Digital Soil Mapping is the creation and the population of a geographically referenced soil database. It is generated at a given resolution by using field and laboratory observation methods coupled with environmental data through quantitative relationships. Digital soil mapping is advancing on different fronts at different rates all across the world. This book presents the state-of-the art and explores strategies for bridging research, production, and environmental application of digital soil mapping.It includes examples from North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The chapters address the following topics: - evaluating and using legacy soil data - exploring new environmental covariates and sampling schemes - using integrated sensors to infer soil properties or status - innovative inference systems predicting soil classes, properties, and estimating their uncertainties - using digital soil mapping and techniques for soil assessment and environmental application - protocol and capacity building for making digital soil mapping operational around the globe. "

The ability to extract generic 3D objects from images is a crucial step towards automation of a variety of problems in cartographic database compilation, industrial inspection and assembly, and autonomous navigation. Many of these problem domains do not have strong constraints on object shape or scene content, presenting serious obstacles for the development of robust object detection and delineation techniques. Geometric Constraints for Object Detection and Delineation addresses these problems with a suite of novel methods and techniques for detecting and delineating generic objects in images of complex scenes, and applies them to the specific task of building detection and delineation from monocular aerial imagery. PIVOT, the fully automated system implementing these techniques, is quantitatively evaluated on 83 images covering 18 test scenes, and compared to three existing systems for building extraction. The results highlight the performance improvements possible with rigorous photogrammetric camera modeling, primitive-based object representations, and geometric constraints derived from their combination. PIVOT's performance illustrates the implications of a clearly articulated set of philosophical principles, taking a significant step towards automatic detection and delineation of 3D objects in real-world environments. Geometric Constraints for Object Detection and Delineation is suitable as a textbook or as a secondary text for a graduate-level course, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.

Water is vital to life, maintenance of ecological balance, economic development, and sustenance of civilization. Planning and management of water resources and its optimal use are a matter of urgency for most countries of the world, and even more so for India with a huge population. Growing population and expanding economic activities exert increasing demands on water for varied needs--domestic, industrial, agricultural, power generation, navigation, recreation, etc. In India, agriculture is the highest user of water. The past three decades have witnessed numerous advances as well as have presented intriguing challenges and exciting opportunities in hydrology and water resources. Compounding them has been the growing environmental consciousness. Nowhere are these challenges more apparent than in India. As we approach the twenty first century, it is entirely fitting to take stock of what has been accomplished and what remains to be accomplished, and what accomplishments are relevant, with particular reference to Indian conditions."

Water is vital to life, maintenance of ecological balance, economic development, and sustenance of civilization. Planning and management of water resources and its optimal use are a matter of urgency for most countries of the world, and even more so for India with a huge population. Growing population and expanding economic activities exert increasing demands on water for varied needs--domestic, industrial, agricultural, power generation, navigation, recreation, etc. In India, agriculture is the highest user of water. The past three decades have witnessed numerous advances as well as have presented intriguing challenges and exciting opportunities in hydrology and water resources. Compounding them has been the growing environmental consciousness. Nowhere are these challenges more apparent than in India. As we approach the twenty first century, it is entirely fitting to take stock of what has been accomplished and what remains to be accomplished, and what accomplishments are relevant, with particular reference to Indian conditions."

Climate change has been addressed since last decade based on the influence of human activities like production of industrial effluents, land use changes and other activities due to development of the society. These are very important issues no doubt but the activities due to the influence of extraterrestrial phenomena have not been given its due importance. An attempt is being made here to understand the influence of extraterrestrial activities as one of the important factors of climate change has been attempted here. The influence of Sun and distant stars on the environment of the earth has been studied during the cyclic changes in the Sun as well as episodic changes in the environment due to the effect of other celestial objects in between Sun-Earth environment. The study has been carried out based on the changes within the Sun as well as changes during the solar eclipse. During these extra terrestrial changes it has been observed that the earth changes in its atmosphere as well as geosphere, which may have local effect but the increase of these local effect in large scale may contribute to the climate change. Solar radiation drives atmospheric circulation. Since solar radiation represents almost all the energy available to the Earth, accounting for solar radiation and how it interacts with the atmosphere and the Earth's surface is fundamental to understanding the Earth's energy budget.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Geographic Information Science, GIScience 2012, held in Columbus, OH, USA in September 2012. The 26 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 57 submissions. While the traditional research topics are well reflected in the papers, emerging topics that involve new research hot-spots such as cyber infrastructure, big data, web-based computing also occupy a significant portion of the volume.

