Comment on: “Managing fisheries from space: Google Earth improves estimates of distant fish catches” by Al-Abdulrazzak and Pauly

2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (7) ◽  
pp. 1921-1926 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Garibaldi ◽  
Jennifer Gee ◽  
Sachiko Tsuji ◽  
Piero Mannini ◽  
David Currie
Keyword(s):  
Fisheries Management ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
National Data ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
Fishing Season ◽  
National Statistics ◽  
Ground Validation ◽  
Catch Rates ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Adequate Ground

This Comment was prompted by the substantial difference in weir catch estimates in the Gulf between (i) those reported by Al-Abdulrazzak and Pauly (2014. Managing fisheries from space: Google Earth improves estimates of distant fish catches. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 71(3), 450–454), who used Google Earth to count weir numbers, and (ii) those available from official national statistics provided by two major weir fishing countries (Bahrain and Iran). Satellite imageries, including Google Earth, are powerful tools for collecting data on visible structures when verified with adequate ground validation. However, an extension of their contribution to improving overall catch estimates is rather limited without having solid information on daily catch, which will substantially differ according to time and area, and fishing season lengths. It was noted that Al-Abdulrazzak and Pauly (2013) introduced positive biases through their interpretation of Google Earth images and data treatment. They included several assumptions, such as removing the impact of poor visibility, correcting grids of low resolutions, estimating number of unseen weirs, and applying daily catch rates higher than referenced observed values. The overall extent of such potential positive bias could be more than six times that which we considered reasonable. This Comment also corrects misconceptions about “FAO catch data”, discusses other available national data, and introduces the existence of the Regional Commission for Fisheries (RECOFI), a mechanism for fisheries management in the Gulf region, and its recent activities to collect more complete catch and effort data separated by gear.

Dynamic Comparison of the Fruit Sector and the Pollution Associated to Agriculture

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (10) ◽  
pp. 2776-2780
Author(s):  
Valentina Constanta Tudor ◽  
Ionela Mituko Vlad ◽  
Diana Zamfir Vasca
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Perennial Plants ◽  
National Statistics ◽  
The Impact

Pollution in agriculture plays a major role. One of the sector affected by this phenomenon is the perennial plants, such as fruits sector. This sector is an important part of agricultural production in Romania, mainly because of the areas that have been dedicated; that is why the sector should be reconsidered because it could be one of the engines of the agriculture. This have to led to important efforts and increased attention in managing the opportunities offered by the development of the associations and producer groups involved. The present paper aims to address certain aspects of the national, macro-regional and European aspects of these fruits productions and the impact of the degree of pollution in agriculture. In this respect, data derived from the public databases dedicated to this field, namely Eurostat, the National Statistics Institute, DG Agriculture / FADN database and the Ministry of Agriculture, were used. The methods used to analyze and interpret the results are descriptive statistics, dynamics and comparisons between target areas and indicators. The results highlighted in the first part of the paper the Romania�s position upon the European average in what concern the fruit sector but also upon a competing country on the fruit market, Poland, which is considered to have a European top position.

scholarly journals Crise Económica em Portugal: Evolução da Incidência de Depressão e Correlação com o Desemprego

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (13) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inês Laplanche Coelho ◽  
Mafalda Sousa-Uva ◽  
Nuno Pina ◽  
Sara Marques ◽  
Carlos Matias-Dias ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Vulnerability ◽  
Ecological Study ◽  
Preventive Measures ◽  
Portuguese Population ◽  
Sentinel Network ◽  
Unemployment Rates ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
National Statistics ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

