An offset in the timing of the seasonal cycle minimum between SiB simulation and measurements is also seen. Using OCS as a photosynthesis proxy can help to understand how the biospheric processes are reproduced in models and to further understand the carbon cycle in the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a companion paper (Jing et al., 2015), a high temporal-spatial resolution vehicle emission inventory (HTSVE) for 2013 in Beijing has been established based on near real time (NRT) traffic data and bottom up methodology. In this study, based on the sensitivity analysis method of switching on/off pollutant emissions in the Chinese air quality forecasting model CUACE, a modeling study was carried out to evaluate the contributions of vehicle emission to the air pollution in Beijing main urban areas in the periods of summer (July) and winter (December) 2013. Generally, CUACE model had good performance of pollutants concentration simulation. The model simulation has been improved by using HTSVE. The vehicle emission contribution (VEC) to ambient pollutant concentrations not only changes with seasons but also changes over moment. The mean VEC, affected by regional pollutant transports significantly, is 55.4 and 48.5 % for NO2, while 5.4 and 10.5 % for PM2.5 in July and December 2013, respectively. Regardless of regional transports, relative vehicle emission contribution (RVEC) to NO2 is 59.2 and 57.8% in July and December 2013, while 8.7 and 13.9% for PM2.5. The RVEC to PM2.5 is lower than PM2.5 contribution rate for vehicle emission in total emission, which may be caused by easily dry deposition of PM2.5 from vehicle emission in near-surface layer compared to elevated source emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) algorithms have demonstrated outstanding performance in a wide range of remote sensing applications, including image classification, image detection, and image segmentation. Urban development, as defined by urban expansion, mapping impervious surfaces, and built-up areas, is one of these fascinating issues. The goal of this research is to explore at and summarize the deep learning approaches used in urbanization. In addition, several of these methods are highlighted in order to provide a comprehensive overview and comprehension of them, as well as their pros and downsides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keyframes extraction is required and effective for the 3D reconstruction of objects from a thermal video sequence to increase geometric accuracy, reduce the volume of aerial triangulation calculations, and generate the dense point cloud. The primary goal and focus of this paper are to assess the effect of keyframes extraction from the thermal infrared video sequence on the geometric accuracy of the dense point cloud generated. The method of keyframes extraction of thermal infrared video presented in this paper consists of three basic steps. (A) The ability to identify and remove blur frames from non-blur frames in a sequence of recorded frames. (B) The ability to apply the standard baseline condition between sequence frames to establish the overlap condition and prevent the creation of degeneracy conditions. (C) Evaluating degeneracy conditions and keyframes extraction using Geometric Robust Information Criteria (GRIC). The performance evaluation criteria for keyframes extraction in the generation of the thermal infrared dense point cloud in this paper are to assess the increase in density of the generated three-dimensional point cloud and reduce reprojection error. Based on the results and assessments presented in this paper, using keyframes increases the density of the thermal infrared dense point cloud by about 0.03% to 0.10% of points per square meter. It reduces the reprojection error by about 0.005% of pixels (2 times). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies have been creating geospatial products for customers for many decades and, in some cases, for over two centuries. During that time the nature of the products largely remained the same, consisting of cartographic representations of the world, usually generalized and projected in a two-dimensional form. Even when mapping agencies began to convert their mapping from paper to digital form, the products created were largely based on their paper map counterparts. In recent times, the general public has become far more aware of geospatial data due to global initiatives from Google, Bing, Apple, OpenStreetMap and others. While some users of geospatial data still require the same products as before, many other users need different kinds of geospatial data and products, ones which will provide new challenges to National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies. In this paper we discuss some of these new geospatial data users and illustrate some the challenges using an example from Ordnance Survey's recent experience of a project in the connected autonomous vehicle domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every year, World Bank Group (WBG) is conducting assessment for 190 countries and produces a ranking report based on Doing Business performance – an initiative to measure benchmark efficiency on business regulation and their enforcement by a sample study (e.g. for Malaysia is Kuala Lumpur City Hall - DBKL). One of the ranking categories is based on Dealing with Construction Permits (DCP) which made us proud as announce Malaysia ranks for 2019 is #3 (based on 2018 assessment). This achievement was based on continues efforts and studies from the last bottom of #137 (since, 2007), #113 (2012) and continues with positive results (straight improvement) respectively till this year. Maintaining the top three ranks is not an easy task; however, is not impossible either. Lots of study in