scholarly journals ENGINEERING GEOLOGICAL AND GEOTECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LANDSLIDE IN GORNJI HRGOVI, MUNICIPALITY OF SREBRENIK

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (25) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aida Hrustić ◽  
Jasenko Čomić

Natural disasters during May 2014 caused a flood of water outside the unregulated bed of the river Tinja in the local area of Gornji Hrgovi. The flood effect affected the undermining and destruction of the foot part of the slope, reactivation and regressive development of the landslide, which was manifested by further secondary "breaking" of the sliding body towards the hypsometrically top part of the slope and intersection of the primary water pipeline. Gravitational displacement of the colluvial material resulted in significant degradation of the agricultural land surface in the central part of the unstable slope, while in the accumulation zone the accumulated slide mass destroyed the earth road communication. Based on the conducted geotechnical researches, determined engineering-geological and hydrogeological composition and properties of the terrain, the zoning of the terrain according to the degree of stability was performed, important recommendations and conditions of the landslide remediation method were presented.

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulla Al Kafy ◽  
Abdullah Al-Faisal ◽  
Mohammad Mahmudul Hasan ◽  
Md. Soumik Sikdar ◽  
Mohammad Hasib Hasan Khan ◽  
...  

Urbanization has been contributing more in global climate warming, with more than 50% of the population living in cities. Rapid population growth and change in land use / land cover (LULC) are closely linked. The transformation of LULC due to rapid urban expansion significantly affects the functions of biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as local and regional climates. Improper planning and uncontrolled management of LULC changes profoundly contribute to the rise of urban land surface temperature (LST). This study evaluates the impact of LULC changes on LST for 1997, 2007 and 2017 in the Rajshahi district (Bangladesh) using multi-temporal and multi-spectral Landsat 8 OLI and Landsat 5 TM satellite data sets. The analysis of LULC changes exposed a remarkable increase in the built-up areas and a significant decrease in the vegetation and agricultural land. The built-up area was increased almost double in last 20 years in the study area. The distribution of changes in LST shows that built-up areas recorded the highest temperature followed by bare land, vegetation and agricultural land and water bodies. The LULC-LST profiles also revealed the highest temperature in built-up areas and the lowest temperature in water bodies. In the last 20 years, LST was increased about 13ºC. The study demonstrates decrease in vegetation cover and increase in non-evaporating surfaces with significantly increases the surface temperature in the study area. Remote-sensing techniques were found one of the suitable techniques for rapid analysis of urban expansions and to identify the impact of urbanization on LST.


1988 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
pp. 1199-1208 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tuzo Wilson

Until a little more than a century ago the land surface not only was the only part of the Earth accessible to humans but also was the only part for which geophysical and geochemical methods could then provide any details. Since then scientists have developed ways to study the ocean floors and some details of the interior of the Earth to ever greater depths. These discoveries have followed one another more and more rapidly, and now results have been obtained from all depths of the Earth.New methods have not contradicted or greatly disturbed either old methods or old results. Hence, it has been easy to overlook the great importance of these recent findings.Within about the last 5 years the new techniques have mapped the pattern of convection currents in the mantle and shown that these rise from great depths to the surface. Even though the results are still incomplete and are the subject of debate, enough is known to show that the convection currents take two quite different modes. One of these breaks the strong lithosphere; the other moves surface fragments and plates about.It is pointed out that if expanding mid-ocean ridges move continents and plates, geometrical considerations demand that the expanding ridges must themselves migrate. Hence, collisions between ridges and plates are likely to have occurred often during geological time.Twenty years ago it was shown that the effect of a "mid-ocean ridge in the mouth of the Gulf of Aden" was to enter and rift the continent. This paper points out some of the conditions under which such collisions occur and in particular shows that the angle of incidence between a ridge and a coastline has important consequences upon the result. Several past and present cases are used to illustrate that collisions at right angles tend to produce rifting; collisions at oblique angles appear to terminate in the lithosphere in coastal shears, creating displaced terrane, but in the mantle the upward flow may continue to uplift the lithosphere far inland and produce important surface effects; collisions between coasts and mid-ocean ridges parallel to them produce hot uplifts moving inland. For a time these upwellings push thrusts and folds ahead of them, but they appear to die down before reaching cratons.


