Enter records

ID: 61106
Title: Biodiversity, Ecology,Energy, Landscape Dynaimcs &Hydrology of Agastya Foundation Campus, Kuppam.
Author: Ramachanchandra T.V., Harish Bhat, Bharath H.Aithal, Rao G.R., Sudarshan Bhat, Vinay S., Ganesh Hegde, Gouri Kulkarni, Vishnu D.Mukri
Editor: Dr. T.V.Ramachandra
Year: 2015
Publisher: CES, EWRG
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: Biodiversity, Ecology, Energy, Landscape Dynamics &Hydrology of Agastya Foundation Campus,Kuppam Page 1-176
Subject: Biodiversity, Ecology,Energy,Landscape Dynamics & Hydrology of Agastya Foundation Campus,Kuppam
Keywords: Biodiversity, Ecology,Energy,Landscape Dynamics & Hydrology ,Agastya Foundation Campus, Kuppam.
Abstract: Agastya International Foundation i a non-profit educational trust that seeks to transform and stimulate the thinking of economically disadvantaged childeren.This has been done by bringing innovative science education to the doorstep of Government schools in various states in India (http:://www.agastya.org)
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: None
Literature cited 2: None

ID: 61105
Title: An improved assimilation method with stress factors incorporated in the WOFOST model for the efficient assessment of heavy metals stress levels in rice.
Author: Ming Jin, Xiangnan Liu, Ling Wu, Meiling Liu.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 118-129 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Heavy metal stress, Assimilation, Remote sensing, Improved WOFOST model, Efficiency assessment.
Abstract: Heavy metal contamination in crops is a worldwide problem that requires accurate and timely monitoring. This study is aimed at improving the accuracy of monitoring heavy metal stress levels in rice utilizing remote sensing data. An assimilation framework based on remote sensing and improved crop growth model was developed to continuously monitor heavy metal stress levels over the entire period of crop growth based on the growth law of crops and the stress mechanism. Compared with other physiological indices, dry weight of rice roots (WRT) was selected as the best indicator to estimate heavy metal stress levels. The World Food Study (WOFOST) model, widely used for the description of crop growth, was improved by incorporating stress factors with overall consideration for the changes in physiological status under heavy metal stress. Three scenarios were put forward based on the stress factors fDTGA and f CVF-*, which respectively; correspond to the daily total gross assimilation of CO2 and carbohydrate-to-dry matter conversion coefficient, and were analyzed for their efficiency of simulating WRT. A method of assimilating the leaf area index (LAI) retrieved from remotely sensed data into the improved WOFOST model was applied to optimize f DTGA and f CVF. The results suggested that the scenario using both factors can simulate WRT under heavy metal stress more accurately, with a relative percent error (RPE) lower than 14 %. Based on the RS-WOFOST assimilation framework, continuous spatial-temporal evaluation of heavy metals stress levels based on WRT can be accomplished.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Azizur Rahman, M., Hasegawa, H., Mahfuzur Rahman, M., Nazrul Islam, M., Majid Miah, M.A., Tasmen, A., 2007. Effect of arsenic on photosynthesis, growth and yield of five widely cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L) varieties in Bangladesh. Chemosphere 67 (6), 1072-1079. Boogaard, H.L., Van Diepen, C.A.V.D., Rotter, R.P., Cabrera, J.M., C.A., Van Laar, H.H. (Eds)., 1998.Winand staring Centre, IDLO Wageningen, pp. 1-40.
Literature cited 2: Chen, Y.S., Wu, F.C., Lv, H.Z., Yao, C.S., 2004. Analysis on the water quality changes in the Xiangjiang River from 1981 to 2000.Resour.Environ.Yangtze Basin 13 (5), 508-512. Chi, G.Y., Liu, X.H., Liu, S.H., Yang, Z.F., 2006.Studies of relationships between Cu pollution and spectral characteristics of TritiZnm aestivium L. Spectrosc.Spect.Anal.26 (7), 1272-1276.

ID: 61104
Title: Spatiotemporal variation in the terrestrial vegetation phenology of Iraq and its relation with elevation.
Author: Sarchil H.Qader, Peter M. Atkinson, Jadunandan Dash.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 107-117 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Phenology, Time-series, Iraq, NDVI, Elevation.
