scholarly journals REMOTE SENSING AND MODELING TOOLS EXPLORATION FOR HABITAT DELIMITATION OF LEISHMANIASIS TRANSMITTING VECTORS

Author(s):  
C. Rodriguez Gonzalez ◽  
Y. Acevedo Arcia ◽  
E. Frank Buss

Abstract. Leishmaniasis encompasses a group of vector-borne parasitic diseases, characterized by their diversity and complexity, that affect both humans and other vertebrates. They are caused by different species of parasites of the Leishmania genus, which are transmitted by bites from hematophagous female sandflies. This work proposed to model the occurrence probability of five sandflies species of sanitary interest for South America, from a bibliographic compilation of records of the last 10 years. To develop the model, the free software MaxEnt was used. This exploratory analysis made it possible to visualize the areas where the species are distributed. In addition, we analyzed land changes in vegetation around a town in Jujuy province, Argentina, where a leishmaniasis outbreak occurred during the years 2017 and 2018. For this, Sentinel-2 images were used, and a change vector was calculated for the difference between two dates of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). This part of the work was made using SNAP software for images pre-procesing, Python for the change vector obtention and QGIS for the result post-procesing. From the exploration of MaxEnt software we were able to know the most suitable places for the distribution of the most important five species in the study region, and therefore, to project future decision-making to prevent and control leishmaniasis transmission. And in turn, obtain an approximation of how anthropogenic activities, as deforestation, can have an influence on leishmaniasis specific outbreaks transmitted by these species. Finally, from the exploration of the different tools used in this work, the importance of validation with field data for the generation of accurate analyses and predictions is highlighted. It implies that more data collection is necessary to validate the models and analyzes generated, to guarantee the contribution of the tools in macro-ecological studies of species linked to disease transmission.

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 286
Author(s):  
Sang-Jin Park ◽  
Seung-Gyu Jeong ◽  
Yong Park ◽  
Sang-hyuk Kim ◽  
Dong-kun Lee ◽  
...  

Climate change poses a disproportionate risk to alpine ecosystems. Effective monitoring of forest phenological responses to climate change is critical for predicting and managing threats to alpine populations. Remote sensing can be used to monitor forest communities in dynamic landscapes for responses to climate change at the species level. Spatiotemporal fusion technology using remote sensing images is an effective way of detecting gradual phenological changes over time and seasonal responses to climate change. The spatial and temporal adaptive reflectance fusion model (STARFM) is a widely used data fusion algorithm for Landsat and MODIS imagery. This study aims to identify forest phenological characteristics and changes at the species–community level by fusing spatiotemporal data from Landsat and MODIS imagery. We fused 18 images from March to November for 2000, 2010, and 2019. (The resulting STARFM-fused images exhibited accuracies of RMSE = 0.0402 and R2 = 0.795. We found that the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) value increased with time, which suggests that increasing temperature due to climate change has affected the start of the growth season in the study region. From this study, we found that increasing temperature affects the phenology of these regions, and forest management strategies like monitoring phenology using remote sensing technique should evaluate the effects of climate change.


Author(s):  
Bipin Acharya ◽  
Wei Chen ◽  
Zengliang Ruan ◽  
Gobind Pant ◽  
Yin Yang ◽  
...  

Being a globally emerging mite-borne zoonotic disease, scrub typhus is a serious public health concern in Nepal. Mapping environmental suitability and quantifying the human population under risk of the disease is important for prevention and control efforts. In this study, we model and map the environmental suitability of scrub typhus using the ecological niche approach, machine learning modeling techniques, and report locations of scrub typhus along with several climatic, topographic, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and proximity explanatory variables and estimated population under the risk of disease at a national level. Both MaxEnt and RF technique results reveal robust predictive power with test The area under curve (AUC) and true skill statistics (TSS) of above 0.8 and 0.6, respectively. Spatial prediction reveals that environmentally suitable areas of scrub typhus are widely distributed across the country particularly in the low-land Tarai and less elevated river valleys. We found that areas close to agricultural land with gentle slopes have higher suitability of scrub typhus occurrence. Despite several speculations on the association between scrub typhus and proximity to earthquake epicenters, we did not find a significant role of proximity to earthquake epicenters in the distribution of scrub typhus in Nepal. About 43% of the population living in highly suitable areas for scrub typhus are at higher risk of infection, followed by 29% living in suitable areas of moderate-risk, and about 22% living in moderately suitable areas of lower risk. These findings could be useful in selecting priority areas for surveillance and control strategies effectively.


