scholarly journals Using ordered weight averaging (OWA) for multicriteria soil fertility evaluation by GIS (case study: southeastern Iran)

Author(s):  
Marzieh Mokarram ◽  
Majid Hojati

Abstract. The Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are used to provide accurate information on Pedogenic processes and facilitate the work of decision makers. So, MCDA and GIS, can provide a wide range of decision strategies or scenarios in some procedures. One of the popular algorithm of multicriteria analysis is Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA). The OWA procedure depends on some parameters, which can be specified by means of fuzzy. The aim of this study is to take the advantage of the incorporation of fuzzy into GIS-based soil fertility analysis by OWA in west Shiraz, Fars province, Iran. For the determination of soil fertility maps, OWA parameters such as potassium (K), phosphor (P), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), organic carbon (OC) and zinc (Zn) were used. After generated interpolation maps with Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW), fuzzy maps for each parameter were generated by the membership functions. Finally, with OWA six maps for fertility with different risk level were made. The results show that with decreasing risk (no trade-off), almost all of the parts of the study area were not suitable for soil fertility. While increasing risk, more area was suitable in terms of soil fertility in the study area. So using OWA can generate many maps with different risk levels that lead to different management due to the different financial conditions of farmers.

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marzieh Mokarram ◽  
Majid Hojati

Abstract. The Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are used to provide more accurate decisions for decision makers in order to evaluate the effective factors of the natural science. One of the popular algorithms of the multi-criteria analysis is the Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA). The OWA procedure depends on some parameters which can be specified by means of the fuzzy logic. The aim of this study is to take the advantage of incorporating the fuzzy logic into GIS-based soil fertility analysis by OWA in the west of Shiraz, Fars province, Iran. In fact, different soil fertility maps with different risk level are prepared in the present study. This study introduces a method for farmers in case of make balance between their budget and their farm soil parameters. A farmer can accept more risk it can use more areas for farming and also the amount of needed budget increases too. For determining the soil fertility maps, the OWA parameters such as potassium (K), phosphor (P), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), organic carbon (OC) and zinc (Zn) were used. After generating the interpolation maps with the Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW), the fuzzy maps were generated by the membership functions for each parameter. Finally, by utilizing OWA, six fertility maps with different risk levels (degrees of uncertainty) were made. The results show that by decreasing the risk (no trade-off), increasing the risk, more area within the study area was suitable in terms of the soil fertility. Therefore, using OWA can generate many maps with different risk levels. This leads to different managements based on different financial conditions of farmers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mimi W. Tzeng ◽  
Oliver Floerl ◽  
Anastasija Zaiko

Globally, movements of commercial vessels can facilitate the spread of marine non-indigenous species (NIS) beyond their current biogeographic ranges. Authorities at potential destination locations employ a number of biosecurity risk assessment strategies to estimate threat levels from potential origin locations, vulnerability levels of specific destination regions, or the consequences of successful establishment of particular NIS species. Among the many factors and processes that have an influence on the probability that NIS will survive transport and establish successfully at new locations, vessel type has been identified as an important risk factor. Different vessel types have different structural and operational characteristics that affect their overall level of marine biosecurity risk. Several recent studies have examined subsets of vessel types or vessel characteristics for their ability to spread NIS. While high-quality information is available via these endeavors, it is fragmented and not readily available as an integrated resource to support biosecurity regulators or other end-users. In this study, we synthesize available empirical data on a wide range of vessel types and characteristics to develop a framework that allows systematic quantification of the relative risk of NIS transfer by common commercial vessel types. We explain our approach for constructing the framework, from selection of key risk factors for inclusion, to selection of which datasets to use for those risk factors. The framework output is a set of risk scores which denote the relative biosecurity risk of common commercial vessel types. To demonstrate a potential application of our framework, we applied the risk scores to vessel visit data for commercial ports around New Zealand and assigned a relative risk level per port based on the arrival frequencies of different vessel types. The resulting per-port risk levels matched closely with the results of a prior benchmark study that employed state-of-the-art risk modeling approaches. Our framework is based on globally relevant data, is simple to implement, and is adaptable as new empirical information arises. It can serve as a simple tool to determine the relative levels of vessel-related biosecurity risk associated with geographic shipping hubs, or it can be used as a vessel-specific “risk mask” for maritime transport models. It can be applied to any scientific or policy question that requires information on vessel type differences in relation to marine biosecurity risk.


