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With the rapid development of science and technology, the application of artificial intelligence in forestry is becoming more extensive and in-depth, ushering in a digital era for forestry development. Forestry survey technology and data collection systems are essential means to achieve digital forestry. Based on the study of existing forestry survey 3S technology and data collection systems at home and abroad, this paper proposes a method based on artificial intelligence. By using a tree positioning calibration module, a plane coordinate system is established to facilitate the rapid determination of the central survey location of the forest area, and to statistically analyze the tree information at the survey points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The highway greenbelt, vigorously promoted in arid and semi-arid areas, has obvious impacts on beautifying the environment, absorbing dust, reducing noise, and maintaining soil and water. Moreover, it affects the characteristics of how water resources are distributed and the regional groundwater cycle. However, the impact of highway greenbelt construction on groundwater flow in semi-arid areas is unknown. The Hubao Highway greenbelt in the north part of the Tumochuan Plain was studied as an example. The paper combines field investigation, remote sensing and mathematical modeling to quantify the impact of highway green space construction on regional groundwater circulation. The results showed that: Trees, shrubs and grasses were the dominant vegetation types in the landscaped area, accounting for 42.17% of the studied area. The total evapotranspiration water consumption of the green belt during the growing season was 471.35 × 104m3. The groundwater recharge in the study area was mainly derived from the lateral recharge in front of the mountain, and the main discharge was the evapotranspiration water consumption of the green belt. This evapotranspiration accounts for 3.31% of the total groundwater recharge. Under the condition that the recharge in front of the mountain remains constant, the evapotranspiration water consumption of the green belt will still have an increasing trend in the future. Appropriate planting of poplar and other high water-consuming trees may be the best way to mitigate the adverse effects of greenbelt evapotranspiration on groundwater resources. The results of this study provide valuable insights for environmental protection and infrastructure development in similar areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance. In recent years, due to the severe depletion of oil and gas fields, there is an urgent need to create new highly efficient technologies to increase oil and gas production both in oil and gas fields. Most of these fields are at the last stages of development, which are characterized by falling reservoir pressure, high water cut, a large amount of mechanical impurities and moisture in the produced hydrocarbon feedstock. As a result, there is an urgent need to develop new processes and improve technologies for field preparation of natural gas. Purpose: analysis of modern industrial processes of natural gas preparation: absorption and adsorption purification of natural gas from water, low-temperature separation, supersonic gas separation technology; choice of the most cost-effective and reliable process and technology for natural gas deep purification from water impurities in the conditions of industrial operation of gas and oil fields of the Russian Federation based on the analysis of technologies. Results. The analysis of industrial processes and methods of drying natural gas: absorption and adsorption drying, low-temperature separation and technology of supersonic separation of gas from moisture content and mechanical impurities, is carried out. The features of these processes, their properties, technological schemes, solutions, as well as advantages and disadvantages are analyzed. It was established that the use of natural gas absorption drying from water impurities makes it possible to obtain dried gas to a water dew point temperature of up to –20 °C. The introduction of the technology of natural gas adsorption drying from water impurities makes it possible to dry gas to a water dew point temperature in the range from –38 to –99 °C.

(1) Background: The Henan section of the Yellow River Basin plays an important role in the economic zone of the middle reaches of the Yellow River. However, ecological environmental geological problems such as soil erosion have seriously affected the lives of residents and economic development, resulting in increasingly prominent conflicts between humans and the environment. Therefore, this paper made use of remote sensing images and other reference data, integrated image classification, remote sensing inversion and statistical analysis methods to explore the ecological environmental geological problems and their causes in the Henan section of the Yellow River Basin. (2) Results: the main eco-environmental geological problems in the Sanmenxia–Zhengzhou section are serious soil erosion, degradation of water conservation function and being prone to geological disasters. The main eco-environmental geological problems in the Zhengzhou–Puyang section are poor water and soil conservation function, degradation of water conservation function and poor biodiversity maintenance function. In the last 19 years, the eco-environmental geological problems in the Henan section of the Yellow River Basin have shown a significant improvement trend as a whole. Along the main stream of the Yellow River in Sanmenxia, Luoyang, Jiyuan, Jiaozuo, Zhengzhou and other areas, the eco-environmental geological problems are still prominent; altitude, vegetation and rainfall are the key driving factors of eco-environmental geological problems in the Sanmenxia–Zhengzhou section and rainfall, vegetation and land-use type are the key driving factors in the Zhengzhou–Puyang section. (3) Conclusions: This study comprehensively considered the three aspects of ecology, environment and geology in a total of five research topics. The temporal and spatial distribution characteristics and driving factors of ecological environmental geological problems in the Yellow River Basin were analyzed, which could provide technical support for ecological environmental protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using large-scale field data and remote sensing imagery, we estimated the three-dimensional (3-D) green quantity of green space and analyzed the ecological benefits of urban green spaces in Xi'an City, China. The total 3-D green quantity of the main Xi'an urban area was 37475294.7 m3, annual CO2 absorption was 113.9 × 103 t, annual SO2 absorption was 113.6 t, annual dust retention was 41.2 × 103 t, and annual O2 production was 82.6 × 103 t; of which, CO2 absorption had the greatest benefit. The total ecological value of the arbor forest