Geomatics

Applications using terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) have been skyrocketing in the past two decades. In a scanning project, the configuration of scans is a critical issue as it has significant effects on the project cost and the quality of the product. In this paper, a practical strategy is proposed to resolve the problem of the optimal placement of the terrestrial laser scanner. The method attempts to reduce the number of viewpoints under the premise that the scenes are fully covered. In addition, the approach is designed in a way that the solutions can be efficiently explored. The method has been tested on 540 polygons simulated with different sizes and complexities. The results have also been compared with a benchmark strategy in terms of the optimality of the solutions and runtime. It is concluded that our proposed algorithm ties or reduces the number of viewpoints in the benchmark paper in 85.6% of the 540 tests. For complex environments, the method can potentially reduce the project cost by 10%. Although with relatively lower efficiency, our method can still reach the solution within a few minutes for a polygon with up to 500 vertices. Full article

This research investigates the duality of the spatial organization and urban activities generated by the coastalization processes of the city of Nabeul. The first part of the study analyzes the city’s fragmentations of the urban landscape using a novel generic index of directional dispersion and a set of space syntax metrics. These structural and functional properties are studied by the concentration and/or dispersion of urban functions of the evolution and development patterns. Among the emerging features, we observe a dispersion of urban activities beyond a central radius all along the western periphery of the city, confirming the phenomenon of urban sprawl that many Tunisian cities are experiencing. These spaces generate urban fragmentations of “new polarity zones” under the influence of the coastline attraction. Finally, this study introduces a novel approach for identifying urban structural polarity and activities, as well as new perspectives for coastal land management and planning. Full article

Global snow cover forms the largest and most transient part of the cryosphere in terms of area. On the local and regional scale, small changes can have drastic effects such as floods and droughts, and on the global scale is the planetary albedo. Daily imagery of snow cover forms the basis of long-term observation and analysis, and only optical sensors offer the necessary spatial and temporal resolution to address decadal developments and the impact of climate change on snow availability. The MODIS sensors have been providing this daily information since 2000; before that, only the Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was suitable. In the TIMELINE project of the German Aerospace Center, the historic AVHRR archive in HRPT (High Resolution Picture Transmission) format is processed for the European area and, among other processors, one output is the thematic product ‘snow cover’ that will be made available in 1 km resolution since 1981. The snow detection is based on the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI), which enables a direct comparison with the MODIS snow product. In addition to the NDSI, ERA5 re-analysis data on the skin temperature and other level 2 TIMELINE products are included in the generation of the binary snow mask. The AVHRR orbit segments are projected from the swath projection into LAEA Europe, aggregated into daily coverages, and from this, the 10-day and monthly snow covers are finally calculated. In this publication, the snow cover algorithm is presented, as well as the results of the first validations and possible applications of the final product. Full article

Ground monitoring stations are widely used to monitor particulate matter (PM_2.5). However, they are expensive to maintain and provide information localized to the stations, and hence are limited for large-scale use. Analysis of in situ PM_2.5 shows that it varies spatially and temporally with distinct seasonal differences. This study, therefore, explored the use of satellite images (Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8) for determining the spatial and temporal variations in PM_2.5 for Kampala District in Uganda. Firstly, satellite-derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) was computed using the Code for High Resolution Satellite mapping of optical Thickness and aNgstrom Exponent algorithm (CHRISTINE code). The derived AOD was then characterised with reference to meteorological factors and then correlated with in situ PM_2.5 to determine satellite-derived PM_2.5 using geographically weighted regression. In the results, correlating in situ PM_2.5 and AOD revealed that the relationship is highly variable over time and thus needs to be modelled for each satellite’s overpass time, rather than having a generic model fitting, say, a season. The satellite-derived PM_2.5 showed good model performance with coefficient of correlation (R²) values from 0.69 to 0.89. Furthermore, Sentinel-2 data produced better predictions, signifying that increasing the spatial resolution can improve satellite-derived PM_2.5 estimations. Full article

