High-resolution (HR) land-cover mapping is an important task for surveying the Earth’s surface and supporting decision-making in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and smart cities. However, it is impeded by the scarcity of HR high-quality labels, complex ground details and high computational cost. To address these challenges, we propose VCNet, a weakly supervised end-to-end deep learning network for large-scale HR land-cover mapping. It leverages easy-access low-resolution (LR) land-cover products as the sole guidance of supervision, fully eliminating the need for manual annotation. In VCNet, we propose a cross-feature learning backbone to learn complete details of various land objects for fine-scale land cover mapping. Besides, it is hybridized with a high-resolution maintaining module and label refining strategies to constantly refine coarse LR labels for guiding the framework training. Extensive experiments in the Chesapeake Bay dataset demonstrate the superiority of VCNet in generating HR land-cover maps from LR labels. Furthermore, we constructed the Tokyo dataset to analyze VCNet’s sensitivity to different LR labels. To verify its practical application potential, VCNet was utilized to produce a 1 m resolution land-cover map for Shanghai (China’s economic epicenter) from a lower resolution (10-m) product, greatly enriching complex ground details. Besides, due to the importance of transportation networks for highly urbanized region, we introduced road category in the practical mapping of Shanghai, which fills a critical gap in traditional land cover classification systems. This contribution offers a scalable solution for evidence-based decision-making in comparable developed regions. Our code is available at: https://github.com/Tusaifei/VCNet.
With the expansion of human activities into mountainous regions, jungles, deserts, rural roads, and off-road terrains, there is an increasing demand for reliable navigation and location services in wild unstructured environments. Unlike urban environments, where established methodologies exist for constructing navigation maps, roadless unstructured environments lack comprehensive frameworks for navigation map construction. The conventional waypoint-based structures, which are well-suited to urban environments, are often ill-suited to the expansive and unstructured nature of field regions. Moreover, the absence of predefined user paths necessitates a fundamentally different approach to map construction. To address this challenge, we propose a novel method for generating navigation maps in unstructured roadless environment. New methodology leverages remote sensing as input for environmental perception, translating user traversability into geographical parameters and constructing a navigation mesh as a computational map. Compared with existing methods, the new method can adapt to large-scale unstructured environments. To validate the proposed method, reliability sampling tests and operational experiments were conducted on traversable area delineation and the navigation map generation. The experimental results indicate an 84% accuracy in traversable area analysis, with the constructed navigation map effectively supporting positioning and path planning while significantly reducing computational complexity in large-scale path planning tasks. The navigation mesh generated through this method effectively enhances the implementation of navigation and positioning services in off-road and roadless environments. The proposed method facilitates the construction of navigation maps capable of delivering navigation and localization services without requiring human presence in the target area.
Building emergency communication in disaster areas is a key problem that emergency response needs to solve. Ad hoc Network (ANET) can quickly establish communication networks when public communication infrastructure is disrupted. At present, ground emergency communication deployment based on ANET usually relies on the operator’s experience, which struggles to ensure high-quality deployment in complex urban environments. This paper proposes an ANET nodes spatial optimization deployment algorithm based on 3D Spatial Evolutionary Particle Swarm Optimization (3DSEPSO). A wireless communication transmission rate model that depends on surface buildings and trees is constructed using ground truth communication data. The algorithm incorporates a fitness evaluation model, particle chromosome structure, and an evolutionary mechanism to intelligently deploy ANET nodes. By considering the spatial distribution of buildings and trees, the algorithm can achieve optimal data transmission quality by using a given number of ANET nodes. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms empirical approaches and traditional methods in terms of data transmission rates and quality. Thus, the algorithm provides better support for emergency rescue teams by facilitating more effective and reliable emergency communication.
ABSTRACT In this article, I review considerations and techniques for approaching cartographic design as visual storytelling. Stories, like maps, are a method for documenting and explaining, for meaningfully abstracting our experiences, for communicating and sharing, and for asserting a particular worldview. I argue that visual storytelling offers an entry point for hybridization in cartography, uniting technology with praxis, product with process, and design with critique while opening rich new avenues for transdisciplinary research and design. I begin by introducing influences on map-based visual storytelling and review ten recurring themes that make visual storytelling different from traditional perspectives on cartographic design. I then offer three of potentially many ways to articulate and organize the design space for map-based visual storytelling: foundational narrative elements and their adaptation to geographic phenomena and processes, visual storytelling genres delineating different story experiences, and visual storytelling tropes used to advance narratives across text, maps, images, and other multimedia. I conclude with a call for future research on visual storytelling in cartography, including visual design, visual ethics, and visual literacy.
