scholarly journals Detection, assessment, and updating the maps of encroached forest areas: a case study from Bara district, Nepal

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. K. Rimal ◽  
R. Maharjan ◽  
K. Khanal ◽  
S. Koirala ◽  
B. Karki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Google Earth ◽  
Aerial Photographs ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Cadastral Maps ◽  
Cultivable Land ◽  
Desktop Tool ◽  
Forest Encroachment ◽  
Areas Of Interest ◽  
Robust Evidence

 Forest encroachment is an illegal expansion of cultivable land and settlements within the jurisdiction of forests. It has been the key threat to forest management for the last several years in Nepal. The Department of Forests (DoF) is the responsible authority for detection and assessment of forest encroachment throughout the nation and updating the forest maps accordingly. Detection and preparing the updated maps of encroached forest areas is necessary for sustainable management of forests. Traditionally, the extent of forest encroachment is assessed through estimation by the front-line forestry staff. The new approach combines the aerial photographs, the cadastral maps prepared by the Department of Survey and the Google Earth Imagery to spatially locate the encroachment. This method will work as a desktop tool for the forest manager such that appropriate strategic actions can be taken immediately. Additionally, it will bring a transparency on the forest governance to identify the location of areas of interest like point location for forest-based industries or proposed sites for development of infrastructures on the ground. The local communities may use the tool to identify the actual location of the forest boundaries, and exert social pressure to relinquish the encroached forests, if any. The result showed that 8,540 ha of the forest area in Bara district was found to be encroached during the period of last 50 years, between 1964 and 2014, of which 71% (6,038 ha) happened to be encroached in the first three decades, indicating the retarding trend of encroachment in the later years. The methodology used to assess the encroachment of forest in Bara district can be easily scaled up to other districts too, and will eventually help to assess the country’s overall forest encroachment. Since the boundary delineation will be done on the basis of the cadastral maps, the output will be used as a robust evidence to defend the forest-related cased in the court during the legal arbitrations.Banko Janakari, Vol. 27, No. 1, Page: 65-71

scholarly journals Influences of Environmental Drivers on Land Cover Structure and its Long-Term Changes: a Case Study of the Villages of Malachov and Podkonice in Slovakia / Vliv Environmentálních Podmínek Na Strukturu Krajinného Pokryvu A Její Dlouhodobé Změny: Případová Studie Obcí Malachov A Podkonice Na Slovensku

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Druga ◽  
Vladimír Falťan
Keyword(s):  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Aerial Photographs ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Cadastral Maps ◽  
Cover Class

Abstract The influence of environmental drivers on long-term land cover changes in two mountainous villages in Central Slovakia is assessed in this paper using generalized linear models (GLM). Historical cadastral maps and aerial photographs were analyzed to describe the land cover change over five time horizons ranging from 1860 to the present, using the CORINE Land Cover classification. The hypothesis that higher slope, elevation and distance to settlement strongly influence lower intensities of land use was mostly confirmed, but geology was also identified as an important factor. The category of ‘forests’ was the most accounted for land cover class, while arable land and grassland were only considerably affected by the drivers in some periods. On the other hand, shrubs were almost completely unrelated to the investigated drivers. The areas of land cover change were not so well explained by the GLMs.

Mapping and monitoring of landslide-dammed lakes using Sentinel-2 time series - a case study after the 2016 Kaikōura Earthquake in New Zealand

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Abad ◽  
Daniel Hölbling ◽  
Raphael Spiekermann ◽  
Zahra Dabiri ◽  
Günther Prasicek ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Aerial Photographs ◽  
Optical Data ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Multiple Time ◽  
Potential Hazard ◽  
Sentinel 2