innovations, suggestions and implementation should be carried out to maintain and improve Malaysian DCP ranks. As per DCP of this year assessment, Work Bank has suggested all countries with 5 new suggestions (new additional marking schema). One of them is to engage Geographic Information System (GIS) for land use, cadastre, water, electricity and sewage related datasets. This paper propose an initial study (concept paper) towards engaging GIS in DCP activity as a response (first action) suggested by World Bank Group; crucial in maintaining DCP rank for 2020 as well as to provide better business regulations and enforcements for DBKL or other local authority. Later, an impact study will be conducted, utilizing new integrated GIS system publishing service (GeoMap) and the output of the study will indicate whether Malaysia Productive Corporation (MPC) should engage or ignore the 5th suggestion by World Bank Group, or to enhance with other initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparison of retrieved total column ozone amounts TCO between the Pandora #34 spectrometer system and the Dobson #061 spectrophotometer from direct-sun observations was performed on the roof of the Boulder, Colorado NOAA building. This paper, part of an ongoing study, covers a one-year period starting on 17 December 2013. Both the standard Dobson and Pandora total column ozone TCO retrievals required a correction TCOcorr=TCO (1+C(T )) using the effective climatology derived ozone temperature T to remove a seasonal difference caused by using a fixed temperature in each retrieval algorithm. The respective corrections C(T ) are CPandora = 0.00333(T-225) and CDobson = -0.0013(T-226.7) per K. After the applied corrections removed the seasonal retrieval dependence on ozone temperature, TCO agreement between the instruments was within 1% for clear-sky conditions. For clear-sky observations, both co-located instruments tracked the day-to-day variation in total column ozone amounts with a correlation of r² = 0.97 and an average offset of 1.1±5.8 DU. In addition, the Pandora data showed 0.3% annual average agreement with satellite overpass data from AURA/OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) and 1% annual average offset with Suomi-NPP/OMPS (Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, the nadir viewing portion of the Ozone Mapper Profiler Suite). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays color in scientific visualizations is standard and extensively used to group, highlight or delineate different parts of data in visualizations. The rainbow color map (also known as jet color map) is famous for its appealing use of the full visual spectrum with impressive changes in chroma and luminance. Besides attracting attention, science has for decades criticized the rainbow color map for its non-linear and erratic change of hue and luminance along the data variation. The missed uniformity causes a misrepresentation of data values and flaws in science communication. The rainbow color map is scientifically incorrect and hardly decodable for a considerable number of people due to color vision deficiency (CVD) or other vision impairments. Here we aim to raise awareness of how widely used the rainbow color map still is in hydrology. To this end, we perform a paper survey scanning for color issues in around 1000 scientific publications in three different journals including papers published between 2005 and 2020. In this survey, depending on the journal, 16 %–24 % of the publications have a rainbow color map and around the same ratio of papers (18 %–29 %) uses red–green elements often in a way that color is the only possibility to decode the visualized groups of data. Given these shares, there is a 99.6 % chance to pick at least one visual problematic publication in 10 randomly chosen papers from our survey. To overcome the use of the rainbow color maps in science, we propose some tools and techniques focusing on improvement of typical visualization types in hydrological science. We give guidance on how to avoid, improve and trust color in a proper and scientific way. Finally, we outline an approach how the rainbow color map flaws should be communicated across different status groups in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rainbow colour maps are known to be problematic yet remain widely used in scientific communication. This study extends work by Stoelzle and Stein (2021) to investigate the extent of their use in geoscience publications. It is found that over half (55 %) of all papers surveyed from six geoscience journals from the years 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 (n=2638) contained at least one visualisation that uses rainbow or red–green colour schemes and are therefore potentially misleading and colour-inaccessible. Recent changes to the submission guidelines for all European Geosciences Union (EGU) journals would seem to place greater responsibility in the future with editors and reviewers to identify and correct colour issues as part of the review process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural connectivity is an important factor in preserving coral diversity. It maintains the stability and adaptability of coral reef ecosystems by facilitating ecological flow, species migration, and gene exchange between coral communities. However, there has always been a lack of consistent solutions for accurate structural connectivity describing and quantifying, which has hindered the understanding of the complex ecological processes in coral reefs. Based on this, this paper proposes a framework that uses advanced remote sensing and deep learning technologies to assess coral structural connectivity. Specifically, accurate coral patches are firstly identified through image segmentation techniques. And the