was 176.839 million yuan, to which the annual CO2 absorption, SO2 absorption, dust retention, and O2 production contributed 77.28%, 0.08%, 3.96%, and 18.68% of the value, respectively. Among them, CO2 absorption accounted for the largest proportion of the monetary value, which was equivalent to 136.656 million yuan. Future research should focus on developing an accurate evaluation index model for assessing the ecological benefits of urban green space based on the characteristics of green quantity and providing an important basis for the rational planning of urban green space and scientific allocation of garden plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Caohai Lake wetland is one of the most important wetlands in China and is also one of the most important overwintering areas for waterfowl. However, the spatiotemporal changes in the waterfowl habitat's suitability and its response patterns to human activities are still unclear. Understanding these patterns is key to plateau wetland biodiversity conservation. In this study, remote sensing, the geographic information system, and global positioning system (3S) technology were employed, and the water source status, disturbance, shelter, and food availability were used as evaluation factors for waterfowl habitat selection. A suitability evaluation model was constructed to evaluate the spatiotemporal characteristics of the Caohai Lake wetland habitat's suitability in 2000, 2010, and 2022, and to evaluate the response mechanisms of the waterfowl toward human activities. The results show the following: (1) there were frequent changes in the suitability grade of the study area from 2000 to 2022, and there was an overall trend toward improvement as the areas of suitable regions continuously increased. This was due to the continuous improvements in water source status, food availability, and shelter. (2) Human disturbances gradually increased from 2000 to 2022, and the human disturbance index was negatively correlated with the waterfowl habitat suitability. (3) There were significant spatial differences in the suitable waterfowl habitats. The marshlands near the banks of the lake were the regions with optimum and good suitability, while the areas of poor suitability and unsuitable regions were the deep-water areas, roads, and residential areas with high human disturbance, along with the regions near these areas. It is vital to further decrease human disturbances, in order to increase the habitat suitability of the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of 3S technology application studies and prospects for 3S technology application in disaster risk management in the northern mountainous region of Vietnam. The study uses the document review method and builds an experimental research model by GIS spatial analysis method, data mining method from satellite images, combined with positioning equipment. 3S technology shows great promise in disaster management, assessment and warning in mountainous areas, especially the online warning model based on artificial intelligence and smart applications on mobile phones. This is a research direction with high practicality, accuracy and applicability. Experimental research model applying 3S technology to build landslide risk map in Lai Chau province has identified 753.62 km² (accounting for 8.31%) with very high landslide risk and 1633.29 km² (accounting for 18 01%) have a high risk of landslides. In areas with high and very high risk of landslides, the study tested the installation of online landslide warning devices, which help prevent and mitigate damage caused by landslides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public green space is an important part of urban ecological environment and belongs to the basic guarantee of ecological security. Therefore, this paper studies the optimization analysis of environmental factors of public green space landscape pattern based on information interaction to improve the ecological environment. The paper uses the information interaction between 3S technology and Fragstats software, input the relevant information of public green space collected by 3S technology into Fragstats software, calculate the landscape pattern index and analyze the environmental factors of landscape pattern. The empirical results show that: by analyzing the landscape pattern index in the area, it can be seen that public green space has the problems of high fragmentation, poor protection ability of species, no superior green space type and poor landscape ecological continuity. To solve these problems, the relevant optimization countermeasures are to reasonably expand the original green space, connect the medium and small patches in the public green space, and reduce the fragmentation of the green space; At the same time, it is advised to reduce the complexity of the shape of public green space and improve the ability of species protection, to expand the area of park in public green space and establish municipal park green space to highlight its advantages, to build a green corridor, reasonably connect the whole public green space and improve the ecological continuity of the landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to showcase the adaptability evaluation of human settlements in Chengdu with the use of 3S technology. Chengdu was selected as the research object; natural eco-environmental factors such as terrain fluctuations, temperature and humidity, vegetation type, land use, and vegetation cover were analyzed, together with human disturbance factors such as traffic and gross domestic product (GDP); and the index weights were calculated by analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The evaluation model of Chengdu's residential environment adaptability was constructed based on the analysis carried out by the 3S technology: projection transformation, remote sensing interpretation, information extraction, and analysis. The results of the analysis reflected the zoning and spatial distribution characteristics of Chengdu's residential environment adaptability, and show that (1) the adaptability index of Chengdu's human settlement environment is between 15.98 and 76.75, and the suitability of human settlement environment is seen gradually decreasing from the middle, where it is the highest, when moving to the west and to the east of Chengdu; (2) according to the present situation, the suitability index can be divided into high-grade suitable areas, relatively high-grade suitable areas, moderately suitable areas, and low suitable areas; (3) the correlation between the spatial distribution of Chengdu population and each index factor is as follows: per capita GDP > topographic relief > temperature and humidity > vegetation coverage > traffic network density > land use > hydrological factors; (4) there is a good correlation between Chengdu's human settlements suitability index and the present population density grid layer, and its correlation coefficient