Introduction: Previous studies have found an increase in the incidence rate of depression between 2007 – 2013 in Portugal, with a positive correlation with the unemployment rate, namely, in men. So, it was hypothesized that this increase is related with the situation of economic crisis. This study aimed to investigate if the correlation between unemployment rates and the incidence of depression is maintained in the post-crisis period of economic recovery in Portugal (2016 – 2018).Material and Methods: An ecological study was carried out, using data from the General Practitioners Sentinel Network concerning depression incidence (first episodes and relapses) and data from the National Statistics Institute on unemployment rates in the Portuguese population. The correlation coefficient was estimated using linear regression and the results were disaggregated by sex.Results: Between 2016 and 2018, there was a consistent decrease in the incidence of depression in both sexes. During the 1995 – 2018 period, a positive correlation was observed between unemployment and depression, with a coefficient of 0.833 (p = 0.005) in males and of 0.742 (p = 0.022) in females.Discussion: The reduction in the incidence of depression in both sexes observed between 2016 – 2018 corroborates a positive correlation between unemployment and depression in the Portuguese population, previously observed between 2007 – 2013.Conclusion: This study highlights the need to monitor the occurrence of mental illness in the Portuguese population, especially in moments of greatest social vulnerability in order to establish preventive measures, as a way to mitigate the impact of future economic crises.

scholarly journals Using Unstated Cases to Correct for COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak and Its Impact on Easing the Intervention for Qatar

Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 463
Author(s):  
Narjiss Sallahi ◽  
Heesoo Park ◽  
Fedwa El Mellouhi ◽  
Mustapha Rachdi ◽  
Idir Ouassou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Epidemiological Models ◽  
Sir Epidemic Model ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
Epidemiological Modeling ◽  
Public Health Policies ◽  
Sir Epidemic ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Case Data

Epidemiological Modeling supports the evaluation of various disease management activities. The value of epidemiological models lies in their ability to study various scenarios and to provide governments with a priori knowledge of the consequence of disease incursions and the impact of preventive strategies. A prevalent method of modeling the spread of pandemics is to categorize individuals in the population as belonging to one of several distinct compartments, which represents their health status with regard to the pandemic. In this work, a modified SIR epidemic model is proposed and analyzed with respect to the identification of its parameters and initial values based on stated or recorded case data from public health sources to estimate the unreported cases and the effectiveness of public health policies such as social distancing in slowing the spread of the epidemic. The analysis aims to highlight the importance of unreported cases for correcting the underestimated basic reproduction number. In many epidemic outbreaks, the number of reported infections is likely much lower than the actual number of infections which can be calculated from the model’s parameters derived from reported case data. The analysis is applied to the COVID-19 pandemic for several countries in the Gulf region and Europe.

Interval Breast Cancers in the NHS Breast Screening Programme: Does the Current Definition Exclude Too Many?

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 169-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
A M Faux ◽  
D C Richardson ◽  
G M Lawrence ◽  
M E Wheaton ◽  
M G Wallisconsultant
Keyword(s):  
Breast Screening ◽  
Interval Cancer ◽  
Breast Cancers ◽  
Interval Cancers ◽  
Exclusion Criteria ◽  
National Statistics ◽  
Screening Unit ◽  
Cancer Rates ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact

Objectives— To examine the impact of the definition of interval breast cancers on interval cancer rates arising from the prevalent (first) screening round. Design— Interval breast cancers arising from the prevalent (first) screening round at the Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry Breast Screening Unit (17 April 1989 to 31 March 1992) were identified by comparison of data held at the unit with records at the West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit. Exclusion criteria used in National statistics were applied to this sample to quantify their impact on achieved interval cancer rates. The round lengths experienced by individual women at the unit were determined from the prevalent and incident invitation dates for 155 women with incident (re-screen) breast cancers detected in the second round. Setting— Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry Breast Screening Unit. Subects—59 017 women screened between 17 April 1989 and 31 March 1992 with a negative screening result and 155 women with incident screen detected cancers. Results— A total of 278 interval cancers were identified, giving an overall rate from the prevalent screening round of 47.1/10 000 women screened. Of these, 213 met the criteria used in the definition of interval cancers for National statistics and were termed “core” interval cancers. The overall “core” interval rate was 36.1/10 000 women screened, similar to interval cancer rates found in the north west of United Kingdom. Thus applying commonly used exclusion criteria produced a 23.4% reduction in the apparent interval cancer rate, with the largest decrease resulting from the exclusion of cancers arising at 36 months or more from the last screen. Conclusions— The exclusion criteria used in the definition of interval cancers have a significant impact on observed interval cancer rates. Of particular concern is the exclusion in the current National definitions of cancers arising at 36 months or more from the last screen, which may mask a problem with significant implications for the success of the NHSBSP.

