Global Change studies are increasingly being considered a vital source of information to understand the Earth Environment, in particular in the framework of human-induced climate change and land use transformation. Satellite Earth Observing systems provide a unique tool to monitor those changes. While the range of applications and innovative techniques is constantly increasing, this book provides a summary of key case studies where satellite data offer critical information to understand the causes and effects of those environmental changes, minimizing their negative impacts. This book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the field of remote sensing, geographical information, meteorology and environmental sciences. Also scientists and graduate up to post-graduate level students in environmental science will find valuable information in this book.

Precision farming is an agricultural management system using global navigation satellite systems, geographic information systems, remote sensing, and data management systems for optimizing the use of nutrients, water, seed, pesticides and energy in heterogeneous field situations. This book provides extensive information on the state-of-the-art of research on precision crop protection and recent developments in site-specific application technologies for the management of weeds, arthropod pests, pathogens and nematodes. It gives the reader an up-to-date and in-depth review of both basic and applied research developments. The chapters discuss I) biology and epidemiology of pests, II) new sensor technologies, III) applications of multi-scale sensor systems, IV) sensor detection of pests in growing crops, V) spatial and non-spatial data management, VI) impact of pest heterogeneity and VII) precise mechanical and chemical pest control.

This book contains selected papers from participants at the 4th National Cartographic Conference GeoCart'2008, held in Auckland, New Zealand in September 2008. It provides a contribution to the literature related to contemporary Geoinformation and Cartography as part of the Springer - ries "Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography". The series aims to provide publications that highlight the research and professional acti- ties taking place in this exciting discipline area. Books published thus far cover a wide range of topics and their content reflects the diverse nature of interests of contributors in the field. The GeoCart conferences are held every two years and attract attendees from Australasia and globally. They offer a forum for reflecting on past practices, exploring future possibilities and reporting on the findings of - search undertakings. They make valuable contributions to the theory and praxis of Geoinformation and Cartography. The editors of this book, Antoni Moore, from the University of Otago, and Igor Drecki, from the University of Auckland, have provided contri- tions that fall under the categories of representation, egocentric mapping, the exploration of tangible and intangible geographical phenomena by v- ual means and Web mapping. The chapters provide valuable information from contributors that illustrate the exciting developments in the dis- pline. I applaud the efforts of the editors and authors for providing this work as an insight into their fields of activity. I hope that you find this book, from the land of the Long White Cloud, a valuable resource.

This volume presents a state-of-the-art assessment of the Earth's climate system in Siberia and relationships between climate, ecosystems and people in that region. Changes in climatic variables and land cover in Siberia are among the earliest indicators of the Earth's response to climate warming. The volume is a compilation of results from studies on climate, land-cover and land-use changes and their interactions with biogeochemical and water cycles, atmospheric aerosol, and human and wildlife populations in Siberia. Regional changes in Siberia are predicted to affect climate and people on a global scale. NASA, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and several European institutions have supported these studies. The primary supporter of the projects that produced the results compiled in this volume is the NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Program, hence most studies use remote sensing in their research. The chapters in this volume were written by an international team of scientists from the USA, Europe and Russia under the auspices of the Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI). This book will be of interest to those involved in studying recent and ongoing changes in Siberia, be they senior scientists, early career scientists or students.

Analysis, assessment, and data management are core tools required for operation research analysts. The April 2011 conference held at the Helenic Military Academy addressed these issues with efforts to collect valuable recommendations for improving analysts' capabilities to assess and communicate the necessary qualitative data to military leaders. This unique volume is an outgrowth of the April conference and comprises of contributions from the fields of science, mathematics, and the military, bringing Greek research findings to the world. Topics cover a wide variety of mathematical methods used with application to defense and security. Each contribution considers directions and pursuits of scientists that pertain to the military as well as the theoretical background required for methods, algorithms, and techniques used in military applications. The direction of theoretical results in these applications is conveyed and open problems and future areas of focus are highlighted. A foreword will be composed by a member of N.A.T.O. or a ranking member of the armed forces. Topics covered include: applied OR and military applications, signal processing, scattering, scientific computing and applications, combat simulation and statistical modeling, satellite remote sensing, and applied informatics - cryptography and coding. The contents of this volume will be of interest to a diverse audience including military operations research analysts, the military community at large, and practitioners working with mathematical methods and applications to informatics and military science.

