Evaluating the Degradation of Natural Resources in the Mediterranean Environment Using the Water and Land Resources Degradation Index, the Case of Crete Island

Natural resources degradation poses multiple challenges particularly to environmental and economic processes. It is usually difficult to identify the degree of degradation and the critical vulnerability values in the affected systems. Thus, among other tools, indices (composite indicators) may also describe these complex systems or phenomena. In this approach, the Water and Land Resources Degradation Index was applied to the fifth largest Mediterranean island, Crete, for the 1999–2014 period. The Water and Land Resources Degradation Index uses 11 water and soil resources related indicators: Aridity Index, Water Demand, Drought Impacts, Drought Resistance Water Resources Infrastructure, Land Use Intensity, Soil Parent Material, Plant Cover, Rainfall, Slope, and Soil Texture. The aim is to identify the sensitive areas to degradation due to anthropogenic interventions and natural processes, as well as their vulnerability status. The results for Crete Island indicate that prolonged water resources shortages due to low average precipitation values or high water demand (especially in the agricultural sector), may significantly affect Water and Land degradation processes. Hence, Water and Land Resources Degradation Index could serve as an extra tool to assist policymakers to improve their decisions to combat Natural Resources degradation.

EVALUATION OF THE POTENTIAL OF GREEN ROOFS APPLIED TO AN URBAN FABRIC USING GIS AND REMOTE SENSING DATA CASE OF THE NADOR CITY / MOROCCO

Accelerated urban growth has affected many of the planet's natural processes. In cities, most of the surface is covered with asphalt and cement, which has changed the water and air cycles. To restore the balance of urban ecosystems, cities must find the means to create green spaces in an increasingly gray world. Green spaces provide the city and its inhabitants a better living environment. This article uses Nador city as a case study area, this project consists in studying the possibility for the roofs to receive vegetation. The first axis of this project is the quantification of the current vegetation cover at ground level by calculating the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based on Satellite images Landsat 8, then the classification of the LiDAR point cloud, and the generation of a digital surface model (DSM) of the urban area. This type of derived data was used as the basis for the various stages of estimating the potential plant cover at the roof level. In order to study the different possible scenarios, a set of criteria was applied, such as the minimum roof area, the inclination and the duration of the sunshine on the roof, which is calculated using the linear model of angstrom Prescott based on solar radiation. The study shows that in the most conservative scenario, 21771 suitable buildings that had to be redeveloped into green roofs, with an appropriate surface area of 369.26Ha allowing a 63,40% increase in the city's green space by compared to the current state contributing to the improvement of the quality of life and urban comfort. The average budget for the installation of green roofs in a building with a surface area of 100 m2 varies between 60000dh and 170000dh depending on the type of green roofs used, extensive or intensive. These results would enable planners and researchers in green architecture sciences to carry out more detailed planning analyzes.

Bio-Based Waste’ Substrates for Degraded Soil Improvement—Advantages and Challenges in European Context

The area of degraded sites in the world is constantly expanding and has been a serious environmental problem for years. Such terrains are not only polluted, but also due to erosion, devoid of plant cover and organic matter. The degradation trends can be reversed by supporting remediation/reclamation processes. One of the possibilities is the introduction of biodegradable waste/biowaste substrates into the soil. The additives can be the waste itself or preformed substrates, such composts, mineral-organic fertilizers or biochar. In EU countries average value of compost used for land restoration and landfill cover was equal 4.9%. The transformation of waste in valuable products require the fulfillment of a number of conditions (waste quality, process conditions, law, local circumstances). Application on degraded land surface bio-based waste substrates has several advantages: increase soil organic matter (SOM) and nutrient content, biodiversity and activity of microbial soil communities and change of several others physical and chemical factors including degradation/immobilization of contaminants. The additives improve the water ratio and availability to plants and restore aboveground ecosystem. Due to organic additives degraded terrains are able to sequestrate carbon and climate mitigate. However, we identified some challenges. The application of waste to soil must comply with the legal requirements and meet the end of use criteria. Moreover, shorter or long-term use of bio-waste based substrate lead to even greater soil chemical or microbial contamination. Among pollutants, “emerging contaminants” appear more frequently, such microplastics, nanoparticles or active compounds of pharmaceuticals. That is why a holistic approach is necessary for use the bio-waste based substrate for rehabilitation of soil degraded ecosystems.

A Multiview Semantic Vegetation Index for Robust Estimation of Urban Vegetation Cover

Urban vegetation growth is vital for developing sustainable and liveable cities in the contemporary era since it directly helps people’s health and well-being. Estimating vegetation cover and biomass is commonly done by calculating various vegetation indices for automated urban vegetation management and monitoring. However, most of these indices fail to capture robust estimation of vegetation cover due to their inherent focus on colour attributes with limited viewpoint and ignore seasonal changes. To solve this limitation, this article proposed a novel vegetation index called the Multiview Semantic Vegetation Index (MSVI), which is robust to color, viewpoint, and seasonal variations. Moreover, it can be applied directly to RGB images. This Multiview Semantic Vegetation Index (MSVI) is based on deep semantic segmentation and multiview field coverage and can be integrated into any vegetation management platform. This index has been tested on Google Street View (GSV) imagery of Wyndham City Council, Melbourne, Australia. The experiments and training achieved an overall pixel accuracy of 89.4% and 92.4% for FCN and U-Net, respectively. Thus, the MSVI can be a helpful instrument for analysing urban forestry and vegetation biomass since it provides an accurate and reliable objective method for assessing the plant cover at street level.