is 0.7326; and (5) the leading impact indicators of human settlements are different in different regions. The results show that the natural environmental conditions in Chengdu are superior and that the ecological environmental quality is relatively stable, but the human settlement suitability index is relatively low in the southeast and Longmenshan areas of Chengdu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning models are regarded as efficient and popular models for natural disaster susceptibility prediction. However, few studies have focussed on the applications of the latest popular machine learning models in collapse susceptibility assessment (CSA). This paper proposes a 3S (RS, GPS and GIS) technology-based support vector machine (SVM) to map collapse susceptibility in the Nantian area of China. The 3S technology-based back-propagation neural network (BPNN) and radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) models are also proposed for comparison. First, 44 recorded collapses are identified through field investigation, and fourteen collapse-related causal factors are acquired using 3S technology. Second, among these recorded collapses and randomly selected ‘non-collapses’, 70% of the collapse and non-collapse grid cells are used to train the three models, while the remaining 30% are used to test the models. Third, the collapse susceptibility maps of the Nantian area are produced using the three models. Finally, the prediction accuracies of these models are evaluated. The results indicate that the SVM model has the highest prediction accuracy, while the RBFNN model has the lowest prediction accuracy for CSA. In addition, the distribution characteristics of collapse susceptibility in the Nantian area are produced well by all three models.

Wetland is a special ecosystem formed by the interaction between water and land, which cannot be separated from the support and protection of water resources. Therefore, it is necessary to study the ecological environment water demand of wetland. This paper takes the sediment-laden river wetland-Sanmenxia Reservoir wetland as an example, constructed the calculation model of 10 indexes of consumable eco-environmental water demand and non-consumable eco-environmental water demand. At the same time, 3S technology was used to extract the area of various types of the Sanmenxia Reservoir wetland, the monthly water demand process and the annual optimal eco-environmental water demand of the Sanmenxia Reservoir wetland were calculated under the conditions of average precipitation for many years. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) On the basis of other scholar’s research, increased water requirement indicators such as environmental purification water requirement, leaky water requirement, landscape protected water requirement and recreational water requirement. (2) The total water requirement for the most suitable eco-environmental in the Sanmenxia Reservoir is 16.6918.5 × 108 m³ . Meanwhile, considering the particularity of the operation mode of Sanmenxia Reservoir, this study gives the process of the most suitable eco-environmental monthly water demand, which provides a scientific basis for the optimal allocation of wetland water resources in the reservoir. (3) Non-consumable eco-environmental water demand in Sanmenxia Reservoir is the main type of water demand, and among all types of eco-environmental water demand indexes, environmental purification water requirement is the largest. Therefore, controlling pollutant discharge is the primary task for the ecological environment restoration of Sanmenxia Reservoir. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning models are regarded as efficient and popular models for natural disaster susceptibility prediction. However, few studies have focussed on the applications of the latest popular machine learning models in collapse susceptibility assessment (CSA). This paper proposes a 3S (RS, GPS and GIS) technology-based support vector machine (SVM) to map collapse susceptibility in the Nantian area of China. The 3S technology-based back-propagation neural network (BPNN) and radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) models are also proposed for comparison. First, 44 recorded collapses are identified through field investigation, and fourteen collapse-related causal factors are acquired using 3S technology. Second, among these recorded collapses and randomly selected 'non-collapses', 70% of the collapse and non-collapse grid cells are used to train the three models, while the remaining 30% are used to test the models. Third, the collapse susceptibility maps of the Nantian area are produced using the three models. Finally, the prediction accuracies of these models are evaluated. The results indicate that the SVM model has the highest prediction accuracy, while the RBFNN model has the lowest prediction accuracy for CSA. In addition, the distribution characteristics of collapse susceptibility in the Nantian area are produced well by all three models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the temporal and spatial distribution, periodic changes, and influencing factors of forest fires in Inner Mongolia, through fixed-point observations and experiments on the ground, forest combustibles are divided into the ground litter layer, ground standing litter, and living plants. The combustibles are divided into various grades according to their load, dryness and combustibility. By determining the influencing factors of each combustible grade, a forecast model of the combustibility grade of combustibles is established. The forecast model has been widely used in the mid- and long-term forecast model of fire danger grade, and the accuracy rate of the fall area forecast through back-generation fitting verification is above 88. 43%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schistosomiasis is serious parasitic disease with an estimated global prevalence of active infections of more than 190 million. Accurate methods for the assessment of schistosomiasis risk are crucial for schistosomiasis prevention and control in China. Traditional approaches to the identification of epidemiological risk factors include pathogen biology, immunology, imaging, and molecular biology techniques. Identification of schistosomiasis risk has been revolutionized by the advent of computer network communication technologies, including 3S, mathematical modeling, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI). In this review, we analyze the development of traditional and new technologies for risk identification of schistosomiasis transmission in China. New technologies allow for the integration of environmental and socio-economic factors for accurate prediction of the risk population and regions. The combination of traditional and new techniques provides a foundation for the development of more effective approaches to accelerate the process of schistosomiasis elimination.