This research work aims to study the effect of training parameter concept and sample size in the process of classification by using a fuzzy Possibilistic c-Means (PCM) approach for Pigeon Pea specific crop mapping. For specific class extraction, the “mean” of the training data is considered as a training parameter of the classification algorithm. In this study, we proposed an “Individual Sample as Mean” (ISM) approach where the individual training sample is accounted as a mean parameter for the fuzzy PCM classifier. In order to avoid the spectral overlap of target Pigeon pea crop with other crops in the study area, a temporal indices database was generated from Sentinel 2A/2B satellite images acquired during the 2019–2020 Pigeon Pea crop cycle. The spectral dimensionality of temporal data was reduced to extract the required bands to achieve maximum enhancement of the target crop class in the temporal data. Further, the training sample size was increased to study the heterogeneity within the class in the classified output. The proposed ISM approach delivered a higher mean membership difference (MMD) between the Pigeon Pea crop and the co-cultivated Cotton crop as compared to the conventional mean method. This indicated that a better separation was achieved between the target crop and the spectrally similar crop grown, that were cultivated in the same study area. When the sample size was gradually increased from 5 to 60, the MMD values within the Pigeon Pea test fields remained in the range 0.013–0.02, thereby implying that the proposed algorithm works better even with a small number of training samples. The heterogeneity was better handled using the proposed ISM approach since the variance obtained within Pigeon Pea field was only 0.008, as compared to that of 0.02 achieved using the conventional mean approach. Full article

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning had to be increasingly implemented at universities, and more e-learning formats had to be applied. The LBS2ITS project carried out under the lead of the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation at TU Wien (TUW), Austria, came at the right time for these tasks. Education in Location-Based Services (LBS) is put to a new level including interactive e-learning and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) pedagogy. In the courses modernization, special attention is paid to the development and/or update of the courses to be implemented with these two pedagogic forms. Thus, teaching with an emphasis on learning outcomes is a central theme in the LBS2ITS project. To achieve this goal, the active verbs used in updated Bloom’s taxonomy for teaching on learning outcomes, i.e., remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating, are applied to achieve the six levels of thinking and the active nature of learning. LBS2ITS will build a fully immersive and integrated LBS teaching and learning experience with the LBS application of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in mind. The outcome will be an innovative digital learning environment supporting synthetic and real-world PBL learning experiences. In the course of the project, a workshop for introduction of these new developments was held. This paper provides an insight into the results and experiences from this workshop. As e-learning and PBL must be combined and integrated nowadays, the new term PBeL (Problem-Based e-Learning) is proposed and introduced in this paper. The development of this approach and background information on the theory and the LBS2ITS project are presented. Full article

Proper emergency evacuation planning is a key to ensuring the safety and efficiency of resources allocation in disaster events. An efficient evacuation plan can save human lives and avoid other effects of disasters. To develop effective evacuation plans, this study proposed a multi-objective optimization model that assigns individuals to emergency shelters through safe evacuation routes during the available periods. The main objective of the proposed model is to minimize the total travel distance of individuals leaving evacuation zones to shelters, minimize the risk on evacuation routes and minimize the overload of shelters. The experimental results show that the Discrete Multi-Objective Cuckoo Search (DMOCS) has better and consistent performance as compared to the standard Multi-Objective Cuckoo Search (MOCS) in most cases in terms of execution time; however, the performance of MOCS is still within acceptable ranges. Metrics and measures such as hypervolume indicator, convergence evaluation and parameter tuning have been applied to evaluate the quality of Pareto front and the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results showed that the DMOCS has better performance than the standard MOCS. Full article

