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ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf., Volume 5, Issue 5 (May 2016) – 20 articles

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8106 KiB  
Article
A Spatial Data Infrastructure Integrating Multisource Heterogeneous Geospatial Data and Time Series: A Study Case in Agriculture
by Gloria Bordogna, Tomáš Kliment, Luca Frigerio, Pietro Alessandro Brivio, Alberto Crema, Daniela Stroppiana, Mirco Boschetti and Simone Sterlacchini
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 73; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050073 - 21 May 2016
Cited by 36 | Viewed by 10639
Abstract
Currently, the best practice to support land planning calls for the development of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) capable of integrating both geospatial datasets and time series information from multiple sources, e.g., multitemporal satellite data and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). This paper describes an [...] Read more.
Currently, the best practice to support land planning calls for the development of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) capable of integrating both geospatial datasets and time series information from multiple sources, e.g., multitemporal satellite data and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). This paper describes an original OGC standard interoperable SDI architecture and a geospatial data and metadata workflow for creating and managing multisource heterogeneous geospatial datasets and time series, and discusses it in the framework of the Space4Agri project study case developed to support the agricultural sector in Lombardy region, Northern Italy. The main novel contributions go beyond the application domain for which the SDI has been developed and are the following: the ingestion within an a-centric SDI, potentially distributed in several nodes on the Internet to support scalability, of products derived by processing remote sensing images, authoritative data, georeferenced in-situ measurements and voluntary information (VGI) created by farmers and agronomists using an original Smart App; the workflow automation for publishing sets and time series of heterogeneous multisource geospatial data and relative web services; and, finally, the project geoportal, that can ease the analysis of the geospatial datasets and time series by providing complex intelligent spatio-temporal query and answering facilities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geographic Information Retrieval)
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Article
Density-Based Clustering with Geographical Background Constraints Using a Semantic Expression Model
by Qingyun Du, Zhi Dong, Chudong Huang and Fu Ren
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050072 - 19 May 2016
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6463
Abstract
A semantics-based method for density-based clustering with constraints imposed by geographical background knowledge is proposed. In this paper, we apply an ontological approach to the DBSCAN (Density-Based Geospatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) algorithm in the form of knowledge representation for constraint clustering. [...] Read more.
A semantics-based method for density-based clustering with constraints imposed by geographical background knowledge is proposed. In this paper, we apply an ontological approach to the DBSCAN (Density-Based Geospatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) algorithm in the form of knowledge representation for constraint clustering. When used in the process of clustering geographic information, semantic reasoning based on a defined ontology and its relationships is primarily intended to overcome the lack of knowledge of the relevant geospatial data. Better constraints on the geographical knowledge yield more reasonable clustering results. This article uses an ontology to describe the four types of semantic constraints for geographical backgrounds: “No Constraints”, “Constraints”, “Cannot-Link Constraints”, and “Must-Link Constraints”. This paper also reports the implementation of a prototype clustering program. Based on the proposed approach, DBSCAN can be applied with both obstacle and non-obstacle constraints as a semi-supervised clustering algorithm and the clustering results are displayed on a digital map. Full article
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Article
A Method for Traffic Congestion Clustering Judgment Based on Grey Relational Analysis
by Yingya Zhang, Ning Ye, Ruchuan Wang and Reza Malekian
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050071 - 18 May 2016
Cited by 40 | Viewed by 6691
Abstract
Traffic congestion clustering judgment is a fundamental problem in the study of traffic jam warning. However, it is not satisfactory to judge traffic congestion degrees using only vehicle speed. In this paper, we collect traffic flow information with three properties (traffic flow velocity, [...] Read more.