1935 ◽  
Vol 72 (8) ◽  
pp. 377-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. R. Thompson

Consideration of the continental areas over which the sea spread at various times during the course of geological history leads to the impression that perhaps every part of the land surface of the earth was, at one time or another, raised from a position below sea-level. The present land surface seems to have grown around ancient nuclei owing to the compression of the granitic, sedimentary, and other rocks of which the continental layers are composed. At certain times the compressive forces acted so strongly upon these rocks that the average height of the land reached maximum values, which might have been as great as 3,000 feet. Then denudation, and perhaps other processes, coming into operation and persisting through ages of comparative quiescence, lowered the surface, sometimes to minimum average levels, which might have been as low as 500 feet. There have been a few comparatively short periods of exceptionally high relief, separated by longer periods of low relief. Assuming that the land was raised by horizontal compression, the diminution in surface area of the earth necessary to produce a change in level of 2,500 feet would be very considerable. Instead of considering the change from a minimum average height of 500 feet to a maximum of 3,000 feet, it may be more convenient in the first place to consider the elevation of, say, the continental layers of Dr. H. Jeffreys from sea-level to the average height of the present land surface, that is about 2,500 feet, or 762 metres. It will be supposed, then, that the continental layers, as they now exist, were developed from layers consisting of 1 km. of sediments of specific gravity 2·4, 10 km. of granite of specific gravity 2·6, and 20 km. of tachylyte of specific gravity 2·9, the whole resting on dunite of specific gravity 3·3.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gitanjali Thakur ◽  
Stan Schymanski ◽  
Kaniska Mallick ◽  
Ivonne Trebs

<p>The surface energy balance (SEB) is defined as the balance between incoming energy from the sun and outgoing energy from the Earth’s surface. All components of the SEB depend on land surface temperature (LST). Therefore, LST is an important state variable that controls the energy and water exchange between the Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. LST can be estimated radiometrically, based on the infrared radiance emanating from the surface. At the landscape scale, LST is derived from thermal radiation measured using  satellites.  At the plot scale, eddy covariance flux towers commonly record downwelling and upwelling longwave radiation, which can be inverted to retrieve LST  using the grey body equation :<br>             R<sub>lup</sub> = εσ T<sub>s</sub><sup>4</sup> + (1 − ε) R<sub> ldw         </sub>(1)<br>where R<sub>lup</sub> is the upwelling longwave radiation, R<sub>ldw</sub> is the downwelling longwave radiation, ε is the surface emissivity, <em>T<sub>s</sub>  </em>is the surface temperature and σ  is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. The first term is the temperature-dependent part, while the second represents reflected longwave radiation. Since in the past downwelling longwave radiation was not measured routinely using flux towers, it is an established practice to only use upwelling longwave radiation for the retrieval of plot-scale LST, essentially neglecting the reflected part and shortening Eq. 1 to:<br>               R<sub>lup</sub> = εσ T<sub>s</sub><sup>4 </sup>                       (2)<br>Despite  widespread availability of downwelling longwave radiation measurements, it is still common to use the short equation (Eq. 2) for in-situ LST retrieval. This prompts the question if ignoring the downwelling longwave radiation introduces a bias in LST estimations from tower measurements. Another associated question is how to obtain the correct ε needed for in-situ LST retrievals using tower-based measurements.<br>The current work addresses these two important science questions using observed fluxes at eddy covariance towers for different land cover types. Additionally, uncertainty in retrieved LST and emissivity due to uncertainty in input fluxes was quantified using SOBOL-based uncertainty analysis (SALib). Using landscape-scale emissivity obtained from satellite data (MODIS), we found that the LST  obtained using the complete equation (Eq. 1) is 0.5 to 1.5 K lower than the short equation (Eq. 2). Also, plot-scale emissivity was estimated using observed sensible heat flux and surface-air temperature differences. Plot-scale emissivity obtained using the complete equation was generally between 0.8 to 0.98 while the short equation gave values between 0.9 to 0.98, for all land cover types. Despite additional input data for the complete equation, the uncertainty in plot-scale LST was not greater than if the short equation was used. Landscape-scale daytime LST obtained from satellite data (MODIS TERRA) were strongly correlated with our plot-scale estimates, but on average higher by 0.5 to 9 K, regardless of the equation used. However, for most sites, the correspondence between MODIS TERRA LST and retrieved plot-scale LST estimates increased significantly if plot-scale emissivity was used instead of the landscape-scale emissivity obtained from satellite data.</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 3099-3108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuvia Turkeltaub ◽  
Daniel Kurtzman ◽  
Ofer Dahan