Author(s):  
B. L. Turner II ◽  
D. R. Foster

Frontiers advance and retreat, both figuratively and literally. At this moment they are advancing in three ways relevant to the subject of this book and the ongoing project on which it is based. First, after more than a century of reductionist hegemony, various science communities worldwide increasingly recognize the need to improve complementary, synthesis understanding—a way of putting the reductionist pieces of the problem back together again in order to understand how the ‘whole’ system works and to identify the emergent properties that follow from the complex interactions of the pieces. Synthesis understanding is not, of course, new. In the late eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant argued for it as one of the pillars of science in the reorganization of knowledge in the European academy (Turner 2002a) and designated geography as one of the ‘synthesis sciences’. Its contemporary rediscovery, however, rests in the science of global environmental change (Lawton 2001; Steffen et al. 2002), especially efforts to model complex systems, such as those in ocean–atmosphere–land interactions, and has been expanded by emerging research agendas seeking to couple human and environment systems, often registered under the label of ‘sustainability science’ (e.g. Kates et al. 2001; NRC 1999). Second, within these developments landuse and land-cover change (or, simply, land change) is singled out because of its centrality to a wide range of environmental concerns, including global climate change, regional–local hydrological impacts, biodiversity, and, of course, human development and ecosystem integrity (e.g. Brookfield 1995; NRC 2000; Watson et al. 2001). The need to advance an integrated land-change science is also increasingly recognized, one in which human, ecological, and remote sensing and geographical information systems (GIS) sciences are intertwined in problem-solving (Liverman et al. 1998; Klepeis and Turner 2001; Turner 2002b). And central to this effort is the need to advance geographically (spatially) explicit land-change models that can explain and project coupled human-ecological systems, and thus serve a wide range of research and assessment constituencies, from carbon to biodiversity to human vulnerability (IGBP 1999; Irwin and Geoghegan 2001; Kates et al. 2001; Liverman et al. 1998; Veldkamp and Lambin 2001). These two developments—synthesis science and integrated land science directed towards geographically explicit land-change models—constitute the broader intellectual and research frontiers to which this work contributes.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (24) ◽  
pp. 8371
Author(s):  
Dimitra G. Vagiona

This study investigated the prioritization and ranking problem of the appropriate locations at which to deploy solar photovoltaic (PV) farms. Although different Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods can be found in the literature to address this problem, a comparative analysis of those methods is missing. The aim of this study is to compare four different MCDM approaches to evaluate and rank suitable areas for the deployment of solar PV farms, with the island of Rhodes (Greece) being used as an example. Feasible areas for the location of such facilities were identified with the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), by applying certain exclusion criteria found either in the national legislative framework or in the international literature. Data were obtained from Greek open geospatial data. The feasible sites were evaluated and ranked using four different MCDM methods: the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), the VIKOR (VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje), and the PROMETHEE II (Preference Ranking Organization METHod for Enrichment of Evaluations) method. The best alternative rated according to three TOPSIS, VIKOR and PROMETHEE is site (S2). The second-best alternative in the above three methods is site (S1), while the worst is site (S3). The best alternative rated according to AHP (S4) is in sixth position according to TOPSIS and in fifth position VIKOR and PROMETHEE. The comparison demonstrated that different MCDM techniques may generate different ranks. The simultaneous use of several MCDM methods in energy siting problems is considered advantageous as it can help decision makers to select the most sustainable sites, avoiding the disadvantages and availing the advantages of each method.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sang-Soo Jeon ◽  
Daeyang Heo ◽  
Sang-Seung Lee

Abstract. Liquefaction causes secondary damage after earthquakes; however, liquefaction related phenomena were rarely reported until after the Mw = 5.4 November 15, 2017 Pohang earthquake in Korea. Both the Mw = 5.8 September 12, 2016 Gyeongju earthquake and Mw = 5.4 November 15, 2017 Pohang earthquake occurred in the fault zone of Yangsan City (located in the south-eastern part of Korea), and both of these earthquakes induced liquefaction. Moreover, they demonstrated that Korea is not safe against the liquefaction induced by earthquakes. In this study, estimations and calculations were performed based on the distances between the centroids of administrative districts and an epicenter located at the Yangsan Fault, the peak ground accelerations (PGAs) induced by Mw = 5.0 and 6.5 earthquakes, and a liquefaction potential index (LPI) calculated based on groundwater level and standard penetration test results from 274 locations in Kimhae City (adjacent to the Nakdong river and across the Yangsan Fault). Then, a kriging method using geographical information systems was used to evaluate the liquefaction effects on the risk levels of facilities. The results indicate that a Mw = 5.0 earthquake induces a small and low level of liquefaction, resulting in slight risk for facilities, but a Mw = 6.5 earthquake induces a large and high level of liquefaction, resulting in a severe risk for facilities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Criado ◽  
Fernando Santos-Francés ◽  
Antonio Martínez-Graña ◽  
Yolanda Sánchez ◽  
Leticia Merchán