Traffic congestion clustering judgment is a fundamental problem in the study of traffic jam warning. However, it is not satisfactory to judge traffic congestion degrees using only vehicle speed. In this paper, we collect traffic flow information with three properties (traffic flow velocity, traffic flow density and traffic volume) of urban trunk roads, which is used to judge the traffic congestion degree. We first define a grey relational clustering model by leveraging grey relational analysis and rough set theory to mine relationships of multidimensional-attribute information. Then, we propose a grey relational membership degree rank clustering algorithm (GMRC) to discriminant clustering priority and further analyze the urban traffic congestion degree. Our experimental results show that the average accuracy of the GMRC algorithm is 24.9% greater than that of the K-means algorithm and 30.8% greater than that of the Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) algorithm. Furthermore, we find that our method can be more conducive to dynamic traffic warnings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Internet of Things)
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Article
A Knowledge-Based Step Length Estimation Method Based on Fuzzy Logic and Multi-Sensor Fusion Algorithms for a Pedestrian Dead Reckoning System
by Ying-Chih Lai, Chin-Chia Chang, Chia-Ming Tsai, Shih-Ching Huang and Kai-Wei Chiang
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050070 - 17 May 2016
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 7061
Abstract
The demand for pedestrian navigation has increased along with the rapid progress in mobile and wearable devices. This study develops an accurate and usable Step Length Estimation (SLE) method for a Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) system with features including a wide range of [...] Read more.
The demand for pedestrian navigation has increased along with the rapid progress in mobile and wearable devices. This study develops an accurate and usable Step Length Estimation (SLE) method for a Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) system with features including a wide range of step lengths, a self-contained system, and real-time computing, based on the multi-sensor fusion and Fuzzy Logic (FL) algorithms. The wide-range SLE developed in this study was achieved by using a knowledge-based method to model the walking patterns of the user. The input variables of the FL are step strength and frequency, and the output is the estimated step length. Moreover, a waist-mounted sensor module has been developed using low-cost inertial sensors. Since low-cost sensors suffer from various errors, a calibration procedure has been utilized to improve accuracy. The proposed PDR scheme in this study demonstrates its ability to be implemented on waist-mounted devices in real time and is suitable for the indoor and outdoor environments considered in this study without the need for map information or any pre-installed infrastructure. The experiment results show that the maximum distance error was within 1.2% of 116.51 m in an indoor environment and was 1.78% of 385.2 m in an outdoor environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Location-Based Services)
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Article
Assessment on the Impact of Arable Land Protection Policies in a Rapidly Developing Region
by Jiadan Li, Zhongchu Zhang, Ligang Ma, Qing Gu, Ke Wang and Zhihao Xu
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050069 - 16 May 2016
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5337
Abstract
To investigate the effect of arable land protection policies in China, a practical framework that integrates geographic information systems (GIS), soil quality assessment and landscape metrics analysis was employed to track and analyze arable land transformations and landscape changes in response to rampant [...] Read more.
To investigate the effect of arable land protection policies in China, a practical framework that integrates geographic information systems (GIS), soil quality assessment and landscape metrics analysis was employed to track and analyze arable land transformations and landscape changes in response to rampant urbanization within the Ningbo region (China) from 2005 to 2013. The results showed that arable land loss and degradation have continued, despite the development of a comprehensive legal framework for arable land protection. The implementation of arable land protection policies is judged to be effective, but not entirely successful, because it guarantees the overall amount of arable land but does not consider soil quality and spatial distribution. In addition, there are distinct variations in arable land change dynamics between two temporal intervals. From 2005–2009, the transformation of arable land was diversified, with intensified conversion among arable land, built-up land, water and orchards. Moreover, many new arable land parcels were adjacent to built-up land, and are in danger of being occupied again through urban sprawl. By 2009–2013, most of the arable land was occupied by urban expansion, whereas a majority of newly increased arable land was reclaimed from coastal tideland. Although the newly increased arable land was contiguous and far from the urban area, it is of poor quality and has limited use. The permanent loss of high-quality arable land due to intensified urban sprawl may threaten sustainable development and food security on a larger scale. Full article
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Article
Automatic and Accurate Conflation of Different Road-Network Vector Data towards Multi-Modal Navigation
by Meng Zhang, Wei Yao and Liqiu Meng
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050068 - 16 May 2016
Cited by 17 | Viewed by 8190
Abstract
With the rapid improvement of geospatial data acquisition and processing techniques, a variety of geospatial databases from public or private organizations have become available. Quite often, one dataset may be superior to other datasets in one, but not all aspects. In Germany, for [...] Read more.