The St. Peter Sandstone of the American Midwest is presented today in textbooks as a simple and unproblematic example of “layer-cake geology.” The thesis of this paper is that the very simplicity of St. Peter Sandstone has made it challenging to characterize. In widely separated states, the sandstone appeared under different names. Several theories about how it formed began to circulate. The story of the St. Peter is not only the story of the assemblage of a stratigraphic unit over a vast area during three centuries, but also the role the study of the provenance of this unit played in the development of sedimentology in the early twentieth century, research that was made all the more challenging by its “simple” mineralogy. Indeed, the St. Peter has been controversial since it was first described.
Transportation projects are crucial for the overall success of major urban, metropolitan, regional, and national development according to their capacity by bringing significant changes in socio-economic and territorial aspects. In this context, sustaining and developing economic and social activities depend on having sufficient Water Resources Management. This research helps to manage transport project planning and construction phases to analyze the surface water flow, high-level streams, and wetland sites for the development of transportation infrastructure planning, implementation, maintenance, monitoring, and long-term evaluations to better face the challenges and solutions associated with effective management and enhancement to deal with Low, Medium, High levels of impact. A case study was carried out using the Arc Hydro extension within ArcGIS for processing and presenting the spatially referenced Stream Model. Geographical information systems have the potential to improve water resource planning and management. The study framework would be useful for solving water resource problems by enabling decision makers to collect qualitative data more effectively and gather it into the water management process through a systematic framework.
Purpose of this work is to determine and justify the use of analytical and numerical geodetic and cartometric methods on the reference ellipsoid, as well as their calculation accuracy in the geographic information environment. Methodology. The research compiled a register of geodetic and cartometric methods used in geodetic practice and implemented in modern geographic information systems. Standard tools in GIS often use approximate numerical methods, which affects the accuracy of models of geospatial objects in the GIS environment. Therefore, we have analysed and established for each operation of geodetic and cartometric methods a mathematical model that determines a particular cartometric property with maximum accuracy either by analytical or numerical methods with the number of terms in the binomial series of 6 or more. Results. The author proposed 10 operations of the geodetic method and 3 operations of the cartometric method, for which mathematical models and their accuracy were established and substantiated with their corresponding implementation in the MATLAB v. R2018a. The defined list of geodetic and cartometric operations made it possible to move away from the classification of distance lengths that influenced the further use of certain surfaces (map projection plane, sphere, spheroid, or reference ellipsoid) and mathematical models of operations. The presented mathematical models allow performing the relevant geodetic and cartometric methods with maximum accuracy using modern computer technologies. The mathematical models of geodetic and cartometric methods are investigated, which have practically no limitations for achieving the required accuracy, especially for large and ultra-large distances. The scientific novelty of the research is to define and justify a clear list of mathematical models of numerical and analytical geodetic and cartometric methods instead of cartometric methods on the map and standard methods of instrumental GIS; using the surface of the reference ellipsoid, and not just cartographic projections, spheroid or sphere. The practical significance of the research lies in the use of numerical and analytical geodetic and cartometric methods that significantly increase the accuracy of operations in these works, as well as in the creation/updating of digital topographic maps, navigation and route planning, etc. The research results can be concluded that well-founded mathematical models will ensure an increase in the accuracy of computational operations taking into account the curvature of the Earth in all sectors and areas of the economy, which will affect the quality of accounting and monitoring of relevant objects, integration and geospatial analysis of heterogeneous geospatial data, improve the quality (topological consistency) of geospatial data, etc
Nodar Elizbarashvili, Luka Davitashvili, Rusudan Elizbarashvili
et al.
The article discusses the essence of integrative geography and its importance for the theory and practice of geographical science. Such areas of integrative geography are characterized, the development of which will further increase the importance of applied geographical science. They include teaching about cultural landscape and historical landscape (part of landscape studies), geoecological expertise and environmental impact assessment (part of geographic ecology), geographic archeology and ecological culture (part of historical geography), landscape management and landscape services (part of landscape planning), and tourism—Assessment and planning of recreational resources (part of recreational geography).
