This book provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the field of thermal infrared remote sensing. Temperature is one of the most important physical environmental variables monitored by earth observing remote sensing systems. Temperature ranges define the boundaries of habitats on our planet. Thermal hazards endanger our resources and well-being. In this book renowned international experts have contributed chapters on currently available thermal sensors as well as innovative plans for future missions. Further chapters discuss the underlying physics and image processing techniques for analyzing thermal data. Ground-breaking chapters on applications present a wide variety of case studies leading to a deepened understanding of land and sea surface temperature dynamics, urban heat island effects, forest fires, volcanic eruption precursors, underground coal fires, geothermal systems, soil moisture variability, and temperature-based mineral discrimination. 'Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing: Sensors, Methods, Applications' is unique because of the large field it spans, the potentials it reveals, and the detail it provides. This book is an indispensable volume for scientists, lecturers, and decision makers interested in thermal infrared technology, methods, and applications.

20 years ago, from July 8 to 20, 1990, 60 researchers gathered for two weeks at Castillo-Palacio Magalia in Las Navas del Marques (Avila Province, Spain) to discuss cognitive and linguistic aspects of geographic space. This meeting was the start of successful research on cognitive issues in geographic information science, produced an edited book (D. M. Mark and A. U. Frank, Eds., 1991, Cognitive and Linguistic Aspects of Geographic Space. NATO ASI Series D: Behavioural and Social Sciences 63. Kluwer, Dordrecht/Boston/London), and led to a biannual conference (COSIT), a refereed journal (Spatial Cognition and Computation), and a substantial and still growing research community. It appeared worthwhile to assess the achievements and to reconsider the research challenges twenty years later. What has changed in the age of computational ontologies and cyber-infrastructures? Consider that 1990 the web was only about to emerge and the very first laptops had just appeared! The 2010 meeting brought together many of the original participants, but was also open to others, and invited contributions from all who are researching these topics. Early-career scientists, engineers, and humanists working at the intersection of cognitive science and geographic information science were invited to help with the re-assessment of research needs and approaches. The meeting was very successful and compared the research agenda laid out in the 1990 book with achievements over the past twenty years and then turned to the future: What are the challenges today? What are worthwhile goals for basic research? What can be achieved in the next 20 years? What are the lessons learned? This edited book will assess the current state of the field through chapters by participants in the 1990 and 2010 meetings and will also document an interdisciplinary research agenda for the future.

The book consists of peer-reviewed papers from the 9th symposium on Location Based Services (LBS) which is targeted to researchers, industry/market operators and students of different backgrounds (scientific, engineering and humanistic). As the research field is developing and changing fast, this book follows up on current trends and gives suggestions and guidance to further research. This book offers a common ground bringing together various disciplines and practice, knowledge, experiences, plans and ideas on how LBS can and could be improved and on how it will influence both science and society. The book comprises front-end publications organized into sections on: spatial-temporal data acquisition, processing & analysis; positioning / indoor positioning; way-finding / navigation (indoor / outdoor) & smart mobile phone navigation; interactions, user studies and evaluations; innovative LBS systems & applications.

China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC) 2013 Proceedings presents selected research papers from CSNC2013, held on 15-17 May in Wuhan, China. The theme of CSNC2013 is: BeiDou Application: Opportunities and Challenges. These papers discuss the technologies and applications of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and the latest progress made in the China BeiDou system especially. They are divided into 9 topics to match the corresponding sessions in CSNC2013, which broadly covered key topics in GNSS. Readers can learn about the BeiDou system and keep abreast of the latest advances in GNSS techniques and applications. SUN Jiadong is the Chief Designer of the Compass/BeiDou system, and the Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); JIAO Wenhai is a researcher at China Satellite Navigation Office; WU Haitao is a professor at Navigation Headquarters, CAS; SHI Chuang is a professor at Wuhan University.

This book provides a fresh analysis of the demography, health and well-being of a major African city. It brings a range of disciplinary approaches to bear on the pressing topics of urban poverty, urban health inequalities and urban growth. The approach is primarily spatial and includes the integration of environmental information from satellites and other geospatial sources with social science and health survey data. The authors Ghanaians and outsiders, have worked to understand the urban dynamics in this burgeoning West African metropolis, with an emphasis on urban disparities in health and living standards. Few cities in the global South have been examined from so many different perspectives. Our analysis employs a wide range of GIScience methods, including analysis of remotely sensed imagery and spatial statistical analysis, applied to a wide range of data, including census, survey and health clinic data, all of which are supplemented by field work, including systematic social observation, focus groups, and key informant interviews. This book aims to explain and highlight the mix of methods, and the important findings that have been emerging from this research, with the goal of providing guidance and inspiration for others doing similar work in cities of other developing nations.