<p>On November 14, 2016, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Kaikōura region on the South Island of New Zealand. The event triggered numerous landslides, which dammed rivers in the area and led to the formation of hundreds of dammed lakes. Landslide-dammed lakes constitute a natural risk, given their propensity to breach, which can lead to flooding of downstream settlements and infrastructure. Hence, detecting and monitoring dammed lakes is a key step for risk management strategies. Aerial photographs and helicopter reconnaissance are frequently used for damage assessments following natural hazard events. However, repeated acquisitions of aerial photographs and on-site examinations are time-consuming and expensive. Moreover, such assessments commonly only take place immediately after an event, and long-term monitoring is rarely performed at larger scales.</p><p>Satellite imagery can support mapping and monitoring tasks by providing an overview of the affected area in multiple time steps following the main triggering event without deploying major resources. In this study, we present an automated approach to detect landslide-dammed lakes using Sentinel-2 optical data through the Google Earth Engine (GEE). Our approach consists of a water detection algorithm adapted from Donchyts et al., 2016 [1], where a dynamic threshold is applied to the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI). The water bodies are detected on pre- and post-event monthly mosaics, where the cloud coverage of the composed images is below 30 %, resulting in one pre-event (December 2015) and 14 post-event monthly mosaics. Subsequently, a differencing change detection method is performed between pre- and post-event mosaics. This allows for continuous monitoring of the lake status, and for the detection of new lakes forming in the area at different points in time.</p><p>A random sample of lakes delineated from Google Earth high-resolution imagery, acquired right after the Kaikōura earthquake, was used for validation. The pixels categorized as ‘dammed lakes’ were intersected with the validation data set, resulting in a detection rate of 70 % of the delineated lakes. Ten key dams, identified by local authorities as a potential hazard, were further examined and monitored to identify lake area changes in multiple time steps, from December 2016 to March 2019. Taking advantage of the GEE cloud computing capabilities, the proposed automated approach allows fast time series analysis of large areas. It can be applied to other regions where landslide-dammed lakes need to be monitored over long time scales (months – years). Furthermore, the approach could be combined with outburst flood modeling and simulation to support initial rapid risk assessment.</p><p> [1]   Donchyts, G., Schellekens, J., Winsemius, H., Eisemann, E., & van de Giesen, N. (2016). A 30 m resolution surface water mask including estimation of positional and thematic differences using Landsat 8, SRTM and OpenStreetMap: A case study in the Murray-Darling basin, Australia. Remote Sensing, 8(5).</p><div> <div> </div> </div>

scholarly journals Request for Treatment: the evolution of consent

2010 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kayvan Shokrollahi
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Elective Surgery ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Current State ◽  
Clinical Scenarios ◽  
First Time ◽  
Robust Evidence

INTRODUCTION Request for Treatment (RFT) is a new approach to consent which aims to facilitate patients’ understanding of their treatment and addresses some of the flaws highlighted in a literature review of current consent practice. It aims to provide a complete clinical, medicolegal, and documentary framework for consent and places patients at the centre of their care. It also provides doctors with more robust evidence that adequate consent has been obtained, and can be implemented with ease in most clinical scenarios, especially elective surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS A thorough critical analysis and literature review is undertaken looking at the current state of consent world-wide. For the first time, a complete documentary system for ‘request for treatment’ is devised including Request for Treatment forms (RFTFs) alternatively termed Patient-centred Consent Forms (PCCFs). The arguments for the legal validity and other advantages of RFT are presented. CASE STUDY A case with all the documentation of a full consent episode is provided which illustrates RFT in action, demonstrating the simplicity of implementation, and the robustness of the completed RFT form as a source of evidence for both consent and capacity. CONCLUSIONS Request for Treatment (RFT) is a request-based model for consent that facilitates patient-centred care. It has a number of advantages including unrivalled documentary evidence of consent in the patient&s own handwriting and vocabulary, demonstration of capacity, ease of implementation, and a sound legal basis. For those who may wish to use it, RFT provides a useful and novel patient-centred method of consent, and is likely to protect against negligent consent practice by highlighting patient misunderstandings early and by providing irrefutable documentary evidence that consent has been gained. It may also provide a simple method by which Gillick competence can be assessed and documented. RFT forms are available for download at www.rft.org.uk .

scholarly journals Analysis of the volume of silted sediments and the urbanization rate in urban river basins; a case study of the Mãe d’Água Reservoir

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. e26
Author(s):  
Felippe Fernandes ◽  
Cristiano Poleto
Keyword(s):  
Field Data ◽  
Satellite Images ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Google Earth ◽  
Aerial Photographs ◽  
Rio Grande Do Sul ◽  
Environmental Liabilities ◽  
Diffuse Sources ◽  
Urbanization Rate

The Mãe d`Água reservoir is the mouth of four streams, corresponding to an area of 352 ha and is located in the Vale Campus of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The study area is currently predominantly characterized by a residential occupation, with environmental liabilities coming from diffuse sources. The application of the methodology for computational modeling in the Mãe d'Água reservoir, inferring about the useful volume of the project in 1962, useful volume in 2014, and the silting volume was developed with the aid of the following software: AutoCAD 2018, AutoCAD Civil 3D 2018, and Google Earth which specialize in the field of geoprocessing and guidelines for the calculations that use as base the data regarding the survey and processing of field data. Two types of remote sensing products were used to evaluate the evolution of urbanization in the study area: aerial photographs and satellite images which were integrated in a geographic database. Through the results, it was possible to verify that the silting volume occupies approximately 44% of the useful volume of the reservoir, the urbanization rate has growth trends, and, 88.42% of the river basin was urbanized in 2014. Thus, it represents a spatial distribution and establishes correlations between sedimentation studies over the last five decades.