structural connectivity is quantified by assessing the connectivity patterns between and within these coral patches. Furthermore, Tetiaroa Island in the South Pacific is used as a case study to validate the effectiveness and accuracy of the framework in assessing coral structural connectivity. The experimental results demonstrate that the framework proposed in this paper provides a powerful tool for understanding the internal ecological processes and external spatial patterns of coral reef ecosystems, thereby promoting scientific understanding and effective management of coral reef conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades of decline, disinvestment, and racism have left Detroit with an abundance of abandoned buildings, ruins, vacant lots, and illicit trash dumps. Though these structures and materials might have forfeited their previous purposes, they can act as catalysts, substances, and co-creators of artworks. The paper is thus interested in examining the intricate interplay between art, space, and materiality in Detroit further. Drawing from the practices of local artists Olayami Dabls and Scott Hocking, the paper adopts a new materialist framework to investigate the dynamic agency of matter in the artistic process. By considering materials as active participants in the production of art and space, the paper seeks to add to the emerging interest in the emancipation and meaning making of material in art as well as cultural geography's engagements with new materialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The preface to the Proceedings of the 8th Smart Data Smart Cities (SDSC) conference provides an overview of the concept of a Smart City, which involves the use of digital layers for city governance, citizen services, and sustainable development. Smart Cities utilize intelligent technology to enhance urban life by integrating data from various sources such as sensors, demographics, mapping, and building information models. The conference focuses on the use of spatial information and communication technologies in Smart Cities, covering topics such as 3D modeling, citizen engagement, transportation, urban decision-making, and smart urban mobility. The volume consists of 31 research papers selected through blind review, addressing different aspects of Smart Cities. [Extracted from the article]

Due to the increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as heavy rainfall events, the evaluation of the vulnerability of the built environment is becoming increasingly important. Evaluation techniques for each separate building often require detailed geometric models of the supporting structures and time-consuming simulations. One possibility to overcome this problem is to categorize the buildings in a first step and use representative building models for each category. This paper presents a semi-automated approach for categorizing buildings and creating parametric models for the respective building categories. Using these models, the buildings of a category can be collectively examined for their vulnerability to various impacts. First, this paper introduces open geodata that can be used for this process. For the categorization of the buildings, the collected data is further processed to extract additional information such as building age classes or floor plan geometries of the buildings. This results in a data set, with the help of which the buildings can be categorized. However, information about the load-bearing structure is often missing in the different data sources. By including information on typical construction methods that are associated with the previously determined characteristics (age, floor plan geometry, usage), representative models can be created for individual building categories. In this study, the approach was tested in a selected reference area in Berlin. The results indicate that the presented approach is a promising first step towards deriving geometrical models from open geodata that can be used to evaluate the vulnerability of buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technology for 3D reconstruction of tree models based on point clouds has been extensively researched, necessitating effective datasets for the study of branch and leaf separation, skeleton point extraction, and tree parameter extraction methods. However, existing datasets for 3D tree models face several challenges, including insufficient data volume for deep learning network training, low accuracy of model ground truth impeding effective method precision evaluation, and a lack of dataset richness to satisfy the needs of multi-type method assessments. In response to these challenges, This paper introduces, for the first time, a fully automated method for generating structured three-dimensional synthetic tree models, and constructs a large-scale 3D synthetic tree dataset enriched with comprehensive structural information. This method facilitates automated computation across several processes, including the mass generation of simulated trees, separation of branches and leaves, noise generation, extraction of skeleton points, and volume calculation. To validate the usability of this dataset across various applications, this paper employs state-of-the-art (SoTA) algorithms to verify the accuracy of methods in 3D tree model reconstruction and carbon stock calculation, thereby thoroughly demonstrating the dataset's effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over past decades, a lot of global land-cover products have been released, however, these is still lack of a global land-cover map with fine classification system and spatial resolution simultaneously. In this study, a novel global 30-m land-cover classification with a fine classification system for the year 2015 (GLC_FCS30-2015) was produced by combining