Sentinel2GlobalLULC: A deep-learning-ready Sentinel-2 RGB image dataset for global land use/cover mapping

ABSTRACTLand-Use and Land-Cover (LULC) mapping is relevant for many applications, from Earth system and climate modelling to territorial and urban planning. Global LULC products are continuously developing as remote sensing data and methods grow. However, there is still low consistency among LULC products due to low accuracy for some regions and LULC types. Here, we introduce Sentinel2GlobalLULC, a Sentinel-2 RGB image dataset, built from the consensus of 15 global LULC maps available in Google Earth Engine. Sentinel2GlobalLULC v1.1 contains 195572 RGB images organized into 29 global LULC mapping classes. Each image is a tile that has 224 × 224 pixels at 10 × 10 m spatial resolution and was built as a cloud-free composite from all Sentinel-2 images acquired between June 2015 and October 2020. Metadata includes a unique LULC type annotation per image, together with level of consensus, reverse geo-referencing, and global human modification index. Sentinel2GlobalLULC is optimized for the state-of-the-art Deep Learning models to provide a new gate towards building precise and robust global or regional LULC maps.

Flood of Ecology - Floodplain Habitation

<p>Larger and more devastating flood events are happening more frequently across the planet, but flooding is a natural occurrence for any river system. It is only due to human modification of the river system, through the removal of natural features and attempts at flood control, that creates flood hazards that cause damage to communities and ecosystems. Kapiti Coast’s terrain consisted, pre 19th century, of a mixture of dense coastal forests and extensive wetlands. The landscape has and always will be prone to flooding. With the addition of the expressway to the region, making it easier to travel to and from the capital Wellington, it is expected that the population of Kapiti will grow. But biodiversity may get lost, and flooding may become increasingly more frequent. How might new settlers learn to live with flooding and the constant risk that every time it rains it may cause damage to their homes or businesses? Can there be other benefits to floodplain management, such as biodiversity and recreation? The aim of this research is to investigate and develop strategies to aid in the settlement of floodplains so that biodiversity is improved, allowing people to live with floods and without the fear that flooding may cause damage. Specifically, the design-led research seeks to generate solutions that improve both flood awareness and flood protection along the Waikanae River. The design seeks to allow the river to express its own flow patterns, and then secondly, how settlement will work within that. It can then be a catalyst for settlement of floodplain areas along the edge of the river. This thesis will explore how ecology, rehabilitation and natural flood protection can be employed amongst an expanding urban context to create a new way of thinking about our rivers and mitigating the ever pressing issue of flooding.</p>

Flood of Ecology - Floodplain Habitation

<p>Larger and more devastating flood events are happening more frequently across the planet, but flooding is a natural occurrence for any river system. It is only due to human modification of the river system, through the removal of natural features and attempts at flood control, that creates flood hazards that cause damage to communities and ecosystems. Kapiti Coast’s terrain consisted, pre 19th century, of a mixture of dense coastal forests and extensive wetlands. The landscape has and always will be prone to flooding. With the addition of the expressway to the region, making it easier to travel to and from the capital Wellington, it is expected that the population of Kapiti will grow. But biodiversity may get lost, and flooding may become increasingly more frequent. How might new settlers learn to live with flooding and the constant risk that every time it rains it may cause damage to their homes or businesses? Can there be other benefits to floodplain management, such as biodiversity and recreation? The aim of this research is to investigate and develop strategies to aid in the settlement of floodplains so that biodiversity is improved, allowing people to live with floods and without the fear that flooding may cause damage. Specifically, the design-led research seeks to generate solutions that improve both flood awareness and flood protection along the Waikanae River. The design seeks to allow the river to express its own flow patterns, and then secondly, how settlement will work within that. It can then be a catalyst for settlement of floodplain areas along the edge of the river. This thesis will explore how ecology, rehabilitation and natural flood protection can be employed amongst an expanding urban context to create a new way of thinking about our rivers and mitigating the ever pressing issue of flooding.</p>

HUMAN AND IMMORTALITY IN THE VIEWS OF TRANSHUMANISTS

With the development of science, a lot of people don’t believe in the afterlife, but believe in biotechnology and the ability to overcome death, or at least delay it as much as possible. At the same time, the revolution in medical technology has created the illusion of controlling death. In this study we will consider the impact of scientific progress on changing transhumanity’s vision of death. The aim of the article is a socio-philosophical review of the dynamics and changes in transhumanist ideas about obtaining human immortality from the ideas of cryonics to cybernetic modification of human nature. Research methods are comprehensive and based on philosophical-anthropological and philosophical-cultural analysis of transhumanist concepts of human immortality.Discussion. Comparing the arguments of transhumanists about overcoming death by various methods, it becomes clear that the possibility of obtaining immortality through cryonics technologies is no longer the subject of discussion by scientists and philosophers. The attention of philosophers N. Badmington, N. Bostrom, J.Wilsdon, YN Harari, A. Turchin and M. Bakhtin is focused on the possibility of modifying the human body into an eternal cyborg personality. Conclusion. Human modification for the sake of immortality or its cyborgization is the dominant idea of solving the problem of human mortality. The expansion of the boundaries of human nature and the same time of human existence is first of all a transition to a new qualitative level of existence. As a result it is the opportunity to transfer human thoughts, memories and consciousness into the digital form or to an artificial device. So transhumanists will be able to take refuge in digital immortality. And this immortality will depend only on the ability to build and store these devices.