With the rapid improvement of geospatial data acquisition and processing techniques, a variety of geospatial databases from public or private organizations have become available. Quite often, one dataset may be superior to other datasets in one, but not all aspects. In Germany, for instance, there were three major road network vector data, viz. Tele Atlas (which is now “TOMTOM”), NAVTEQ (which is now “here”), and ATKIS. However, none of them was qualified for the purpose of multi-modal navigation (e.g., driving + walking): Tele Atlas and NAVTEQ consist of comprehensive routing-relevant information, but many pedestrian ways are missing; ATKIS covers more pedestrian areas but the road objects are not fully attributed. To satisfy the requirements of multi-modal navigation, an automatic approach has been proposed to conflate different road networks together, which involves five routines: (a) road-network matching between datasets; (b) identification of the pedestrian ways; (c) geometric transformation to eliminate geometric inconsistency; (d) topologic remodeling of the conflated road network; and (e) error checking and correction. The proposed approach demonstrates high performance in a number of large test areas and therefore has been successfully utilized for the real-world data production in the whole region of Germany. As a result, the conflated road network allows the multi-modal navigation of “driving + walking”. Full article
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Article
Using Moderate-Resolution Temporal NDVI Profiles for High-Resolution Crop Mapping in Years of Absent Ground Reference Data: A Case Study of Bole and Manas Counties in Xinjiang, China
by Pengyu Hao, Li Wang, Yulin Zhan and Zheng Niu
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 67; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050067 - 16 May 2016
Cited by 33 | Viewed by 5882
Abstract
Most methods used for crop classification rely on the ground-reference data of the same year, which leads to considerable financial and labor cost. In this study, we presented a method that can avoid the requirements of a large number of ground-reference data in [...] Read more.
Most methods used for crop classification rely on the ground-reference data of the same year, which leads to considerable financial and labor cost. In this study, we presented a method that can avoid the requirements of a large number of ground-reference data in the classification year. Firstly, we extracted the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series profiles of the dominant crops from MODIS data using the historical ground-reference data in multiple years (2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010). Artificial Antibody Network (ABNet) was then employed to build reference NDVI time series for each crop based on the historical NDVI profiles. Afterwards, images of Landsat and HJ were combined to obtain 30 m image time series with 15-day acquisition frequency in 2011. Next, the reference NDVI time series were transformed to Landsat/HJ NDVI time series using their linear model. Finally, the transformed reference NDVI profiles were used to identify the crop types in 2011 at 30 m spatial resolution. The result showed that the dominant crops could be identified with overall accuracy of 87.13% and 83.48% in Bole and Manas, respectively. In addition, the reference NDVI profiles generated from multiple years could achieve better classification accuracy than that from single year (such as only 2007). This is mainly because the reference knowledge from multiple years contains more growing conditions of the same crop. Generally, this approach showed potential to identify crops without using large number of ground-reference data at 30 m resolution. Full article
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Review
Global Research on Artificial Intelligence from 1990–2014: Spatially-Explicit Bibliometric Analysis
by Jiqiang Niu, Wenwu Tang, Feng Xu, Xiaoyan Zhou and Yanan Song
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050066 - 16 May 2016
Cited by 83 | Viewed by 13273
Abstract
In this article, we conducted the evaluation of artificial intelligence research from 1990–2014 by using bibliometric analysis. We introduced spatial analysis and social network analysis as geographic information retrieval methods for spatially-explicit bibliometric analysis. This study is based on the analysis of data [...] Read more.