Abstract: Iraq contains the Great Mesopotamian alluvial palin of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Its regional vegetation phonological patterns are worthy of investigation because relatively little is known about the phenology of semi-arid environments, and because of their inter-annual variation is expected to be driven by uncertain rainfall and varied topography. The aim of this research was to assess and map the spatial variation in key land surface phenology (LSP) parameters over the last decade and their relation with elevation. It is the first study mapping land surface phenology during last decade over the whole of Iraq, and one of only a few studies on vegetation phenology in a semi-arid environment. Time-series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data at 250 m spatial resolution and 8 day temporal resolution, were employed to map the spatial variation in three LSP parameters for the major vegetation types in Iraq during 2001-2012.LSP parameters were defined by inflection points after smoothing the vegetation phonological signals using the Fourier technique. The estimated key LSP parameters indicated that the relatively shorter length of season (LOS) in the north of Iraq resulted from a delayed start of season (SOS). Greater spatial variation occurred in the SOS than end of season (EOS) ,which may be due to the spatial distribution of rainfall and temperature as a function of elevation. A positive correlation was observed for SOS and EOS with elevation for all major land cover types with EOS producing the largest positive correlation (R2=0.685, R2=0.638 and R2=0.588, p<0.05 in shrubland, cropland and grassland, respectively). The magnitude of delay in SOS and EOS increased in all land cover types along a rising elevation gradient where for each 500 m increase ,SOS was delayed by around 25 or more days and EOS delayed by around 22 or more days, except for grassland. The SOS and EOS also varied temporally during the last decade, particularly the SOS in the lowland, north of the country where the standard deviation was around 80 to 120 days, due mainly to the practice of crop rotation and the traditional biennial cropping system. Thus, the results of this research emphasize the effect of elevation on key LSP parameters over Iraq, for all major vegetation types.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Acharya, P., Punia, M., 2013. Comparison of MODIS derived land use and land cover with Ministry of Agriculture reported statistics for India.J.Appl.Remote Sens., 7. Arroyo, J., 1990. Spatial variation of flowering phenology in the Mediterranean shrublands of southern Spain.Isr.J.Bot.39 (3), 249-262.
Literature cited 2: Aziz, F.H., 2011. Seventeen spp. new records for the Moss flora of Iraq.Phyton-Int.J.Exp.Bot.80, 35-46. Bobee, C., Ottle, C., Maignana, E., de Noblet-Decoudre, N., Maugisa, R., Lezine, A.M., Ndiaye, M., 2012. Analysis of vegetation seasonality in Sahelian environments using MODIS LAI, in association with land cover and rainfall.J.Arid Environ.84, 38-50.

ID: 61103
Title: Spectral indicators of forage quality in West Africa ' s tropical savannas.
Author: J.Ferner, A. Linstadter, K.-H.Sudekum, S.Schmidtlein.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 99-106 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: West Africa, Field spectroscopy, Partial least squares regression, Rangeland, Metabolisable energy, Green biomass.
Abstract: Forage is among the essential ecosystem services provided by tropical savannas. Expected changes in climate and land use may cause a strong decline in herbaceous forage provision and thus make it advisable to monitor its dynamics. Spectroscopy offers promising tools for fast and non-destructive estimations of forage variables, yet suffers from unfavourable measurement conditions during the tropical growing period such as frequent cloud cover and high humidity. This study aims to test whether spatio-temporal information on the quality (metabolisable energy content, ME) and quantity (green biomass, BM) of West African forage resources can be correlated to in situ measured reflectance data. We could establish robust and independent models via partial least squares regression, when spectra were preprocessed using second derivative transformation (ME: max.adjusted R2 in validation (adjR2VAL = 0.75, min.nRMSE=9.4 %). Reflectance data with a reduced spectral range (350-1075nm) still rendered satisfactory accuracy. Our results confirm that a strong correlation between forage characteristics and reflectance of tropical savanna vegetation can be found. For the first time in field spectroscopy studies, forage quality is modeled as ME content based on 24-h in vitro gas production in the Hohenheim gas test system and crude protein concentration of BM. Established spectral models could help to monitor forage provision in space and time, which of great importance for an adaptive livestock management.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Alabayrak, S., Basayigit, L., Turk, M, 2011. Use of canopy-and leaf-reflectance indices for detection of quality variables of Vicia species.Int.J.Remote Sens.32, 1199-1211. Anderson, T.M., Ritchie, M.E, Mayemba, E., Eby, S., Grace, J.B., McNaughton, S.J., 2007. Forage nutritive quality in the Serengeti ecosystem: the roles of fire and herbivory.Am.Nat.170, 343-357.
Literature cited 2: ASD Inc., 2006, FieldSpec ? 3 Spectroradiometer-User ' s Manual, Boulder, CO, P.110. Asner, G.P., Martin, R.E., Knapp, D.E., Tupayachi, R., Anderson, C., Carranza, L., Martinez, P., Houcheime, M., Sinca, F., Weiss, P., 2011.Spectroscopy of canopy chemicals in humid tropical forests. Remote Sens.Environ.115, 3587-3598.

