Mapping plastic greenhouses with satellite imagery in Valparaiso, Chile: development of a new methodology through data cloud platform

Author(s):  
Ignacio Aguirre ◽  
Javier Lozano-Parra

<p>During the last decades, there has been a strong increase around the globe in the use of plastic greenhouses (PGs) which respond to the need to provide better water security, overcome adverse weather events, or elude pests. The central valley of Chile has not been an exception and the surface covered by greenhouses has also experienced an increase over the years. In the Valparaiso region, the surface increased from 1122 ha to 1180 ha throughout the decade 1997-2007. However, on one hand, there has not been a new PGs census since 2007 and, on the other hand, its spatial distribution has not ever been mapped. Considering that agriculture in this region employs more than 60000 people and moves 4% of regional GPD, this information should be available to be included in land planning and to be incorporated into hydrological, economic, and food security models. To overcome this, we propose a new method for monitoring the variations of the surface covered by PGs based on the intersection of normalized difference indexes and areas excludes by masks. For this, free Landsat 8 multi-temporal cloud-free images were used, from which five indexes were obtained (Modified Soil-adjusted Vegetation Index, Temperature Brightness Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index - Green, Normalized Difference Built-up Index, and Plastic Surface Index). These indexes were then reclassified in binary form and added up. Finally, urban areas and high slope zones were excluded to obtain the final output. This procedure was run in Google Earth Engine, which allowed easy replication and automation for longer time series or in other study sites. Results proved this methodology was able to successfully discriminate the 86% of PG, which suppose 1410 ha. This surface is consistent with the agricultural census developed in 2007 and with the increase of more than 900 subsidies granted by the government for installing PGs. Its performance also supports our confidence to discriminate PGs in areas with different land covers such as reservoirs, rural areas, open crops, bare soil, and roads. Future studies will allow us to estimate the surface of plastic greenhouses in Chile, mapping its spatial distribution in all the country, and monitor changes over time.</p>

2022 ◽  
pp. 563-577
Author(s):  
Ignacio Aguirre ◽  
Jacinto Garrido Velarde ◽  
Javier Lozano Parra

In the last decades there has been a strong increase around the world in the use of plastic greenhouses (PGs). The Valparaíso region, in the central valley of Chile, has not been the exception, and the area covered by greenhouses has also experienced an increase over the years, reaching 1180 ha in 2007. Taking into account that agriculture in this region employs more than 60,000 people and accounts for 4% of the regional GDP, this information should be available to be included in territorial planning and incorporated into hydrological, economic, and food security models. To do this, the authors propose a new method for identifying the surface covered by PGs based on the intersection of the normalized difference indices and the areas excluded by the masks. The results showed that this methodology was able to identify with a general precision of 86.25% which allowed to classify 1409.85 ha. This area is consistent with the agricultural census carried out in 2007 and with the increase of more than 900 subsidies granted by the government for the installation of new structures.


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%).


Author(s):  
Jianhong Fan ◽  
You Mo ◽  
Yunnan Cai ◽  
Yabo Zhao ◽  
Dongchen Su