Multiscale methods have become progressively valuable in geomorphometric analysis as data have become increasingly detailed. This paper evaluates the theoretical and empirical properties of several common scaling approaches in geomorphometry. Direct interpolation (DI), cubic convolution resampling (RES), mean aggregation (MA), local quadratic regression (LQR), and an efficiency optimized Gaussian scale-space implementation (fGSS) method were tested. The results showed that when manipulating resolution, the choice of interpolator had a negligible impact relative to the effects of manipulating scale. The LQR method was not ideal for rigorous multiscale analyses due to the inherently non-linear processing time of the algorithm and an increasingly poor fit with the surface. The fGSS method combined several desirable properties and was identified as an optimal scaling method for geomorphometric analysis. The results support the efficacy of Gaussian scale-space as a general scaling framework for geomorphometric analyses. Full article

The study presents results from applying the Real Aperture Radar interferometry technique and Digital Image Correlation through a mobile phone camera to identify static and dynamic deformations of a gantry during surveying operations on the Michelangelo’s David at the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze Museum in Florence. The statue has considerable size and reaches an elevation of more than seven meters on its pedestal. An ad-hoc gantry was designed and deployed, given the cramped operating area around the statue. The scanner had a stability control system that forbid surveying in instrument movements. However, considering the unicity of the survey and its rare occurrence, the previous survey had been carried out in the year 2000; verifying stability and recording deformations is a crucial task, and necessary for validation. As the gantry does not have an on-board stability sensor, and considering the hi-survey accuracy requested, a redundant, contactless, remote monitoring system of the gantry and the statue stability was chosen to guarantee the maximum freedom of movement around the David to avoid any interference during scanning operations. Thanks to the TInRAR technique, the gantry and the statue were monitored with an accuracy of 0.01 mm. At the same time, a Digital Image Correlation analysis was performed on the gantry, which can be considered a Multi-Degree-Of-Freedom (MDOF) system, to accurately calculate the vibration frequency and amplitude. A comparison between TInRAR and DIC results reported substantial accordance in detecting gantry’s oscillating frequencies; a predominant oscillation frequency of 1.33 Hz was identified on the gantry structure by TinSAR and DIC analysis. Full article

Measuring structures and its documentation is one of the tasks of engineering geodesy. Structural health monitoring (SHM) is defined as a periodic or continuous method to provide information about the condition of the construction through the determination of measurement data and their analysis. In SHM, wide varieties of sensors are used for data acquisition. In the following, the focus is on the application of image assisted total stations (IATS). The combination of tacheometry and photogrammetric measurement offers high flexibility and precision. Different approaches of automated detecting and matching whose applications have been tested in practice are briefly explained. A distinction is made between built-in cameras (commercial) and external camera systems (prototypes). Various successful applications of IATS in the field of SHM are presented and explained. Full article

This article demonstrated an easily applicable method for measuring the similarity between a pair of point patterns, which applies to spatial or temporal data sets. Such a measurement was performed using similarity-based pattern analysis as an alternative to conventional approaches, which typically utilize straightforward point-to-point matching. Using our approach, in each point data set, two geometric features (i.e., the distance and angle from the centroid) were calculated and represented as probability density functions (PDFs). The PDF similarity of each geometric feature was measured using nine metrics, with values ranging from zero (very contrasting) to one (exactly the same). The overall similarity was defined as the average of the distance and angle similarities. In terms of sensibility, the method was shown to be capable of measuring, at a human visual sensing level, two pairs of hypothetical patterns, presenting reasonable results. Meanwhile, in terms of the method′s sensitivity to both spatial and temporal displacements from the hypothetical origin, the method is also capable of consistently measuring the similarity of spatial and temporal patterns. The application of the method to assess both spatial and temporal pattern similarities between two deforestation data sets with different resolutions was also discussed. Full article