In order to make better understanding of basic characteristics of river and lake survey situation of the Yellow River basin to the governance of the Yellow River, the target and technical route were introduced in this paper, and statistical analysis was done on the main geographical feature information of river and lake of the Yellow River basin which was extracted by multi-source data method from advanced 3S technology. This geographical feature information include the number and list of lakes and rivers which above standard, the latest watershed area(813 122 km2), length(5 687 km), and esluarine position of the Yellow River, the geographical hydrological eigenvalue of the river and lake and hydrological stations which above standard and so on. The innovation point was that new understanding and definition of the key characteristics of the river and lake were done. On this basis, the new results were compared with the original eigenvalue, and the differences and the reasons were found out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geo-informatics technology has dynamic role in mapping, monitoring and management of forest resources. The transformation of forest cover and its analysis on the earth’s surface are essential for understanding the associations and interactions between natural phenomena and living organism, especially human. Also deforestation is a major reason for global warming and one of the origin keys for the enhancement of greenhouse effect and climate change. The present study is grounded on the 3S technology in assessment of LU/LC changes within the forest cover area in Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary (DWLS) Jamshedpur-Jharkhand, India. The movement of forest-cover variation over the years 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016 is precisely studied using high resolution Satellite Data (SD). It is noted that, due to shifting cultivation, forest fire, and conversion of forest cover into crop land/bare land and settlement encroachments in forest region by villagers are rapidly increasing; as a result deforestation is taking place. It is predicted that the study would demonstrate the effectiveness of 3S technology in forest renovation, planning and management.

Based on large-scale data measured in quadrats, and using remote sensing images, the author analyzed the spatial differentiation characteristics of carbon storage and carbon density of forest vegetation in the north foot of the Qinling Mountains in China, by combining an allometric growth model with spatial analysis using a Geographic Information System. The results showed that the average carbon density of forest vegetation in the main urban area in Xi'an occurred in the order: cultural and educational green space > scenic-area green space > road green space > industrial green space > residential green space. The average carbon density of arbor forest was 6.308 kg/m². The carbon storage capacity varied in the order: green land in cultural and educational districts > scenic-area green space > road green space > residential green space > industrial green space. The total amount of carbon storage in the arbor forest was 519,180 t C. The spatial distribution pattern of carbon density in the arbor layer in the Xi'an administrative region was not balanced, showing high value in a southern suburb and low value in a northern suburb. Increasing forest vegetation, improving the quality of the forest structure, and increasing the three-dimensional green quantity of urban forest are effective ways to improve urban environments and to enhance carbon sequestration by forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempted to measure forest resources at the individual tree level using high-resolution images by combining GPS, RS, and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies. The images were acquired by the WorldView-2 satellite with a resolution of 0.5 m in the panchromatic band and 2.0 m in the multispectral bands. Field data of 90 plots were used to verify the interpreted accuracy. The tops of trees in three groups, namely ≥10 cm, ≥15 cm, and ≥20 cm DBH (diameter at breast height), were extracted by the individual tree crown (ITC) approach using filters with moving windows of 3 × 3 pixels, 5 × 5 pixels and 7 × 7 pixels, respectively. In the study area, there were 1,203,970 trees of DBH over 10 cm, and the interpreted accuracy was 73.68 ± 15.14% averaged over the 90 plots. The numbers of the trees that were ≥15 cm and ≥20 cm DBH were 727,887 and 548,919, with an average accuracy of 68.74 ± 17.21% and 71.92 ± 18.03%, respectively. The pixel-based classification showed that the classified accuracies of the 16 classes obtained using the eight multispectral bands were higher than those obtained using only the four standard bands. The increments ranged from 0.1% for the water class to 17.0% for Metasequoia glyptostroboides, with an average value of 4.8% for the 16 classes. In addition, to overcome the “mixed pixels” problem, a crown-based supervised classification, which can improve the classified accuracy of both dominant species and smaller classes, was used for generating a thematic map of tree species. The improvements of the crown- to pixel-based classification ranged from −1.6% for the open forest class to 34.3% for Metasequoia glyptostroboides, with an average value of 20.3% for the 10 classes. All tree tops were then annotated with the species attributes from the map, and a tree count of different species indicated that the forest of Purple Mountain is mainly dominated by Quercus acutissima, Liquidambar formosana and Pinus massoniana. The findings from this study lead to the recommendation of using the crown-based instead of the pixel-based classification approach in classifying mixed forests.