Alpine Botany ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Crepaz ◽  
Georg Niedrist ◽  
Johannes Wessely ◽  
Mattia Rossi ◽  
Stefan Dullinger

Abstract Mountain plant species are changing their ranges in response to global warming. However, these shifts vary tremendously in rate, extent and direction. The reasons for this variation are yet poorly understood. A process potentially important for mountain plant re-distribution is a competition between colonizing species and the resident vegetation. Here, we focus on the impact of this process using the recent elevational shift of the sedge Carex humilis in the northern Italian Alps as a model system. We repeated and extended historical sampling (conducted in 1976) of the species in the study region. We used the historical distribution data and historical climatic maps to parameterize a species distribution model (SDM) and projected the potential distribution of the species under current conditions. We compared the historical and the current re-survey for the species in terms of the cover of important potential competitor species as well as in terms of the productivity of the resident vegetation indicated by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). We found that Carex humilis has shifted its leading range margin upward rapidly (51.2 m per decade) but left many sites that have become climatically suitable since 1976 according to the SDM uncolonized. These suitable but uncolonized sites show significantly higher coverage of all dwarf shrub species and higher NDVI than the sites occupied by the sedge. These results suggest that resistance of the resident vegetation against colonization of migrating species can indeed play an important role in controlling the re-distribution of mountain plants under climate change.


2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imma Oliveras ◽  
Marc Gracia ◽  
Gerard Moré ◽  
Javier Retana

In Mediterranean ecosystems, large fires frequently burn under extreme meteorological conditions, but they are usually characterized by a spatial heterogeneity of burn severities. The way in which such mixed-severity fires are a result of fuels, topography and weather remains poorly understood. We computed fire severity of a large wildfire that occurred in Catalonia, Spain, as the difference between the post- and pre-fire Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values obtained through Landsat images. Fuel and topographic variables were derived from remote sensing, and fire behavior variables were obtained from an exhaustive reconstruction of the fire. Results showed that fire severity had a negative relationship with percentage of canopy cover, i.e. green surviving plots were mainly those with more forested conditions. Of the topographic variables, only aspect had a significant effect on fire severity, with higher values in southern than in northern slopes. Fire severity was higher in head than in flank and back fires. The interaction of these two variables was significant, with differences between southern and northern aspects being small for head fires, but increasing in flank and back fires. The role of these variables in determining the pattern of fire severities is of primary importance for interpreting the current landscapes and for establishing effective fire prevention and extinction policies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1561-1577
Author(s):  
Sajjad Hussain ◽  
Muhammad Mubeen ◽  
Ashfaq Ahmad ◽  
Nasir Masood ◽  
Hafiz Mohkum Hammad ◽  
...  

Abstract The rapid increase in urbanization has an important effect on cropping pattern and land use/land cover (LULC) through replacing areas of vegetation with commercial and residential coverage, thereby increasing the land surface temperature (LST). The LST information is significant to understand the environmental changes, urban climatology, anthropogenic activities, and ecological interactions, etc. Using remote sensing (RS) data, the present research provides a comprehensive study of LULC and LST changes in water scarce and climate prone Southern Punjab (Multan region), Pakistan, for 30 years (from 1990 to 2020). For this research, Landsat images were processed through supervised classification with maps of the Multan region. The LULC changes showed that sugarcane and rice (decreased by 2.9 and 1.6%, respectively) had less volatility of variation in comparison with both wheat and cotton (decreased by 5.3 and 6.6%, respectively). The analysis of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) showed that the vegetation decreased in the region both in minimum value (−0.05 [1990] to −0.15 [2020]) and maximum value (0.6 [1990] to 0.54 [2020]). The results showed that the built-up area was increased 3.5% during 1990–2020, and these were some of the major changes which increased the LST (from 27.6 to 28.5°C) in the study area. The significant regression in our study clearly shows that NDVI and LST are negatively correlated with each other. The results suggested that increasing temperature in growing period had a greatest effect on all types of vegetation. Crop-based classification aids water policy managers and analysts to make a better policy with enhanced information based on the extent of the natural resources. So, the study of dynamics in major crops and surface temperature through satellite RS can play an important role in the rural development and planning for food security in the study area.


2021 ◽  
pp. 123-126

Reliable and up-to-date data on every soil segment of the land areas cultivated for the contemporary land utilization is of vital significance. Currently, the efficient planning and control over the agricultural activities is hardly possible without any reliable and updated information on the yield and agricultural soil types, whereas implementation of drones in the field of land management and in agriculture, on the whole, is one of the most perspective directions, since unlike the artificial sattelites, they provide more precise and guided images for the given location. The aim of the research is to produce the digital field model and NDVI map for the crops by applying Parrot Disco-Pro AG drone kit.


Author(s):  
Katarzyna Dabrowska-Zielinska ◽  
Jan Musial ◽  
Alicja Malinska ◽  
Maria Budzynska ◽  
Radoslaw Gurdak ◽  
...  