In this article, we conducted the evaluation of artificial intelligence research from 1990–2014 by using bibliometric analysis. We introduced spatial analysis and social network analysis as geographic information retrieval methods for spatially-explicit bibliometric analysis. This study is based on the analysis of data obtained from database of the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) and Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Science (CPCI-S). Our results revealed scientific outputs, subject categories and main journals, author productivity and geographic distribution, international productivity and collaboration, and hot issues and research trends. The growth of article outputs in artificial intelligence research has exploded since the 1990s, along with increasing collaboration, reference, and citations. Computer science and engineering were the most frequently-used subject categories in artificial intelligence studies. The top twenty productive authors are distributed in countries with a high investment of research and development. The United States has the highest number of top research institutions in artificial intelligence, producing most single-country and collaborative articles. Although there is more and more collaboration among institutions, cooperation, especially international ones, are not highly prevalent in artificial intelligence research as expected. The keyword analysis revealed interesting research preferences, confirmed that methods, models, and application are in the central position of artificial intelligence. Further, we found interesting related keywords with high co-occurrence frequencies, which have helped identify new models and application areas in recent years. Bibliometric analysis results from our study will greatly facilitate the understanding of the progress and trends in artificial intelligence, in particular, for those researchers interested in domain-specific AI-driven problem-solving. This will be of great assistance for the applications of AI in alternative fields in general and geographic information science, in particular. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geographic Information Retrieval)
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Article
Using an Optimized Chinese Address Matching Method to Develop a Geocoding Service: A Case Study of Shenzhen, China
by Qin Tian, Fu Ren, Tao Hu, Jiangtao Liu, Ruichang Li and Qingyun Du
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050065 - 13 May 2016
Cited by 45 | Viewed by 9451
Abstract
With the coming era of big data and the rapid development and widespread applications of Geographical Information Systems (GISs), geocoding technology is playing an increasingly important role in bridging the gap between non-spatial data resources and spatial data in various fields. However, Chinese [...] Read more.
With the coming era of big data and the rapid development and widespread applications of Geographical Information Systems (GISs), geocoding technology is playing an increasingly important role in bridging the gap between non-spatial data resources and spatial data in various fields. However, Chinese geocoding faces great challenges because of the complexity of the address string format in Chinese, which contains no delimiters between Chinese words, and the poor address management resulting from the existence of multiple address authorities spread among different governmental agencies. This paper presents a geocoding service based on an optimized Chinese address matching method, including address modeling, address standardization and address matching. The address model focuses on the spatial semantics of each address element, and the address standardization process is based on an address tree model. A geocoding service application is implemented in practice using a large quantity of data from Shenzhen Municipality. More than 1,460,000 data records were used to test the geocoding service, and good matching rates were achieved with good adaptability and intelligence. Full article
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Article
Investigating the Feasibility of Geo-Tagged Photographs as Sources of Land Cover Input Data
by Vyron Antoniou, Cidália Costa Fonte, Linda See, Jacinto Estima, Jamal Jokar Arsanjani, Flavio Lupia, Marco Minghini, Giles Foody and Steffen Fritz
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050064 - 13 May 2016
Cited by 60 | Viewed by 10830
Abstract
Geo-tagged photographs are used increasingly as a source of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), which could potentially be used for land use and land cover applications. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of using this source of spatial information for [...] Read more.
