scholarly journals Interactive visual summaries for detection and assessment of spatiotemporal patterns in geospatial time series

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Köthur ◽  
Mike Sips ◽  
Andrea Unger ◽  
Julian Kuhlmann ◽  
Doris Dransch

Numerous measurement devices and computer simulations produce geospatial time series that describe a wide variety of processes of System Earth. A major challenge in the analysis of such data is the complexity of the described processes, which requires a simultaneous assessment of the data’s spatial and temporal variability. To address this task, geoscientists often use automated analyses to compute a compact description of the data, ideally comprising characteristic spatial states of the process under study and their occurrence over time. The results of such automated methods depend on the parameterization, especially the number of extracted spatial states. A particular number of spatial states, however, may only reflect certain spatial or temporal aspects. We introduce a visual analytics approach that overcomes this limitation by allowing users to extract and explore various sets of spatial states to detect characteristic spatiotemporal patterns. To this end, we use the results of hierarchical clustering as a starting point. It groups all time steps of a geospatial time series into a hierarchy of clusters. Users can interactively explore this hierarchy to derive various sets of spatial states. To facilitate detailed inspection of these sets, we employ the concept of interactive visual summaries. A visual summary is the depiction of a set of spatial states and their associated time steps or intervals. It includes interactive means that allow users to assess how well the depicted patterns characterize the original data. Our visual interface comprises a system of visualization components to facilitate both the extraction of sets of spatial states from the hierarchical clustering output and their detailed inspection using interactive visual summaries. This study results from a close collaboration with geoscientists. In an exemplary analysis of observational ocean data, we show how our approach can help geoscientists gain a better understanding of geospatial time series.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 974
Author(s):  
Lorena Alves Santos ◽  
Karine Ferreira ◽  
Michelle Picoli ◽  
Gilberto Camara ◽  
Raul Zurita-Milla ◽  
...  

The use of satellite image time series analysis and machine learning methods brings new opportunities and challenges for land use and cover changes (LUCC) mapping over large areas. One of these challenges is the need for samples that properly represent the high variability of land used and cover classes over large areas to train supervised machine learning methods and to produce accurate LUCC maps. This paper addresses this challenge and presents a method to identify spatiotemporal patterns in land use and cover samples to infer subclasses through the phenological and spectral information provided by satellite image time series. The proposed method uses self-organizing maps (SOMs) to reduce the data dimensionality creating primary clusters. From these primary clusters, it uses hierarchical clustering to create subclusters that recognize intra-class variability intrinsic to different regions and periods, mainly in large areas and multiple years. To show how the method works, we use MODIS image time series associated to samples of cropland and pasture classes over the Cerrado biome in Brazil. The results prove that the proposed method is suitable for identifying spatiotemporal patterns in land use and cover samples that can be used to infer subclasses, mainly for crop-types.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1187
Author(s):  
Bokyong Shin ◽  
Mikko Rask

Online deliberation research has recently developed automated indicators to assess the deliberative quality of much user-generated online data. While most previous studies have developed indicators based on content analysis and network analysis, time-series data and associated methods have been studied less thoroughly. This article contributes to the literature by proposing indicators based on a combination of network analysis and time-series analysis, arguing that it will help monitor how online deliberation evolves. Based on Habermasian deliberative criteria, we develop six throughput indicators and demonstrate their applications in the OmaStadi participatory budgeting project in Helsinki, Finland. The study results show that these indicators consist of intuitive figures and visualizations that will facilitate collective intelligence on ongoing processes and ways to solve problems promptly.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 2329-2343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Smith ◽  
Bodo Bookhagen ◽  
Aljoscha Rheinwalt

Abstract. High Mountain Asia (HMA) – encompassing the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountain ranges – is the primary water source for much of Asia, serving more than a billion downstream users. Many catchments receive the majority of their yearly water budget in the form of snow, which is poorly monitored by sparse in situ weather networks. Both the timing and volume of snowmelt play critical roles in downstream water provision, as many applications – such as agriculture, drinking-water generation, and hydropower – rely on consistent and predictable snowmelt runoff. Here, we examine passive microwave data across HMA with five sensors (SSMI, SSMIS, AMSR-E, AMSR2, and GPM) from 1987 to 2016 to track the timing of the snowmelt season – defined here as the time between maximum passive microwave signal separation and snow clearance. We validated our method against climate model surface temperatures, optical remote-sensing snow-cover data, and a manual control dataset (n = 2100, 3 variables at 25 locations over 28 years); our algorithm is generally accurate within 3–5 days. Using the algorithm-generated snowmelt dates, we examine the spatiotemporal patterns of the snowmelt season across HMA. The climatically short (29-year) time series, along with complex interannual snowfall variations, makes determining trends in snowmelt dates at a single point difficult. We instead identify trends in snowmelt timing by using hierarchical clustering of the passive microwave data to determine trends in self-similar regions. We make the following four key observations. (1) The end of the snowmelt season is trending almost universally earlier in HMA (negative trends). Changes in the end of the snowmelt season are generally between 2 and 8 days decade−1 over the 29-year study period (5–25 days total). The length of the snowmelt season is thus shrinking in many, though not all, regions of HMA. Some areas exhibit later peak signal separation (positive trends), but with generally smaller magnitudes than trends in snowmelt end. (2) Areas with long snowmelt periods, such as the Tibetan Plateau, show the strongest compression of the snowmelt season (negative trends). These trends are apparent regardless of the time period over which the regression is performed. (3) While trends averaged over 3 decades indicate generally earlier snowmelt seasons, data from the last 14 years (2002–2016) exhibit positive trends in many regions, such as parts of the Pamir and Kunlun Shan. Due to the short nature of the time series, it is not clear whether this change is a reversal of a long-term trend or simply interannual variability. (4) Some regions with stable or growing glaciers – such as the Karakoram and Kunlun Shan – see slightly later snowmelt seasons and longer snowmelt periods. It is likely that changes in the snowmelt regime of HMA account for some of the observed heterogeneity in glacier response to climate change. While the decadal increases in regional temperature have in general led to earlier and shortened melt seasons, changes in HMA's cryosphere have been spatially and temporally heterogeneous.