The lack of urban sustainability is a widespread deficiency in urban agglomerations. To achieve adequate land use, we present a methodology that allows for: 1) the identification of the impacts caused by urban expansion since 1956 to the present in Salamanca (Spain); and 2) the promotion of a more sustainable future in urban development. A multi-temporal assessment of land use was made by remote sensing, while sustainability criteria were analyzed using the multicriteria analysis (MCA) with Geographical Information Systems (GIS). In addition, we established recommendations for soil carbon management in semi-arid ecosystem soils that contribute to climate change mitigation. The results show an increase of the urbanized area from 3.8% to 22.3% in the studied period, identifying up to 15% of buildings in zones with some type of restriction. In 71% of the cases, urbanization caused the sealing of productive agricultural soils (2519 Ha), almost 20% of which were of the highest quality. In last few decades, an excessive increase of built-up areas in comparison to population dynamics was identified, which causes unnecessary soil sealing that affects the food production and the capacity to mitigate climate change by managing the carbon cycle in the soil.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Amin Ghatee ◽  
Koorosh Nikaein ◽  
Walter Robert Taylor ◽  
Mehdi Karamian ◽  
Hasan Alidadi ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Cystic echinococcosis (CE), a worldwide zoonotic disease, is affected by various biological and environmental factors. We investigated dog/livestock populations, climatic and environmental factors influencing the distribution of human CE cases in Fars province, southwest Iran. Methods We mapped the addresses of 266 hospitalised CE patients (2004–2014) and studied the effects of different temperature models, mean annual rainfall and humidity, number of frosty days, slope, latitude, land covers, close proximity to nomads travel routes, livestock and dog densities on the occurrence of CE using geographical information systems approach. Data were analyzed by logistic regression. Results In the multivariate model predicting CE, living in an urban setting and densities of cattle and dogs were the most important CE predictors, sequentially. Dry (rained) farm, density of camel and sheep, close proximity to nomads travel routes, humidity, and slope also were considered as the determinants of CE distribution, when analyzed independently. Slope had a negative correlation with CE while temperature, frost days and latitude were not associated with CE. Conclusions In our study, an urban setting was the most important risk factor and likely due to a combination of the high density of key life cycle hosts, dogs and livestock, a large human susceptible population and the high number of abattoirs. Farmland and humidity were highly suggestive risk factors and these conditions support the increased survival of Echinococcus granulosus eggs in the soil. These findings support the development of strategies for control of disease. More research is needed test optimal interventions.


2021 ◽  
pp. 36-55
Author(s):  
Karel Charvat ◽  
Runar Bergheim ◽  
Raitis Bērziņš ◽  
František Zadražil ◽  
Dailis Langovskis ◽  
...  

For the purpose of exploiting the potential of cloud connectivity in geographical information systems, the Map Whiteboard technology introduced in this article does for web mapping what Google Docs does for word processing; create a shared user interface where multiple parties collaboratively can develop maps and map data while seeing each other work in realtime. To develop the Map Whiteboard concept, we have applied a methodology whereby we have collected technical and functional requirements through a series of hackathons, implemented a prototype in several stages, and subjected this to rigorous testing in a lab environment and with selected users from relevant environments at intermediate scale. The work has resulted in a fully functional prototype that exploits WebSockets via a cloud service to reflect map and data changes between multiple connected clients. The technology has a demonstrated potential for use in a wide range of web GIS applications, something that is facilitated by the interfaces already implemented towards mainstream mapping frameworks like OpenLayers and QGIS-two of the most popular frameworks for Web GIS solutions. Further development and testing are required before operationalization in mission-critical environments. In conclusion, the Map Whiteboard concept offers a starting point for exploiting cloud connectivity within GIS to facilitate the digitalization of common processes within the government and private sector. The technology is ready for early adopters and welcomes the contribution of interested parties.


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