This is a detailed description of the steps leading from raw signals measured in space, to calibrated comparable long term data sets, to its final form: useful information for user communities. Examples of applications and data validations result from different investigations in the Mediteranean area. An appendix summarizes useful formulas of the evaluation of satellite data.

Recent years in North America have seen a rapid development in the area of crime analysis and mapping using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology. In 1996, the US National Institute of Justice (NIJ) established the crime mapping research center (CMRC), to promote research, evaluation, development, and dissemination of GIS technology. The long-term goal is to develop a fully functional Crime Analysis System (CAS) with standardized data collection and reporting mechanisms, tools for spatial and temporal analysis, visualization of data and much more. Among the drawbacks of current crime analysis systems is their lack of tools for spatial analysis. For this reason, spatial analysts should research which current analysis techniques (or variations of such techniques) that have been already successfully applied to other areas (e.g., epidemiology, location-allocation analysis, etc.) can also be employed to the spatial analysis of crime data. This book presents a few of those cases.

China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC) 2013 Proceedings presents selected research papers from CSNC2013, held on 15-17 May in Wuhan, China. The theme of CSNC2013 is: BeiDou Application: Opportunities and Challenges. These papers discuss the technologies and applications of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and the latest progress made in the China BeiDou system especially. They are divided into 9 topics to match the corresponding sessions in CSNC2013, which broadly covered key topics in GNSS. Readers can learn about the BeiDou system and keep abreast of the latest advances in GNSS techniques and applications. SUN Jiadong is the Chief Designer of the Compass/BeiDou system, and the Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); JIAO Wenhai is a researcher at China Satellite Navigation Office; WU Haitao is a professor at Navigation Headquarters, CAS; SHI Chuang is a professor at Wuhan University.

This book seeks to provide a comprehensive reconstruction of the 1667 Dalmatia earthquake phenomenon on the basis of eyewitness testimony. At the same time, one of the distinctive features of this book is that the earthquake observations are treated and arranged in time and space so as to provide earthquake data on the macroseismic intensity, which might be used in seismic hazard and risk studies. On April 6, 1667 a devastating earthquake struck the southernmost region of Dalmatia (Croatia). Most of the affected area at that time belonged to the independent Republic of Ragusa, the capital of which was the town of Ragusa, today Dubrovnik. The 1667 earthquake left behind a lasting scar on the history and life of the Republic, as it was the catalyst of a serious financial crisis. Both the economic and more general consequences of this earthquake have been discussed in historiographical and seismological essays in late 20th-century works. This book seeks to provide a comprehensive reconstruction of the 1667 Dalmatia earthquake phenomenon on the basis of eyewitness testimony. At the same time, one of the distinctive features of this book is that the earthquake observations are treated and arranged in time and space so as to provide earthquake data on the macroseismic intensity, which might be used in seismic hazard and risk studies. The book is also intended as an extensive case history, which allows the author to include some guidelines on how to approach the study of a past earthquake and proceed to its full seismological interpretation. In this respect, a unique feature of the book is the comprehensive and detailed analysis of the original documentary sources in their proper context, effectively combining the interpretative approaches of history and seismology.

Reflexive Cartography addresses the adaptation of cartography, including its digital forms (GIS, WebGIS, PPGIS), to the changing needs of society, and outlines the experimental context aimed at mapping a topological space. Using rigorous scientific analysis based on statement consistency, relevance of the proposals, and model accessibility, it charts the transition from topographical maps created by state agencies to open mapping produced by citizens. Adopting semiotic theory to uncover the complex communicative mechanisms of maps and to investigate their ability to produce their own messages and new perspectives, Reflexive Cartography outlines a shift in our way of conceptualizing maps: from a plastic metaphor of reality, as they are generally considered, to solid tools that play the role of agents, assisting citizens as they think and plan their own living place and make sense of the current world.