The use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is becoming more and more common in different landscape exploration domains such as archaeology or geomorphology. In order to allow the detection of features of interest, visualization filters have to be applied to the raw Digital Elevation Model (DEM), to enhance small relief variations. Several filters have been proposed for this purpose, such as Sky View Factor, Slope, negative and positive Openness, or Local Relief Model (LRM). The efficiency of each of these methods is strongly dependent on the input parameters chosen in regard of the topography of the investigated area. The LRM has proved to be one of the most efficient, but it has to be parameterized in order to be adapted to the natural slopes characterizing the investigated area. Generally, this setting has a single value, chosen as the best compromise between optimal values for each relief configuration. As LiDAR is mainly used in wide areas, a large distribution of natural slopes is often encountered. The aim of this paper is to propose a Self AdaptIve LOcal Relief Enhancer (SAILORE) based on the Local Relief Model approach. The filtering effect is adapted to the local slope, allowing the detection at the same time of low-frequency relief variation on flat areas, as well as the identification of high-frequency relief variation in the presence of steep slopes. First, the interest of this self-adaptive approach is presented, and the principle of the method, compared to the classical LRM method, is described. This new tool is then applied to a LiDAR dataset characterized by various terrain configurations in order to test its performance and compare it with the classical LRM. The results of this test show that SAILORE significantly increases the detection capability while simplifying it. Full article

This study validates the hourly satellite based and reanalysis based global horizontal irradiance (GHI) for sites in South Africa. Hourly GHI satellite based namely: SOLCAST, Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), and Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CMSAF SARAH) and two reanalysis based, namely, fifth generation European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts atmospheric reanalysis (ERA5) and Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA2) were assessed by comparing in situ measured data from 13 South African Weather Service radiometric stations, located in the country’s six macro climatological regions, for the period 2013–2019. The in situ data were first quality controlled using the Baseline Surface Radiation Network methodology. Data visualization and statistical metrics relative mean bias error (rMBE), relative root mean square error (rRMSE), relative mean absolute error (rMAE), and the coefficient of determination (R²) were used to evaluate the performance of the datasets. There was very good correlation against in situ GHI for the satellite based GHI, all with R² above 0.95. The R² correlations for the reanalysis based GHI were less than 0.95 (0.931 for ERA5 and 0.888 for MERRA2). The satellite and reanalysis based GHI showed a positive rMBE (SOLCAST 0.81%, CAMS 2.14%, CMSAF 2.13%, ERA5 1.7%, and MERRA2 11%), suggesting consistent overestimation over the country. SOLCAST satellite based GHI showed the best rRMSE (14%) and rMAE (9%) combinations. MERRA2 reanalysis based GHI showed the weakest rRMSE (37%) and rMAE (22%) combinations. SOLCAST satellite based GHI showed the best overall performance. When considering only the freely available datasets, CAMS and CMSAF performed better with the same overall rMBE (2%), however, CAMS showed slightly better rRMSE (16%), rMAE (10%), and R² (0.98) combinations than CMSAF rRMSE (17%), rMAE (11%), and R² (0.97). CAMS and CMSAF are viable freely available data sources for South African locations. Full article

Within the Horizon 2020 Project WaterSENSE a modular approach was developed to provide different stakeholders with the required precipitation information. An operational high-quality rainfall grid was set up for the Namoi catchment in Australia based on rain gauge adjusted radar data. Data availability and processing considerations make it necessary to explore alternative precipitation approaches. The gauge adjusted radar data will serve as a benchmark for the alternative precipitation data. The two well established satellite-based precipitation datasets IMERG and GSMaP will be analyzed with the temporal and spatial requirements of the applications envisioned in WaterSENSE in mind. While first results appear promising, these datasets will need further refinements to meet the criteria of WaterSENSE, especially with respect to the spatial resolution. Inferring information from soil moisture-derived from EO observations to increase the spatial detail of the existing satellite-based datasets is a promising approach that will be investigated along with other alternatives. Full article