Geo-tagged photographs are used increasingly as a source of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), which could potentially be used for land use and land cover applications. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of using this source of spatial information for three use cases related to land cover: Calibration, validation and verification. We first provide an inventory of the metadata that are collected with geo-tagged photographs and then consider what elements would be essential, desirable, or unnecessary for the aforementioned use cases. Geo-tagged photographs were then extracted from Flickr, Panoramio and Geograph for an area of London, UK, and classified based on their usefulness for land cover mapping including an analysis of the accompanying metadata. Finally, we discuss protocols for geo-tagged photographs for use of VGI in relation to land cover applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Volunteered Geographic Information)
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Article
A Semantic Registry Method Using Sensor Metadata Ontology to Manage Heterogeneous Sensor Information in the Geospatial Sensor Web
by Changjiang Xiao, Nengcheng Chen, Xiaolei Wang and Zeqiang Chen
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050063 - 13 May 2016
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5892
Abstract
Efficient information management and precise discovery of heterogeneous sensors in the Geospatial Sensor Web (GSW) are a major challenge. Intelligent sensor management requires a registry service to store and process sensor information efficiently. In this paper, we propose a Sensor Metadata Ontology (SMO) [...] Read more.
Efficient information management and precise discovery of heterogeneous sensors in the Geospatial Sensor Web (GSW) are a major challenge. Intelligent sensor management requires a registry service to store and process sensor information efficiently. In this paper, we propose a Sensor Metadata Ontology (SMO) to achieve a unified semantic description for heterogeneous sensors that is used to express sensor semantics. Through mapping between the sensor registry information model and the SMO, the sensor metadata could be stored with semantic information for the registry. The framework of a Sensor Semantic Registry Service (SSRS) has been successfully implemented for the registration and discovery of heterogeneous sensors. The results of GEOSENSOR-SSRS experiments show that the proposed semantic registry method can be used to enable sharing in an open distributed sensor network as well as to promote accuracy and efficiency of discovery. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geosensor Networks and Sensor Web)
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Article
Enhancing Spatio-Temporal Identity: States of Existence and Presence
by Pierre Hallot and Roland Billen
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050062 - 12 May 2016
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 5654
Abstract
This work presents a new approach that aims to characterize the spatio-temporal relationships that exist between geographical objects that are absent or non-existent at the moment of analysis. First, we would like to propose a formal analysis of the spatio-temporal states of presence [...] Read more.
This work presents a new approach that aims to characterize the spatio-temporal relationships that exist between geographical objects that are absent or non-existent at the moment of analysis. First, we would like to propose a formal analysis of the spatio-temporal states of presence and existence of a geographical object. We will then use a combination of these states in order to define a set of life and motion configurations. The model developed then serves as a formal basis for the realization of a series of spatio-temporal queries based on an analysis of patterns in the succession of spatio-temporal states. The entire approach is then demonstrated by using the example of the organization of a scientific conference by defining the spatio-temporal relationships between the conference participants. The research methodology is finally compared with a real dataset taken from a geolocalized social network to show the efficiency of this type of management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Multi-Dimensional Spatial Data Modeling)
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Article
Time-Series and Frequency-Spectrum Correlation Analysis of Bridge Performance Based on a Real-Time Strain Monitoring System
by Mosbeh R. Kaloop, Jong Wan Hu and Emad Elbeltagi
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 61; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050061 - 10 May 2016
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5743
Abstract
Monitoring bridges’ performance is a vital task to ensure their safety and to plan their maintenance operations. Therefore, it is very important to monitor bridges’ behavior and to analyze their measured data. In this study, the time-series and frequency-spectrum correlation analyses are used [...] Read more.
