scholarly journals Coarse-Resolution Satellite Images Overestimate Urbanization Effects on Vegetation Spring Phenology

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaqi Tian ◽  
Xiaolin Zhu ◽  
Jin Wu ◽  
Miaogen Shen ◽  
Jin Chen

Numerous investigations of urbanization effects on vegetation spring phenology using satellite images have reached a consensus that vegetation spring phenology in urban areas occurs earlier than in surrounding rural areas. Nevertheless, the magnitude of this rural–urban difference is quite different among these studies, especially for studies over the same areas, which implies large uncertainties. One possible reason is that the satellite images used in these studies have different spatial resolutions from 30 m to 1 km. In this study, we investigated the impact of spatial resolution on the rural–urban difference of vegetation spring phenology using satellite images at different spatial resolutions. To be exact, we first generated a dense 10 m NDVI time series through harmonizing Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 images by data fusion method, and then resampled the 10 m time series to coarser resolutions from 30 m to 8 km to simulate images at different resolutions. Afterwards, to quantify urbanization effects, vegetation spring phenology at each resolution was extracted by a widely used tool, TIMESAT. Last, we calculated the difference between rural and urban areas using an urban extent map derived from NPP VIIRS nighttime light data. Our results reveal: (1) vegetation spring phenology in urban areas happen earlier than rural areas no matter which spatial resolution from 10 m to 8 km is used, (2) the rural–urban difference in vegetation spring phenology is amplified with spatial resolution, i.e., coarse satellite images overestimate the urbanization effects on vegetation spring phenology, and (3) the underlying reason of this overestimation is that the majority of urban pixels in coarser images have higher diversity in terms of spring phenology dates, which leads to spring phenology detected from coarser NDVI time series earlier than the actual dates. This study indicates that spatial resolution is an important factor that affects the accuracy of the assessment of urbanization effects on vegetation spring phenology. For future studies, we suggest that satellite images with a fine spatial resolution are more appropriate to explore urbanization effects on vegetation spring phenology if vegetation species in urban areas is very diverse.

Author(s):  
Kalaichelvi Sivaraman ◽  
Rengasamy Stalin

This research paper is the part of Research Project entitled “Impact of Elected Women Representatives in the Life and Livelihood of the Women in Rural Areas: With Special Reference to Tiruvannamalai District, Tamil Nadu” funded by University of Madras under UGC-UPE Scheme.The 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution of India were made by the government to strengthen the position of women and to create a local-level legal foundation for direct democracy for women in both rural and urban areas. The representation for women in local bodies through reservation policies amendment in Constitution of India has stimulated the political participation of women in rural areas. However, when it’s comes to the argument of whether the women reservation in Panchayati Raj helps or benefits to the life and livelihood development of women as a group? The answer is hypothetical because the studies related to the impact of women representatives of Panchayati Raj in the life and livelihood development of women was very less. Therefore, to fill the gap in existing literature, the present study was conducted among the rural women of Tiruvannamalai district to assess the impact of elected women representatives in the physical and financial and business development of the women in rural areas. The findings revealed that during the last five years because of the women representation in their village Panjayati Raj, the Physical Asset of the rural women were increased or developed moderately (55.8%) and Highly (23.4%) and the Financial and Business Asset of the rural women were increased or developed moderately (60.4%) and Highly (18.7%).


2021 ◽  
pp. 5-6
Author(s):  
Ganesh Salvi ◽  
Maitri Hathi

Background: The impact of immunization is not uniform in different social groups till today despite of EPI since long. Current study was held to assess the level of knowledge and actual practice of immunization by mothers of under ve children in a rural and urban belt of Udaipur district. A cross sect Methods: ional study was conducted in blocks Binder, Badgav, Ladiya , Kotra, Girva and Salumber of Udaipur district. Randomly 400 families (200 urban, 200 rural) were selected. Ample health education should be given to parents residing in rural areas to rai Result and conclusion: se their knowledge regarding immunization. In rural areas anganwadi workers, ASHA etc should play a signicant role in bringing awareness about immunization and their benets. The group based approach, frequent camps would be more rewarding compared to area approach due to poor socio-economic development of marginalized group likes rural area for programmes like immunization of children.