Benefit Corporations Approach to Environmental, Social and Governance Disclosure: A Focus on Italy

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Sciarelli ◽  
Silvia Cosimato ◽  
Giovanni Landi
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Corporate Structure ◽  
New Approach ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
Benefit Corporations ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Governance Disclosure

AbstractOver the last decades, Benefit Corporations arouse as a new corporate structure, alternative to traditional ones and pointing to offer a new approach to the management of business and sustainability issues. These companies' activities are statutory aimed at bridging for-profit and no-profit activities; thus, they intentionally and statutory pursue economic purposes together with social and environmental ones, to create a positive impact on economy, society and environment. Even though, Italian and other national laws set some specific disclosure duties for Benefit Corporations, especially in terms of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, the literature still calls for further research on the topic. Therefore, this paper is aimed at contributing to bridge this gap, investigating the way Italian Benefit Corporations approach ESG disclosure. To this end, an exploratory analysis has been conducted, implementing a qualitative method, based on a multiple case study strategy. Even though the descriptive nature of the study, the achieved findings pointed out that the Benefit Corporation structure not necessarily implies a better approach to ESG.

Venedig und der „wilde Osten“

2020 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 208-260
Author(s):  
Christof Paulus ◽  
Albert Weber
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Information Acquisition ◽  
Research Field ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Ranking Criteria ◽  
Areas Of Interest ◽  
And Control

AbstractVenice is considered the best-informed community of the late Middle Ages. The study examines the availability of information for the second half of the 15th century, particularly with regard to the key year 1462/1463, and as a case study concentrates on areas of the supposed Venetian periphery of interest, above all Hungary and the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The result is a thoroughly differentiated system of information acquisition, verification and control. Means of communication, as well as different areas of interest of the Serenissima, can be identified. A distinction is made between information maps and communication maps. The latter also include the distribution of news from the lagoon city exchanged with foreign envoys. During the period concerned, news was exchanged in an astonishingly liberal way, in turn integrating the Serenissima into the information networks of the other Italian states. The study thus places the „information commodity“ within the research field of late medieval gift exchange and patronage structures. In short, a thoroughly pragmatic Venetian approach to news acquisition and evaluation can be observed. Verification of the quality of the information obtained was subject not least to quantitative and ranking criteria. Ultimately, the informational power of Venice was based above all on its outstanding reputation among its contemporaries.

scholarly journals Storm Driven Migration of the Napatree Barrier, Rhode Island, USA

Geosciences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 330
Author(s):  
Bryan A. Oakley
Keyword(s):  
Rhode Island ◽  
Shoreline Change ◽  
Aerial Photographs ◽  
Tropical Storms ◽  
Lower Intensity ◽  
Storm Activity ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Washover Fan

Napatree Point, an isolated barrier in southern Rhode Island, provides a case study of barrier spit migration via storm driven overwash and washover fan migration. Documented shoreline changes using historical surveys and vertical aerial photographs show that the barrier had little in the way of net change in position between 1883 and 1939, including the impact of the 1938 hurricane. The barrier retreated rapidly between 1945 and 1975, driven by both tropical and extra-tropical storms. The shoreline position has been largely static since 1975. The removal of the foredune during the 1938 hurricane facilitated landward shoreline migration in subsequent lower intensity storms. Dune recovery following the 1962 Ash Wednesday storm has been allowed due to limited overwash and barrier migration over the last several decades. Shoreline change rates during the period from 1945–1975 were more than double the rate of shoreline change between 1939 and 2014 and triple the rate between 1883 and 2014, exceeding the positional uncertainty of these shoreline pairs. The long-term shoreline change rates used to calculate coastal setbacks in Rhode Island likely underestimate the potential for rapid shoreline retreat over shorter time periods, particularly in a cluster of storm activity. While sea-level rise has increased since 1975, the barrier has not migrated, highlighting the importance of storms in barrier migration.

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