Reference systems and frames are of primary importance for many Earth science applications, satellite navigation as well as for practical applications in geo-information. A precisely defined reference frame is needed for the quantification of, e.g. Earth rotation and its gravity field, global and regional sea level variation, tectonic motion and deformation, post-glacial rebound, geocenter motion, large scale deformation due to Earthquakes, local subsidence and other ruptures and crustal dislocations. All of these important scientific applications fundamentally depend on a truly global reference system that only space geodesy can realize. This volume details the proceedigns of the IAG Symposium REFAG2010 (Marne la Vallee, France, October 4-8, 2010) The primary scope of REFAG2010 was to address today's achievements on theoretical concepts of reference systems and their practical implementations by individual space geodetic techniques and their combinations, underlying limiting factors, systematic errors and novel approaches for future improvements.

The foremost aim of the present study was the development of a tool to detect daily deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, using satellite images from the MODIS/TERRA sensor and Artificial Neural Networks. The developed tool provides parameterization of the configuration for the neural network training to enable us to select the best neural architecture to address the problem. The tool makes use of confusion matrices to determine the degree of success of the network. A spectrum-temporal analysis of the study area was done on 57 images from May 20 to July 15, 2003 using the trained neural network. The analysis enabled verification of quality of the implemented neural network classification and also aided in understanding the dynamics of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, thereby highlighting the vast potential of neural networks for image classification. However, the complex task of detection of predatory actions at the beginning, i.e., generation of consistent alarms, instead of false alarms has not been solved yet. Thus, the present article provides a theoretical basis and elaboration of practical use of neural networks and satellite images to combat illegal deforestation.

This book explains the potential value of using mobile phone data to monitor urban practices and identify rhythms of use in today's cities. Drawing upon research conducted in the Italian region of Lombardy, the authors demonstrate how maps based on mobile phone data, which are better tailored to the dynamic processes at work in cities, can document urban practices, provide new insights into spatial and temporal patterns of mobility, and assist in recognizing different communities of practice. The described methodology permits detailed visualization of the spatial distribution of mobility flows and offers a more extensive and refined description of the distribution of urban activity than is provided by traditional travel surveys. The book also details how maps derived by processing mobile phone data can assist in the definition of urban policies that will deliver services that match cities' needs, facilitate the management of large events (inflow, outflow, and monitoring), and reflect time-dependent phenomena not included in traditional analyses.

'Trading zone' is a concept introduced by Peter Galison in his social scientific research on how scientists representing different sub-cultures and paradigms have been able to coordinate their interaction locally. In this book, Italian and Finnish planning researchers extend the use of the concept to different contexts of urban planning and management, where there is a need for new ideas and tools in managing the interaction of different stakeholders. The trading zone concept is approached as a tool in organizing local platforms and support systems for planning participation, knowledge production, decision making and local conflict management. In relation to the former theses of communicative planning theory that stress the ideals of consensus, mutual understanding and universal reason, the 'trading zone approach', outlined in this book, offers a different perspective. It focuses on the potentiality to coordinate locally the interaction of different stakeholders without requiring the deeper sharing of understandings, values and motives between them. Galison's commentary comes in the form of the book's final chapter.

This book contains a detailed presentation of general principles of sensitivity analysis as well as their applications to sample cases of remote sensing experiments. An emphasis is made on applications of adjoint problems, because they are more efficient in many practical cases, although their formulation may seem counterintuitive to a beginner. Special attention is paid to forward problems based on higher-order partial differential equations, where a novel matrix operator approach to formulation of corresponding adjoint problems is presented. Sensitivity analysis (SA) serves for quantitative models of physical objects the same purpose, as differential calculus does for functions. SA provides derivatives of model output parameters (observables) with respect to input parameters. In remote sensing SA provides computer-efficient means to compute the jacobians, matrices of partial derivatives of observables with respect to the geophysical parameters of interest. The jacobians are used to solve corresponding inverse problems of remote sensing. They also play an important role already while designing the remote sensing experiment, where they are used to estimate the retrieval uncertainties of the geophysical parameters with given measurement errors of the instrument, thus providing means for formulations of corresponding requirements to the specific remote sensing instrument. If the quantitative models of geophysical objects can be formulated in an analytic form, then sensitivity analysis is reduced to differential calculus. But in most cases, the practical geophysical models used in remote sensing are based on numerical solutions of forward problems - differential equations with initial and/or boundary conditions. As a result, these models cannot be formulated in an analytic form and this is where the methods of SA become indispensable. This book is intended for a wide audience. The beginners in remote sensing could use it as a single source, covering key issues of SA, from general principles, through formulation of corresponding linearized and adjoint problems, to practical applications to uncertainty analysis and inverse problems in remote sensing. The experts, already active in the field, may find useful the alternative formulations of some key issues of SA, for example, use of individual observables, instead of a widespread use of the cumulative cost function. The book also contains an overview of author's matrix operator approach to formulation of adjoint problems for forward problems based on the higher-order partial differential equations. This approach still awaits its publication in the periodic literature and thus may be of interest to readership across all levels of expertise.