Resilience of rural communities is becoming increasingly important to contemporary society. In this study we used a quantitative method to measure the resilience regulating ability of rural communities close to urban areas—in Licheng Subdistrict, Guangzhou City, China. The main results are as follows: (1) Rural systems close to urban areas display superior adapting and learning abilities and have a stronger overall resilience strength, the spatial distribution of which is characterized by dispersion in whole and aggregation in part; (2) the resilience of most rural economic subsystems can reach moderate or higher levels with apparent spatial agglomeration, whilst the ecological subsystem resilience and social resilience are generally weaker; the spatial distribution of the former shows a greater regional difference while the latter is in a layered layout; (3) some strategies such as rebuilding a stable ecological pattern, making use of urban resources and cultivating rural subjectivity are proposed on this basis, in order to promote the sustainable development of rural areas and realize rural revitalization. This work also gives suggestion for the creation of appropriate and effective resilience standards specifically targeted for rural community-aiming to achieve the delivery of local sustainability goals.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 9563-9578 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. C.-K. Chou ◽  
C. T. Lee ◽  
M. T. Cheng ◽  
C. S. Yuan ◽  
S. J. Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract. To investigate the physico-chemical properties of aerosols in Taiwan, an observation network was initiated in 2003. In this work, the measurements of the mass concentration and carbonaceous composition of PM10 and PM2.5 are presented. Analysis on the data collected in the first 5-years, from 2003 to 2007, showed that there was a very strong contrast in the aerosol concentration and composition between the rural and the urban/suburban stations. The five-year means of EC at the respective stations ranged from 0.9±0.04 to 4.2±0.1 μgC m−3. In rural areas, EC accounted for 2–3% of PM10 and 3–5% of PM2.5 mass loadings, comparing to 4–6% of PM10 and 4–8% of PM2.5 in the urban areas. It was found that the spatial distribution of EC was consistent with CO and NOx across the network stations, suggesting that the levels of EC over Taiwan were dominated by local sources. The measured OC was split into POC and SOC counterparts following the EC tracer method. Five-year means of POC ranged from 1.8±0.1 to 9.7±0.2 μgC m−3 among the stations. It was estimated that the POM contributed 5–17% of PM10 and 7–18% of PM2.5 in Taiwan. On the other hand, the five-year means of SOC ranged from 1.5±0.1 to 3.8±.3 μgC m−3. The mass fractions of SOM were estimated to be 9–19% in PM10 and 14–22% in PM2.5. The results showed that the SOC did not exhibit significant urban-rural contrast as did the POC and EC. A significant cross-station correlation between SOC and total oxidant was observed, which means the spatial distribution of SOC in Taiwan was dominated by the oxidant mixing ratio. Besides, correlation was also found between SOC and particulate nitrate, implying that the precursors of SOA were mainly from local anthropogenic sources. In addition to the spatial distribution, the carbonaceous aerosols also exhibited distinct seasonality. In northern Taiwan, the concentrations of all the three carbonaceous components (EC, POC, and SOC) reached their respective minima in the fall season. POC and EC increased drastically in winter and peaked in spring, whereas the SOC was characterized by a bimodal pattern with the maximal concentration in winter and a second mode in summertime. In southern Taiwan, minimal levels of POC and EC occurred consistently in summer and the maxima were observed in winter, whereas the SOC peaked in summer and declined in wintertime. The discrepancies in the seasonality of carbonaceous aerosols between northern and southern Taiwan were most likely caused by the seasonal meteorological settings that dominated the dispersion of air pollutants. Moreover, it was inferred that the Asian pollution outbreaks could have shifted the seasonal maxima of air pollutants from winter to spring in the northern Taiwan, and that the increases in biogenic SOA precursors and the enhancement in SOA yield were responsible for the elevated SOC concentrations in summer.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110299
Author(s):  
Sri Irianti ◽  
Puguh Prasetyoputra

One of the targets in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is Target 6.2, aims to achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation. The Government of Indonesia targets universal access to improved sanitation in 2019. However, almost two out of five households in Indonesia are without access to improved sanitation. Moreover, access to improved sanitation is lower in rural areas than that in urban areas. Studies examining the drivers of the disparity in Indonesia are also limited. Therefore, this study was aimed at assessing the characteristics associated with the rural–urban disparity in access to improved sanitation facilities among households in Indonesia. We employed data from the 2016 Indonesian National Socio-Economic Survey (SUSENAS) comprising 290,848 households. The analysis was twofold. First, we fitted multivariate probit regression models using average marginal effects as the measure of association. We then conducted a detailed non-linear decomposition of the rural–urban disparity attributable to all the explanatory variables. The multivariate regression analysis suggested that households living in rural areas were 11.35% (95% confidence interval = [10.97, 11.72]) less likely to have access to improved sanitation facilities than those residing in urban areas. The decomposition analysis suggested that 48.78% are attributable to spatial, demographic, housing, and socio-economic factors, which meant that almost half of the inequalities could be reduced by equalizing these factors. The results provide a decomposition of factors amenable to curtail urban–rural inequalities. Hence, equity-oriented approaches to increasing access to improved sanitation should be prioritized to achieve universal access in 2030 in line with SDG Target 6.2.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiran Havivi ◽  
Stanley R. Rotman ◽  
Dan G. Blumberg ◽  
Shimrit Maman