In the absence of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals and acoustic positioning systems, and relying only on inertial measurement unit (IMU) and Doppler velocity log (DVL), underwater terrain matching has become the primary approach of underwater navigation and localization. To address the limitations of current underwater terrain matching methods, which heavily depend on high-precision background fields of seafloor terrain and are subject to the richness of seafloor terrain information, we propose a novel underwater terrain matching method based on multibeam bathymetric point cloud descriptors. This method generates discriminant descriptors from the bathymetric point cloud patches, which can be directly used to accurately measure the similarity between two patches to complete the matching. This approach eliminates the need for recalculating similarity between different patches and reduces memory requirements for storing original bathymetric data. Specifically, our method fully considers the principle of multibeam data measurement and includes a patch construction method of multibeam bathymetric point cloud and a terrain descriptor generation model based on point cloud neural networks. We compared the proposed method with other state-of-the-art underwater terrain matching methods on both a test set and real-world data. The results demonstrate that our method exhibits superior matching performance.
Umoja (noun):
/ooh-moh-jah/
Umoja, is the Swahili philosophy of unity. Its principles underscore the significance of cooperation and communal solidarity. Umoja has historically been associated with various aspects of African social and political life, accentuating the influence of communal synergy in traditional land tenure systems. The Umoja philosophy encourages individuals to consider collective-wellbeing as being complementary to individual interests, thereby fostering a profound sense of social responsibility in traditional approaches to land holding.
In contemporary African society, Umoja continues to wield substantial influence in facilitating social cohesion and the establishment of robust and supportive communities. Notwithstanding, the principles of Umoja remain relatively uncharted in the context of modern approaches to land reform policies.
This research paper aims to pioneer this course by examining the methods through which the principle of Umoja can radically transform modern approaches to land reform policies, with the ultimate objective of lifting millions of Africans out of multidimensional poverty.
Consequently, the paper posits that conventional land reform strategies, primarily centered on the formalization of individual property rights, give rise to substantial challenges that impede advancements in land reform, agriculture, the proliferation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), and broader economic development. The paper culminates by advocating for the implementation of a novel paradigm, termed the Productivity Based Redistribution-Communal Land Holding (PBR-CLH) System, designed to facilitate the consolidation of communal property rights across the continent, while coexisting with prevailing individual property rights frameworks. The PBR-CLH System encompasses a set of policies encompassing Productivity Based Redistribution of land, coupled with the establishment of Communal Land Holding structures.
The authors propose an algorithm for predictive monitoring of 3D-changes in the terrain relief due to the processes of slope erosion. The algorithm is based on the phenomenological law, from which it follows that the intensity of soil losses at the slope is proportional in magnitude and inverse in the direction of the declivity height gradient vector. In conjunction with the differential equation of mass balance, a mathematical model of the terrain relief change is built. The model enables calculating it at an arbitrary time according to its shape at the initial moment based on the solution of a standard mathematic boundary task. Comparing the results of solving such a problem with the data of cartographic monitoring makes it possible to establish a relationship between the slope erosion coefficient and the type of soil, vegetation cover, and meteorological conditions under which the studied area is located, and then predict changes in the terrain relief in the future.
Panagiotis Agourogiannis, Dimitris Kavroudakis, M. Batsaris
et al.
The mathematical analysis of a spatial network using graph theory and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for path finding, has created the need to compare possible solutions to better solve spatial problems in road networks. The paper aims to provide a comprehensive and documented selection of the identification of similar routes on a spatial network through the development of a spatial Similarity Index. The index compares the geographical characteristics of routes (altitude, length, distance from points of interest) drawn in a spatial network and calculates the percentage of similarity between the routes and the criteria that contributed to their drawing. The purpose of this multicriteria indicator is to select the optimal solution for spatial problems that occur in a network, such as transport, energy, environment, sport, and tourism. This leads to the Similarity Index serving as a reliable tool in decision-making for local and regional development. The case study is the Greek island of Lesbos, with a complex road network that develops over a relief with strong differences in altitude. In addition, there are many points of tourist, cultural and economic interest on the island, which helps to find the path that largely fulfils all geographical parameters.
The article deals with solving the tasks of designing a cartographic support system and arranging the process of its targeted application. The definition of its concept is given. Within the framework of the paper, electronic maps of the area are considered as products. The system functioning for the consumer is described. During the research, the results’ quality indicators vector of the production and publishing processes are substantiated. The functional-stochastic dependencies between the components of the results’ quality indicators vector are established and the operational functionality linking the performance indicator with the cost of resources and time is justified. A mathematical model of the purposeful production process of cartographic products is constructed, which enables predicting the degree of the goal achievement, a priori assessing its quality and synthesizing a system of cartographic production by means of a directional enumeration of the model parameters values. The simulation results let us formulate proposals on the structure of the cartographic support system based on the requirements imposed by the results. An illustrative numerical example demonstrating the operability of the offered method is given.