Assessment of Human Modification of Landscapes: Human Perceptions vs. Analytical Indices

We assessed how close human perceptions of landscape modification matched a multivariate index based on remotely sensed data of the same locations. Using a Human Footprint (HF) map of the continental U.S. (scaled 0-100), we created three series of aerial images, each with ten images distributed evenly across the 10 deciles of HF score. Using a web-based survey, 290 members of the global public ranked the images in one series based on their perception of the degree of human modification. Respondents also reported age, sex, and country. The degree of correspondence between rankings by respondents and by HF score was high, an average of 1.29 units of difference out of a maximum possible of 5.0. Differences among respondents were not explained by age, sex, or general geographic location. These results suggest that human perception of relative landscape modification conforms closely with the relative ranking made by a multivariate, analytical index.

Protected-area targets could be undermined by climate change-driven shifts in ecoregions and biomes

Expanding the global protected area network is critical for addressing biodiversity declines and the climate crisis. However, how climate change will affect ecosystem representation within the protected area network remains unclear. Here we use spatial climate analogs to examine potential climate-driven shifts in terrestrial ecoregions and biomes under a +2 °C warming scenario and associated implications for achieving 30% area-based protection targets. We find that roughly half of land area will experience climate conditions that correspond with different ecoregions and nearly a quarter will experience climates from a different biome. Of the area projected to remain climatically stable, 46% is currently intact (low human modification). The area required to achieve protection targets in 87% of ecoregions exceeds the area that is intact, not protected, and projected to remain climatically stable within those ecoregions. Therefore, we propose that prioritization schemes will need to explicitly consider climate-driven changes in patterns of biodiversity.

Potential Distribution of Colonizing Nine-Banded Armadillos at Their Northern Range Edge

The nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) has become a recent addition to the local fauna of Illinois as a response to habitat alteration and climate change. This range expansion has resulted in the presence of armadillos in areas not predicted by earlier models. Although these models have been revised, armadillos continue to move north and have reached areas of heavy agricultural use. We identified conditions that favor the presence of armadillos and potential corridors for dispersal. Identifying the distribution of the armadillo in Illinois is a vital step in anticipating their arrival in areas containing potentially sensitive wildlife populations and habitats. Armadillo locations (n = 37) collected during 2016–2020 were used to develop a map of the potential distribution of armadillos in southern Illinois. Environmental data layers included in the model were land cover type, distance to water, distance to forest edge, human modification, and climactic variables. Land cover type was the most important contributing variable to the model. Our results are consistent with the tenet that armadillo activity and dispersal corridors are centered around riparian areas, and that forested cover may provide corridors an agricultural mosaic.

A 5,000-year vegetation and fire history for tierra firme forests in the Medio Putumayo-Algodón watersheds, northeastern Peru

This paper addresses an important debate in Amazonian studies; namely, the scale, intensity, and nature of human modification of the forests in prehistory. Phytolith and charcoal analysis of terrestrial soils underneath mature tierra firme (nonflooded, nonriverine) forests in the remote Medio Putumayo-Algodón watersheds, northeastern Peru, provide a vegetation and fire history spanning at least the past 5,000 y. A tree inventory carried out in the region enables calibration of ancient phytolith records with standing vegetation and estimates of palm species densities on the landscape through time. Phytolith records show no evidence for forest clearing or agriculture with major annual seed and root crops. Frequencies of important economic palms such as Oenocarpus, Euterpe, Bactris, and Astrocaryum spp., some of which contain hyperdominant species in the modern flora, do not increase through prehistoric time. This indicates pre-Columbian occupations, if documented in the region with future research, did not significantly increase the abundance of those species through management or cultivation. Phytoliths from other arboreal and woody species similarly reflect a stable forest structure and diversity throughout the records. Charcoal 14C dates evidence local forest burning between ca. 2,800 and 1,400 y ago. Our data support previous research indicating that considerable areas of some Amazonian tierra firme forests were not significantly impacted by human activities during the prehistoric era. Rather, it appears that over the last 5,000 y, indigenous populations in this region coexisted with, and helped maintain, large expanses of relatively unmodified forest, as they continue to do today.

Low Densities of the Ghost Crab Ocypode quadrata Related to Large Scale Human Modification of Sandy Shores

Sandy beaches are the most common ecosystems of coastal regions and provide direct and indirect essential services for millions of people, such as coastal protection, fishing, tourism, and recreational activities. However, the natural habitats of sandy shores are being modified at rates never experienced before, making beaches key monitoring sites of marine ecosystems worldwide. The ghost crab species Ocypode quadrata is the most conspicuous crustacean of sandy beaches along the Western Atlantic coast and has been successfully used as an indicator of anthropogenic disturbance and environmental variability. To investigate the potential role of a “triple whammy” [(1) urbanization; (2) use of resources; (3) decreasing resilience] on the most common bioindicator of sandy shores, we compiled a dataset including 214 records of burrows density from 94 microtidal sandy beach sectors covering a range of over 65° of latitude. The response of burrows density to synergetic effects of human modification of natural systems and environmental changes was investigated using linear models. We used the cumulative Human Modification (HMc) index, a standardized geographic projection of changes of natural systems, as a predictor of urbanization, industrialization and use of resources. The predictor wave energy, tidal range and temperature (sea surface and air) were included as potential effects of climate changes. Literature review showed records mainly concentrated at sub-tropical and temperate regions. HMc values were clearly negatively related to burrows density, thereby supporting an effect of modification of natural habitat at large spatial scale. Sea surface temperature and air temperature were positive related with density and the lack of a general pattern of the relationship between burrows density, interactions between wave energy and tide range, supported unclear patterns reported at regional scales. Finally, we argue that ghost crabs are valuable targets for protection actions on sandy beaches that can benefit coexisting species and provide natural habitat conservation.