ID: 61102
Title: Geostatistical modeling using LiDAR-derived prior knowledge with SPOT-6 data to estimate temperate forest canopy cover and above-ground biomass via stratified random sampling.
Author: Wang Li, Zheng Niu, Xinlian Liang, Zengyuan Li, Ni Huang, Shuai Gao, Cheng Wang, Shakir Muhammad.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 88-98 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Geostatistical modeling, LiDAR, SPOT-6, Canopy cover, Above-ground biomass.
Abstract: Forest canopy cover (CC) and above-ground biomass (AGB) is important ecological indicators for forest monitoring and geoscience applications. This study aimed to estimate temperate forest CC and AGB by integrating airborne LiDAR data with wall-to wall space-borne SPOT-6 data through geospatial modeling. Our study involved the following approach: (1) reference maps of CC and AGB were derived from wall-to-wall LiDAR data and calibrated by field measurements; (2) twelve discrete LiDAR fights were simulated by assuming that LiDAR data were only available beneath these flights; (3) training/testing samples of CC and AGB were extracted from the reference maps inside and outside the simulated flights using stratified random sampling; (4) The simple linear regression, ordinary kriging and regression kriging model were used to extend the sparsely sampled CC/AGB data to entire study area by incorporating a selection of SPOT-6 variables, including vegetation indices and texture variables. The regression kriging model was superior at estimating and mapping the spatial distribution of CC and AGB, respectively) and root mean squared error (RMSE; 17.361 % and 21.351 t/ha for CC and AGB, respectively). And root mean squared error (RMSE; 17.361 % and 21.351 t/ha for CC and AGB, respectively). The predicted and reference values of both CC and AGB were highly correlated for the entire study are based on the estimation histograms and error maps. Finally, we concluded that the regression kriging model was superior and more effective at estimating LiDAR-derived CC and AGB values using the spatially-reduced samples and the SPOT-6 variables. The presented modeling workflow will greatly facilitate future forest growth monitoring and carbon stock assessments for large areas of temperate forest in northeast China. It also provides guidance on how to take full advantage of future sparsely collected LiDAR data in cases where wall-to-wall LiDAR coverage is not available from the perspective of geostatistics.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Adjorlolo, C., Mutanga, O., 2013.Integrating remote sensing and geostatistics to estimate woody vegetation in an African savanna.J.Spat.Sci.58, 305-322. Andersen, H.E., McGaughey, R.J., Reutebuch, S.E, 2005.Estimating forest canopy fuel parameters using LiDAR data. Remote Sens.Environ.94 (4), 441-449.
Literature cited 2: Ahmed, R., Siqueira, P., Hensley, S., 2013. A study of forest biomass estimates from lidar in the northern temperate forests of New England. Remote Sens.Environ. 130, 121-135. Atkinson, P.M., Webster, R., Curran, P.J., 1992. Cokriging with ground-based radiometry. Remote Sens.Environ.50, 335-345.

ID: 61101
Title: Classification of vegetation in an open landscape using full-waveform airborne laser scanner data.
Author: Cici Alexander, Balazs Deak, Adam Kania, Werner Mucke, Hermann Heilmeier.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 76-87 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: LiDAR, Habitat mapping, Grasslands, Natura 2000, Micro-topography.
Abstract: Airborne laser scanning (ALS) is increasingly being used for the mapping of vegetation, although the focus so far has been on woody vegetation, and ALS data have only rarely been used for the classification of grassland vegetation. In this study, we classified the vegetation of an open alkali landscape, characterezied by two Natura 2000 habitat types: Pannonic salt steppes and salt marshes and pannonic loess steppic grasslands. We generated 18 variables from an ALS dataset collected in the growing (leaf-on) season. Elevation is a key factor determining the patterns of vegetation types in the landscape, and hence 3 additional variables were based on a digital terrain model (DTM) generated from an ALS dataset collected in the dormant (leaf-off) season. We classified the vegetation into 24 classes based on these 21 variables, at a pixel size of 1m. Two groups of variables with and without the DTM-based variables were used in a Random Forest classifier, to estimate the influence of elevation, on the accuracy of the classification. The resulting classes at Level 4, based on associations, were aggregatd at three levels-Levels 3 (11 classes), Level 2 (8 classes) and Level 1 (5 classes)-based on species pool, site conditions and structure, and the accuracies were assessed. The classes were also aggregated based on Natura 2000 habitat types to assess the accuracy of the classification, and its usefulness for the monitoring of habitat quality. The vegetation could be classified into dry grasslands, wetlands, weeds, woody species and man-made features, at level 1 and 2 provide suitable information for nature conservationists and land managers, while Levels 3 and 4 are especially useful for ecologists, geologists and soil scientists as they provide high resolution data on species distribution, vegetation patterns, soil properties and their correlations. Including the DTM-based variables increased the accuracy (k) from 0.73 to 0.79 for Level 1. These findings show that the structural spectral attributes of ALS echoes can be used for the classification of open landscapes, especially those where vegetation is influenced by elevation, such as coastal salt marshes, sand dunes, karst or alluvial areas; in these cases, ALS has a distinct advantage over other remotely sensed data.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Ackermann, F., 1999. Airborne laser scanning-present status and future expectations.ISPRS J.Photogramm.Remote Sens.54, 64-67. Alonzo, M., Bookhagen, B., Roberts, D.A., 2014. Urban trees species mapping using hyperspectral and lidar data fusion. Remote Sens.Environ. 148, 70-83.