The Siberian environment is a unique region of the world that is both very strongly affected by global climate change and at the same time particularly vulnerable to its consequences. The news about the melting of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and the prospect of an ice-free shipping passage from Scandinavia to Alaska along the Russian north coast has sparked an international debate about natural resource exploitation, national boundaries and the impacts of the rapid changes on people, animals and plants. Over the last decades Siberia has also witnessed severe forest fires to an extent that is hard to imagine in other parts of the world where the po- lation density is higher, the fire-prone ecosystems cover much smaller areas and the systems of fire control are better resourced. The acceleration of the fire regime poses the question of the future of the boreal forest in the taiga region. Vegetation models have already predicted a shift of vegetation zones to the north under s- narios of global climate change. The implications of a large-scale expansion of the grassland steppe ecosystems in the south of Siberia and a retreat of the taiga forest into the tundra systems that expand towards the Arctic Ocean would be very signi- cant for the local population and the economy. I have studied Russian forests from remote sensing and modelling for about 11 years now and still find it a fascinating subject to investigate.

This book is the latest volume in the series entitled " Data and Knowledge in a Changing World ", published by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) of the International Council of Scientific Unions (Icsu). This series was established to collect together, from many diverse fields, the wealth of information pertaining t.o the intelligent exploitation of data in the conduct of science and technology. This volume is the first in a two-volume series that will discuss techniques for the analysis of natural dynamic systems, and their applications to a variety of geophysical problems. The present volume lays out the theoretical foun dations for these techniques. The second volume will use these techniques in applications to fields such as seismology, geodynamics, geoelectricity, ge omagnetism, aeromagnetics, topography and bathymetry. The book consists of two parts, which describe two complementary ap proaches to the analysis of natural systems. The first, written by A. Gvishi ani, deals with dynamic pattern recognition. It lays out the mathematical VI Foreword theory and the formalized algorithms that. forms the basis for the classifi cation of vector objects and the use of this classification in the study of dynamical systems, with particular emphasis on the prediction of system behavior in space and time. It discusses the construction of classification schemes, and the evaluation of their stability and reliability.

Geometric properties and relations play central roles in the description and processing of spatial data. The properties and relations studied by mathematicians usually have precise definitions, but verbal descriptions often involve imprecisely defined concepts such as elongatedness or proximity. The methods used in soft computing provide a framework for formulating and manipulating such concepts. This volume contains eight papers on the soft definition and manipulation of spatial relations and gives a comprehensive summary on the subject.

This book reports on developments in Proximal Soil Sensing (PSS) and high resolution digital soil mapping. PSS has become a multidisciplinary area of study that aims to develop field-based techniques for collecting information on the soil from close by, or within, the soil. Amongst others, PSS involves the use of optical, geophysical, electrochemical, mathematical and statistical methods. This volume, suitable for undergraduate course material and postgraduate research, brings together ideas and examples from those developing and using proximal sensors and high resolution digital soil maps for applications such as precision agriculture, soil contamination, archaeology, peri-urban design and high land-value applications, where there is a particular need for high spatial resolution information. The book in particular covers soil sensor sampling, proximal soil sensor development and use, sensor calibrations, prediction methods for large data sets, applications of proximal soil sensing, and high-resolution digital soil mapping. Key themes: soil sensor sampling - soil sensor calibrations - spatial prediction methods - reflectance spectroscopy - electromagnetic induction and electrical resistivity - radar and gamma radiometrics - multi-sensor platforms - high resolution digital soil mapping - applications Raphael A. Viscarra Rossel is a scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) of Australia. Alex McBratney is Pro-Dean and Professor of Soil Science in the Faculty of Agriculture Food & Natural Resources at the University of Sydney in Australia. Budiman Minasny is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Agriculture Food & Natural Resources at the University of Sydney in Australia.

This bookisan outgrowthoften yearsof researchatthe Universityof Florida Computational NeuroEngineering Laboratory (CNEL) in the general area of statistical signal processing and machine learning. One of the goals of writing the book is exactly to bridge the two ?elds that share so many common problems and techniques but are not yet e?ectively collaborating. Unlikeotherbooks thatcoverthe state ofthe artinagiven?eld, this book cuts across engineering (signal processing) and statistics (machine learning) withacommontheme: learningseenfromthepointofviewofinformationt- orywithanemphasisonRenyi'sde?nitionofinformation.Thebasicapproach is to utilize the information theory descriptors of entropy and divergence as nonparametric cost functions for the design of adaptive systems in unsup- vised or supervised training modes. Hence the title: Information-Theoretic Learning (ITL). In the course of these studies, we discovered that the main idea enabling a synergistic view as well as algorithmic implementations, does not involve the conventional central moments of the data (mean and covariance). Rather, the core concept is the ?-norm of the PDF, in part- ular its expected value (? = 2), which we call the information potential. This operator and related nonparametric estimators link information theory, optimization of adaptive systems, and reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces in a simple and unconventional way.