scholarly journals Google Earth Engine as Multi-Sensor Open-Source Tool for Supporting the Preservation of Archaeological Areas: The Case Study of Flood and Fire Mapping in Metaponto, Italy

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1791
Author(s):  
Carmen Fattore ◽  
Nicodemo Abate ◽  
Farid Faridani ◽  
Nicola Masini ◽  
Rosa Lasaponara
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
Unsupervised Classification ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Cultural Properties ◽  
Google Earth Engine ◽  
Archaeological Areas ◽  
The Impact

In recent years, the impact of Climate change, anthropogenic and natural hazards (such as earthquakes, landslides, floods, tsunamis, fires) has dramatically increased and adversely affected modern and past human buildings including outstanding cultural properties and UNESCO heritage sites. Research about protection/monitoring of cultural heritage is crucial to preserve our cultural properties and (with them also) our history and identity. This paper is focused on the use of the open-source Google Earth Engine tool herein used to analyze flood and fire events which affected the area of Metaponto (southern Italy), near the homonymous Greek-Roman archaeological site. The use of the Google Earth Engine has allowed the supervised and unsupervised classification of areas affected by flooding (2013–2020) and fire (2017) in the past years, obtaining remarkable results and useful information for setting up strategies to mitigate damage and support the preservation of areas and landscape rich in cultural and natural heritage.

A fisheries management success story: the Gisborne, New Zealand, fishery for red rock lobsters (Jasus edwardsii)

1997 ◽  
Vol 48 (8) ◽  
pp. 1103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Breen ◽  
Terese H. Kendrick
Keyword(s):  
Fisheries Management ◽  
Unit Price ◽  
Success Story ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Structured Model ◽  
Jasus Edwardsii ◽  
Fishery Data ◽  
Catch Rates ◽  
Related Mortality ◽  
Future Management

After individual quotas were imposed in 1990, the fishery for Jasus edwardsii in the Gisborne area showed continuing declines in catch and catch rate to 1993, and the total quota could not be caught in this area. There were few legal-sized but many sublegal-sized lobsters. Pots caused mortality of sublegal lobsters through handling, pot-related Octopus predation, and thefts from commercial pots. The industry, in conjunction with recreational fishers and Maori, developed a scheme to address these problems. The aim was to increase landed value to compensate for quota reductions, and to do this by landing more lobsters in winter (when prices were higher) and landing smaller lobsters (which had a higher unit price). A shortened season was designed to reduce pot-related mortality. Part of the scheme—a proposal to reduce the minimum legal size of male lobsters—caused controversy. However, the package was evaluated with a simple model and then accepted by the Minister of Fisheries. Results were substantially increased catch rates since 1993, a successful shift to a winter fishery, and a shift in length frequencies toward larger sizes. A simple size-structured model fitted to the fishery data and used to evaluate future management options is also described.

scholarly journals Characterizing Hydrological Connectivity of Artificial Ditches in Zoige Peatlands of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiwei Li ◽  
Peng Gao ◽  
Yuchi You
Keyword(s):  
Google Earth ◽  
Tibet Plateau ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Water Volume ◽  
Hydrological Connectivity ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Zoigê Basin ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Qinghai Tibet Plateau ◽  
Peatland Degradation