2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Köthur ◽  
C. Witt ◽  
M. Sips ◽  
N. Marwan ◽  
S. Schinkel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Katsutoshi TAKAHASHI ◽  
Motohide UMANO ◽  
Noriyuki FUJIMOTO

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey R. Lawrence ◽  
Jeffery Beem-Miller ◽  
Alison M. Hoyt ◽  
Grey Monroe ◽  
Carlos A. Sierra ◽  
...  

Abstract. Radiocarbon is a critical constraint on our estimates of the timescales of soil carbon cycling that can aid in identifying mechanisms of carbon stabilization and destabilization, and improve forecast of soil carbon response to management or environmental change. Despite the wealth of soil radiocarbon data that has been reported over the past 75 years, the ability to apply these data to global scale questions is limited by our capacity to synthesis and compare measurements generated using a variety of methods. Here we describe the International Soil Radiocarbon Database (ISRaD, soilradiocarbon.org), an open-source archive of soils data that include data from bulk soils, or whole-soils; distinct soil carbon pools isolated in the laboratory by a variety of soil fractionation methods; samples of soil gas or water collected interstitially from within an intact soil profile; CO2 gas isolated from laboratory soil incubations; and fluxes collected in situ from a soil surface. The core of ISRaD is a relational database structured around individual datasets (entries) and organized hierarchically to report soil radiocarbon data, measured at different physical and temporal scales, as well as other soil or environmental properties that may also be measured at one or more levels of the hierarchy that may assist with interpretation and context. Anyone may contribute their own data to the database by entering it into the ISRaD template and subjecting it to quality assurance protocols. ISRaD can be accessed through: (1) a web-based interface, (2) an R package (ISRaD), or (3) direct access to code and data through the GitHub repository, which hosts both code and data. The design of ISRaD allows for participants to become directly involved in the management, design, and application of ISRaD data. The synthesized dataset is available in two forms: the original data as reported by the authors of the datasets; and an enhanced dataset that includes ancillary geospatial data calculated within the ISRaD framework. ISRaD also provides data management tools in the ISRaD-R package that provide a starting point for data analysis. This community-based dataset and platform for soil radiocarbon and a wide array of additional soils data information in soils where data are easy to contribute and the community is invited to add tools and ideas for improvement. As a whole, ISRaD provides resources that can aid our evaluation of soil dynamics and improve our understanding of controls on soil carbon dynamics across a range of spatial and temporal scales. The ISRaD v1.0 dataset (Lawrence et al., 2019) is archived and freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2613911.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 98-110
Author(s):  
Gao Xuedong ◽  
Gu Kan

Abstract The traditional time series studies consider the time series as a whole while carrying on the trend detection; therefore not enough attention is paid to the stage characteristic. On the other hand, the piecewise linear fitting type methods for trend detection are lacking consideration of the possibility that the same node belongs to multiple trends. The above two methods are affected by the start position of the sequence. In this paper, the concept of overlapping trend is proposed, and the definition of milestone nodes is given on its base; these way not only the recognition of overlapping trend is realized, but also the negative influence of the starting point of sequence is effectively reduced. The experimental results show that the computational accuracy is not affected by the improved algorithm and the time cost is greatly reduced when dealing with the processing tasks on dynamic growing data sequence.


2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter E. Stek

Portable water consumption in Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding area is expected to grow by 34% from 2005 to 2010. This increase in demand will be met by the construction of new reservoirs. However, reservoirs are dependent on rainfall and during prolonged periods of drought, as occurred in 1998, they could become empty. Therefore it is of great importance to develop alternative sources of water supply, including groundwater, to mitigate the effects of a serious water crisis. In this paper, results from a preliminary study on Kuala Lumpur's groundwater resources are presented. Modelling of the city's groundwater resources is extremely difficult given the limitations imposed by data availability and the karstic nature of some aquifers. Hence, the research presented here serves as a starting point for further studies rather than providing any definitive conclusions. In addition to the study results, the planning implications of groundwater extraction are discussed.


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