Landslide susceptibility mapping is a crucial step in comprehensive landslide risk management. The purpose of the present study is to analyze the landslide susceptibility of Mandi district, Himachal Pradesh, India, based on optimum feature selection and hybrid integration of the Shannon entropy (SE) model with random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM) models. An inventory of 1723 rainfall-induced landslides was generated and randomly selected for training (1199; 70%) and validation (524; 30%) purposes. A set of 14 relevant factors was selected and checked for multicollinearity. These factors were first ranked using Information Gain and Chi-square feature ranking algorithms. Furthermore, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and One-Sample T-Test were applied to check their statistical significance. An optimum subset of 11 landslide causative factors was then used for generating landslide susceptibility maps (LSM) using hybrid SE-RF and SE-SVM models. These LSM’s were validated and compared using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and performance matrices. The SE-RF performed better with training and validation accuracies of 96.93% and 88.94%, respectively, compared with the SE-SVM model with training and validation accuracies of 94.05% and 82.4%, respectively. The prediction matrices also confirmed that the SE-RF model is better and is recommended for the landslide susceptibility analysis of similar mountainous regions worldwide. Full article

Urban sprawl has a strong impact on the provision and use of green spaces and, consequently, on the benefits that society can derive from these natural ecosystems, especially in terms of public health. In looking at the Sustainable Development Goals and other regional policy frameworks, there is a strong need for quantifying access to green spaces. This study presents and applies a methodology to model the physical accessibility at national and sub-national scales to public green spaces (i.e., urban green spaces and forests) in Switzerland, using AccessMod and ArcGIS travel time functions. We found that approximately 75% and 36% of the Swiss population can access the nearest urban green space within 5 min and 15 min, respectively, using motorized transport. For motorized access to the nearest forest patch, 72% and 52% of the population are within 5 min and 15 min, respectively. When considering only the main urban areas, approximately 55% of the population can walk to the nearest urban green space within 5 min. However, a high heterogeneity in access exists at cantonal and municipal levels, depending on road density, green space density, and population distribution. Despite some possible challenges in correctly delineating public green spaces, our methodology offers a replicable approach offering not only insights into sustainable urban development, but also the facilitation of comparison with other European countries. Full article

The Environmental Data Portal EnviDat aims to fuse data publication repository functionalities with next-generation web-based environmental geospatial information systems (web-EGIS) and Earth Observation (EO) data cube functionalities. User requirements related to mapping and visualization represent a major challenge for current environmental data portals. The new Cloud Optimized Raster Encoding (CORE) format enables an efficient storage and management of gridded data by applying video encoding algorithms. Inspired by the cloud optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format, the design of CORE is based on the same principles that enable efficient workflows on the cloud, addressing web-EGIS visualization challenges for large environmental time series in geosciences. CORE is a web-native streamable format that can compactly contain raster imagery as a data hypercube. It enables simultaneous exchange, preservation, and fast visualization of time series raster data in environmental repositories. The CORE format specifications are open source and can be used by other platforms to manage and visualize large environmental time series. Full article

The single polarization C-Band weather radar network of the Meteorological Service of Catalonia covers the entire region (32,000 km²), which allows it to apply a series of corrections that improve preliminary estimations of the rainfall field (hourly and daily). In addition, an automatic re-processing using automatic weather stations helps to incorporate ground-based information. The last process of the quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) is running the end-product again eight days later, when the data have been reviewed and corrected in the case of detecting anomalies in the radar or gauge data. These corrections are applied operationally, with the fields generated and stored automatically. The QPE fields are generated in the GeoTIFF format, allowing easy use with multiple applications and simplifying processes such as quality control. In this way, the analysis of a 10 year period of GeoTIFF QPE daily data compared with ground rainfall values is introduced. The results help to understand different points regarding the functioning of the network such as the dependance on the type of precipitation and the seasonality. In addition, the description of a heavy rainfall episode (22 October 2019) shows the variations and improvements in the different products. The main conclusions refer to how using GeoTIFF combined with point data (rain gauges), it is possible to ensure simple but effective quality control of an operational radar network. Full article