2020 ◽  
Vol 956 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-49
Author(s):  
Le Hung Trinh ◽  
Dinh Sinh Mai ◽  
V.R. Zablotskii

In recent years, land cover changes very quickly in urban areas due to the impact of population growth and socio-economic development. The authors present the method of land cover/land use classification based on the combination of Sentinel 2 and Landsat 8 multi-resolution satellite images. A middle infrared band (band 11), a near infrared (band 8) of Sentinel 2 image and a thermal infrared one (band 10) of Landsat 8 image were used to calculate EBBI (Enhanced Built-up and Barreness Index). The EBBI index and Sentinel 2 spectral bands with spatial resolution 10 m (band 2, 3, 4, 8) were used to classify the land cover. The obtained results showed that, the method of land cover classification based on combination of Sentinel 2 and Landsat 8 satellite images improves the overall accuracy by about 5 % compared with the one using only Sentinel 2 data. The results obtained at the study can be used for the management, assessment and monitoring the status and dynamics of land cover in urban areas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Loloçi Rita ◽  
Menada Petro

This study aimed to identify children`s perceptions regarding the role of religion in their education, their religious belonging, the parent's role in their religious education, and the attitude they have towards other religions. To gather quantitative data regarding the opinion the 10-14 age children have on religion and religious education, a survey was performed in several schools in Albania and Kosovo urban and rural areas (720 students from 8 schools of Durres, 4 in rural areas, and 473 students from 8 schools of Pristina and the surrounding area). A questionnaire was used to fulfill the purpose of the research regarding the knowledge, attitudes, and the perceptions of 10-14 age group on religious education in schools. At the same time, studies of national and international authors were consulted for a better analysis of the problems raised in the questionnaires such as the role and the importance of intercultural education in the coexistence and the harmony between people of different cultures, the education on The Fundamental Rights, the role of the curricula in schools, the difference between families in the rural and urban areas and the effect of the parents’ education on children. The results of the study showed that children of this age group receive the first knowledge about religion from the family. An irreplaceable role in religious education has the media. The school involvement in giving knowledge on religious beliefs in both studied regions will positively influence pupil’s formation, eliminating this way the violation of other people religion that often is present in our schools and not only. A correlation between the tolerance of parents and the tolerance of their children resulted as the consequence of the care that families show to respect different religions and often even sects.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 796-796
Author(s):  
Yazhen Yang ◽  
Maria Evandrou ◽  
Athina Vlachantoni

Abstract Research to-date has examined the impact of intergenerational support in terms of isolated types of support, or at one point in time, failing to provide strong evidence of the complex effect of support on older persons’ wellbeing. Using the Harmonised China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011, 2013 and 2015), this paper investigates the impact of older people’s living arrangements and intergenerational support provision/ receipt on their physical and psychological wellbeing, focusing on rural/ urban differences. The results show that receiving economic support from one’s adult children was a stronger predictor for higher life satisfaction among older rural residents compared to those in urban areas, while grandchild care provision was an important determinant for poor life satisfaction only for older urban residents. Receiving informal care from one’s adult children was associated with a poor (I)ADL functional status and with depressive symptoms among older rural people. Meanwhile, having weekly in-person and distant contact reduced the risk of depression among older people in both rural and urban areas. The paper shows that it is important to improve the level of public economic transfers and public social care towards vulnerable older people in rural areas, and more emphasis should be placed on improving the psychological well-being of urban older residents, such as with the early diagnosis of depression.


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-115
Author(s):  
Junghoon Moon ◽  
Joowon Park ◽  
Gu Hyun Jung ◽  
Young Chan Choe

The Internet has brought massive changes to human lives. Among the various positive and negative influences are the rural-urban digital divide, which refers to the information technology gap between rural and urban areas. The Korean government has made several effortS to close this digital divide. The main goal of this study is to identify how the personal and social lives of rural residents are affected by IT development in rural areas, and how the residents perceive the effect of IT development. To accomplish this goal, a survey research was conducted. A questionnaire was developed based on the current body of literature, and used to collect data. The questionnaire was distributed to rural residents in Korea and 272 responses our of a total of 300 collected were usable. Regression analysis methods were used for the analysis. On the analysis where the IT development index was used as an independent variable, positive relationships were found between the independent variables and some dependent variables such as perceived usefulness for jobs, IT usage skills, and tendencies of rural to urban migration. Findings show that rural residents are worried that IT development in rural areas may cause job loss in their respective communities, and decrease social interaction. However, positive perceptions were also apparent, as participants believed IT is useful for communications within the community, as well as better education and medical services.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 285-290
Author(s):  
Hosein Rafiemanesh ◽  
Yousef Alimohamadi ◽  
Seyed Rasoul Hashemi Aghdam ◽  
Avaz Safarzadeh ◽  
Abolghasem Shokri ◽  
...  