Literature cited 2: Barbault, R., 2013. Loss of biodiversity, overview. In: Levin, S.A. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Biodiversity.2nd Ed. Academic Press, Waltham, pp. 656-666. Blair, J.B., Rabine, D.L., Hofton, M.A., 1999. The laser vegetation imaging sensor: a medium-altitude, digitization-only, airborne laser altimeter for mapping vegetation and topography.ISPRSJ.Photogramm.Remote Sens. 54 (2-3), 115-122.

ID: 61100
Title: Detecting the changes in rural communities in Taiwan by applying multiphase segmentation on FORMOSA-2 satellite imagery.
Author: Yishuo Huang
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 56-75 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Change Detection, NDVI, Image Segmentation.
Abstract: Agricultural activities mainly occur in rural areas; recently, ecological conservation and biological diversity are being emphasized in rural communities to promote sustainable development for rural communities, especially for rural communities in Taiwan. Therefore, since 2005, many rural communities in Taiwan have compiled their own development strategies in order to create their own unique characteristics to attract people to visit and stay in rural communities. By implementing these strategies, young people can stay in their own rural communities and the rural communities are rejuvenated. However, some rural communities introduce artificial construction in to the community such that the ecological and biological environments are significantly degraded. The strategies need to be efficiently monitored because up to 67 rural communities have proposed rejuvenation projects. In 2015, up to 440 rural communities were estimated to be involved in rural community rejuvenations. How to monitor the changes occurring in those rural communities participating in rural community rejuvenation such that ecological conservation and ecological diversity can be satisfied is an important issue in rural community management. Remote sensing provides an efficient and rapid method to achieve this issue. Segmentation plays a fundamental role in human perception. In this respect, segmentation can be used as the process of transforming the collection of pixels of an image into a group of regions or objects with meaning. This paper proposed an algorithm based on the multiphase approach to segment the normalized difference vegetation index, NDVI, of the rural communities in to several sub-regions, and to have the NDVI distribution in each sub-region be homogeneous. Those regions whose values of NDVI are close will be merged in to the same class. In doing so, a complex NDVI map can be simplified into two groups: the high and low values of NDVI. The class with low NDVI values corresponds to those regions containing roads, buildings, and other manmade construction works and the class with high values of NDVI indicates that those regions contain vegetation in good health. In order to verify the processed results, the regional boundaries were extracted and laid down on the given images to check whether the extracted boundaries were laid down on buildings, roads, or other artificial constructions. In addition to the proposed approach, another approach called statistical region merging was employed by grouping sets of pixels with homogeneous properties such that those sets are iteratively grown by combining smaller regions or pixels. In doing so, the segmented NDVI map can be generated. By comparing the areas of the merged classes in different years, the changes occurring in the rural communities of Taiwan can be detected. The satellite imagery of FORMOSA-2 with 2-m ground resolution is employed to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. The satellite imagery of two rural communities (Jhumen and Taomi communities) is chosen to evaluate environmental changes between 2005 and 2010. The change maps of 2005-2010 show that a high density of green on a patch of land is increased by 19.62 ha in Jhumen community and conversely a similar patch of land is significantly decreased by 236.59 ha in Taomi community. Furthermore, the change maps created by another image segmentation method is called statistical region merging generate similar processed results to multiphase segmentation.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Berstimas, D., Tsitsiklis, J., 1993. Simulated annealing.Stat.Sci.Vol. (8), 10-15. Bruzzone, L., Prieto, D.F., 2002. An adaptive semiparametric and context-based approach to unsupervised change detection in multitemporal remote-sensing images. IEEE Trans Process.Vol. 11 (4), 452-466.