Abstract. Nitrate is considered the most common non-point pollutant in groundwater. It is often attributed to agricultural management, when excess application of nitrogen fertilizer leaches below the root zone and is eventually transported as nitrate through the unsaturated zone to the water table. A lag time of years to decades between processes occurring in the root zone and their final imprint on groundwater quality prevents proper decision-making on land use and groundwater-resource management. This study implemented the vadose-zone monitoring system (VMS) under a commercial crop field. Data obtained by the VMS for 6 years allowed, for the first time known to us, a unique detailed tracking of water percolation and nitrate migration from the surface through the entire vadose zone to the water table at 18.5 m depth. A nitrate concentration time series, which varied with time and depth, revealed – in real time – a major pulse of nitrate mass propagating down through the vadose zone from the root zone toward the water table. Analysis of stable nitrate isotopes indicated that manure is the prevalent source of nitrate in the deep vadose zone and that nitrogen transformation processes have little effect on nitrate isotopic signature. The total nitrogen mass calculations emphasized the nitrate mass migration towards the water table. Furthermore, the simulated pore-water velocity through analytical solution of the convection–dispersion equation shows that nitrate migration time from land surface to groundwater is relatively rapid, approximately 5.9 years. Ultimately, agricultural land uses, which are constrained to high nitrogen application rates and coarse soil texture, are prone to inducing substantial nitrate leaching.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 4465
Author(s):  
Yu Shen ◽  
Xiaoyang Zhang ◽  
Weile Wang ◽  
Ramakrishna Nemani ◽  
Yongchang Ye ◽  
...  

Accurate and timely land surface phenology (LSP) provides essential information for investigating the responses of terrestrial ecosystems to climate changes and quantifying carbon and surface energy cycles on the Earth. LSP has been widely investigated using daily Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) observations, but the resultant phenometrics are frequently influenced by surface heterogeneity and persistent cloud contamination in the time series observations. Recently, LSP has been derived from Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 time series providing detailed spatial pattern, but the results are of high uncertainties because of poor temporal resolution. With the availability of data from Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) onboard a new generation of geostationary satellites that observe the earth every 10–15 min, daily cloud-free time series could be obtained with high opportunities. Therefore, this study investigates the generation of synthetic high spatiotemporal resolution time series by fusing the harmonized Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 (HLS) time series with the temporal shape of ABI data for monitoring field-scale (30 m) LSP. The algorithm is verified by detecting the timings of greenup and senescence onsets around north Wisconsin/Michigan states, United States, where cloud cover is frequent during spring rainy season. The LSP detections from HLS-ABI are compared with those from HLS or ABI alone and are further evaluated using PhenoCam observations. The result indicates that (1) ABI could provide ~3 times more high-quality observations than HLS around spring greenup onset; (2) the greenup and senescence onsets derived from ABI and HLS-ABI are spatially consistent and statistically comparable with a median difference less than 1 and 10-days, respectively; (3) greenup and senescence onsets derived from HLS data show sharp boundaries around the orbit-overlapped areas and shifts of ~13 days delay and ~15 days ahead, respectively, relative to HLS-ABI detections; and (4) HLS-ABI greenup and senescence onsets align closely to PhenoCam observations with an absolute average difference of less than 2 days and 5 days, respectively, which are much better than phenology detections from ABI or HLS alone. The result suggests that the proposed approach could be implemented the monitor of 30 m LSP over regions with persistent cloud cover.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Federico Filipponi