Long before Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope en route to India, the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia engaged in vigorous cross-cultural exchanges across the Indian Ocean. This book focuses on the years 700 to 1500, a period when powerful dynasties governed both regions, to document the relationship between the Islamic and Chinese worlds before the arrival of the Europeans. Through a close analysis of the maps, geographic accounts, and travelogues compiled by both Chinese and Islamic writers, the book traces the development of major contacts between people in China and the Islamic world and explores their interactions on matters as varied as diplomacy, commerce, mutual understanding, world geography, navigation, shipbuilding, and scientific exploration. When the Mongols ruled both China and Iran in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, their geographic understanding of each other's society increased markedly. This rich, engaging, and pioneering study offers glimpses into the worlds of Asian geographers and mapmakers, whose accumulated wisdom underpinned the celebrated voyages of European explorers like Vasco da Gama.

This SpringerBrief details the MESSENGER Mission, the findings of which present challenges to widely held conventional views and remaining mysteries surrounding the planet. The work answers the question of why Mercury is so dense, and the implications from geochemical data on its planetary formation. It summarizes imaging and compositional data from the terrestrial planet surface processes and explains the geologic history of Mercury. It also discusses the lack of southern hemisphere coverage. Our understanding of the planet Mercury has been in a transitional phase over the decades since Mariner 10. The influx of new data from the NASA MESSENGER Mission since it was inserted into the orbit of Mercury in March of 2011 has greatly accelerated that shift. The combined compositional data of relatively high volatiles (S, K), relatively low refractories (Al, Ca), and low crustal iron, combined with an active, partially molten iron rich core, has major implications for Mercury and Solar System formation. From a scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, this presents a comprehensive overview of the discoveries from the ten-year MESSENGER mission.

This book gives a much needed explanation of the basic physical principles of radiative transfer and remote sensing, and presents all the instruments and retrieval algorithms in a homogenous manner. The editors provide, for the first time, an easy path from theory to practical algorithms in one easily accessible volume, making the connection between theoretical radiative transfer and individual practical solutions to retrieve aerosol information from remote sensing, and providing the specifics and intercomparison of all current and historical retrieval methods.

Modern Earth System Monitoring represents a fundamental change in the way scientists study the Earth System. In Oceanography, for the past two centuries, ships have provided the platforms for observing. Expeditions on the continents and Earth's poles are land-based analogues. Fundamental understanding of current systems, climate, natural hazards, and ecosystems has been greatly advanced. While these approaches have been remarkably successful, the need to establish measurements over time can only be made using Earth observations and observatories with exacting standards and continuous data. The 19 peer-reviewed contributions in this volume provide early insights into this emerging view of Earth in both space and time in which change is a critical component of our growing understanding.

Flooding is one of the most devastating natural hazards in the world. Available records suggest that both flood frequency and severity are on the rise and this is likely to worsen in the context of climate change. As population, infrastructure and poverty grow rapidly in developing countries, particularly in urban agglomerations of 10 million people or more, floods could cause widespread devastation, economic damage and loss of life. Assessment of vulnerability and risk from naturally occurring phenomena is therefore imperative in order to achieve urban sustainability. This book uses geospatial techniques to evaluate hazards, risk and vulnerability at a metropolitan scale in a data-scarce country. An empirical study was performed using remote sensing, GIS and census data. This research offers a new approach to mapping population, infrastructures and communities at risk which can greatly contribute to the deeper understanding of flood disasters in a rapidly expanding megacity. Examples shown in this book are from Dhaka Megacity, however, the techniques and methods can easily be implemented in medium to large cities of similar characteristics. The book is essential reading for hazard researchers, geospatial scientists, disaster management professionals, geographers, urban planners, and social scientists. Ashraf M. Dewan is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Spatial Sciences at Curtin University, Western Australia (on leave from his substantive position as Associate Professor in the Geography & Environment Department at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh).