This study has used 3S technology to interpret landslide disasters in Xinyuan County in Xinjiang, which is in the arid region of northwest China. Field verifications were performed to explore the spatial distribution of landslide hazards. Data-driven theory, a weighted evidence-based model for landslide environmental impact evaluation, susceptibility zoning, and hazard zoning were investigated. An online landslide monitoring system with perception, network, and application layers using Internet of Things technology and based on rain gauges, GPS devices, crack meters, inclinometers, and other sensors will gather information transmitted through the network layer to the application layer of the landslide monitoring system, which will process high-accuracy deformation information and perform early warning analysis. The results showed that 514 landslide hazard points were identified in the study area. Elevation, slope, aspect, lithology, geological faults, and water were shown to be the main environmental factors influencing landslides. In the study area, those areas that were highly susceptible to landslides occupied an area of 674 km2, moderately susceptible areas 1820 km2, less susceptible areas 3479 km2, and non-susceptible areas 1616 km2. The landslide high-risk area covered 742.51km2, the moderate-risk area 1816.21km2, and the low-risk area 5030.46 km2. A landslide monitoring system that periodically monitors landslide points can be used to obtain accurate information on changes in landslide risk for warning and analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geological faults are highly developed in the eastern Liaoning Province in China, where Mesozoic granitic intrusions and Archean and Paleoproterozoic metamorphic rocks are widely distributed. Although the heat flow value in eastern Liaoning Province is generally low, the hot springs are very developed. It is obvious that the faults have significant control over the distribution of hot springs, and traditional methods of spatial data analysis such as WofE (weight of evidence) usually do not take into account the direction of the distribution of geothermal resources in the geothermal forecast process, which seriously affects the accuracy of the prediction results. To overcome the deficiency of the traditional evidence weight method, wherein it does not take the direction of evidence factor into account, this study put forward a combination of the Fry and WofE methods, Fry-WofE, based on geological observation, gravity, remote sensing, and DEM (digital elevation model) multivariate data. This study takes eastern Liaoning Province in China as an example, and the geothermal prospect was predicted respectively by the Fry-WofE and WofE methods from the statistical data on the spatial distribution of the exposed space of geothermal anomalies the surface. The result shows that the Fry-WofE method can achieve better prediction results when comparing the accuracy of these two methods. Based on the results of Fry-WofE prediction and water system extraction, 13 favorable geothermal prospect areas are delineated in eastern Liaoning Province. The Fry-WofE method is effective in study areas where the geothermal distribution area is obviously controlled by the fault. We provide not only a new method for solving the similar issue of geothermal exploration, but also a new insight into the distribution of geothermal resources in Liaoning Province.

