Parametrising Historical Islamkoy Courtyard-Dwellings: Spatial Quality Parameters and Examination Based on AHP Method

Throughout the historical process humans have shaped the environment that they lived in and developed it according to their needs. The living culture has been formed with various spatial setups in dwellings which are the most basic habitats of humankind. Today, functionality comes into prominence in this living culture which is referred to as traditional dwellings. This shows that the continuity is ensured by presenting mass and cultural harmony between spatial setups and the garden and neighboring dwelling relations. Amongst the traditional dwellings, Turkish house is also considered as an important example, which provides continuity with its diverse plan organizations and spatial characteristic. The courtyard character in traditional dwellings is the space that is effective in the organization of spatial which sheds light on present day with various parameters. This is because the dwelling is located in the courtyard. Moreover, the courtyard, which starts with the entrance and where the households carry out their daily lives, is very significant for the Turkish dwelling as it contains both natural and cultural characteristics. The traditional dwellings of the village of Islamköy, which is located in the Atabey district in Isparta province of Turkey, are discussed within the scope of the study, which examines how the concept of courtyard that contains the functional and aesthetic values of the Turkish dwelling, forms various plan organizations and spatial characters in many cultures, affects the spatial quality. Spatial quality parameters were examined on five second-degree registered traditional dwellings located on Okul Street in the Islamköy village. Three basic principles have been determined which are functional, aesthetic and ecological and the sub-parameters of these determined principles have been introduced with the information and documents obtained from the literature. The AHP method was used to determine the priorities of the parameters in this direction. Thus, taking into account the spatial quality parameters, the priority parameters of the courtyard character in the traditional dwellings of Islamköy were determined

Assessment of Seasonal Variability of Extreme Temperature in Mainland China under Climate Change

Some studies have suggested that variations in the seasonal cycle of temperature and season onset could affect the efficiency in the use of radiation by plants, which would then affect yield. However, the study of the temporal variation in extreme climatic variables is not sufficient in China. Using seasonal trend analysis (STA), this article evaluates the distribution of extreme temperature seasonality trends in mainland China, describes the trends in the seasonal cycle, and detects changes in extreme temperature characterized by the number of hot days (HD) and frost days (FD), the frequency of warm days (TX90p), cold days (TX10p), warm nights (TN90p), and cold nights (TN10p). The results show a statistically significant positive trend in the annual average amplitudes of extreme temperatures. The amplitude and phase of the annual cycle experience less variation than that of the annual average amplitude for extreme temperatures. The phase of the annual cycle in maximum temperature mainly shows a significant negative trend, accounting for approximately 30% of the total area of China, which is distributed across the regions except for northeast and southwest. The amplitude of the annual cycle indicates that the minimum temperature underwent slightly greater variation than the maximum temperature, and its distribution has a spatial characteristic that is almost bounded by the 400 mm isohyet, increasing in the northwest and decreasing in the southeast. In terms of the extreme air temperature indices, HD, TX90p, and TN90p show an increasing trend, FD, TX10p, and TN10p show a decreasing trend. They are statistically significant (p < 0.05). This number of days also suggests that temperature has increased over mainland China in the past 42 years.

Spatial comparison of herald and main waves in London’s nineteenth-century cholera epidemics

Nineteenth-century London experienced four extraordinarily severe summertime cholera epidemics. Three were preceded by less severe non-summer outbreaks. Twenty-first-century research hypothesizes them as herald waves of potentially new cholera strains. This study examined the geographical characteristics of these herald waves and compared them to their subsequent main waves to determine if there was a geographical component to the significant difference in wave severity. Cholera mortality data for London’s parishes and registration districts were extracted from contemporaneous records. The data were normalized and scaled. Each epidemic wave was divided into two segments for analysis. A Spearman’s rank correlation was used to assess the relationship between a herald and its subsequent main wave. Geospatial analytical tools were used to determine and display each segment’s geographic distribution pattern using autocorrelation techniques to determine its central point. Results show that the herald wave of each epidemic shared characteristics similar to its following main wave. Central-point locations were similar and Spearman’s rank coefficients showed high degrees of correlation. Autocorrelation results were similar, with one exception reflecting an appalling anomalous cholera outbreak at an institution for children. Because of the demonstrated similarity of each epidemic’s herald and main waves, this study did not detect a spatial characteristic that could explain the observed difference in severity between the studied heralds and mains.

Usefulness of Social Sensing Using Text Mining of Tweets for Detection of Autumn Phenology

Can social sensing detect the spatio-temporal variability of autumn phenology? We analyzed data published on the Twitter social media website through the text mining of non-geotagged tweets regarding a forested, mountainous region in Japan. We were able to map the spatial characteristic of tweets regarding peak leaf coloring along an altitudinal gradient and found that text mining of tweets is a useful approach to the in situ collection of autumn phenology information at multiple locations over a broad spatial scale. Potential uncertainties in this approach were examined and compared to other online research sources and methods, including Google Trends and information on widely available websites and live camera images. Finally, we suggest ways to reduce the uncertainties identified within our approach and to create better integration between text mining of tweets and other online research data sources and methods.