Peats have the unique ability of effectively storing water and carbon. Unfortunately, this ability has been undermined by worldwide peatland degradation. In the Zoige Basin, located in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China, peatland degradation is particularly severe. Although climate change and (natural and artificial) drainage systems have been well-recognized as the main factors catalyzing this problem, little is known about the impact of the latter on peatland hydrology at larger spatial scales. To fill this gap, we examined the hydrological connectivity of artificial ditch networks using Google Earth imagery and recorded hydrological data in the Zoige Basin. After delineating from the images of 1392 ditches and 160 peatland patches in which these ditches were clustered, we calculated their lengths, widths, areas, and slopes, as well as two morphological parameters, ditch density (Dd) and drainage ability (Pa). The subsequent statistical analysis and examination of an index defined as the product Dd and Pa showed that structural hydrological connectivity, which was quantitatively represented by the value of this index, decreased when peatland patch areas increased, suggesting that ditches in small patches have higher degrees of hydrological connectivity. Using daily discharge data from three local gauging stations and Manning’s equation, we back-calculated the mean ditch water depths (Dm) during raining days of a year and estimated based on Dm the total water volume drained from ditches in each patch (V) during annual raining days. We then demonstrated that functional hydrological connectivity, which may be represented by V, generally decreased when patch areas increased, more sensitive to changes of ditch number and length in larger peatland patches. Furthermore, we found that the total water volume drained from all ditches during annual raining days only took a very small proportion of the total volume of stream flow out of the entire watershed (0.0012%) and this nature remained similar for the past 30 years, suggesting that during annual rainfall events, water drained from connected ditches is negligible. This revealed that the role of connected artificial ditches in draining peatland water mainly takes effect during the prolonged dry season of a year in the Zoige Basin.

scholarly journals Relating Land Use/Cover and Landscape Pattern to the Water Quality under the Simulation of SWAT in a Reservoir Basin, Southeast China

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 11067
Author(s):  
Kaige Lei ◽  
Yifan Wu ◽  
Feng Li ◽  
Jiayu Yang ◽  
Mingtao Xiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Landscape Patterns ◽  
Buffer Size ◽  
Construction Land ◽  
Drinking Water Standard ◽  
Reservoir Basin ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cover Pattern

Understanding the relationship between land use/cover pattern and water quality could provide guidelines for non-point source pollution and facilitate sustainable development. The previous studies mainly relate the land use/cover of the entire region to the water quality at the monitoring sites, but the water quality at monitoring sites did not totally reflect the water environment of the entire basin. In this study, the land use/cover was monitored on Google Earth Engine in Tang-Pu Reservoir basin, China. In order to reflect the water quality of the whole study area, the spatial distribution of the determinants for water quality there, i.e., the total nitrogen and total phosphorus (TN&TP), were simulated by the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The redundancy analysis explored the correlations between land use/cover pattern and simulated TN&TP. The results showed that: (1) From 2009 to 2019, forest was the dominant land cover, and there was little land use/cover change. The landscape fragmentation increased, and the connectivity decreased. (2) About 25% TP concentrations and nearly all the TN concentrations at the monitoring points did not reach drinking water standard, which means nitrogen and phosphorus pollution were the most serious problems. The highest output per unit TN&TP simulated by SWAT were 44.50 kg/hm2 and 9.51 kg/hm2 and occurred in areas with highly fragile landscape patterns. (3) TN&TP correlated positively with cultivated and construction land but negatively with forest. The correlation between forest and TN&TP summited at 500–700-m buffer and construction land at 100-m buffer. As the buffer size increased, the correlation between the cultivated land, and the TN weakened, while the correlation with the TP increased. TN&TP correlated positively with the Shannon’s Diversity Index and negatively with the Contagion Index. This study provides a new perspective for exporting the impact of land use/cover pattern on water quality.

scholarly journals Lockdown Lives: A longitudinal study of inter-relationships amongst feelings of loneliness, social contacts and solidarity during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolien van Breen ◽  
Maja Kutlaca ◽  
Yasin Koc ◽  
Bertus F. Jeronimus ◽  
Anne Margit Reitsema ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
National Data ◽  
Social Contacts ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Public ◽  
Time Points ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cross National

In this work, we study how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. We draw on cross-national data, collected across four time points between mid-March until early May 2020. We situate our work within the public debate on these issues and discuss to what extent the public understanding of the impact of lockdown is borne out in the data. Results show, first, that although online contacts are beneficial in combating feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to make use of this strategy. Second, online contacts do not function as a substitute to face-to-face contacts - in fact, more frequent online contacts in earlier weeks predicted an increase in face-to-face contacts in later weeks. Finally, solidarity played only a small role in shaping people’s feelings of loneliness during lockdown. In sum, our findings suggest that we must look beyond the current focus on online contact and solidarity, if we want to help people address their feelings of loneliness. We hope that this work will be instrumental not only in understanding the impact of the lockdown in early 2020, but also in preparing for possible future lockdown periods.

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