Literature cited 2: Bruzzone, L., Serpico, S.B., 1997. An iterative technique for the detection of land-cover transitions in multitemporal remote-sensing images. IEEE Trans. Geosci.Remote Sens.vol. 35 (4), 858-867. Chan, T., Vese, L., 2001. Active contour without edge.IEEE Trans.Image Process. Vol.10 (2), 266-277.

ID: 61099
Title: Measures of spatio-temporal accuracy for time series land cover data
Author: Narumasa Tsutsumida, Alexis J.Comber.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 46-55 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Remotely sensed data, Spatio-temporal analysis, Accuracy assessment, Geographically weighted model, Principal component analysis.
Abstract: Remote sensing is a useful tool for monitoring changes in land cover over time. The accuracy of such time-series analyses has hitherto only seen assessed using confusion matrices. The matrix allows global measures of user, producer and overall accuracies to be generated, but lacks consideration of any spatial aspects of accuracy. It is well known that land cover errors are typically spatially auto-correlated and can have a distinct spatial distribution. As yet little work has considered the temporal dimension and investigated the persistence or errors in both geographic and temporal dimensions. Spatio-temporal errors can have a profound impact on both change detection and on environmental monitoring and modeling activities using land cover data. This study investigated methods for describing the spatio-temporal characteristics of classification accuracy. Annual thematic maps were created using a random forest classification of MODIS data over the Jakarta metropolitan areas for the period of 2001-2013.A logistic geographically weighted model was used to estimate annual spatial measures of user, producer and overall accuracies. A principal component analysis was then used to extract summaries of the multi-temporal accuracy. The results showed how the spatial distribution of user and producer accuracy varied over space and time, and overall spatial variance was confirmed by the principal component analysis. The results indicated that areas of homogeneous land cover were mapped with relatively high accuracy and low variability, and areas of mixed land cover with the opposite characteristics. A multi-temporal spatial approach to accuracy is shown to provide more informative measures of accuracy, allowing map producers and users to evaluate time series thematic maps more comprehensively than a standard confusion matrix approach. The needs to identify suitable properties for a temporal kernel are discussed.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Bayarsaikhan, U., Boldgiv, B., Kim, K-R, Park, K.-A, Lee, D., 2009. Change detection and classification of land cover at Hustai National Park in Mongolia.Int.J.Appl. Earth Observ.Geoinf.11 (4), 273-280 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2009.03.004. Breiman, L., 2001. Random forests.Mach.Learn.45 (1), 5-32, http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A.1010933404324.
Literature cited 2: Brunsdon, C., Fotheringham, A.S., Charlton, M.E., 1996. Geographically weightedregression: a method for exploring spatial nonstationarity.Geog.Anal.28 (4), 281-298,http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-4632.1996.tb00936.x. Budiyono, Y., Aerts, J., Brinkman, J., Marfai, M.A., Ward, P., 2014.Flood risk assessment for delta mega-cities: a case study of Jakarta.Nat.Hazards, 389-413, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11069-014-1327-9.

ID: 61098
Title: Detection of dryland degradation using Landsat spectral unmixing remote sensing with syndrome concept in Minqin County, China.
Author: Danfeng Sun.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 34-45 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Linear spectral mixture analysis, Change detection, Syndrome, Dryland system, Western China.
Abstract: This study was to detect dryland degradation coupling linear spectral unmixing model of Landsat images with syndrome concept in temperate drylandsystem, Minqin, China. The phonological contrast and complementation between green vegetation fraction in summer, sandland fraction and saline land fraction in spring, was firstly structured to quantify degradation characteristics by simple correlation analysis with ground data. The spatiotemporal patterns of the three degradation indicators were interpreted with the help ?dust bowl? syndrome, quantitatively deciphered the degradation causal clusters, loops and important consequences in the study area. The results indicate water-using and distribution pattern was changed, agricultural intensity and productivity increased, salinization lessened in oasis, whereas sandification risk heightened. This approach developed in this study, has the potentially broad applicability, for dryland system monitoring and modelling.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Adams, J.B., Sabol, D.E., Kapos, V., Filho, R.A., Roberts, D.A., Smith, M.O.,Gillespie, A.R., 1995.Classification of multispectral images based on fraction of endmembers: application to land-cover change in the Brazilian Amazon. Remote Sens.Environ.52, 137-154. Camacho-De Coca, F., Garcia-haro, F.J., Gilabert, M.A., Melia, J., 2004. Vegetation cover seasonal changes assessment from TM imagery in a semi-arid landscape. Int.J.Remote Sens.25, 3451-3476.
