scholarly journals THE CONTRIBUTION OF EARTH OBSERVATION TECHNOLOGIES TO MONITORING STRATEGIES OF CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND SITES

Author(s):  
B. Cuca

Coupling of Climate change effects with management and protection of cultural and natural heritage has been brought to the attention of policy makers since several years. On the worldwide level, UNESCO has identified several phenomena as the major geo-hazards possibly induced by climate change and their possible hazardous impact to natural and cultural heritage: Hurricane, storms; Sea-level rise; Erosion; Flooding; Rainfall increase; Drought; Desertification and Rise in temperature. The same document further referrers to satellite Remote Sensing (EO) as one of the valuable tools, useful for development of “professional monitoring strategies”. More recently, other studies have highlighted on the impact of climate change effects on tourism, an economic sector related to build environment and traditionally linked to heritage. The results suggest that, in case of emergency the concrete threat could be given by the hazardous event itself; in case of ordinary administration, however, the threat seems to be a “hazardous attitude” towards cultural assets that could lead to inadequate maintenance and thus to a risk of an improper management of cultural heritage sites. This paper aims to illustrate potential benefits that advancements of Earth Observation technologies can bring to the domain of monitoring landscape heritage and to the management strategies, including practices of preventive maintenance. The attempt here is to raise awareness on the importance of integrating satellite remote sensing imagery and the deriving products with other geospatial information (even geo-referenced historic maps) for a more complete insight on the environmental dynamics of landscapes.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilham Ali ◽  
Jay Famiglietti ◽  
Jonathan McLelland

Water stress in both surface and groundwater supplies is an increasing environmental and sustainable management issue. According to the UN Environment Program, at current depletion rates almost half of the world's population will suffer severe water stress by 2030. This is further exacerbated by climate change effects which are altering the hydrologic cycle. Understanding climate change implications is critical to planning for water management scenarios as situations such as rising sea levels, increasing severity of storms, prolonged drought in many regions, ocean acidification, and flooding due to snowmelt and heavy precipitation continue. Today, major efforts towards equitable water management and governance are needed. This study adopts the broad, holistic lenses of sustainable development and water diplomacy, acknowledging both the complex and transboundary nature of water issues, to assess the benefits of a “science to policy” approach in water governance. Such negotiations and frameworks are predicated on the availability of timely and uniform data to bolster water management plans, which can be provided by earth-observing satellite missions. In recent decades, significant advances in satellite remote sensing technology have provided unprecedented data of the Earth’s water systems, including information on changes in groundwater storage, mass loss of snow caps, evaporation of surface water reservoirs, and variations in precipitation patterns. In this study, specific remote sensing missions are surveyed (i.e. NASA LANDSAT, GRACE, SMAP, CYGNSS, and SWOT) to understand the breadth of data available for water uses and the implications of these advances for water management. Results indicate historical precedent where remote sensing data and technologies have been successfully integrated to achieve more sustainable water management policy and law, such as in the passage of the California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014. In addition, many opportunities exist in current transboundary and interstate water conflicts (for example, the Nile Basin and the Tri-State Water Wars between Alabama, Georgia, and Florida) to integrate satellite-remote-sensed water data as a means of “joint-fact finding” and basis for further negotiations. The authors argue that expansion of access to satellite remote sensing data of water for the general public, stakeholders, and policy makers would have a significant impact on the development of science-oriented water governance measures and increase awareness of water issues by significant amounts. Barriers to entry exist in accessing many satellite datasets because of prerequisite knowledge and expertise in the domain. More user-friendly platforms need to be developed in order to maximize the utility of present satellite data. Furthermore, sustainable co-operations should be formed to employ satellite remote sensing data on a regional scale to preempt problems in water supply, quantity, and quality.


2011 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 687-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sei-Ichi Saitoh ◽  
Robinson Mugo ◽  
I Nyoman Radiarta ◽  
Shinsuke Asaga ◽  
Fumihiro Takahashi ◽  
...  

Abstract Saitoh, S-I., Mugo, R., Radiarta, I N., Asaga, S., Takahashi, F., Hirawake, T., Ishikawa, Y., Awaji, T., In, T., and Shima, S. 2011. Some operational uses of satellite remote sensing and marine GIS for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 687–695. An overview of satellite remote-sensing (SRS) operational applications in fisheries is presented, and includes two case studies illustrating the societal benefits of SRS. The first describes the use of satellite-based vessel monitoring systems (VMS) and SRS data in a skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis) fishery, including a simple algorithm for determining fishing activity from vessel speed. The second case study illustrates the application of remotely sensed information in determining the impact of climate change on site suitability for scallop (Mizuhopecten yessoensis) aquaculture. Global warming simulated according to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios had a significant impact on sites with the greatest suitability for scallop aquaculture. Some challenges in the field of fisheries information systems are also discussed.


