Search Results (7)

This paper investigates rural mobility in the Global South using a participatory GIS approach to address the lack of mobility data that hampers sustainable planning to support rural development and resilience. Limited rural mobility due to poor infrastructure and financial constraints hinders social and economic activities, impeding development. The study aims to explore the socio-economic impacts of limited mobility, identify software needs for data-scarce environments, and map daily mobility patterns. Fieldwork was conducted in Kenya (2022) and Nepal (2023), collecting geographic data related to mobility. The methodology included community engagement and digital mapping using the QField app for precise data collection. The study highlights the use of participatory GIS to fill data gaps, enabling more accurate mobility assessments. Community engagement revealed gender-specific mobility patterns, with women facing particular challenges in daily activities. The study emphasizes the need for adaptable data models to reflect community-specific mobility needs and the integration of qualitative insights to propose effective and sustainable mobility solutions. This research contributes to understanding rural mobility in the Global South and demonstrates the effectiveness of participatory GIS in overcoming data scarcity and enhancing mobility analysis. Full article

One of the uses of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)—also known as drones—in archaeology is aerial reconnaissance, and they are usually used to detect and record the features of archaeological sites. This article focuses on the application and integration of drones with surveys supported using a mobile GIS (QField). The research results presented herein concern an area of the northeastern countryside of the city of Perugia, in the Upper Tiber Valley. Field walking was carried out in 2020/2021. The information contained in this article has been organized and elaborated in a GIS environment (Qgis) to produce archaeological cartography. Full article

Timely mapping of flooded areas is critical to several emergency management tasks including response and recovery activities. In fact, flood crisis maps embed key information for an effective response to the natural disaster by delineating its spatial extent and impact. Crisis mapping is usually carried out by leveraging data provided by satellite or airborne optical and radar sensors. However, the processing of these kinds of data demands experienced visual interpretation in order to achieve reliable results. Furthermore, the availability of in situ observations is crucial for the production and validation of crisis maps. In this context, a frontier challenge consists in the use of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) as a complementary in situ data source. This paper proposes a procedure for flood mapping that integrates VGI and optical satellite imagery while requiring limited user intervention. The procedure relies on the classification of multispectral images by exploiting VGI for the semi-automatic selection of training samples. The workflow has been tested with photographs and videos shared on social media (Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube) during two flood events and classification consistency with reference products shows promising results (with Overall Accuracy ranging from 87% to 93%). Considering the limitations of social media-sourced photos, the use of QField is proposed as a dedicated application to collect metadata needed for the image classification. The research results show that the integration of high-quality VGI data and semi-automatic data processing can be beneficial for crisis map production and validation, supporting crisis management with up-to-date maps. Full article

A collaborative open-source IT infrastructure is designed and implemented to optimize the process of geological field data collection, integration, validation, and sharing. Firstly, field data collection is carried out by multiple users using free and open-source GIS-based tools for mobile devices according to a predefined database structure; then, data integration is automatically performed in a central server, where the collected geological information is stored and validated; finally, data are shared over the Internet, providing users with up-to-date information. The IT infrastructure is currently being employed to accomplish surveys for the realization of the “Brescia” geological map within the New Geological Map of Italy, scale 1:50,000 (CARG Project). Users are only required to run the field data collection application on their mobile devices, add different geometric features to predefined thematic layers and fill in the dialogue forms with the required information to store the new structured and georeferenced data in the central database. The major advantage of the proposed IT infrastructure consists of guaranteeing the operational continuity between field surveys and the finalization of geological or geothematic maps leveraging field data collection tools that are operational both online and offline to ensure the overall system resilience. Full article

The conservation of a primary importance historical building requires organization, management, continuous updating, comparison, and visualization of a large amount of data of different nature and origin. In relation to these aspects the use of a GIS brings various advantages including single and univocal management of the entire amount of existing data in a relational, dynamic, updatable and queryable way. The integration of a mobile solution permits the updating of the dataset and checking on site all information. The workflow presented uses opensource solutions, desktop and mobile, which allows the creation of an unconventional lithological Field Mapping activity: starting from photo interpretation and in situ survey, all the coating materials (stone, etc.) of some monuments of primary historical and cultural interest have been mapped (i.e., Duomo di Firenze, Duomo di Prato). The product can be considered as a lithological cartography, vertically oriented, processed by field surveys, geognostic surveys and photo interpretation. All combined to create a “lithological” mapping of the coatings of the various monuments; the advantage is a new approach for conservation and restoration of Cultural Heritage. The proposed workflow involves a mobile solution, opensource, that allows the verification and management of the database in the field. Full article

We consider a finite-size spherical bubble with a nonequilibrium value of the q-field, where the bubble is immersed in an infinite vacuum with the constant equilibrium value $q_0$ for the q-field (this $q_0$ has already cancelled an initial cosmological constant). Numerical results are presented for the time evolution of such a q-bubble with gravity turned off and with gravity turned on. For small enough bubbles and a q-field energy scale sufficiently below the gravitational energy scale $E_{\mathrm{Planck}}$ , the vacuum energy of the q-bubble is found to disperse completely. For large enough bubbles and a finite value of $E_{\mathrm{Planck}}$ , the vacuum energy of the q-bubble disperses only partially and there occurs gravitational collapse near the bubble center. Full article