Literature cited 2: Chasek, P., Safriel, U., Shikongo, S., Fuhrman, V.F., 2015.Operationalizing zero net land degradation: the next stage in international efforts to combat desertification? J.Arid Environ.112, 5-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2014.05.020 Dawelbait, M., Morari, F., 2012.Monitoring desertification in a Savannah region in Sudan using Landsat images and spectral mixture analysis.J.Arid Environ.80, 45-55.

ID: 61097
Title: Drought monitoring and analysis in China based on the integrated Surface Drought Index (ISDI)
Author: Jianjun Wu, Lei Zhou, Xinyu Mo, Hongkui Zhou, Jie Zhang, Ruijing Jia.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 22-33 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Drought monitoring, ISDI, Remote sensing, MODIS, Data mining.
Abstract: Timely and accurate monitoring of the onset and evolution of drought in China are important to reduce losses from drought. The integrated Surface Drought Index (ISDI) which originally established in Mideast China shows a large potential for real-time regional drought monitoring. However, ISDI is still at the developmental stage, and the applicability of the index requires further examination especially for China with vast area, climatic conditions, complex topography, and land cover. Furthermore, ISDI model depends on the historical training data corresponding to the study area. ISDI application in China must be remodeled using the historical training data corresponding to the study area. In this paper, we remodeled ISDI over China based on previous work and evaluated its capability for near real-time drought monitoring. Using the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) as a dependent variable, ISDI integrates climate-based drought indices, satellite-based Vegetation Index (VI) and land surface temperature (LST) with other biophysical and elevation data to produce a 1-km regional drought condition map at 16-day intervals. Strong relationships were determined between the calculated ISDI results demonstrated a good performance for monitoring droughts in southwestern China from 2009 to 2010, high temperatures and droughts in southern China in 2013, and floods in northeastern China in 2013. The higher spatial resolution and near real-time capability of ISDI can provide important inputs for drought management and mitigation in China.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: AghaKouchak, A., 2015.Amultivariate approaches for persistence-based drought prediction: application to the 2010-2011 East Africa drought.J.Hydrol, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hydrol.2014.09.063. Belayneh, A., Adamowski, J., Khalil, B., Ozga-Zielinski, B., 2014. Long-term SPI drought forecasting in the Awash River Basin in Ethiopia using wavelet neural network and wavelet support vector regression models.J.Hydrol.508, 418-429.
Literature cited 2: Brown, J., Wardlow, B., Tadesse, T., Hayes, M., Reed, B., 2008.The Vegetation Drought Response Index (VegDRI): a new integrated approach for monitoring drought stress in vegetation.GLSci.Remote Sens.45, 16-46. Dogan, S., Berktay, A., Singh, V.P., 2012. Comparison of multi-monthly rainfall-based drought severity indices, with application to semi-arid Konya Closed basin, Turkey.J.Hydrol.470-471, 255-268.

ID: 61096
Title: Impact of the spatial resolution of climatic data and soil physical properties on regional corn yield predictions using the STICS crop model.
Author: Guillaume Jego, Elizabeth Pattey, S. Morteza Mesbah, Jiangui Liu, Isabelle Duchesne.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 11-22 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Earth observation, Rainfed corn, High pedodiversity, Leaf area index, Yield prediction, Abundant rainfall.
Abstract: The assimilation of Earth observation (EO) data into crop models has proven to be an efficient way to improve yield prediction at a regional scale by estimating key unknown crop management practices. However, the efficiency of prediction depends on the uncertainty associated with the data provided to crop models, particularly climatic data and soil physical properties. In this study, the performance of the STICS (Simulateur mul TIdisciplinaire pour les Cultures Standard) crop model for predicting corn yield after assimilation of leaf area index derived from EO data was evaluated under different scenarios. The scenarios were designed to examine the impact of using fine-resolution soil physical properties, as well as the impact of using climatic data from either one or four weather stations across the region of interest. The results indicate that when only one weather station was used, the average annual yield by producer was predicted well (absolute error < 5%), but the spatial variability lacked accuracy (root mean square error=1.3 t ha-1). The model root mean square error for yield prediction was highly correlated with the distance between the weather stations and the fields, for distances smaller than 10 km, and reached 0.5 t ha-1 for a 5-km distance when fine-resolution soil properties were used. When four weather stations were used, no significant improvement in model performance was observed. This was because of a marginal decrease (30 %) in the average distance fields and weather stations (from 10 to 7 km). However, the yield predictions were improved approximately 15 % with fine-resolution soil properties regardless of the number of weather stations used. The impact of the uncertainty associated with the EO-derived soil textures and the impact of alterations in rainfall distribution were also evaluated. A variation of about 10 % in any of the soil physical textures resulted in a change in dry yield of 0.4 t ha-1. Changes in rainfall distribution between two abundant rainfalls during the growing season led to a significant change in yield (0.5 t ha-1 on average). Our results highlight the importance of using fine-resolution gridded daily precipitation data to capture spatial variations of rainfall as well as using fine-resolution soil properties instead of coarse-resolution soil properties from the Canadian soil dataset, especially for regions with high pedodiversity.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Arrouays, D., Grundy, M.G., Hatermink, A.E., Hempel, J.W., Heuvelink, G.B.M., Hong, S.Y., Lagacherie, P.,Lelyk, G., McBratney, A.B., McKenzie, A.J., Mendonca-Santos d, M.L., Minasny, B., Montanarella, L., Odeh, I.O.A., Sanchez, P.A., Thompson, J.A., Zhang, G.-L., 2014.Chapter three-globalsoilmap:toward a fine-resolution global grid of soil properties.Adv.Agron.125, 93-134. Baret, F., Guyot, G., 1991. Potential and limits of vegetation indices for LAI and APAR assessment. Remote Sens.Environ.35, 161-173.