<p>The damage caused by a natural disaster in rural areas differs in nature, extent, landscape and in structure, from the damage in urban environments. Previous and current studies focus mainly on mapping damaged structures in urban areas after catastrophe events such as an earthquake or tsunami. Yet, research focusing on the damage level or its distribution in rural areas is absent. In order to apply an emergency response and for effective disaster management, it is necessary to understand and characterize the nature of the damage in each different environment. </p><p>Havivi et al. (2018), published a damage assessment algorithm that makes use of SAR images combined with optical data, for rapid mapping and compiling a damage assessment map following a natural disaster. The affected areas are analyzed using interferometric SAR (InSAR) coherence. To overcome the loss of coherence caused by changes in vegetation, optical images are used to produce a mask by computing the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and removing the vegetated area from the scene. Due to the differences in geomorphological settings and landuse\landcover between rural and urban settlements, the above algorithm is modified and adjusted by inserting the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) to better suit rural environments and their unique response after a disaster. MNDWI is used for detection, identification and extraction of waterbodies (such as irrigation canals, streams, rivers, lakes, etc.), allowing their removal which causes lack of coherence at the post stage of the event. Furthermore, it is used as an indicator for highlighting prone regions that might be severely affected pre disaster event. Thresholds are determined for the co-event coherence map (≤ 0.5), the NDVI (≥ 0.4) and the MNDWI (≥ 0), and the three layers are combined into one. Based on the combined map, a damage assessment map is generated. </p><p>As a case study, this algorithm was applied to the areas affected by multi-hazard event, following the Sulawesi earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Palu, Indonesia, which occurred on September 28th, 2018. High-resolution COSMO-SkyMed images pre and post the event, alongside a Sentinel-2 image pre- event are used as inputs. The output damage assessment map provides a quantitative assessment and spatial distribution of the damage in both the rural and urban environments. The results highlight the applicability of the algorithm for a variety of disaster events and sensors. In addition, the results enhance the contribution of the water component to the analysis pre and post the event in rural areas. Thus, while in urban regions the spatial extent of the damage will occur in its proximity to the coastline or the fault, rural regions, even in significant distance will experience extensive damage due secondary hazards as liquefaction processes.     </p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Greyce Bernardes de Mello Rezende ◽  
Telma Lucia Bezerra Alves

The purpose of this article is to identify the areas of environmental vulnerability by flooding in urban areas of the municipalities of Barra dos Garças - MT, Pontal do Araguaia - MT and Aragarças - GO; and demarcate the occupations in permanent preservation areas (PPAs) in the study area. The methodology uses variables such as time series of maximum quotas of the Araguaia River, from 1968 to 2014, the frequency of those floods, as well as the local level curves. From the junction of these data, it was stipulated the levels of environmental vulnerability by floods in five levels: very high, high, medium, low and very low. The results indicate that areas with very high vulnerability correspond to approximately 1,58 square kilometers which equals to 0.5% of the total area studied; the high vulnerability areas, have only 3.19 square kilometers, corresponding to 1% of the area; the medium vulnerability areas have 7.66 square kilometers, which corresponds to 2.41% of the area; low vulnerability areas, have 11.18 square kilometers of extension relating to 3.52% of the area; and finally the remainder of the study area was characterized as very low vulnerability. After this mapping, it was found by satellite imaging from Google earth software dated 2014, the main occupations in PPAs. The main uses and occupations refer to human activities related to tourism, as well as commercial, residential and industrial buildings. It was found that it is of salutary importance that the Government enforces the fulfillment of the restrictions set out in the Forest Code, preventing that more occupations occur in PPAs and areas subject to flooding. Moreover, the mapping of areas of flooding is also a tool for future public policies that aim to guide the recommended areas to urban expansion, as well as ordering the use and occupation of land by developing zoning.