Author(s):  
Mehmet Angın ◽  
Beste Çubukçuoğlu ◽  
Hüseyin Gökçekuş

The changing in climatic conditions is one of the most significant issues in the twenty-first century. The literature suggests various approaches for the understanding of the harmful influences of climate change. Climate change is caused by increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, deforestation, altering watercourses and human actions with tragic effect on the environment has turned into certainty, as that the procedure may not be over in a short period or medium period. Climate observations showed that climate change occurrence had unfavorable impacts on society and mostly on built environment. The most vulnerable buildings are the historical buildings. The impact of climate change on historical buildings should be studied very carefully to determine the meteorological parameters and changes which are the most critical for the protection of the cultural heritage. Prediction of the effects of climate change on built cultural heritage for the next 100 years is necessary to take every step to protect the historical buildings that are likely to be worst affected by climate change effects. Against this background, this paper reviews the physical and chemical deteriorations of historical buildings and changing energy consumption of historic buildings. The research exposed the risk to lose cultural heritage and rising energy demand in the Northern part of Cyprus as a case study. Structural engineers and architects should consider the dominant forces of climate change to protect the historical buildings but also to construct sustainable, feasible and durable buildings for future projects.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 2014
Author(s):  
Celina Aznarez ◽  
Patricia Jimeno-Sáez ◽  
Adrián López-Ballesteros ◽  
Juan Pablo Pacheco ◽  
Javier Senent-Aparicio

Assessing how climate change will affect hydrological ecosystem services (HES) provision is necessary for long-term planning and requires local comprehensive climate information. In this study, we used SWAT to evaluate the impacts on four HES, natural hazard protection, erosion control regulation and water supply and flow regulation for the Laguna del Sauce catchment in Uruguay. We used downscaled CMIP-5 global climate models for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 projections. We calibrated and validated our SWAT model for the periods 2005–2009 and 2010–2013 based on remote sensed ET data. Monthly NSE and R2 values for calibration and validation were 0.74, 0.64 and 0.79, 0.84, respectively. Our results suggest that climate change will likely negatively affect the water resources of the Laguna del Sauce catchment, especially in the RCP 8.5 scenario. In all RCP scenarios, the catchment is likely to experience a wetting trend, higher temperatures, seasonality shifts and an increase in extreme precipitation events, particularly in frequency and magnitude. This will likely affect water quality provision through runoff and sediment yield inputs, reducing the erosion control HES and likely aggravating eutrophication. Although the amount of water will increase, changes to the hydrological cycle might jeopardize the stability of freshwater supplies and HES on which many people in the south-eastern region of Uruguay depend. Despite streamflow monitoring capacities need to be enhanced to reduce the uncertainty of model results, our findings provide valuable insights for water resources planning in the study area. Hence, water management and monitoring capacities need to be enhanced to reduce the potential negative climate change impacts on HES. The methodological approach presented here, based on satellite ET data can be replicated and adapted to any other place in the world since we employed open-access software and remote sensing data for all the phases of hydrological modelling and HES provision assessment.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Battipaglia ◽  
Francesco Niccoli ◽  
Arturo Pacheco-Solana

<p>Climate-induced forest mortality is a critical issue in the Mediterranean basin, with major consequences for the functioning of these key ecosystems. Indeed, in Mediterranean ecosystems, where water stress is already the most limiting factor for tree performance, climatic changes are expected to entail an increase in water deficit. In this context, annual growth rings can provide short- (e.g., years) and long-term (e.g., decades) information on how trees respond to drought events. With climate change, <em>Pinus pinaster</em> and <em>Pinus pinea</em> L. are expected to reduce their distribution range in the region, being displaced at low altitudes by more drought tolerant taxa such as sub Mediterranean <em>Quercus</em> spp.</p><p>This study aims was to assess the physiological response of <em>Pinus</em> and <em>Quercus</em> species growing in the Vesuvio National park, located in Southern Italy and where an increase of temperature and drought events has been recorded in the recent years. Our preliminary results underlined the importance of temperature on the tree ring width of all the analyses species. The high temperatures can cause a change in the constant kinetics of the RuBisCo, leading to a consequent decrease in carboxylation rate and thus to a reduction in tree growth. On the other hand, also precipitation seemed to affect the growth of the sampled trees: indeed, in all the chronologies a reduction in growth was found after particular dry years: for example, the low rainfall in 1999 (455 mm/year) determined a drastic decline in growth in 2000 in all the species. In addition to the climatic factors, competition can also play an important role in the growth rate: dendrochronological analyzes have highlighted how stand specific properties (i.e. density, structure and composition) can influence individual tree responses to drought events. The knowledge of those researches should be integrated into sustainable forest management strategies to minimize the potential impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems.</p>