The article describes the methodology for constructing digital elevation models for the vast delta areas of the Don and Volga rivers for further use in mathematical models of flooding from surges. The initial cartographic data and features of the delta regions are described. The methods of information processing are considered in detail. An algorithm for constructing a DEM has been developed to obtain highly detailed digital elevation models. The algorithm is based on combining the DEM of individual key features - land, the depths of the hydrographic network and the bathymetry of the receiving reservoir for the river. The topographic maps, maps of the navigable route depths, hydrographic maps, and satellite images Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 were used to create the DEM of the Don and Volga river. To build individual DEMs, a raster of the absolute depth of the channels, a hydrography DEM, a land DEM, and a shelf DEM were created using geoinformation systems. To assess the possibility of using obtained DEMs in hydrological models based on HEC-RAS, we conducted training and verification calculations of water level during wind surge phenomena in Don Delta using different surface roughness coefficients. The calculation results show good reproducibility of observed water level fluctuation in the Don Delta using obtained DEM with a roughness coefficient of 0.0125. Also, we carried out similar calculations of storm surge phenomena in the Volga Delta using obtained DEM and combinations of various riverbed and not riverbed roughness coefficients. The combination of 0.007 for riverbed and 0.02 for not riverbed surfaces reproduces the observed water level fluctuation during storm surge phenomena in Volga Delta. The constructed DEMs for the Volga and Don deltas made it possible to reproduce the observed dynamics of river discharges and water level fluctuations during surge events. Such detailed DEMs, taking into account all the complexity of the coastal and delta relief, were created for the first time for the Volga and Don.
ABSTRACT The author’s watercolor maps capturing the inherently spatial, heterogeneous experiences of ecological islands and edges, and musical map evoking a multifaceted journey through an ‘archipelago’ of island ecosystems, aim to convey the increasing fragility and ‘preciousness’ of these slivers of the natural world. But simultaneously, the maps unintentionally begin to muddle this simplistic conception of ecological isolation and stability. The paintings’ fractured compositions and external frames appear to freeze and distance islands in space and time, but as the fragments multiply they also immerse the viewer in the geography and suggest ecological dynamism. The musical map has a similarly multifaceted structure, but it is mainly qualities of fluidity and cohesion, along with sound’s fundamentally non-descriptive, temporal nature, that objectify the island in some ways and in others produce an immersive, energizing effect. In future cartographic work, the author expects to more consciously engage rather than to resolve this tension between isolation and integration. But as a viewer/listener impression that is ultimately itself the ‘object’ of the maps, the islands’ imagined state of timelessness and preciousness is in fact a manifestation of their inseparability from humanity and the wider world – and therefore an image with reality and value of its own.
This progress report explores economies of infrastructure, concentrating on questions of financialization. Interest in infrastructure financialization has grown with concern about financialization more broadly, coming to dominate discussions on economies of infrastructure. Below, I engage with research that explores what infrastructure financialization entails, its scope, as well as the mathematical infrastructures that support it. Questioning the common presentation of financialization as a complete break with past economies of infrastructure, I bookend this report with its links to – and continuities with – debt-led infrastructure development, which prevailed in the post-war period and remains of great importance in contemporary economies of infrastructure.
La investigación describe y explica los patrones, costos y límites de la movilidad cotidiana causados por la estructura urbana de Ciudad Juárez. La concatenación de las teorías clásicas y contemporáneas de localización, estructura urbana y movilidad fundamentaron los procesos de análisis y resultados de este estudio. Metodológicamente se implementaron las técnicas de autocorrelación espacial I de Moran y G de Getis-Ord para el análisis de los censos económicos del INEGI, que identificaron espacialmente los subcentros de empleo total, manufactura y terciario en los periodos 1993, 2004, 2009 y 2014. Por otro lado, se realizó un levantamiento bietápico de datos en toda la ciudad por medio de encuestas origen-destino, las cuales mostraron, desde una escala macro, los patrones de movilidad en términos de tiempo, distancia, orígenes, destinos, cantidad de viajes, preferencias de transporte, motivos, edades y costos económicos. En una escala micro, la teoría de grafos y el análisis de redes permitieron modelar espacialmente cada viaje intraurbano, los resultados se detallan en un Atlas de Movilidad que incluye cada una de las 64 unidades territoriales en que se dividió la ciudad. La investigación propone una metodología replicable, además provee información relevante y actual de la ciudad, útiles para otros estudios, toma de decisiones y políticas públicas de estructuración y movilidad urbana.