Literature cited 2: Barnes, E.M., Pinter Jr, P.J., Kimball, B.A., Wall, G.W.,LaMorte, R.L., Hunsaker, D.J., Adamsen, F., Leavitt, S., Thompson, T., Mathius, J., 1997.Modification CERES-wheat to accept leaf area index as an input variable. Paper No.973016.Am.Soc.Agric.Eng.St.Joseph, Mi, USA. Brisson, N., Mary, B., Ripoche, D., Jeuffroy, M.H., Ruget, F., Nicoullaud, B., Gate, P., Devienne-Barret, F., Antonioletti, R., Durr, C., Richard, G., Beaudoin, N., Recous, S., Tayot, X., Plenet, D., Cellier, P., Machet, J.-M, Meynard, J.M., Delecolle, R., 1998. STICS: a generic model for the simulation of crops and their water and nitrogen balances: 1. Theory and parameterization applied to wheat and corn. Agronomie 18, 311-346.

ID: 61095
Title: Land use intensity trajectories on Amazonian pastures derived from Landsat time series.
Author: Philippe Rufin, Hannes Muller, Dirk Pflugmacher, Patrick Hostert.
Editor: F.D.van der Meer
Year: 2015
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION. Vol. 41 1-10 (2015).
Subject: APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATION AND GEOINFORMATION.
Keywords: Land use intensity, vegetation dynamics, Phenology, Amazon Pastures, Landsat, Time series.
Abstract: Monitoring changes in land use intensity of grazing systems in the Amazon is an important prerequisite to study the complex political and socio-economic forces driving Amzonian deforestation. Remote sensing offers the potential to map pasture vegetation over large areas, but mapping pasture conditions consistently through time is not a trivial task because of seasonal changes associated with phenology and data gaps from clouds and cloud shadows. In this study, we tested spectral-temporal metrics derived from intra-annual Landsat time series to distinguish between grass-dominated and woody pastures. The abundance of woody vegetation on pastures is an indicator for management intensity trajectories between 1985 and 2012 in Novo Progresso, Brazil, finding that woody vegetation cover generally decreased after four to ten years of grazing activity. Pastures established in the 80s and early 90s showed a higher fraction of woody vegetation during their initial landuse history that pastures established in the early 2000s. Historic intensity trajectories suggested a trend towards more intensive land use in the last decade, which aligns well with regional environmental policies and market dynamics. This study demonstrates the potential of dense Landsat time series to monitor land-use intensification on Amazonian pastures.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Almeida, C.A., Pinheiro, T.F., Barbosa, A.M., Abreu, M.R., Lobo, F.L., Silva, M., Gomes, A.R., Sadeck, L.W., Medeiros, L.T., Neves, M.F., Silva, L.C., Tamasaukas, P.F., 2009. Metodologia para mapeamento de vegetacao secundaria na Amazonia legal.Sao Jose dos Campos.http:/urlib.net/8JMKD3MGP7W/36F3Q92 Alves, D., Soares, J., Amaral, S., Mello, E., Almeida, S., Da Silva, O., Silveira, A., 1997. Biomass of primary and secondary vegetation in Rondonia, Western Brazilian Amazon.Glob.Change Biol.3, 451-461.
Literature cited 2: Alves, D.S., Escada, M.I.S., Pereira, J.L.G., de Albuquerque Linhares, C., 203. Land use intensification and abandonment in Rondonia, Brazilian Amazonia.Int.J.Remote Sens.24 (4), 899-903. Asner, G.P., Elmore, A.J., Olander, L.P., Martin, R.E., Harris, A.T., 2004a.Grazing systems, ecosystem responses, and global change.Annu.Rev.Environ.Resour. 29 (1), 261-299.