Monitoring bridges’ performance is a vital task to ensure their safety and to plan their maintenance operations. Therefore, it is very important to monitor bridges’ behavior and to analyze their measured data. In this study, the time-series and frequency-spectrum correlation analyses are used to study the performance of Fu-Sui Bridge under harsh environmental and traffic loads. It investigates the bridge performance based on a real-time strain monitoring system, and the ambient environmental and traffic loads are studied and discussed. Furthermore, a simplified method based on signal processing is developed and used to estimate the traffic volumes. The results of this study reveal that the traffic loads influence on static strain is obviously lower than that of air temperature and temperature changes of the bridge cross-section; the non-linearity behavior of the bridge during summer time is more than winter time; and the stability of the whole bridge during winter time is more than during summer time. The time-series and vibration analyses also show that the bridge performance in terms of its rigidity and stability is higher during winter time. Full article
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Article
A New Method of Gold Foil Damage Detection in Stone Carving Relics Based on Multi-Temporal 3D LiDAR Point Clouds
by Miaole Hou, Shukun Li, Lili Jiang, Yuhua Wu, Yungang Hu, Su Yang and Xuedong Zhang
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050060 - 9 May 2016
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 5554
Abstract
The timely detection of gold foil damage in gold-overlaid stone carvings and the associated maintenance of these relics pose several challenges to both the research and heritage protection communities internationally. This paper presents a new method for detecting gold foil damage by making [...] Read more.
The timely detection of gold foil damage in gold-overlaid stone carvings and the associated maintenance of these relics pose several challenges to both the research and heritage protection communities internationally. This paper presents a new method for detecting gold foil damage by making use of multi-temporal 3D LiDAR point clouds. By analyzing the errors involved in the detection process, a formula is developed for calculation of the damage detection threshold. An improved division method for the linear octree that only allocates memory to the non-blank nodes, is proposed, which improves storage and retrieval efficiency for the point clouds. Meanwhile, the damage-occurrence regions are determined according to Hausdorff distances. Using a triangular mesh, damaged regions can be identified and measured in order to determine the relic’s total damaged area. Results demonstrate that this method can effectively detect gold foil damage in stone carvings. The identified surface area of damaged regions can provide the information needed for subsequent restoration and protection of relics of this type. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bridging the Gap between Geospatial Theory and Technology)
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Article
Delineating Urban Fringe Area by Land Cover Information Entropy—An Empirical Study of Guangzhou-Foshan Metropolitan Area, China
by Junyi Huang, Qiming Zhou and Zhifeng Wu
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 59; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050059 - 6 May 2016
Cited by 30 | Viewed by 7994
Abstract
Rapid urbanization has caused many environmental problems, such as the heat island effect, intensifying air pollution, pollution from runoff, loss of wildlife habitat, etc. Accurate evaluations of these problems demand an accurate delineation of the spatial extent of the urban fringe. Conceptual and [...] Read more.
Rapid urbanization has caused many environmental problems, such as the heat island effect, intensifying air pollution, pollution from runoff, loss of wildlife habitat, etc. Accurate evaluations of these problems demand an accurate delineation of the spatial extent of the urban fringe. Conceptual and analytical ambiguity of the urban fringe and a general lack of consensus among researchers have made its measurement very difficult. This study reports a compound and reliable method to delineate the urban fringe area using a case study. Based on the 'fringe effect' theory in landscape ecology, the existing land cover information entropy model for defining the urban fringe is renewed by incorporating scale theory, cartography and urban geography theory. Results show that the urban fringe area of Guangzhou and Foshan metropolitan area covers an area of 2031 km2, and it occupies over 31% of the total study area. Result evaluation by industry structure data shows satisfactory correspondence with different land cover types. This paper reports the method and outcome of an attempt to provide an objective, repeatable and generally applicable method for mapping its spatial extent from remote sensing imageries, and could be beneficial to relevant urban studies and urban fringe management projects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances and Innovations in Land Use/Cover Mapping)
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Article
Land Surface Water Mapping Using Multi-Scale Level Sets and a Visual Saliency Model from SAR Images
by Chuan Xu, Haigang Sui and Feng Xu
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050058 - 5 May 2016
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 5342
Abstract
Land surface water mapping is one of the most basic classification tasks to distinguish water bodies from dry land surfaces. In this paper, a water mapping method was proposed based on multi-scale level sets and a visual saliency model (MLSVS), to overcome the [...] Read more.