This book documents research conducted on the analysis of urban growth and sprawl by using remote sensing data and GIS techniques. The research was conducted between 1980-2010 in the city of Kolkata, India. The aim of the research was to use metrics that were less demanding in terms of data and computation than normal metrics. However, it has been found that most of them were inferior in capturing insights of urban sprawl. For this book, some of these metrics have therefore been modified and new ones are proposed. The research focuses on problems associated with the analysis of urban growth by using remote sensing data from a technological perspective.

Fully updated and containing significant new material on photography, laser profiling and image processing, the third edition of this popular textbook covers a broad range of remote sensing applications and techniques across the Earth, environmental and planetary sciences. It focuses on physical principles, giving students a deeper understanding of remote sensing systems and their possibilities, while remaining accessible to those with less mathematical training by providing a step-by-step approach to quantitative topics. Boxed examples, additional photos and numerous colour images engage students and show them how the theory relates to the many real-world applications. Chapter summaries, review questions and additional problems allow students to check their understanding of key concepts and practise handling real data for themselves. Supplementary online material includes links to freely available software, animations, computer programs, colour images and other web-based resources of interest.

This book is intended to provide a text on statistical methods for detecting clus ters and/or clustering of health events that is of interest to ?nal year undergraduate and graduate level statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology, and geography students but will also be of relevance to public health practitioners, statisticians, biostatisticians, epidemiologists, medical geographers, human geographers, environmental scien tists, and ecologists. Prerequisites are introductory biostatistics and epidemiology courses. With increasing public health concerns about environmental risks, the need for sophisticated methods for analyzing spatial health events is immediate. Further more, the research area of statistical tests for disease clustering now attracts a wide audience due to the perceived need to implement wide ranging monitoring systems to detect possible health related bioterrorism activity. With this background and the development of the geographical information system (GIS), the analysis of disease clustering of health events has seen considerable development over the last decade. Therefore, several excellent books on spatial epidemiology and statistics have re cently been published. However, it seems to me that there is no other book solely focusing on statistical methods for disease clustering. I hope that readers will ?nd this book useful and interesting as an introduction to the subject.

This book is devoted to some of the problems encountered in the theory of sophisticated signals used in radar. The term sophisticated signal is under stood to mean a signal for which the product of the signal duration by the spectrum width substantially exceeds unity. Although it is impossible to draw an exact borderline between simple and sophisticated signals, the term "sophisticated signal" is sufficient to define one of the principal characteristics of modern radar. Recently, various sophisticated signals (frequency-modulated pulses, coded groups, phase-modulated signals, etc.) have found use in radar. This makes it possible to improve the resolution, to ensure simultaneous measurements of the range and range rate of a target, to elecrically scan over finite angular dimensions, etc. Although the realization of such potentialities is associated with substantial difficulties, one can say with certainty that "classical" radar technology, which uses simple signals at constant frequency and duty cycle, yields to more complex methods based on the use of wide-band signals of the sophisticated structure. The properties of radar signals, which characterize the measurement of a target's range and range rate, are described by the Woodward ambiguity function. The role of this function is similar to that of the antenna pattern, i.e., the ambiguity function defines the accuracy and resolution of the range and range rate measurements to the same extent as the antenna pattern de fines the accuracy and resolution of the azimuth and elevation measurements."