Background: The epidemiology of human brucellosis has drastically changed in recent years. This study aims to assess trend in brucellosis in the Oskou county, East Azerbaijan, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on all confirmed brucellosis cases over the period between 2007 and 2016 in Oskuo county. We use crude incidence rate (CIR) per100000 persons and carried out Joinpoint regression analysis to describe brucellosis trend over the study period. Also, we used ARIMA model to predict trend and number of new brucellosis cases for the coming years. Results: More than 90% (92.5%; 95% CI: 89.9-95.1) of brucellosis cases were in rural areas over the study period. In recorded cases, 60.5% (95% CI: 55.6-65.4) of total cases were men and 39.5% (95% CI: 34.6-44.4) of total cases were women. The mean age of men was 33.85(SD=19.72) years and the mean age of women was 35.88 (SD=17.26) years old. Majority of brucellosis cases occurred in spring. CIRs for the rural and urban areas were 47.62 to132.20 and zero to 18.55, respectively. The CIR for rural area had decreasing trend to 2011 and increasing for 2011-2017. Conclusion: Based-on time series analysis, the number of new cases in the future years has fixed trend and the most number of incident cases will be occurred between third to fifth months in each years.


Author(s):  
Aminu O. ◽  

The impact of the current global pandemic on households’ economy in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized. Undoubtedly, households’ resilience is threatened by the global pandemic that has ravaged the means of survival of people in both urban and rural areas. The onset of the lockdown that affected all individuals put setback on economic activities and this impacted negatively on the income of households. The already dwindling economy of households, especially those in rural areas become hampered thereby enhancing vulnerability. The poor becomes poorer because there is no back up that the poor could easily fall on. Also, the capacity to recover and adapt become impaired. The emergence of COVID 19 has implication for food security sustainability among households. This study employed the use of secondary sources to examine the vulnerability of households to the global pandemic and the ramifications of the effect of COVID 19 on households’ economy in the rural and urban areas of Nigeria. Containment strategies (such as innovative information system delivery, interest free loan especially to entrepreneurs, sensitization and promotion of home gardening particularly in urban, among others) that could stimulate households’ resilience or foster quick economic recovery in urban and rural Nigeria in the bid to ensure food security and livelihood sustainability were suggested.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 748
Author(s):  
Zhaoming Zhang ◽  
Mingyue Wei ◽  
Dongchuan Pu ◽  
Guojin He ◽  
Guizhou Wang ◽  
...  

Urban areas represent the primary source region of greenhouse gas emissions. Mapping urban areas is essential for understanding land cover change, carbon cycles, and climate change (urban areas also refer to impervious surfaces, i.e., artificial cover and structures). Remote sensing has greatly advanced urban areas mapping over the last several decades. At present, we have entered the era of big data. Long time series of satellite data such as Landsat and high-performance computing platforms such as Google Earth Engine (GEE) offer new opportunities to map urban areas. The objective of this research was to determine how annual time series images from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) can effectively be composed to map urban areas in three cities in China in support of GEE. Three reducer functions, ee.Reducer.min(), ee.Reducer.median(), and ee.Reducer.max() provided by GEE, were selected to construct four schemes to synthesize the annual intensive time series Landsat 8 OLI data for three cities in China. Then, urban areas were mapped based on the random forest algorithm and the accuracy was evaluated in detail. The results show that (1) the quality of annual composite images was improved significantly, particularly in reducing the impact of cloud and cloud shadows, and (2) the annual composite images obtained by the combination of multiple reducer functions had better performance than that obtained by a single reducer function. Further, the overall accuracy of urban areas mapping with the combination of multiple reducer functions exceeded 90% in all three cities in China. In summary, a suitable combination of reducer functions for synthesizing annual time series images can enhance data quality and ensure differences between characteristics and higher precision for urban areas mapping.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0242315
Author(s):  
Abdulrahim Refdan Hakami ◽  
Khalid Ali Khan ◽  
Hamed A. Ghramh ◽  
Zubair Ahmad ◽  
Adil Ali Ahmad AL-zayd

Continuous urban developments have resulted in increased demand for street furniture, one of which is street light columns. Artificial light at night (ALAN) pose significant impacts on insect diversity in urban and rural areas. The ALAN is a significant driver of decline in insect diversity. This study evaluated the impact of light intensity and sky quality at night on insect diversity in rural and urban areas of the Asir province, Saudi Arabia. Insect traps were installed in both areas during night. Light intensity of nearby road lamps was measured using light meter, while sky quality was measured using sky quality meter. Rural areas exhibited low light intensity (10.33 flux/f.candle) and good sky quality (18.80 magnitude/arcsec2). Urban areas exhibited intense light (89.33 flux/f.candle) and poor sky quality (15.49 magnitude/arcsec2). Higher insect diversity was recorded for rural areas where insects belonging to seven orders (i.e., Diptera, Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Neuroptera, and Dermaptera) were collected. However, insects of four orders (i.e., Diptera, Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, and Neuroptera) were found in urban areas indicating low diversity. Lepidopteran insects were frequently recorded from rural areas indicating they are attracted to artificial light. It is concluded that excessive ALAN and poor sky quality at night disrupt insect biodiversity. Therefore, ALAN and sky quality must be considered responsible for decline in insect biodiversity along with other known factors.


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