Wildfires and Monsoons: Cryptic Drivers for Highly Variable Provenance Signals within a Carboniferous Fluvial System

Sediment delivery and supply are explicitly controlled by variations in broad-scale processes such as climate, tectonics and eustasy. These in turn influence fluvial processes and hinterland evolution. A bespoke multi-proxy approach (integrating apatite and zircon U-Pb geochronology, trace elements in apatite, and Pb-in-K-feldspar provenance tools) coupled with outcrop investigation is used to constrain the temporal trends in sediment delivery to channel sandstones of the fluvio-estuarine mid-Viséan Mullaghmore Sandstone Formation, Ireland. Provenance data indicate unique detrital signatures for all sampled horizons, indicating the fluctuating nature of sediment supply to this medium-sized basin. Tectonism and/or abrupt relative sea-level fall likely caused fluvial rejuvenation, resulting in local basement sourcing of the initial fill. Older and more distal sources, such as the Nagssugtoqidian Belt of East Greenland, become more prominent in stratigraphically younger channel sandstones suggesting catchment expansion. Paleoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic sources are most dominant, yet the detrital grain cargo varies in each channel sandstone. Proximal sources such as the Donegal Batholith and Dalradian Supergroup are variable and appear to switch on and off. These signal shifts are likely the result of channel migration and paleoclimatic fluctuation. A monsoonal climate and large-scale wildfire events (evidenced by fusain) likely contributed to modify plant cover, intensify erosion, and increase run-off and sediment delivery rates from specific areas of the hinterland.

Comparison of six zero-till seed drill openers for establishment and persistence of sod-seeded alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) in a cool-season perennial grass pasture

Zero-till seed drills are readily available for crop seeding in the prairie region of western Canada but have not been evaluated for sod-seeding in perennial forage. Sod-seeding a legume, such as alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), into the existing perennial grass vegetation improves forage yield and quality for ruminant livestock grazing and production. Suppression of the existing vegetation with herbicide has been reported to increase alfalfa seedling establishment. We evaluated six commercially available zero-till seed drill openers by sod-seeding alfalfa into a crested wheatgrass [Agropyron cristatum (L.) Gaertn.] pasture with or without glyphosate suppression of the existing vegetation in Lanigan Saskatchewan. Alfalfa seedling establishment (52.2 vs. 21.9 seedlings m−1 ± 6.8), alfalfa composition (42.5% vs. 0.2% ± 8.6), and alfalfa yield (1105 kg·ha−1 vs. 12 kg·ha−1 ± 206) in 2011 were increased by the application of herbicide. Seed drill openers performed similarly for all three variables. Nine years later, in June 2020, there was greater alfalfa composition (13.3% vs. 0% ± 2.3) and forage yield (1325 vs. 957 kg·ha−1 ± 127) in the sod-seeded plots than in the unseeded controls but the alfalfa plant cover, alfalfa composition, alfalfa yield and forage yield were similar among seed drill openers. There was also no difference in these variables due to herbicide application nine years prior. Livestock producers can utilize currently available zero-till seeding equipment for sod-seeding alfalfa to rejuvenate grass pastures in the thin Black soil zone of western Canada with the expectation of persistence of alfalfa for nine years.

Information system of analysis of geodata for tracking changes of vegetation

The rapid growth of geo-information technology capabilities in the field of spatial data processing and analysis has led to a significant growth of the role of geo-information systems in different areas of human activity. Application of approaches to spatial information processing from satellites new for more effective and efficient assessment of the state of plant cover is caused by growing tendency of availability to data of Earth remote sensing. The article offers an information system that allows to quickly and conveniently track changes in the vegetation. The analysis was carried out on the example of the Chornobyl Area between 2000 and 2020. The Chornobyl Disaster coincides with the period of intensive vegetative plant development. During that period, they are most sensitive to radiation. It has been established that for defining the quantitative state of biomass the NDVI index at different time intervals is most often used. But this index becomes ineffective during periods of weakening of active phase of vegetation. This is therefore of practical interest to assess the possibility of using the K-means clustering for the analysis of space images of vegetation cover at different phases of vegetation. As a result of the research, water surface, land with and without vegetation has been correctly interpreted, thus determining the land with a sparse vegetation and dense vegetation cover. The maps of the vegetation cover according to the normalized vegetative index using the K-medium method were constructed, the method by which changes in vegetation over 20 years can be clearly observed. The accuracy results were verified with the Common Method Bias. According to the calculations, despite all natural cataclysms (temperature increase, drought, winter anomalies of precipitations and temperatures, storms, forest fires), as well as human activity (sanitary clear cuttings, illegal logging), vegetation in the Chornobyl zone continues to grow and its areas will increase, although not so quickly.