For the fourth consecutive year, the Association of Geographic Infor- tion Laboratories for Europe (AGILE) promoted the edition of a book with the collection of the scientific papers that were submitted as full-papers to the AGILE annual international conference. Those papers went through a th competitive review process. The 13 AGILE conference call for fu- papers of original and unpublished fundamental scientific research resulted in 54 submissions, of which 21 were accepted for publication in this - lume (acceptance rate of 39%). Published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Car- th graphy, this book is associated to the 13 AGILE Conference on G- graphic Information Science, held in 2010 in Guimaraes, Portugal, under the title "Geospatial Thinking." The efficient use of geospatial information and related technologies assumes the knowledge of concepts that are fundamental components of Geospatial Thinking, which is built on reasoning processes, spatial conc- tualizations, and representation methods. Geospatial Thinking is associated with a set of cognitive skills consisting of several forms of knowledge and cognitive operators used to transform, combine or, in any other way, act on that same knowledge. The scientific papers published in this volume cover an important set of topics within Geoinformation Science, including: Representation and Visualisation of Geographic Phenomena; Spatiotemporal Data Analysis; Geo-Collaboration, Participation, and Decision Support; Semantics of Geoinformation and Knowledge Discovery; Spatiotemporal Modelling and Reasoning; and Web Services, Geospatial Systems and Real-time Appli- tions."

One of the key milestones of radar remote sensing for civil applications was the launch of the European Remote Sensing Satellite 1 (ERS 1) in 1991. The platform carried a variety of sensors; the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is widely cons- ered to be the most important. This active sensing technique provides all-day and all-weather mapping capability of considerably ?ne spatial resolution. ERS 1 and its sister system ERS 2 (launch 1995) were primarily designed for ocean app- cations, but soon the focus of attention turned to onshore mapping. Examples for typical applications are land cover classi?cation also in tropical zones and mo- toring of glaciers or urban growth. In parallel, international Space Shuttle Missions dedicated to radar remote sensing were conducted starting already in the 1980s. The most prominent were the SIR-C/X-SAR mission focussing on the investigation of multi-frequency and multi-polarization SAR data and the famous Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Data acquired during the latter enabled to derive a DEM of almost global coverage by means of SAR Interferometry. It is indispe- ableeventodayandformanyregionsthebestelevationmodelavailable. Differential SAR Interferometry based on time series of imagery of the ERS satellites and their successor Envisat became an important and unique technique for surface defor- tion monitoring. The spatial resolution of those devices is in the order of some tens of meters.

Cartography and geographic information (GI) are remarkably appropriate for the requirements of early warning (EW) and crisis management (CM). The use of geospatial technology has increased tremendously in the last years. ICT has changed from just using maps created in advance, to new approaches, allowing individuals (decision-makers) to use cartography interactively, on the basis of individual user's requirements. The new generation of cartographic visualizations based on standardisation, formal modelling, use of sensors, semantics and ontology, allows for the better adaptation of information to the needs of the users. In order to design a new framework in pre-disaster and disaster management safety/security/privacy aspects of institutions and citizens need to be considered. All this can only be achieved by demonstrating new research achievements, sharing best practices (e.g. in the health area) and working towards the wider acceptance of geospatial technology in society, with the help of education and media.

This book will outline research frontiers and applications of cartography and GI in EW and CM and document their roles and potentials in wider processes going on in information/knowledge-based societies.

Over the past 20 years the costs of natural disasters have escalated significantly. The lives of over 800 million people have been disrupted and the number of catastrophes has nearly quadrupled. At present, the increasing global threat of natural disasters, in spite of our increased knowledge, is ominous. With the growth in world population, the increasing of resources in newly developing areas, and the increasing cost and sophistication of engineering structures and technical installations, there is an urgent need to seek to understand the potential threats posed by natural hazards and to ascertain the best ways of mitigating their damaging effects. To meet this urgent threat, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in December 22, 1989 passed a Resolution which declared the 1990s to be the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). As a contribution to the decade, the International Symposium Hazards--91 was held in Perugia, Italy, during 4--9 August 1991. The conference was attended by specialists from 34 countries, and a total of 110 papers were presented at 20 sessions, covering a very broad range of topics which proved to be of significant value for future research. The sixteen articles included in this book provide a unique overview of the state-of-the-science in geophysical hazards including climatic, atmospheric, hydrological and geological hazards. Furthermore, the results of a panel on the IDNDR and the recommendations adopted during the meeting are presented at the end of this volume. Recent Studies in Geophysical Hazards is thus an excellent reference source for scientists, engineers, and policy makers.

This book examines how Geographic Information Technologies (GIT) are being implemented to improve our understanding of a variety of hazard and disaster situations. The volume is a compilation of recent research using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing (RS) and other technologies such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to examine urban hazard and disaster issues. The goal is to improve and advance the use of such technologies during four classic phases of hazard and disaster research: response, recovery, preparation and mitigation. The focus is on urban areas, broadly defined in order to encompass rapidly growing and densely populated areas.