Grasshopper plagues have posed a severe threat to grasslands in Inner Mongolia, China. How to predict and control grasshopper infestations has become an urgent issue. We sampled 293 plots in Xianghuangqi County, measured the density of the most dominant grasshopper species, Oedaleus decorus asiaticus , and the latitude, longitude, and certain habitat factors at each plot. We estimated the grasshopper habitat suitability using a fuzzy evaluation model combined with 3S technology, and evaluated the grasshopper climatic suitability during the period 2001–2010. The integrated suitability ranks can indicate the corresponding ranks of potential occurrence of grasshoppers (POG) well. The spatial pattern of POG was closely associated with that of habitat suitability. O . decorus asiaticus was most likely to be found at flat sites or southern/eastern slopes with elevations of 1300–1400 m, typical chestnut soil with sand content of 60–80% in the topsoil, and medium vegetation coverage of 30–50% on temperate bunchgrass steppe. The annual variations in spatial pattern of POG were mainly due to variations in climatic suitability. Spring drought and spring high temperature might cause grasshopper plagues. This study provides an effective means for predicting the locations where grasshoppers might occur using relatively stable habitat factors and a few climatic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Baiyangdian Wetland Natural Reserve is an important breeding habitat for oriental great reed warbler ( OGRWs) , Acrocephalus orientalis, in North China Plain. We investigated the nesting sites of OGRWs by line transect method during June-July, 2011, and 112 nests were found out in total. The ecological-niche factor analysis (ENFA) was applied in nesting habitat suitability assessment for OGRWs in Baiyangdian. The results showed that OGRWs in this reserve preferred nesting in dry land reed landscapes, which located at relatively high altitudes and away from anthropocentric disturbance. In 2011, the suitable and the most suitable nesting habitats of OGRWs in this reserve were 2474. 69 hm2 and 1131. 19 hm2 , accounting 7. 6% and 3. 5% of the total reserve area, respectively. The most suitable nesting habitats shaped a circle-like structure, and they all clustered together around Damai and Shaoche core area, which located in the east part of the reserve. In order to protect the nesting habitats for OGRWs within Baiyangdian wetland reserve, it was suggested that the functional zone should be reorganized, and that the Damai and Shaoche core area should be integrated into one. This new core area would be bigger and more concentrated, at the same time the buffer zone should also be established appropriately, so as to protect the natural landscapes in this reserve as much as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempted to measure forest resources at the individual tree level using high-resolution images by combining GPS, RS, and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies. The images were acquired by the WorldView-2 satellite with a resolution of 0.5 m in the panchromatic band and 2.0 m in the multispectral bands. Field data of 90 plots were used to verify the interpreted accuracy. The tops of trees in three groups, namely ⩾10 cm, ⩾15 cm, and ⩾20 cm DBH (diameter at breast height), were extracted by the individual tree crown (ITC) approach using filters with moving windows of 3 × 3 pixels, 5 × 5 pixels and 7 × 7 pixels, respectively. In the study area, there were 1,203,970 trees of DBH over 10 cm, and the interpreted accuracy was 73.68 ± 15.14% averaged over the 90 plots. The numbers of the trees that were ⩾15 cm and ⩾20 cm DBH were 727,887 and 548,919, with an average accuracy of 68.74 ± 17.21% and 71.92 ± 18.03%, respectively. The pixel-based classification showed that the classified accuracies of the 16 classes obtained using the eight multispectral bands were higher than those obtained using only the four standard bands. The increments ranged from 0.1% for the water class to 17.0% for Metasequoia glyptostroboides, with an average value of 4.8% for the 16 classes. In addition, to overcome the "mixed pixels" problem, a crown-based supervised classification, which can improve the classified accuracy of both dominant species and smaller classes, was used for generating a thematic map of tree species. The improvements of the crown- to pixel-based classification ranged from -1.6% for the open forest class to 34.3% for Metasequoia glyptostroboides, with an average value of 20.3% for the 10 classes. All tree tops were then annotated with the species attributes from the map, and a tree count of different species indicated that the forest of Purple Mountain is mainly dominated by Quercus acutissima, Liquidambar formosana and Pinus massoniana. The findings from this study lead to the recommendation of using the crown-based instead of the pixel-based classification approach in classifying mixed forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: With the rapid development of the global economy, there are more need to and reliance on the mineral resource. How to realize the effective management and the reasonable exploitation of the mineral resource in our country is the problem needing resolving urgently. The appearance and development of 3S technology offer the basis and method to solve this problem. The following paper, through the description of 3S technology, sets up the mineral resource verification system model on the basis of 3S technology, which offers a platform to manage and reasonably exploit the mineral resource. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this study, the key climatic factors in spawning, overwintering, and hatching periods of grasshopper were taken as the main factors to establish the climatic suitability index of potentia occurrence of grasshopper (POG) in Inner Mongolia, and an evaluation was conducted on the climatic suitability of POG in Xianghuangqi County of Inner Mongolia in 2010. Based on the field investigation data collected in early and mid July 2010, seven relatively stable habitat factors including elevation, aspect, soil type, soil sand content, vegetation type, vegetation coverage, and land cover type were selected, and the habitat suitability for POG throughout the County was estimated by using fuzzy evaluation combining with 3S (GIS, RS, and GPS) technology. The POG ranks in 2010 were estimated by integrating the climatic and habitat suitability for POG. The simulated locations where grasshopper occurred were verified by the field investigation data in 2010, and the simulated areas infected by grasshopper were verified by historical data from 2001 to 2010. The results confirmed that the estimated POG ranks were reliable. The climatic suitability for POG was very homogeneous