The book is a thorough presentation of theoretical and applied aspects of the evaporation and evapotranspiration process supported by data from experimental studies. It is written in a way that the theoretical background of evaporation and evapotranspiration estimation is presented in a simplified manner, comprehensive to most technical readers. The book deals with details of meteorological parameters and monitoring sensors which are needed for estimating evaporation and evapotranspiration. Errors in meteorological parameter measurements are also presented. Estimation errors, strengths, weaknesses and applicability of a wide range of evaporation and evapotranspiration estimation methods are presented along with samples of application to a certain region. Application of newer simpler methods is presented. A new technology, remote sensing application to evaporation and evapotranspiration estimation, is presented. The latest interest in the subject, climate change and evapotranspiration is presented in the last chapter. This book will be beneficial to students, hydrologists, engineers, meteorologists, water managers and others.

This book presents advances in matrix and tensor data processing in the domain of signal, image and information processing. The theoretical mathematical approaches are discusses in the context of potential applications in sensor and cognitive systems engineering. The topics and application include Information Geometry, Differential Geometry of structured Matrix, Positive Definite Matrix, Covariance Matrix, Sensors (Electromagnetic Fields, Acoustic sensors) and Applications in Cognitive systems, in particular Data Mining.

The focus of this volume is comprised of the fundamentals, models, and information technologies (IT) methods and tools for disaster prediction and mitigation. A more detailed list of topics includes mathematical and computational modeling of processes leading to or producing disasters, modeling of disaster effects, IT means for disaster mitigation, including data mining tools, knowledge-based and expert systems for use in disaster circumstances, GIS-based systems for disaster prevention and mitigation and equipment for disaster-prone areas. A specific type or class of disasters (natural or human-made), however will not be part of the main focus of this work. Instead, this book was conceived to offer a comprehensive, integrative view on disasters, seeking to determine what various disasters have in common. Because disaster resilience and mitigation involve humans, societies and cultures, not only technologies and economic models, special attention was paid in this volume to gain a comprehensive view on these issues, as a foundation of the IT tool design.

Remote Sensing from a New Perspective The idea for this book began many years ago, when I was asked to teach a course on remote sensing. Not long before that time, I had been part of the effort to develop the first database for planetary data with a common digital array format and interactive processing capabilities to correlate those data easily: the lunar consortium. All the available lunar remote sensing data were included, orbital and ground-based, ranging across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. I had used this powerful tool extensively, and, in that spirit, I was determined to create a course which covered the entire spectrum and a variety of targets. As I looked around for the equivalent of a textbook, which I was willing to pull together from several sources, I realized that available material was very heavily focused on the visual and near visual spectrum and on the Earth as a target. Even The Surveillant Science, edited by Edward Holz and published in 1973, which broke new ground in having diverse articles on most of the spectrum when it was created, focused entirely on the Earth. My personal favorite, the exceedingly well written book on remote sensing by Floyd Sabins first published in 1978, covered the visual, infrared, and microwave portions of the spectrum beautifully but focused on the Earth as well. Unhindered, I developed what I called 'packets' of material for each part of the spectrum.

It collects the review papers of the 9th International Symposium on Physical Measurements and Signatures in Remote Sensing (ISPMSRS). It systematically summarizes the past achievements and identifies the frontier issues as the research agenda for the near future. It covers all aspects of land remote sensing, from sensor systems, physical modeling, inversion algorithms, to various applications.