time-series of Landsat imagery and high-quality training data from the GSPECLib (Global Spatial Temporal Spectra Library) on the Google Earth Engine computing platform. First, the global training data from the GSPECLib were developed by applying a series of rigorous filters to the MCD43A4 NBAR and CCI_LC land-cover products. Secondly, a local adaptive random forest model was built for each 5° x 5° geographical tile by using the multi-temporal Landsat spectral and textures features of the corresponding training data, and the GLC_FCS30-2015 land-cover product containing 30 land-cover types was generated for each tile. Lastly, the GLC_FCS30-2015 was validated using three different validation systems (containing different land-cover details) using 44 043 validation samples. The validation results indicated that the GLC_FCS30-2015 achieved an overall accuracy of 82.5 % and a kappa coefficient of 0.784 for the level-0 validation system (9 basic land-cover types), an overall accuracy of 71.4 % and kappa coefficient of 0.686 for the UN-LCCS (United Nations Land Cover Classification System) level-1 system (16 LCCS land-cover types), and an overall accuracy of 68.7 % and kappa coefficient of 0.662 for the UN-LCCS level-2 system (24 fine land-cover types). The comparisons against other land-cover products (CCI_LC, MCD12Q1, FROM_GLC and GlobeLand30) indicated that GLC_FCS30-2015 provides more spatial details than CCI_LC-2015 and MCD12Q1-2015 and a greater diversity of land-cover types than FROM_GLC-2015 and GlobeLand30-2010, and that GLC_FCS30-2015 achieved the best overall accuracy of 82.5% against FROM_GLC-2015 of 59.1 % and GlobeLand30-2010 of 75.9 %. Therefore, it is concluded that the GLC_FCS30-2015 product is the first global land-cover dataset that provides a fine classification system with high classification accuracy at 30 m. The GLC_FCS30-2015 global land-cover products generated in this paper is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3986871 (Liu et al., 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the wide use of UAVs in urban scenes making image acquisition easier, processing large-scale 3D reconstruction problems have become a basic need of the Structure from Motion (SfM) community. Because of high memory consumption and computation complexity, bundle adjustment (BA) is a significant bottleneck in large-scale 3D reconstruction problems. Distributed strategy is a current research direction. Recent research cut the view graph to optimize sub-scenes in small size and average common cameras and/or 3D points to align them into one in the end. Yet, those methods tried to simply average cameras and/or 3D points, which lack mathematical rigor and tend to get a sub-optimal result. This paper first cuts the view graph and expands it. Then we use the strategy of motion averaging instead of simply averaging points to obtain a robust result. Finally, refined results are achieved by optimizing reprojection errors in the overlapping area. We conduct experiments on UAV data, check the validity of graph cut and expansion, and analyze whether graph size influences the precision computation time. Visualization results show that our method preserves scenes well; precision and visualization of un-expanded scenes prove the necessity of graph expansion; statistical results also indicate the negative infect of large sub-scene size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floods kill several people every year in both developed and developing countries. The transfer of research findings from the academic community to practitioners, policy-makers and citizens may reduce the impact of floods on mortality. This systematic review analyzes 44 scientific articles extracted from WOS and SCOPUS databases written in English, published between 2010 and 2020, and focuses on flood fatalities. The first main finding of this review is the classification of drivers of flood mortality into two groups: the first group relates to the environment and the second group relates to the victims. The second main finding is the identification of strategies to practically cope with the identified drivers of flood fatalities. The main lacks of the review concern: a) the unavailability of papers based on flood fatality occurrence in developing countries and b) the absence of data focusing on people who have survived floods. This review amplifies useful findings, best practices, and lessons learned that can be useful for administrators, risk managers, and teachers of primary and secondary schools to mitigate the impact of future floods on human life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking four influential Chinese surveying and mapping journals as the data source, 5863 papers published during the period of 2003-2013 were obtained. Using the method of bibliometrics and visual analysis, summarizing the surveying and mapping papers in the past ten years (2003-2013), research themes, authors, and geographical distribution were analyzed. In the study, the papers of geodesy, cartography and GIS are 59.9%, more than half of all the papers. We also determine that the core author group has 131 authors, mainly of whom are from big cities. 