Land surface water mapping is one of the most basic classification tasks to distinguish water bodies from dry land surfaces. In this paper, a water mapping method was proposed based on multi-scale level sets and a visual saliency model (MLSVS), to overcome the lack of an operational solution for automatically, rapidly and reliably extracting water from large-area and fine spatial resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images. This paper has two main contributions, as follows: (1) The method integrated the advantages of both level sets and the visual saliency model. First, the visual saliency map was applied to detect the suspected water regions (SWR), and then the level set method only needed to be applied to the SWR regions to accurately extract the water bodies, thereby yielding a simultaneous reduction in time cost and increase in accuracy; (2) In order to make the classical Itti model more suitable for extracting water in SAR imagery, an improved texture weighted with the Itti model (TW-Itti) is employed to detect those suspected water regions, which take into account texture features generated by the Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) algorithm, Furthermore, a novel calculation method for center-surround differences was merged into this model. The proposed method was tested on both Radarsat-2 and TerraSAR-X images, and experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method, the overall accuracy of water mapping is 98.48% and the Kappa coefficient is 0.856. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances and Innovations in Land Use/Cover Mapping)
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Article
Watershed Land Cover/Land Use Mapping Using Remote Sensing and Data Mining in Gorganrood, Iran
by Masoud Minaei and Wolfgang Kainz
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 57; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050057 - 28 Apr 2016
Cited by 31 | Viewed by 9187
Abstract
The Gorganrood watershed (GW) is experiencing considerable environmental change in the form of natural hazards and erosion, as well as deforestation, cultivation and development activities. As a result of this, different types of Land Cover/Land Use (LCLU) change are taking place on an [...] Read more.
The Gorganrood watershed (GW) is experiencing considerable environmental change in the form of natural hazards and erosion, as well as deforestation, cultivation and development activities. As a result of this, different types of Land Cover/Land Use (LCLU) change are taking place on an intensive level in the area. This research study investigates the LCLU conditions upstream of this watershed for the years 1972, 1986, 2000 and 2014, using Landsat MSS, TM, ETM+ and OLI/TIRS images. LCLU maps for 1972, 1986, and 2000 were produced using pixel-based classification methods. For the 2014 LCLU map, Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) in combination with the data-mining capabilities of Gini and J48 machine-learning algorithms were used. The accuracy of the maps was assessed using overall accuracy, quantity disagreement and allocation disagreement indexes. The overall accuracy ranged from 89% to 95%, quantity disagreement from 2.1% to 6.6%, and allocation disagreement from 2.1% for 2014 to 2.7% for 2000. The results of this study indicate that a significant amount of change has occurred in the region, and that this has as a consequence affected ecosystem services and human activity. This knowledge of the LCLU status in the area will help managers and decision makers to develop plans and programs aimed at effectively managing the watershed into the future. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances and Innovations in Land Use/Cover Mapping)
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Article
A Multi-Element Approach to Location Inference of Twitter: A Case for Emergency Response
by Farhad Laylavi, Abbas Rajabifard and Mohsen Kalantari
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 56; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050056 - 28 Apr 2016
Cited by 60 | Viewed by 9534
Abstract
Since its inception, Twitter has played a major role in real-world events—especially in the aftermath of disasters and catastrophic incidents, and has been increasingly becoming the first point of contact for users wishing to provide or seek information about such situations. The use [...] Read more.