Tile-based mapping systems have grown to become the dominant form of mapping system with the rise of Web-based mapping tools. The origin of this book is a desire to collect all our discoveries, techniques, and best practices for creating a til- mapping system into one combined volume. The intent of this text is to provide a comprehensive guide to the theory behind creating a tiled-map system as well as a practical guide to create a concrete implementation. Stennis Space Center, MS John Sample May 2010 Elias Ioup vii Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the Naval Research Laboratory's Base Program, program element number 0602435N, for sponsoring this research. Additionally, the following people provided technical assistance without which this book would not have been possible: Perry Beason, Frank McCreedy, Norm Schoenhardt, Brett Hode, Bruce Lin, Annie Holladay, Juliette Ioup, and Hillary Mesick. ix Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. 1 Background of Web-Based Mapping Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. 2 Properties of tile-based mapping systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1. 3 Book Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 Logical Tile Schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. 2 Global Logical Tile Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2. 3 Blue Marble Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2. 4 Mercator-Based Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2. 5 Variable Start Tile Schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2. 6 Standardized Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3 Tiled Mapping Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3. 1 Tile Calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3. 1. 1 Discrete Map Scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3. 1. 2 Continuous Map Scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 3. 2 Tile Retrieval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3. 2. 1 Local Tile Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This ground-breaking work is the first to cover the fundamentals of hydrogeophysics from both the hydrogeological and geophysical perspectives. Authored by leading experts and expert groups, the book starts out by explaining the fundamentals of hydrological characterization, with focus on hydrological data acquisition and measurement analysis as well as geostatistical approaches. The fundamentals of geophysical characterization are then at length, including the geophysical techniques that are often used for hydrogeological characterization. Unlike other books, the geophysical methods and petrophysical discussions presented here emphasize the theory, assumptions, approaches, and interpretations that are particularly important for hydrogeological applications. A series of hydrogeophysical case studies illustrate hydrogeophysical approaches for mapping hydrological units, estimation of hydrogeological parameters, and monitoring of hydrogeological processes. Finally, the book concludes with hydrogeophysical frontiers, i.e. on emerging technologies and stochastic hydrogeophysical inversion approaches.

This SpringerBrief provides a general overview of the role of satellite applications for disaster mitigation, warning, planning, recovery and response. It covers both the overall role and perspective of the emergency management community as well as the various space applications that support their work. Key insights are provided as to how satellite telecommunications, remote sensing, navigation systems, GIS, and the emerging domain of social media are utilized in the context of emergency management needs and requirements. These systems are now critical in addressing major man-made and natural disasters. International policy and treaties are covered along with various case studies from around the world. These case studies indicate vital lessons that have been learned about how to use space systems more effectively in addressing the so-called "Disaster Cycle." This book is appropriate for practicing emergency managers, Emergency Management (EM) courses, as well as for those involved in various space applications and developing new satellite technologies.

This SpringerBrief discusses the characteristics of spatiotemporal movement data, including uncertainty and scale. It investigates three core aspects of Computational Movement Analysis: Conceptual modeling of movement and movement spaces, spatiotemporal analysis methods aiming at a better understanding of movement processes (with a focus on data mining for movement patterns), and using decentralized spatial computing methods in movement analysis. The author presents Computational Movement Analysis as an interdisciplinary umbrella for analyzing movement processes with methods from a range of fields including GIScience, spatiotemporal databases and data mining. Key challenges in Computational Movement Analysis include bridging the semantic gap, privacy issues when movement data involves people, incorporating big and open data, and opportunities for decentralized movement analysis arising from the internet of things. The interdisciplinary concepts of Computational Movement Analysis make this an important book for professionals and students in computer science, geographic information science and its application areas, especially movement ecology and transportation research.

