A model for locating fodder shrub plantations sites in the Jordanian badiyah

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 527
Author(s):  
S. Saïdi ◽  
G. Gintzburger ◽  
L. Gazull ◽  
J. Wallace ◽  
S. Christiansen

We developed a GIS desktop model to accurately locate and map prospective areas for sustainable establishment and production of Atriplex plantations and other fodder shrubs in the desert in the north-eastern Jordanian Badiyah. The aim is to provide a tool to assist managers, local communities and development projects in Mediterranean arid and semi-arid rangelands. The model uses freely available data and GIS layers of current land use, land cover, settlement location, soil information, and derivatives from a digital elevation model to provide critical locations of drainage lines and to calculate Areas of Accumulated Water from concentrated runoff. The model identified, accurately located and mapped ~4500 ha (1.44% of the test zone) as technically appropriate for potential shrub plantations sites. The final site map must be field-checked and validated with the local communities and authorities. Our model has potential for wide application over arid and semi-arid Mediterranean rangelands from Morocco to Pakistan, with local adjustment of our parameters and rules. The model considerably reduces the risk and costs of fodder plantation establishment operations, thus increasing the feasibility of efforts to maximise fodder shrub establishment, survival and production.

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Eva Stopková

The paper summarizes the geodetic contribution for the Slovak team within the joint Polish-Slovak archaeological mission at Tell el-Retaba in Egypt. Surveying work at archaeological excavations is usually influenced by somewhat specific subject of study and extreme conditions, especially at the missions in the developing countries. The case study describes spatial data development according to the archaeological conventions in order to document spatial relationships between the objects in excavated trenches. The long-term sustainability of surveying work at the site has been ensured by detailed metadata recording. Except the trench mapping, Digital Elevation Model has been calculated for the study area and for the north-eastern part of the site, with promising preliminary results for further detection and modelling of archaeological structures. In general, topographic mapping together with modern technologies like Photogrammetry, Satellite Imagery, and Remote Sensing provide valuable data sources for spatial and statistical modelling of the sites; and the results offer a different perspective for the archaeological research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shpejtim Bulliqi ◽  
Leutrim Krasniqi ◽  
Florim Isufi

Based on the dialectical principle, an attempt was made to analyze in details the impact of relief on land cover and land use. To achieve this objective, the Llap river basin was chosen. The Llap river basin lies in the north-eastern part of Kosovo, which is discerned as a morphological whole with particular physical-geographic elements. Since the past, relief was a factor with direct and indirect impact on land cover and especially on land use. The essential part of the analysis was the correlation of the geomorphometric parameters (altitude and slope) with land cover and land use. For calculating these parameters, a digital elevation model of 12 m / pixel was downloaded from the Alaska Satellite Facility. On the other hand, the CORINE Land Cover 2012 data from the European Environment Agency (EEA) were used for land cover. The completion of the analysis was done in that form for each category of geomorphometric parameters was compared with land cover and land use. It is evident that relief has influenced the Llap basin, both in the extent of settlements and in the activities that human develop on this land.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 401-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Mayer ◽  
A. Lambrecht ◽  
W. Hagg ◽  
Y. Narozhny

Abstract. Glaciers are important water storages on a seasonal and long-term time scale. Where high mountains are surrounded by arid lowlands, glacier runoff is an important source of water during the growing season. This situation can be found in the Altay mountains in Southern Siberia, where the recent glacierization of >700 km2 is subject to continuous mass loss, even though the shrinking is comparably slow. The glacier retreat is accompanied by an extension of supra-glacial moraine, which itself strongly influences ablation rates. To quantify these effects, the spatial evolution of debris cover since 1952 was analysed for three glaciers in the North Chuya Ridge using satellite and airborne imagery. In summer 2007, an ablation experiment was carried out on debris covered parts of Maliy Aktru glacier. Thermistors in different depths within the moraine provided data to calculate thermal resistance of the debris. A set of ablation stakes was installed at locations with differing debris thickness and observed regularly throughout the entire melt season. Air temperature from an AWS was used to calculate degree day factors in dependence of the debris thickness. To take into account the shading effect of surrounding walls and peaks, the potential solar radiation and its evolution throughout the summer was determined from a digital elevation model. This allows us to extrapolate our measurements from Maliy Aktru to the other two glaciers of the Aktru basin and to estimate basin melt rates. In addition accumulated ice melt was derived for 12 glaciers in the North Chuya Range. Changes in summer runoff from the 1960s are compared to the results from our melt model and the evolution of debris cover is analysed in respect to the melt activity.


2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 195-202
Author(s):  
Marvin R. Pyles ◽  
Mari Kramer

Abstract An aerial photo-based inventory of landslides on recently harvested and reforested land after a significant landslide-producing storm in February 1996, was compared with a digital elevation model-based assessment of slope stability (shallow landsliding stability model [SHALSTAB]) for Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians (CTSI) and surrounding forestland. The SHALSTAB predictions of landslide locations did not correlate well with the locations of observed landslides. Eighty-nine percent of the landslides on the more stable landform in the southern portion of the CTSI ownership occurred on land that SHALSTAB indicated to be at a low risk of landsliding. Seventy-two percent of the landslides on the less stable landform to the north occurred on land that SHALSTAB indicated to be at a low risk of landsliding. Conversely, only 11 and 28%, respectively, of the observed landslides occurred on lands predicted to be “chronically unstable” or at “high risk” by SHALSTAB. This level of correct prediction of landsliding was judged to be unacceptable for SHALSTAB to be used for slope stability assessment as a part of forest management planning. West. J. Appl. For. 21(4):195–202.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuzuru Isoda ◽  
Akio Muranaka ◽  
Go Tanibata ◽  
Kazumasa Hanaoka ◽  
Junzo Ohmura ◽  
...  