Since its inception, Twitter has played a major role in real-world events—especially in the aftermath of disasters and catastrophic incidents, and has been increasingly becoming the first point of contact for users wishing to provide or seek information about such situations. The use of Twitter in emergency response and disaster management opens up avenues of research concerning different aspects of Twitter data quality, usefulness and credibility. A real challenge that has attracted substantial attention in the Twitter research community exists in the location inference of twitter data. Considering that less than 2% of tweets are geotagged, finding location inference methods that can go beyond the geotagging capability is undoubtedly the priority research area. This is especially true in terms of emergency response, where spatial aspects of information play an important role. This paper introduces a multi-elemental location inference method that puts the geotagging aside and tries to predict the location of tweets by exploiting the other inherently attached data elements. In this regard, textual content, users’ profile location and place labelling, as the main location-related elements, are taken into account. Location-name classes in three granularity levels are defined and employed to look up the location references from the location-associated elements. The inferred location of the finest granular level is assigned to a tweet, based on a novel location assignment rule. The location assigned by the location inference process is considered to be the inferred location of a tweet, and is compared with the geotagged coordinates as the ground truth of the study. The results show that this method is able to successfully infer the location of 87% of the tweets at the average distance error of 12.2 km and the median distance error of 4.5 km, which is a significant improvement compared with that of the current methods that can predict the location with much larger distance errors or at a city-level resolution at best. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Location-Based Services)
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2495 KiB  
Article
Crowdsourcing, Citizen Science or Volunteered Geographic Information? The Current State of Crowdsourced Geographic Information
by Linda See, Peter Mooney, Giles Foody, Lucy Bastin, Alexis Comber, Jacinto Estima, Steffen Fritz, Norman Kerle, Bin Jiang, Mari Laakso, Hai-Ying Liu, Grega Milčinski, Matej Nikšič, Marco Painho, Andrea Pődör, Ana-Maria Olteanu-Raimond and Martin Rutzinger
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 55; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050055 - 27 Apr 2016
Cited by 347 | Viewed by 29405
Abstract
Citizens are increasingly becoming an important source of geographic information, sometimes entering domains that had until recently been the exclusive realm of authoritative agencies. This activity has a very diverse character as it can, amongst other things, be active or passive, involve spatial [...] Read more.
Citizens are increasingly becoming an important source of geographic information, sometimes entering domains that had until recently been the exclusive realm of authoritative agencies. This activity has a very diverse character as it can, amongst other things, be active or passive, involve spatial or aspatial data and the data provided can be variable in terms of key attributes such as format, description and quality. Unsurprisingly, therefore, there are a variety of terms used to describe data arising from citizens. In this article, the expressions used to describe citizen sensing of geographic information are reviewed and their use over time explored, prior to categorizing them and highlighting key issues in the current state of the subject. The latter involved a review of ~100 Internet sites with particular focus on their thematic topic, the nature of the data and issues such as incentives for contributors. This review suggests that most sites involve active rather than passive contribution, with citizens typically motivated by the desire to aid a worthy cause, often receiving little training. As such, this article provides a snapshot of the role of citizens in crowdsourcing geographic information and a guide to the current status of this rapidly emerging and evolving subject. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Volunteered Geographic Information)
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3076 KiB  
Article
Reconstructing Sessions from Data Discovery and Access Logs to Build a Semantic Knowledge Base for Improving Data Discovery
by Yongyao Jiang, Yun Li, Chaowei Yang, Edward M. Armstrong, Thomas Huang and David Moroni
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2016, 5(5), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi5050054 - 25 Apr 2016
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 6239
Abstract
Big geospatial data are archived and made available through online web discovery and access. However, finding the right data for scientific research and application development is still a challenge. This paper aims to improve the data discovery by mining the user knowledge from [...] Read more.
Big geospatial data are archived and made available through online web discovery and access. However, finding the right data for scientific research and application development is still a challenge. This paper aims to improve the data discovery by mining the user knowledge from log files. Specifically, user web session reconstruction is focused upon in this paper as a critical step for extracting usage patterns. However, reconstructing user sessions from raw web logs has always been difficult, as a session identifier tends to be missing in most data portals. To address this problem, we propose two session identification methods, including time-clustering-based and time-referrer-based methods. We also present the workflow of session reconstruction and discuss the approach of selecting appropriate thresholds for relevant steps in the workflow. The proposed session identification methods and workflow are proven to be able to extract data access patterns for further pattern analyses of user behavior and improvement of data discovery for more relevancy data ranking, suggestion, and navigation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Geographic Information Retrieval)
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