The material presented is multidisciplinary, with contributions from scholars in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America, and is presented in five key sections:

• sea level rise and flood analysis
• earthquakes and tsunamis and international applications
• hurricane response/recovery
• metropolitan case studies
• evacuation studies

This volume contributes to our understanding of extreme events in urban environments with the use of GIT and expanding its role at the local, regional, state and federal levels. The book is a valuable reference for academic researchers and professionals and practitioners working in hazard management and mitigation.

Landforms constitute boundary surfaces between different components of the earth system (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, pedosphere, lithosphere). At these locations most of the human activity on earth takes place. This central position evokes a bi-directional interaction with the other spheres of the earth system. S- tial landform structures strongly affect processes of other earth system components. At the same time, the land-surface is shaped by the in uence of these processes impacting geomorphologic processes and landform morphometry. These interactions are the focus in the Research Training Group 437 "Landform - a structured and variable boundary layer" at the University of Bonn in Germany. Funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) the Research Training Group is a multidisciplinary research programme for postgraduate studies. Disciplines involved in this programme include: biology, c- matology, computer sciences, geodynamics, geology, geomorphology, geophysics, hydrology, mathematics, meteorology, pedology, and remote sensing. These diff- ent disciplines offer various scienti c approaches, theories, methods and data for the study of landforms within their speci c paradigms. Over a period of ten years (1998-2008) more than 25 PhD projects have been completed. Dedicated to ongoing and completed research activities of the Research Training Group an international symposium titled "Landform - structure, evolution, process control" was held at the Department of Geography, University of Bonn, in 2007.

In 2005 the CoastGIS symposium and exhibition was once again held in Aberdeen, Scotland, in the UK, the second time that we have had the privilege host this international event in the city of Aberdeen. This was the 6th International S- posium Computer Mapping and GIS for Coastal Zone Management, a collabo- tion between the International Cartographic Association's (ICA) Commission on Marine Cartography, and the International Geographical Union's (IGU) Comm- sion on Coastal Systems. The theme for 2005 was: De ning and Building a Marine and Coastal Spatial Data Infrastructure. As a major coastal event, the CoastGIS series of conferences always attracts an international audience of coastal researchers, managers, and pr- titioners who use one or more of the geospatial technologies (e. g. GIS, GPS, digital mapping, remote sensing, databases, and the Internet) in their work. The CoastGIS series is fundamentally an international event which over the years has gained a strong following attracting delegates from around the globe. Hosted by the University of Aberdeen - at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre (AECC) - once again CoastGIS 2005 provided an opportunity to communicate the results of a wide range of innovative scienti c research into coastal and marine applications of the geospatial technologies, including remote sensing, Geograp- cal Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), databases, data models, the Internet and online mapping systems.

Realistically representing our three-dimensional world has been the subject of many (philosophical) discussions since ancient times. While the recognition of the globular shape of the Earth goes back to Pythagoras' statements of the sixth century B. C. , the two-dimensional, circular depiction of the Earth's surface has remained prevailing and also dominated the art of painting until the late Middle Ages. Given the immature technological means, objects on the Earth's surface were often represented in academic and technical disciplines by two-dimensional cross-sections oriented along combinations of three mutually perpendicular directions. As soon as computer science evolved, scientists have steadily been improving the three-dimensional representation of the Earth and developed techniques to analyze the many natural processes and phenomena taking part on its surface. Both computer aided design (CAD) and geographical information systems (GIS) have been developed in parallel during the last three decades. While the former concentrates more on the detailed design of geometric models of object shapes, the latter emphasizes the topological relationships between geographical objects and analysis of spatial patterns. Nonetheless, this distinction has become increasingly blurred and both approaches have been integrated into commercial software packages. In recent years, an active line of inquiry has emerged along the junctures of CAD and GIS, viz. 3D geoinformation science. Studies along this line have recently made significant inroads in terms of 3D modeling and data acquisition.

Remote sensing of our environment is becoming increasingly accessible and important in today s society. This book aims to highlight some of the broad and multi-disciplinary applications, and emerging practices, that remote sensing and photogrammetric technologies lend themselves to. The papers have been selected from the 13th and 14th Australasian Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Conferences given by experts in remote sensing, spatial analysis and photogrammetry from across the Asia Pacific region. They are presented here as a collection of peer reviewed papers covering research into areas such as data fusion techniques and their applications in environmental monitoring, synoptic monitoring and data processing, terrestrial and marine applications of remote sensing, and photogrammetry.

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