Soil moisture (SM) plays an essential role in environmental studies related to wetlands, an ecosystem sensitive to climate change. Hence, there is the need for its constant monitoring. SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite imagery is the only mean to fulfill this objective regardless of the weather. The objective of the study was to develop the methodology for SM retrieval under wetland vegetation using Sentinel-1 (S-1) satellite data. The study was carried out during the years 2015–2017 in the Biebrza Wetlands, situated in northeastern Poland. At the Biebrza Wetlands, two Sentinel-1 validation sites were established, covering grassland and marshland biomes, where a network of 18 stations for soil moisture measurement was deployed. The sites were funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), and the collected measurements are available through the International Soil Moisture Network (ISMN). The NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) was derived from the optical imagery of a MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensor onboard the Terra satellite. The SAR data of the Sentinel-1 satellite with VH (vertical transmit and horizontal receive) and VV (vertical transmit and vertical receive) polarization were applied to soil moisture retrieval for a broad range of NDVI values and soil moisture conditions. The new methodology is based on research into the effect of vegetation on backscatter () changes under different soil moisture and vegetation (NDVI) conditions. It was found that the state of the vegetation may be described by the difference between  VH and  VV, or the ratio of  VV/VH, as calculated from the Sentinel-1 images. The most significant correlation coefficient for soil moisture was found for data that was acquired from the ascending tracks of the Sentinel-1 satellite, characterized by the lowest incidence angle, and SM at a depth of 5 cm. The study demonstrated that the use of the inversion approach, which was applied to the new developed models and includes the derived indices based on S-1, allowed the estimation of SM for peatlands with reasonable accuracy (RMSE ~ 10 vol. %). Due to the temporal frequency of the two S-1 satellites’ (S-1A and S-1B) acquisitions, it is possible to monitor SM changes every six days. The conclusion drawn from the study emphasizes a demand for the derivation of specific soil moisture retrieval algorithms that are suited for wetland ecosystems, where soil moisture is several times higher than in agricultural areas.


2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 184
Author(s):  
Manuel Salvoldi ◽  
Yaniv Tubul ◽  
Arnon Karnieli ◽  
Ittai Herrmann

The bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) is crucial in determining the quantity of reflected light on the earth’s surface as a function of solar and view angles (i.e., azimuth and zenith angles). The Vegetation and ENvironment monitoring Micro-Satellite (VENµS) provides a unique opportunity to acquire data from the same site, with the same sensor, with almost constant solar and view zenith angles from two (or more) view azimuth angles. The present study was aimed at exploring the view angles’ effect on the stability of the values of albedo and of two vegetation indices (VIs): the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the red-edge inflection point (REIP). These products were calculated over three polygons representing urban and cultivated areas in April, June, and September 2018, under a minimal time difference of less than two minutes. Arithmetic differences of VIs and a change vector analysis (CVA) were performed. The results show that in urban areas, there was no difference between the VIs, whereas in the well-developed field crop canopy, the REIP was less affected by the view azimuth angle than the NDVI. Results suggest that REIP is a more appropriate index than NDVI for field crop studies and monitoring. This conclusion can be applied in a constellation of satellites that monitor ground features simultaneously but from different view azimuth angles.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (45) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ezequiel Gómez-Rodríguez ◽  
Francisco José Molina-Pérez ◽  
Diana María Agudelo-Echavarría ◽  
Julio Eduardo Cañón-Barriga ◽  
Fabio De Jesús Vélez-Macías

The municipality of Nechí (Antioquia, Colombia) has a long mining history associated with the extraction of gold. This paper evaluates the evolution of land cover changes caused by this mining activity over 24 years. The spatial analysis was based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of three LANDSAT images (1986, 1996 and 2010). The difference in NDVI values between 1986 and 2010 were used to determine the actual state of vegetation, the direction of change (improvement, stability or deterioration), and the area associated with each soil cover. Polygons for different types of coverage (forest, pasture, bare soil, and water bodies) were extracted from each satellite image to quantify the changes and develop land cover maps for each year. Results show that almost 124.8 km² of forest have been lost during the analyzed period. By contrast, water bodies gained an area of 66.3 km². Both results may be related to the type of gold exploitation in the region.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinxia Liu ◽  
Zhixiu Tian ◽  
Anbing Zhang ◽  
Anzhou Zhao ◽  
Haixin Liu

By using the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) third-generation normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI3g) data, this paper explores the spatiotemporal variations in vegetation and their relationship with temperature and precipitation between 1982 and 2015 in the Inner Mongolia region of China. Based on yearly scale data, the vegetation changes in Inner Mongolia have experienced three stages from 1982 to 2015: the vegetation activity kept a continuous improvement from 1982–1999, then downward between 1999–2009, and upward from 2009 to 2015. On the whole, the general trend is increasing. Several areas even witnessed significant vegetation increases: in the east and south of Tongliao and Chifeng, north of Xing’anmeng, north and west of Hulunbir, and in the west of Inner Mongolia. Based on monthly scale data, one-year and half-year cycles exist in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and temperature but only a one-year cycle in precipitation. Finally, based on the one-year cycle, the relationship between NDVI and climatic were studied; NDVI has a significant positive correlation with temperature and precipitation, and temperature has a greater effect in promoting vegetation growth than precipitation. Moreover, based on a half-year changing period, NDVI is only affected by temperature in the study region. Those findings can serve as a critical reference for grassland managers or policy makers to make informed decisions on grassland management.


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