Earth observation provides timely and spatially explicit information about crop phenology and vegetation dynamics that can support decision making and sustainable agricultural land management. Vegetation spectral indices calculated from optical multispectral satellite sensors have been largely used to monitor vegetation status. In addition, techniques to retrieve biophysical parameters from satellite acquisitions, such as the Leaf Area Index (LAI), have allowed to assimilate Earth observation time series in numerical modeling for the analysis of several land surface processes related to agroecosystem dynamics. More recently, biophysical processors used to estimate biophysical parameters from satellite acquisitions have been calibrated for retrieval from sensors with different high spatial resolution and spectral characteristics. Virtual constellations of satellite sensors allow the generation of denser LAI time series, contributing to improve vegetation phenology estimation accuracy and, consequently, enhancing agroecosystems monitoring capacity. This research study compares LAI estimates over croplands using different biophysical processors from Sentinel-2 MSI and Landsat-8 OLI satellite sensors. The results are used to demonstrate the capacity of virtual satellite constellation to strengthen LAI time series to derive important cropland use information over large areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 82-94
Author(s):  
V.F. Kanushin ◽  
◽  
I.G. Ganagina ◽  
D.N. Goldobin ◽  
◽  
...  

The article presents two methods of modeling discrete heights of a quasigeoid on a local area of the earth’s surface using a gen-eralized Fourier series. The first method is based on modeling the characteristics of the earth’s gravitational field on a plane and involves the use of a two-dimensional Fourier transform by an orthonormal system of trigonometric functions. The second method consists in the expansion of the quasigeoid heights in a Fourier series by an orthonormal system of spherical functions on a local area of the earth’s surface. The errors of approxima-tion of the obtained discrete values of the quasigeoid heights on the local territory are analyzed. It is shown that with the modern computing technology, the most accurate and technologically simple way to model the quasigeoid heights on local areas is to expand them into a Fourier series by an orthonormal system of spherical functions.


Author(s):  
Paul Collier

Natural assets are living dangerously: lacking natural owners they are liable to be plundered. Since mankind has had a long time in which to plunder, those depleting natural assets that are still around are there because they are difficult to extract. They lie beneath the earth, hence why they are called “subsoil assets.” Where are they? The world currently consists of 194 nation states, which can conveniently be grouped, as we’ve seen, into four roughly equal quadrants: the rich countries of the OECD; the countries of the bottom billion; Russia and China with their satellites; and the emerging market economies, such as India and Brazil. Each group occupies around a quarter of the planet’s land surface area. Occasionally national borders have been determined by the presence of subsoil assets. British colonial pioneers, for example, got wind of the existence of deposits of copper in central Africa and so pushed a railway line northward from South Africa. They found the copper belt in what is now Zambia. Having pushed over two thousand miles, however, they missed by some thirty the far richer copper deposits that now lie in the southeast corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But usually, national borders do not reflect the endowments of subsoil assets to any significant degree. It would therefore be reasonable to regard subsoil assets as being randomly distributed between countries. Further, countries in the four groups are scattered across the planet. Although each group adds up to around a quarter of the planet’s total land area, it does not literally make up a quadrant, a neat quarter-slice out of a global orange. Since subsoil assets are randomly distributed among the 194 countries, and each of the four groups of countries is fairly randomly distributed around the earth, we might expect the law of large numbers to even out the distribution of subsoil assets among the groups. That is, while the random distribution over the 194 countries is likely to produce some spectacular differences between lucky and unlucky countries, by the time we have aggregated them into four massive groups the remaining differences should be much smaller.


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