over the study area, and the vast majority of the study area was in the rank of "suitable". The spatial heterogeneity of the potential locations where the grasshopper might occur was mainly related to habitat factors. The highest POG rank was found at the locations with elevation 1300-1400 m, flat or aspect of east or south, typical chestnut soil, soil sand content 60% 80%, and vegetation coverage 30% 50% in temperate bunchgrass steppe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: National land use database construction projects in county(or city)level was started in 1999.As an important part of “Digital Land Project”, Government in various level paid much attention to database construction, preliminary achievement has been made, but difference between area with various social and economic condition is objective and obvious. These areas with comprehensive basic material have already finished building land use database, which has been applied in land management, on the contrary, those region with incomplete basic data encountered enormous difficult, owing to historical reasons, present situation of data can not meet the request of establishing database,so the work is still walk back and forth. these original data must perform part or overall updating investigation in order to meet the need for database construction. In this paper, we discuss a series of new technology(or methods) adopted in the course of land use current situation updating partially (or overall renewing)and database construction, at the same time, bring up the choice method of the technological route under various basic materials situations, finally, suggestion solution is made out in the light of common problem. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Spatio-temporal dynamics of Spartina alterniflora marshes in the Shanyutan Wetland, Minjiang River estuary in 2006 and 2010 were studied by the aerial images and Google Earth stellite images and field investigations. The expansion of S. alterniflora was significant, the areas were 211.03 hm2 and 306.94 hm2, respectively in 2006 and 2010. They mainly distributed in the middle tidal flat and extended quickly from northwest to southeast. Number of Patches of S. alterniflora marsh decreased by 59.17%, Mean Patch Size increased by 266.67%, Patch Shape Index decreased from 23.28 to 19.50. 85.03 hm2 of mudflats changed to S. alterniflora marshes, accounting for 72.54% of the area of increased S. alterniflora marsh, and mainly occurred in low tidal flat and surrounding areas of tidal creeks in east and central zones. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Changes of land-use policy and herdsmen settlement in mid-1980s have significantly altered the diversity of vegetations in aid grazing ecosystems. To examine the spatial dynamics of vegetation species and the changes of carbon source/sink, ecological survey, accompanied with 3S technology, had been applied in this study. A total of 1169 vegetation samples were collected along two 5km transects, along with topographic and demographic variables (slope, aspects, population, distance from the center of new herd farms). Analysis of this dataset revealed that more than 1/3 of the lands were in serious degradation with dominant unpalatable plant community. The increase in the abundance of inedible plant Peganum harmala in sunny slope near the farm and some annual unpalatable species in the lower land indicated serious degradation of grassland. The roads, the heavily used patches, impacted plant cover greatly, a decrease of 24.8% comparing to adjacent patches. This field experiment demonstrated that there were significant relationships between plant cover and two driving factors; slope degree and distances from the new farm center; on the other side, the results of spatial data analysis provided basis for improving the grassland carbon balance condition. In general, plant cover declined with increases in slope and decreases in the distance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Lhasa River Basin is one of the typical distribution regions of alpine wetlands on the Tibetan Plateau. It is very important to get a better understanding of the background and characteristics of alpine wetland for monitoring, protection and utilization. Wetland construction and distribution in the basin were analyzed based on multi-source data including field investigation data, CBERS remote sensing data and other thematic data provided by 3S technology. The results are (1) the total area of wetlands is 209,322.26 hm2, accounting for 6.37% of the total land area of the basin. The wetlands are mainly dominated by natural wetland, with artificial wetland occupying only 1.09% of the wetland area; marsh wetland is the principal part of natural wetland, dominated by Kobresia littledalei swampy meadow which is distributed in the river source area and upstream of Chali, Damshung and Medro Gongkar counties. The ratio and type of wetlands in different counties differ significantly, which are widely distributed in Chali and Damshung counties (accounting for 62% of the total wetland area). (2) The concentrated vertical distribution of wetlands is at an elevation of 3600–5100 m. The wetlands are widely distributed throughout the Yarlung Zangbo River Valley from river source to river mouth into the Yarlung Zangbo River. Marsh wetland is dominant in the source area and upstream of the river, with the mosaic distribution of lakes, Kobresia littledalei and Carex moorcroftii swampy meadow, shrubby swamp and river; as for the middle-down streams, the primary types are river wetland and flooded wetland. The distribution is in a mosaic pattern of river, Kobresia humilis and Carex moorcroftii swampy meadow, Phragmites australis and subordinate grass marsh, flooded wetland and artificial wetland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shuangtaizi estuarine wetland along the Bohai Sea coast, the biggest bulrush wetland in the world, has been listed in ‘The Record of Important International Wetland Conservation District’. Taking the year of 2 000 as an example, the minimum, the most suitable and the maximum ecological water requirement of Shuangtaizi estuarine wetland are calculated in this paper based on both ecological theory and Geological Information System technology. In addition, the remote sensing technique is adopted in the data acquisition process. Moreover, the total water requirement and the unit area water requirement for different wetland types are obtained. The result is very important for water resources planning, ecological conservation and regional agriculture structure adjustment in Shuangtaizi. Meanwhile, this study can serve as a useful example for calculating the ecological water requirement in other similar estuarine wetlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schistosomiasis