Disaster-originated placename is a kind of disaster subculture that is used for a practical purpose of identifying a location while reminding the past disaster experience. They are expected to transmit the risks and knowledge of high-risk low-frequency natural hazards, surviving over time and generations. This paper compares the perceptions to tsunami-originated placenames in local communities having realistic and exaggerated origins in Sanriku Coast, Japan. The reality of tsunami-originated placenames is first assessed by comparing the tsunami run-ups indicated in the origins and that of the tsunami in the Great East Japan Earthquake 2011 using GIS and digital elevation model. Considerable proportions of placenames had exaggerated origins, but the group interviews to local communities revealed that origins indicating unrealistic tsunami run-ups were more believed than that of the more realistic ones. We discuss that accurate hazard information will be discredited if it contradicts to the people’s everyday life and the desire for safety, and even imprecise and ambiguous information can survive if it is embedded to a system of local knowledge that consistently explains the various facts in a local area that requires explanation.


1999 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 65-73
Author(s):  
S.J.G. Hall

SummaryCharacterisations are given of the little-known Sabi sheep and the local population of the Small East African goat in two areas in NE Zimbabwe. The southern area had been more affected by drought in 1991–92. For sheep (both areas combined; n = 28 in 10 flocks) the mean declared age of breeding females and the median age at first parturition were surprisingly high (6.1 years and 4 years respectively). Breeding female goats in the southern area were younger (4.9 vs. 6.4 years), and their age at first kidding was lower (3 years vs. 5 years), than in the north (n = 122 in 25 flocks total). These advanced ages could be an after-effect of the drought. Juvenile mortality and the proportions of young that were ultimately marketed were similar to what has been found elsewhere in semi-arid Africa. Breeding females were found to be smaller than their counterparts in semi-arid areas in West Africa with mean withers heights of 56.5 cm (n = 112 goats) and 60.4 cm (n = 36 sheep). Conditions in this area appear difficult for small ruminants and the populations sampled may be well adapted to marginal environments and thus worthy of conservation.


Soil Research ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 140 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. G. B. M. Albuquerque ◽  
T. O. Ferreira ◽  
G. N. Nóbrega ◽  
R. E. Romero ◽  
V. S. Souza Júnior ◽  
...  

Wetland soils, especially those under a semi-arid climate, are among the least studied soils in the tropics. The hypersaline tidal flats on the north-eastern Brazilian coast, locally named apicum, are coastal wetland ecosystems in the peripheral portions of semi-arid estuaries. Despite their great ecological importance, they have been highly impacted by anthropogenic activities. Morphological and analytical data of six soil profiles, representative of the different coastal compartments (mangroves, apicum and coastal tablelands) of the north-eastern Brazilian coast, were examined to better understand the pedogenesis of apicum soils. The hypersaline tidal flat soils were classified as Typic Fluvaquents and Typic Sulfaquents with the following main characteristics: predominance of sand fraction (62–77%); presence of high-activity clays (>24 cmolc kg–1 clay); clay fraction comprising kaolinite, illite, smectite and an interstratified smectite/illite; exchangeable complex dominated by Na+ (ESP ≥15%); elevated levels of salinity (electrical conductivity, EC 25–44 dS m–1); alkaline pH values (7.5–9.5). The sandy texture and quartz-dominated composition of the hypersaline, tidal flat soils indicate a pedogenesis associated with the superficial addition of mineral material. This upbuilding process would have lowered the watertable (relatively to the ground level) and decreased the flooding frequency by the tides, favouring salinisation and solonisation processes at the hypersaline tidal flats. Furthermore, the still-existing hydromorphism would have promoted the maintenance of gleisation and sulfidisation. The presence of pyrite on the hyper-saline tidal flat soils further corroborates the formation of apicum soils from/over buried mangroves.


Solid Earth ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 2047-2074
Author(s):  
Oleg Sizov ◽  
Anna Volvakh ◽  
Anatoly Molodkov ◽  
Andrey Vishnevskiy ◽  
Andrey Soromotin ◽  
...  

Abstract. Analysing the genesis of Quaternary sediments is important for understanding the glaciation history and development of marine sediments in the northern part of Western Siberia. The problem is relevant since there is no consistent concept of the Quaternary sediment genesis in the north of Western Siberia. The formation of sediments is associated with marine, glacial and interglacial sedimentation conditions. The research objective is to identify the persistent features characterising the conditions of sedimentation and relief formation using the Nadym River basin as an example. The best method for studying this problem is a comprehensive analysis of the lithological, chronostratigraphic, petrographic and geomorphological studies of the Quaternary sediment upper strata. This study provides data from the analysis of the basic characteristics of quartz grains at the site. The rounding and morphology of the quartz grains provide evidence of possible glacial processing of some of the site strata. A petrographic study of selected boulder samples was performed. Some of them, by the shape and presence of striation, can be attributed to ice basins. The first use of a detailed digital elevation model applied to the study area made it possible to identify specific relief forms that could very likely be created during glaciations. Based on the analysis, we propose to consider the vast lake alluvial plains in the Nadym River basin as periglacial regions. This idea lays the lithological framework for understanding the reasons for the formation of the modern landscape structure. The materials and descriptions provided are of interest to researchers of Quaternary sediments, topography, vegetation and soil cover, particularly researchers engaged in revising the history of the natural environment development in the north of Western Siberia.


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