90% of top ten cities on the number of publishing papers are capital cities or municipalities directly under the central government. In conclusion, we found that the research focus was different every year, and the research content was richness, the content of geodesy, cartography and GIS were widely researched, and the development of surveying and mapping is imbalanced in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions from the marine transport sector are one of the least regulated anthropogenic emission sources and contribute significantly to air pollution. Although strict limits were introduced recently for the maximum sulfur content in marine fuels in the SECAs (sulfur emission control areas) and in the EU ports, sulfur emissions outside the SECAs and emissions of other components in all European maritime areas have continued to increase in the last two decades. We have used the air quality model CAMx with and without ship emissions for the year 2006 to determine the effects of international shipping on the annual as well as seasonal concentrations of ozone, primary and secondary components of PM2.5 and the dry and wet deposition of nitrogen and sulfur compounds in Europe. Our results suggest that emissions from international shipping affect the air quality in northern and southern Europe differently and their contributions to the air concentrations vary seasonally. The largest changes in pollutant concentrations due to ship emissions were predicted for summer. Increased concentrations of the primary particle mass were found only along the shipping routes whereas concentrations of the secondary pollutants were affected over a larger area. Concentrations of particulate sulfate increased due to ship emissions in the Mediterranean (up to 60 %), in the English Channel and the North Sea (30-35 %) while increases in particulate nitrate levels were found especially in the north, around the Benelux area (20 %) where there were high NH3 land-based emissions. Our model results showed that not only the atmospheric concentrations of pollutants are affected by ship emissions, but also depositions of nitrogen and sulfur compounds increase significantly along the shipping routes. NOx emissions from the ships especially in the English Channel and the North Sea, cause a decrease in the dry deposition of reduced nitrogen at source regions by moving it from the gas-phase to the particle phase which then contributes to an increase in the wet deposition at coastal areas with higher precipitation. In the western Mediterranean region on the other hand, model results show an increase in the deposition of oxidized nitrogen (mostly HNO3) due to the ship traffic. Dry deposition of SO2 seems to be significant along the shipping routes whereas sulfate wet deposition occurs mainly along the Scandinavian and Adriatic coasts. The results presented in this paper suggest that evolution of NOx emissions from ships and land-based NH3 emissions will play a significant role in the future European air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The water vapor expedition experiment campaign was operated in the Tibetan Plateau during July and August 2014, by utilizing the Water vapor, Cloud and Aerosol Lidar (WACAL). The observation was carried out in Nagqu area (31.5° N, 92.05° E), which is 4508 m above the mean sea level. During the observation, the water vapor mixing ratio at high elevation was obtained. In this paper, the methodology of the WACAL and the retrieval method are presented in particular. The validation of water vapor mixing ratio measured during the field campaigns is completed by comparing the Lidar measurements to the radiosonde data. WACAL observations from July to August illustrate the diurnal variation of water vapor mixing ratio in the planetary boundary layer in this high elevation area. The mean water vapor mixing ratio in Nagqu in July and August is about 9.4 g kg-1 and the values vary from 6.0 to 11.7 g kg-1 near ground. The SNRs and relative errors of the data are analyzed and discussed as well in this paper. Finally, combining the vertical wind speed profiles measured by the coherent wind lidar, the vertical flux of water vapor is calculated and the upwelling and deposition of the water vapor are monitored. It is the first application, to our knowledge, to operate continuously atmospheric observation by utilizing multi-disciplinary lidar at altitude higher than 4000 m which is significant for research on the boundary dynamics and meteorology of Tibetan Plateau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric ammonia (NH3) plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry. China is one of the largest NH3 emitting countries with the majority of NH3 emissions coming from the agricultural practices, such as fertilizer application and livestock. The current NH3 emission estimates in China are mainly based on pre-defined emission factors that lack the temporal or spatial details, which are needed to accurately predict NH3 emissions. In this study, we estimate, for the first time, the NH3 emission from the agricultural fertilizer application in China online using an agricultural fertilizer modeling system coupling a regional air quality model (the Community Multi-Scale Air Quality model, CMAQ) and an agro-ecosystem model (the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate model, EPIC), which improves the spatial and temporal resolution of NH3 emission from this sector. Cropland area data of 14 crops from 2710 counties and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land use data are combined to determine the crop distribution. The fertilizer application rate and method for different crop are collected at provincial or agriculture-regional level. The EPIC outputs of daily fertilizer application and soil characteristics are inputed into the CMAQ model and the hourly NH3 emission are calculated online with CMAQ running. The estimated agricultural fertilizer NH3 emission in this study is about 3 Tg in 2011. The regions with the highest modeled emission rates are located in the North China Plain. Seasonally, the peak ammonia emissions occur from April to July. Compared with previous researches, this method considers more influencing factors, such as meteorological fields, soil and the fertilizer application, and provides improved NH3 emission with higher spatial and temporal resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]