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) - either as "standard" GIS or custom made Historical GIS (HGIS) - have become quite popular in some historical sub-disciplines, such as Economic and Social History or Historical Geography. "Mainstream" history, however, seems to be rather unaffected by this trend. More generally speaking: Why is it that computer applications in general have failed to make much headway in history departments, despite the first steps being undertaken a good forty years ago? With the "spatial turn" in full swing in the humanities, and many historians dealing with spatial and geographical questions, one would think GIS would be welcomed with open arms. Yet there seems to be no general anticipation by historians of employing GIS as a research tool. As mentioned, HGIS are popular chiefly among Historical Geographers and Social and Economic Historians. The latter disciplines seem to be predestined to use such software through the widespread quantitative methodology these disciplines have employed traditionally. Other historical sub-disciplines, such as Ancient History, are also very open to this emerging technology since the scarcity of written sources in this field can be mitigated by inferences made from an HGIS that has archaeological data stored in it, for example. In most of Modern History, however, the use of GIS is rarely seen. The intellectual benefit that a GIS may bring about seems not be apparent to scholars from this sub-discipline (and others). This book wants to investigate and discuss this controversy. Why does the wider historian community not embrace GIS more readily? While one cannot deny that the methodologies linked with a GIS follow geographical paradigms rather than historical ones, the potential of GIS as a 'killer application' for digital historical scholarship should be obvious. This book brings together authors from Geography and History to discuss the value of GIS for historical research. The focus, however, will not be on the "how", but on the "why" of GIS in history.

Historical archives of vertical photographs and satellite images acquired for other purposes (mainly declassified military reconnaissance) offer considerable potential for archaeological and historical landscape research. They provide a unique insight into the character of the landscape as it was over half a century ago, before the destructive impact of later 20th century development and intensive land use. They provide a high quality photographic record not merely of the landscape at that time, but offer the prospect of the better survival of remains reflecting its earlier history, whether manifest as earthworks, cropmarks or soilmarks. These various sources of imagery also provide an opportunity to examine from the air areas of Europe and beyond whose skies are still not open to traditional archaeological aerial reconnaissance. Tens of millions of such images are held in archives around the world, but their research potential goes very largely untapped. A primary aim of this volume is to draw to wider attention the existence, scope and potential access to historical archival aerial and satellite photographs, in order to encourage their use in a range of archaeological and landscape research. By drawing attention to this massive archival resource, providing examples of its successful application to archaeological/landscape questions, and offering advice how to access and utilise the resource, the volume seeks to bring this material to wider attention, demonstrate its huge potential for archaeology, encourage its further use and stimulate a new approach to archaeological survey and the study of landscape evolution internationally.

The current volume provides examples of how environmental hazards such as landslides, earthquakes, mountain processes, cold climate processes and tidal flows and currents can affect the energy supply infrastructure. In times of uncertainty, the security of the European cross-border energy supply infrastructure, such as pipelines, has great importance. Whilst the potential effects of political disagreement, economic inequalities and social differences are relatively well understood, the impact of environmental change is often poorly appreciated by decision-makers. New approaches have been examined for monitoring of hazardous landslide processes, including early warning systems, and near-real-time 3D data processing and visualization. The scientific problems of environmental systems design have been discussed and approaches for their implementation have been suggested. New integrated remote sensing techniques consisting mainly of hyperspectral and radar imagery are presented together with the processing of monitoring data using GIS techniques and, in particular, dynamic visualization. Attention is also given to conceptual issues of environmental and energy security and the role of education, to help resolve environmental problems through cooperation in the development of the European energy supply infrastructure.

The book covers the international state-of-the-art research in the field of 3D geo-information modeling. It focuses on comparing several types of 3D models. Due to the rapid developments in sensor techniques more and more 3D data becomes available. Effective algorithms for (semi) automatic object reconstruction are required. 3D analysis and 3D simulation techniques explore and extend the possibilities in spatial applications.

This volume is devoted to the Persistent Scatterer Technique, the latest development in radar interferometric data processing. It is the only book on Permanent Scatterer (PS) technique of radar interferometry, and it details a newly developed stochastic model and estimator algorithm to cope with possible problems for the application of the PS technique. The STUN (spatio-temporal unwrapping network) algorithm, developed to cope with these issues in a robust way, is presented and applied to two test sites.