is serious parasitic disease with an estimated global prevalence of active infections of more than 190 million. Accurate methods for the assessment of schistosomiasis risk are crucial for schistosomiasis prevention and control in China. Traditional approaches to the identification of epidemiological risk factors include pathogen biology, immunology, imaging, and molecular biology techniques. Identification of schistosomiasis risk has been revolutionized by the advent of computer network communication technologies, including 3S, mathematical modeling, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI). In this review, we analyze the development of traditional and new technologies for risk identification of schistosomiasis transmission in China. New technologies allow for the integration of environmental and socio-economic factors for accurate prediction of the risk population and regions. The combination of traditional and new techniques provides a foundation for the development of more effective approaches to accelerate the process of schistosomiasis elimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the basic theory description of 3S, and gave the example of dump of Hanzhou open-pit which belongs to Fuxin Mining Group, first of all, used the GPS technology of static and RTK to get the three-dimensional position of the points in survey control network and the topographic maps before and after the reclamation in reclamation area; used the technology of GPS RTK to calibrate the geometric elements designed in land reclamation, at the same time to get the actual coordinates of the design point after layout. Then, used RS technology to supervise systematically on land reclamation of mining area from the time to space; finally, used GIS technology to display 3-D visualization, analyze, manage, and enquire the date obtained by GPS and RS data, which can facilitate the decision decision-makers to plan land reclamation current and long-term, and can be extended to other mines which have same or similar conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definition of "Digital Water Conservancy" is proposed on the basis of "Digital Earth" in this paper. The necessity, feasibility, construction principles of "Digital Water Conservancy" are analysed, and the framework of it is proposed, that is: key technology, basic infrastructure, and comprehensive applications. The key technology is composed of spatial information technology, management information technology, and comprehensive information technology; the basic infrastructure consists of National Information Infrastructure (Nil), National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), special data of water conservancy and security measures; the comprehensive applications are made up of the management system, decision-making models, and application systems. The above three levels supply hardware and solftware to water conservancy around data acquisition and updating, processing and accessing, information extraction and analysis, propagation of information, building and updating of databases, web and transmission, and decision-making support. A spatial information infrastructure, special data of water conservancy, and decision-making models are the core and are discussed in detail. Digital Water Conservancy is a large and complex systematic engineering, but it can be regarded as being composed of points (reservoirs and lakes), lines (rivers and their watersheds), and regions (oceans). A digital reservoir analysis is carried out in Xue Ye Reservoir, Shandong Province to provide experience for informatisation of water conservancy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on field survey located by GPS, it is obtained landslides' location and distribution information by the method of remote sensing in this paper. The vector data of environmental factors that breed and induce landslides such as the elevation, the slope, the vegetation cover, the lithology, the rainfall and so on are gained using GIS (geographical information system) techniques of spatial analysis. All the data obtained are managed through building landslide management system. At the same time, the system is made the platform to appraise the relationship between the distribution of landslides and the environmental factors. The results indicate: landslides take place relatively easily in the slope range between 10° and 25°; most landslides are in the mixed area of bush and grass with a coverage degree of from 20% to 65%; the distribution of landslides has a positive relationship with the distribution of annual rainfall. The risk degree of Panxi Area is zoned and mapped by the model of liner stack using GIS technique, and the result indicates: the place of high risk degree is the belt of Panzhihua-Miyi-Dechang-Mugu and southeast of Huili county and Huidong county, and area is about 512 707 hm2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is a great agricultural country with large population, limited soil resources and traditional farming mode, so the central government has been attaching great importance to the development of agriculture and put forward a new agricultural technology revolution — the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture and from extensive farming to intensive farming. Digital agriculture is the core of agricultural informatization. The enforcement of digital agriculture will greatly promote agricultural technology revolution, two agricultural transformations and its rapid development, and enhance China’s competitive power after the entrance of WTO. To carry out digital agriculture, the frame system of digital agriculture is required to be studied in the first place. In accordance with the theory and technology of digital earth and in combination with the agricultural reality of China, this article outlines the frame system of digital agriculture and its main content and technology support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the content, purpose and significance of digital agriculture, and gives a brief introduction to digital earth, digital China and digital agriculture abroad. The main content of digital agriculture includes the construction of database, Metadata standard, monitoring system, forecasting and decision-making system, information-releasing system. The main technical supports of digital agriculture are 3S technology, Metadata management technology, fast-handling technology of remote sensing, the technology of computer wide-band network and virtual reality, intelligent agriculture machinery and field real-time information collecting technology. The advantages of implementing digital agriculture in China and the problems worthy of attention are pointed out as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]