Digital airborne cameras are now penetrating the fields of photogrammetry and remote sensing. Due to the last decade's results in research and development in the fields of for instance detector technology, computing power, memory capacity position and orientation measurement it is now possible to generate with this new generation of airborne cameras different sets of geometric and spectral data with high geometric and radiometric resolutions within a single flight. This is a decisive advantage as compared to film based airborne cameras. The linear characteristic of the opto-electronic converters is the basis for the transition from an imaging camera to an images generating measuring instrument. Because of the direct digital processing chain from the airborne camera to the data products there is no need for the processes of chemical film development and digitising the film information. Failure sources as well as investments and staff costs are avoided. But the effective use of this new technology requires the knowledge of the features of the image and information generation, its possibilities and its restrictions. This book describes all components of a digital airborne camera from the object to be imaged to the mass memory device. So the image quality influencing processes in nature are described, as for instance the reflection of the electromagnetic sun spectrum at the objects to be imaged and the influence of the atmosphere. Also, the essential features of the new digital sensor system, their characteristics and parameters, are addressed and put into the system context. The complexity of the cooperation of all camera components, as for instance optics, filters, detector elements, analogue and digital electronics, software and so forth, becomes transparent. The book includes also the description of example systems.

This title analyzes distributed Earth observation missions from different perspectives. In particular, the issues arising when the payloads are distributed on different satellites are considered from both the theoretical and practical points of view. Moreover, the problems of designing, measuring, and controlling relative trajectories are thoroughly presented in relation to theory and applicable technologies. Then, the technological challenges to design satellites able to support such missions are tackled. An ample and detailed description of missions and studies complements the book subject.

Forest fIres are considered a major environmental problem in many European Union Member States as well as in other parts of the world. According to a recent report of the European Commission, forest fues are a dominant feature of the landscapes of the fIve Southern European Member States - Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece, and almost a half of the Community's forests have been classed as fue-risk areas. Protection from forest fues is an interdisciplinary endeavour, which needs to be addressed from both the technological and methodological point of view, and which necessitates a wide spectrum of various scientifIc disciplines. It also implies the solution of numerous practical problems (both of a generic nature and of a specifIc one) and the consideration of the characteristics of the specifIc areas in which fue fIghting is carried out. ScientifIc research is offering a major contribution to forest fIre fIghting. The European Commission (DG XII, Directorate General for Science, Research and Development) has supported since the 1980s a number of multinational research projects through its successive RTD programmes in the fIeld of the Environment.

This publication is the first book on the development and application of digital terrain modeling for regional planning and policy support. It is a compilation of research results by international research groups at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, providing scientific support to the development and implementation of EU environmental policy. This practice-oriented book is recommended reading for practising environmental modelers and GIS experts working on regional planning and policy support applications.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Geographic Information Science, GIScience 2014, held in Vienna, Austria in September 2014. The 23 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections such as information visualization, spatial analysis, user-generated content, semantic models, wayfinding and navigation, spatial algorithms, and spatial relations.

This book examines current trends and developments in the methods and applications of geospatial analysis and highlights future development prospects. It provides a comprehensive discussion of remote sensing- and geographical information system (GIS)-based data processing techniques, current practices, theories, models, and applications of geospatial analysis. Data acquisition and processing techniques such as remote sensing image selections, classifications, accuracy assessments, models of GIS data, and spatial modeling processes are the focus of the first part of the book. In the second part, theories and methods related to fuzzy sets, spatial weights and prominence, geographically weighted regression, weight of evidence, Markov-cellular automata, artificial neural network, agent-based simulation, multi-criteria evaluation, analytic hierarchy process, and a GIS network model are included. Part three presents selected best practices in geospatial analysis. The chapters, all by expert authors, are arranged so that readers who are new to the field will gain an overview and important insights. Those readers who are already practitioners will gain from the advanced and updated materials and state-of-the-art developments in geospatial analysis.

