Day: September 29, 2010

Relationship Between the Riverine Nitrate–nitrogen Concentration and the Land Use in the Teshio River Watershed, North Japan

/ Matt Artz / 1 Comment

Sustainability Science, Volume 4, Number 2, 2009, 189-198

Nina Y. Ileva, Hideaki Shibata, Fuyuki Satoh, Kaichiro Sasa and Hiroshi Ueda

“The present research investigated the relationship between nitrate–nitrogen (NO3–N) in river water and the land use/land cover (hereafter, land use) in the Teshio River watershed located in northern Hokkaido island to understand the effect of human activities such as agriculture, forestry, industry, and urbanization in the drainage basin on the river ecosystem quality and services. River water was sampled at nine points seasonally during a 2-year period and the nutrients concentration was measured. Land use profiles were estimated at two spatial scales, riparian and sub-catchment, for each sampling station. The spatial pattern of water quality in the Teshio River showed increased NO3–N levels associated with agriculture and urban expansion, and forest reduction in the watershed. Land use at the riparian scale closely reflected that at the sub-catchment scale, which masked the unique riparian buffer effect on the river water condition. The increased agricultural and reduced forest area in the riparian zone, especially in the upper middle reach, could be a possible reason for a decline of ecosystem service for the provisioning of clean water and habitat for aquatic organisms. Measures towards sustainable and more nature-friendly agricultural management are necessary in the area to protect the Teshio River ecosystem and its ecosystem services.”

Georgia Association of Regional Commissions Strengths GIS Program to Enhance Citizen Services across the State

/ Matt Artz

The Georgia Association of Regional Commissions (GARC) has signed an enterprise license agreement (ELA) with Esri to secure unlimited access to ArcGIS software. GARC works to advance the efforts of the state’s 12 regional commissions, which serve local governments across the state. The ELA will help GARC members better meet geographic information system (GIS) technology needs in counties, cities, and towns, resulting in improved services for citizens.

“I think this is one of the biggest landmark decisions that the executive directors of the Georgia Association of Regional Commissions has made in its existence because it not only helps the regional commissions, it helps all the citizens in the state of Georgia, collectively,” said Chris Chalmers, GIS/IT committee chairman, GARC. “In the economic times we find ourselves in, improving the quality of service to our local governments is not only the goal of each regional commission but also the Georgia Association of Regional Commission’s main goal.”

With broader access to current ArcGIS software, GARC members will update and improve many GIS workflows and applications. For example, individual commissions will begin replicating data with one another for better contingency planning. If a hurricane damages the Coastal Regional Commission systems, commission leaders will be able to access their data immediately via the Middle Georgia Regional Commission GIS.

“Our GIS committee is outstanding; we are fortunate to have some of the finest individuals involved,” said Danny Lewis, GARC president. “They recommended the ELA to our executive directors, and there was never a question that the benefits would be exactly what the State of Georgia needed to succeed. I applaud those who advocated this initiative—it exemplifies what is expected of the regional commission leaders in Georgia. We think the sky is the limit as to what we can accomplish.”

For more information on Esri ELAs, visit www.esri.com/ela.

[Source: Esri press release]

Quote of the Day

/ Matt Artz

“The truth about conservation is that some of the best work is done by intelligent folks sitting in front of computer screens, tied to a global community by a tangle of phone and internet lines, or in a board rooms surrounded by like-minded Patagonia- and Carhartt-clad colleagues.”

—Christina Supples

Collaboration in the Model Web

/ Matt Artz

Proceedings of the Workshop “Towards Digital Earth: Search, Discover and Share Geospatial Data 2010” at Future Internet Symposium, Berlin, Germany, September 20, 2010

Sven Schade, Patrick Maué, Clodoveu Davis

“Compared to environmental data sets, an open and simple exchange of environmental models on the Web remains a vision.  The lack of an architecture facilitating the different aspects of sharing models, in the sense of scientific simulations of environmental phenomena, significantly impairs collaboration between the different use groups interested in the model results.  In this paper we discuss current solutions and future challenges which facilitate collaboration in a web of models.  We elaborate on the key issues, and illustrate our vision of a collaborative Model Web by detailing a possible usage scenario.  We analyze different aspects of environmental models, investigate the involved actors, and define the different means of collaboration between these actors.  This work provides a mid-term goal for the development of the Model Web and thereby for a central part of the Digital Earth.”

Exploring Patterns of Movement Suspension in Pedestrian Mobility

/ Matt Artz

Geographical Analysis, 2010 (In press)

D. Orellana and M. Wachowicz

“[This is a working version of a paper accepted for publication in  Geographical Analysis. For the final version, please contact the author.]

“One  of the main tasks  in analysing pedestrian movement is to detect  places where pedestrians stop,  because those  places  are usually associated to specific human activities and  they  can  allow us to understand their movement behaviour. Very few approaches have been proposed to detect the locations of stops in positioning data sets, and they are usually based on selecting the location of candidate stops  as well as  potential  spatial and temporal thresholds according to  different application  requirements. However, these approaches are not suitable  for analysing the slow movement of pedestrians where the inaccuracy of  non-differential GPS  commonly used for movement tracking  is  so  significant  that can hinder the selection of  adequate  thresholds.  In this  paper,  we  propose  an  exploratory statistical approach in order to detect patterns of movement suspension using a local index of spatial association (LISA)  in a vector space representation. Two different positioning data sets  are used  to evaluate our approach  in terms of exploring movement suspension patterns which  can be  related to  different landscapes. They are  players  of  an urban  outdoor mobile game and visitors  of  a  natural  park. The results show that  in both experiments patterns of movement suspension were located at places such as checkpoints  in  the game and different attractions and facilities  in  the park. Based on these results we conclude that LISA  is a reliable approach for exploring movement suspension  patterns  that  represent  the places where  the movement of  pedestrians is temporally suspended by physical restrictions (e.g. checkpoints of the mobile game and the route choosing points of the park). ”