2019 ◽  
Vol IV (III) ◽  
pp. 71-79
Author(s):  
Adnan Ahmad ◽  
Muhammad Ilyas ◽  
Muhammad Nisar Khan

This study reviews the growth strategies and their effect on the efficiency and productivity of the microfinance sector of Pakistan. The sector needs to have adopted intensive growth strategy instead of extensive strategies of wide expansion in term of physical infrastructure and human resources, which had increased the financial sustainability risks for the credit constrain institutions. The sixdimension model of outreach used in this study also shows that the sector does not achieve the targets set forth for these micro finance institutes with respect to its active borrowers’ outreach. The sector has mainly focused the big cities and urban areas whereas the poverty levels are higher in rural areas. The government has also shown its interest by launching two different types of loan schemes. Among the three different types of institution, the microfinance banks dominate the sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Goddu Pavan Sai Goud ◽  
Ashutosh Bhardwaj

The use of remote sensing for urban monitoring is a very reliable and cost-effective method for studying urban expansion in horizontal and vertical dimensions. The advantage of multi-temporal spatial data and high data accuracy is useful in mapping urban vertical aspects like the compactness of urban areas, population expansion, and urban surface geometry. This study makes use of the ‘Ice, cloud, and land elevation satellite-2′ (ICESat-2) ATL 03 photon data for building height estimation using a sample of 30 buildings in three experimental sites. A comparison of computed heights with the heights of the respective buildings from google image and google earth pro was done to assess the accuracy and the result of 2.04 m RMSE was obtained. Another popularly used method by planners and policymakers to map the vertical dimension of urban terrain is the Digital Elevation Model (DEM). An assessment of the openly available DEM products—TanDEM-X and Cartosat-1 has been done over Urban and Rural areas. TanDEM-X is a German earth observation satellite that uses InSAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry) technique to acquire DEM while Cartosat-1 is an optical stereo acquisition satellite launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) that uses photogrammetric techniques for DEM acquisition. Both the DEMs have been compared with ICESat-2 (ATL-08) Elevation data as the reference and the accuracy has been evaluated using Mean error (ME), Mean absolute error (MAE) and Root mean square error (RMSE). In the case of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), RMSE values 5.29 m and 7.48 m were noted for TanDEM-X 90 and CartoDEM V3 R1 respectively. While the second site of Bellampalli Mandal rural area observed 5.15 and 5.48 RMSE values for the same respectively. Therefore, it was concluded that TanDEM-X has better accuracy as compared to the CartoDEM V3 R1.


2021 ◽  
Vol 940 (1) ◽  
pp. 012018
Author(s):  
K I Solihah ◽  
D N Martono ◽  
B Haryanto

Abstract Particulate matter is one of the threatening pollutants harmful to health. Currently, many researchers focus on the problem of PM2.5 concentrations in urban areas. This study aims to estimate the spatial distribution of PM2.5, and identify human behavior on air pollution in Jakarta. The method used were Spline with Tension to build the PM2.5 models, and multiple linear regression models to analyze human behavior on air pollution. The results showed that the annual average of PM2.5 in the last two years tends to be high in western, southern, and eastern parts of Jakarta. In addition, there was a decrease of PM2.5 concentration in 2020 compared to 2019 assumed as a result of Covid-19 Pandemic restrictions. Besides, analysis results showed a significant association between knowledge and attitude aspects on the action aspect. Based on descriptive analysis, people have good knowledge of air pollution and also concern to reduce air pollution. However, the actions for air pollution control are still not maximized which may cause high PM2.5 concentrations in Jakarta. We conclude that to reduce air pollution, the government should focus on the border areas of Jakarta and it can be done by increasing public knowledge and raising awareness for air pollution.


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