Author(s):  
Nathalie Pettorelli

This chapter explores how satellite remote sensing can be employed to monitor a wide range of anthropogenic pressures which affect species and ecosystems, in both terrestrial and marine systems. First, it reviews the literature on the use of satellite data to monitor deforestation and forest degradation. It then explores how these data can be used to monitor fragmentation, which is another form of habitat degradation that can represent an important threat to the preservation of biological diversity. This is followed by a review of the use of satellite remote sensing information to monitor urbanisation, night-time light pollution, oil exploration and exploitation, mineral extraction activities, oil spills and run-off, and illegal fishing. The chapter concludes by discussing opportunities for satellite remote sensing to monitor and predict the impact of climate change on biodiversity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 223-227
Author(s):  
Jeremy Gray

Abstract This chapter discusses the impact of climate change on the abundance and distribution of babesiosis vectors and, by implication, transmission of Babesia spp. It discusses evidence for climate change impact on the vectors Ixodes ricinus, Dermacentor reticulatus, Haemaphysalis punctata and Hyalomma spp. as well as the absence of evidence of the same climate change effects on the vectors Rhipicephalus spp. and I. scapularis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 00030 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anshu Rastogi ◽  
Subhajit Bandopadhyay ◽  
Marcin Stróżecki ◽  
Radosław Juszczak

The behaviour of nature depends on the different components of climates. Among these, temperature and rainfall are two of the most important components which are known to change plant productivity. Peatlands are among the most valuable ecosystems on the Earth, which is due to its high biodiversity, huge soil carbon storage, and its sensitivity to different environmental factors. With the rapid growth in industrialization, the climate change is becoming a big concern. Therefore, this work is focused on the behaviour of Sphagnum peatland in Poland, subjected to environment manipulation. Here it has been shown how a simple reflectance based technique can be used to assess the impact of climate change on peatland. The experimental setup consists of four plots with two kind of manipulations (control, warming, reduced precipitation, and a combination of warming and reduced precipitation). Reflectance data were measured twice in August 2017 under a clear sky. Vegetation indices (VIs) such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Photochemical Reflectance Index (PRI), near-infrared reflectance of vegetation (NIRv), MERIS terrestrial chlorophyll index (MTCI), Green chlorophyll index (CIgreen), Simple Ration (SR), and Water Band Index (WBI) were calculated to trace the impact of environmental manipulation on the plant community. Leaf Area Index of vascular plants was also measured for the purpose to correlate it with different VIs. The observation predicts that the global warming of 1°C may cause a significant change in peatland behaviour which can be tracked and monitored by simple remote sensing indices.


Hydrology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kleoniki Demertzi ◽  
Dimitris Papadimos ◽  
Vassilis Aschonitis ◽  
Dimitris Papamichail

This study proposes a simplistic model for assessing the hydroclimatic vulnerability of lakes/reservoirs (LRs) that preserve their steady-state conditions based on regulated superficial discharge (Qd) out of the LR drainage basin. The model is a modification of the Bracht-Flyr et al. method that was initially proposed for natural lakes in closed basins with no superficial discharge outside the basin (Qd = 0) and under water-limited environmental conditions {mean annual ratio of potential/reference evapotranspiration (ETo) versus rainfall (P) greater than 1}. In the proposed modified approach, an additional Qd function is included. The modified model is applied using as a case study the Oreastiada Lake, which is located inside the Kastoria basin in Greece. Six years of observed data of P, ETo, Qd, and lake topography were used to calibrate the modified model based on the current conditions. The calibrated model was also used to assess the future lake conditions based on the future climatic projections (mean conditions of 2061-2080) derived by 19 general circulation models (GCMs) for three cases of climate change (three cases of Representative Concentration Pathways: RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). The modified method can be used as a diagnostic tool in water-limited environments for analyzing the superficial discharge changes of LRs under different climatic conditions and to support the design of new management strategies for mitigating the impact of climate change on (a) flooding conditions, (b) hydroelectric production, (c) irrigation/industrial/domestic use and (d) minimum ecological flows to downstream rivers.


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