Full-coverage 1 km daily ambient PM_2.5 and O₃ concentrations of China in 2005–2017 based on multi-variable random forest model

The health risks of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ambient ozone (O3) have been widely recognized in recent years. An accurate estimate of PM2.5 and O3 exposures is important for supporting health risk analysis and environmental policy-making. The aim of our study was to construct random forest models with high-performance, and estimate daily average PM2.5 concentration and O3 daily maximum 8 h average concentration (O3-8hmax) of China in 2005–2017 at a spatial resolution of 1 km×1 km. The model variables included meteorological variables, satellite data, chemical transport model output, geographic variables and socioeconomic variables. Random forest model based on ten-fold cross validation was established, and spatial and temporal validations were performed to evaluate the model performance. According to our sample-based division method, the daily, monthly and yearly simulations of PM2.5 gave average model fitting R2 values of 0.85, 0.88 and 0.90, respectively; these R2 values were 0.77, 0.77, and 0.69 for O3-8hmax, respectively. The meteorological variables and their lagged values can significantly affect both PM2.5 and O3-8hmax simulations. During 2005–2017, PM2.5 exhibited an overall downward trend, while ambient O3 experienced an upward trend. Whilst the spatial patterns of PM2.5 and O3-8hmax barely changed between 2005 and 2017, the temporal trend had spatial characteristic. The dataset is accessible to the public at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4009308, and the shared data set of Chinese Environmental Public Health Tracking: CEPHT (https://cepht.niehs.cn:8282/developSDS3.html).

The Temporal and Spatial Evolution of Ecosystem Service Synergy/Trade-Offs Based on Ecological Units

“Two ecological barriers and three shelters” (TEBTS), which has the effect of relieving ecological pressure, is the national ecological security pattern in China. Calculating the value of TEBTS ecosystem services, clarifying the synergy/trade-off relationships between ecosystem services, and maximizing the value of regional ecosystem services are of great significance for maintaining the security of the ecological civilization. At present, the research on ecosystem service synergy/trade-off has become the frontier field of ecology and related disciplines at home and abroad, and many research results have been obtained. However, there is still room and significance for continuing research to think about the synergy/trade-off relationship of ecosystems from the perspective of temporal and spatial heterogeneity: clarifying the spatial scope and spatial transmission characteristics of ecosystem service synergy/trade-off; exploring the trend of ecosystem service synergy/trade-off, and simulating the dynamic characteristics of natural factors affecting ecosystem services; and analyzing the characteristics of different spatial attributes that lead to the synergy/trade-off of ecosystem services. In this study, the Songhua River Basin (SRB), where the NFB is located, is used as the research area, the ecosystem services are simulated through the ecosystem assessment model, ecological unit (EU) is constructed as a research carrier, which is used to define the spatial scope of ecosystem services, and the influence of spatial characteristics and attribute characteristics on the change trend of the ecosystem service synergy/trade-off relationship is analyzed. The research found that water retention, soil conservation, and biodiversity did not change much from 2000 to 2015, and these ecosystem services have a greater value in the NFZ. The amount of carbon sequestration increased rapidly from 2010 to 2015. Crop production showed an increasing trend year by year. As the main grain production area, the Songnen Plain provides the main crop production function, which is greatly affected by humans. In the spatial characteristic, water retention, soil sequestration, and biodiversity present a very significant synergistic relationship, which is manifested in the obvious high-value aggregation characteristics in the NFZ, and crop production and the other four types of ecosystem services are in a trade-off relationship. At the time scale, the four types of ecosystem services, including water retention, soil conservation, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration, are synergistic, and crop production and water retention are synergistic. The vegetation types exhibiting a synergy/trade-off relationship are mainly broad-leaved forests, and the soil types are mainly luvisols and phaeozems. These EUs are mainly distributed in the NFZ and have spatial topological characteristics: the area and circumference of these EUs are smaller, the radius of gyration is also significantly smaller than that of other EUs, and the shape is more regular. By focusing on the spatial aggregation characteristics and changing trends of the ecosystem service synergy/trade-off and clarifying the influencing factors of the ecosystem service synergy/trade-off, the ecosystem services can be integrated, and the ecosystem can be optimized. Thus, the value of regional ecosystem services can be maximized, and a certain data foundation and theoretical support can be provided for major projects, such as ecological restoration and ecological environment governance, which is of great significance for improving the pattern of ecological security.

GIS-Based Approach to Spatio-Temporal Interpolation of Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations in Limited Monitoring Dataset

Understanding the magnitude and distribution of the mixes of the near-ground carbon dioxide (CO2) components spatially (related to the surface characteristics) and temporally (over seasonal timescales) is critical to evaluating present and future climate impacts. Thus, the application of in situ measurement approaches, combined with the spatial interpolation methods, will help to explore variations in source contribution to the total CO2 mixing ratios in the urban atmosphere. This study presents the spatial characteristic and temporal trend of atmospheric CO2 levels observed within the city of Wroclaw, Poland for the July 2017–August 2018 period. The seasonal variability of atmospheric CO2 around the city was directly measured at the selected sites using flask sampling with a Picarro G2201-I Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) technique. The current work aimed at determining the accuracy of the interpolation techniques and adjusting the interpolation parameters for estimating the magnitude of CO2 time series/seasonal variability in terms of limited observations during the vegetation and non-vegetation periods. The objective was to evaluate how different interpolation methods will affect the assessment of air pollutant levels in the urban environment and identify the optimal sampling strategy. The study discusses the schemes for optimization of the interpolation results that may be adopted in areas where no observations are available, which is based on the kriging error predictions for an appropriate spatial density of measurement locations. Finally, the interpolation results were extended regarding the average prediction bias by exploring additional experimental configurations and introducing the limitation of the future sampling strategy on the seasonal representation of the CO2 levels in the urban area.