The key novelty of this book is first of all in the successful attempt to conduct jointly modeling of environment in terms of physical environment related parameters and measuring similar parameters by means of multispectral remote sensing, primarily by means of passive microwave remote sensing technology. Another new step is in the development and utilization of a multilevel approach which includes remote sensing of the land and water parameters like soil moisture, depth to water table, biomass of vegetation, temperature and salinity of water, in situ measurements of similar parameters and incorporation of GIS and data sets into the models of typical environments. The part of book, which contains remote sensing is focused on multipurpose observations from aircraft obtained in many soil-climatic zones in different countries and is reach of the examples of practical application. Applied mathematicians, geophysics, hydrologists, socio-economists, statesmans and other researchers of environmental changes will find a wealth of information and ideas in this book.

This book provides a cross-section of cutting-edge research areas being pursued by researchers in spatial data handling and geographic information science (GIS). It presents selected papers on the advancement of spatial data handling and GIS in digital cartography, geospatial data integration, geospatial database and data infrastructures, geospatial data modeling, GIS for sustainable development, the interoperability of heterogeneous spatial data systems, location-based services, spatial knowledge discovery and data mining, spatial decision support systems, spatial data structures and algorithms, spatial statistics, spatial data quality and uncertainty, the visualization of spatial data, and web and wireless applications in GIS.

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).

Computing increasingly happens somewhere, with that geographic location important to the computational process itself. Many new and evolving spatial technologies, such as geosensor networks and smartphones, embody this trend. Conventional approaches to spatial computing are centralized, and do not account for the inherently decentralized nature of "computing somewhere": the limited, local knowledge of individual system components, and the interaction between those components at different locations. On the other hand, despite being an established topic in distributed systems, decentralized computing is not concerned with geographical constraints to the generation and movement of information. In this context, of (centralized) spatial computing and decentralized (non-spatial) computing, the key question becomes: "What makes decentralized spatial computing special?" In Part I of the book the author covers the foundational concepts, structures, and design techniques for decentralized computing with spatial and spatiotemporal information. In Part II he applies those concepts and techniques to the development of algorithms for decentralized spatial computing, stepping through a suite of increasingly sophisticated algorithms: from algorithms with minimal spatial information about their neighborhoods; to algorithms with access to more detailed spatial information, such as direction, distance, or coordinate location; to truly spatiotemporal algorithms that monitor environments that are dynamic, even using networks that are mobile or volatile. Finally, in Part III the author shows how decentralized spatial and spatiotemporal algorithms designed using the techniques explored in Part II can be simulated and tested. In particular, he investigates empirically the important properties of a decentralized spatial algorithm: its computational efficiency and its robustness to unavoidable uncertainty. Part III concludes with a survey of the opportunities for connecting decentralized spatial computing to ongoing research and emerging hot topics in related fields, such as biologically inspired computing, geovisualization, and stream computing. The book is written for students and researchers of computer science and geographic information science. Throughout the book the author's style is characterized by a focus on the broader message, explaining the process of decentralized spatial algorithm design rather than the technical details. Each chapter ends with review questions designed to test the reader's understanding of the material and to point to further work or research. The book includes short appendices on discrete mathematics and SQL. Simulation models written in NetLogo and associated source code for all the algorithms presented in the book can be found on the author's accompanying website.

This series of reference books describes the sciences of different fields in and around geodesy. Each chapter, is written by experts in the respective fields and covers an individual field and describes the history, theory, the objective, the technology, and the development, the highlight of the research, the applications, the problems, as well as future directions. Contents of Volume II include: Geodetic LEO Satellite Missions, Satellite Altimetry, Airborne Lidar, GNSS Software Receiver, Geodetic Boundary Problem, GPS and INS, VLBI, Geodetic Reference Systems, Spectral Analysis, Earth Tide and Ocean Loading Tide, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Occultation, Geopotential Determination, Geoid Determination, Local Gravity Field, Geopotential Determination, Magnet Field, Mobile Mapping, General Relativity, Wide-area Precise Positioning etc.