ID: 61094
Title: Influence of Nanofluids as the Heat Transfer Fluid in Solar Thermal Energy Storage System.
Author: M.Gajendran and N Nallusamy.
Editor: P K Bhattacharya
Year: 2015
Publisher: Dr. R k Pachauri.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: TIDEE Vol.14 (1) (2015)
Subject: TERI information Digest on Energy and Environment.
Keywords: Solar energy, Thermal energy storage, Heat transfer fluid, Flat plate collector, Phase change material, Carbon nanofluids.
Abstract: Carbon nanofluids gain importance as heat transfer fluids due to their high thermal conductivity even with their presence in smaller fractions. This article investigates the influence of nanofluids as Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) in Phase Change Material (PCM) based solar thermal energy storage system. The encapsulated cylindrical capsules contain the PCM, paraffin. The Thermal Energy Storage (TES) tank acts as a storage unit consisting of PCM capsules packed in three beds surrounded by water, which acts as Sensible Heat storage (SHS) material. The heat stored is a combination of sensible heat and latent heat. Carbon nanofluids transfer the heat received by solar Flat Plate Collector (FPC) from insolation to the TES tank. Carbon nanofluids of different concentration (0.1 percent and 0.3 per cent by weight) were prepared with the Sodium Dodecyl Benzene Sulphonate (SDBS), as the surfactant and this mixture is sonicated to ensure proper mixing of nanofluid with water. Performance parameters such as charging time, instantaneous heat stored, cumulative heat stored and system efficiency are studied for various HTFs. The results show that there is considerable amount of reduction in charging time, around 26 per cent for carbon nanofluid of 0.1 per cent and 42 per cent for 0.3 per cent, and improvement of system efficiency around 42 per cent with reference to charging time when compared with the conventional HTF, water.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Al-Jandal S S and Sayigh A A M.1994. Thermal performance characteristics of STC system with phase change storage. Renewable Energy 5 (1-4): 390-399. Cho K and Choi S H. 2000. Thermal characteristics of paraffin in a spherical capsule during freeing and melting processes. Int ?, Heat and Mass Transfer 43 (17): 3183-3196.
Literature cited 2: Nallusamy N, Sampath S and Velraj R. 2006. Study on performance of a packed bed latent heat thermal energy storage unit integrated with solar water heating system. ?.Zhejiang Univ.Science A 7 (8): 1422-1430. Heinz A and Streicher W. 2009. Application of phase change material and pcm slurries for thermal energy storage. Institute of Thermal Engineering, Graz University.

ID: 61093
Title: Delivery Mechanism for Energy Efficient Cookstoves: A Case Study from Rural India.
Author: R C Pal, Vivek Jha and Jitendra Tiwari.
Editor: P K Bhattacharya
Year: 2014
Publisher: Dr. R k Pachauri.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: TIDEE Vol.13 (4) 447-451 (2014)
Subject: TERI information Digest on Energy and Environment.
Keywords: Improved forced draft cook stoves, Traditional cook stoves, Biomass fuels, Delivery mechanism.
Abstract: The domestic sector in India is the largest consumer of traditional sources of energy and accounts for 85 percent of households in the rural areas, using fuel wood as an important source of energy for cooking and kerosene for lighting applications. However, the penetration of commercial fuels for cooking in rural areas continues to be low, with 11.5 percent of rural households using kerosene and 6.5 percent using LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) for cooking.[1] Hence, rural households commonly use traditional biomass fuels in traditional cook stoves (TCs), which are not only inefficient but also have an adverse effect on the health of people, especially women and children, who are largely exposed to the smoke emitted while burning such fuels. In order to reduce the ill effects caused by the use of low-efficiency (<12 %) of TCs, introduction of improved forced draft biomass cook stoves will enhance cooking device efficiency and also improve the indoor kitchen environment. This article focuses on the adaptation process and service delivery mechanism for improved biomass cook stove. It also concentrates on the approach undertaken for leveraging technology and promotes the use of biomass and source energy in a sustainable manner.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) 2009-10- (Energy Statistics 2013). TERI Project Report No. 2008 RA02.2010.Sustainable Development through-Research, Customization and Demonstration of Technologies in Jagdishpur Block, district Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh. The Energy and Resources Institute. New Delhi.
Literature cited 2: TERI Project Report No. 2008 RA02.2012. Sustainable Development through-Research, Customization and Demonstration of Technologies in Jagdishpur Block, district Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh. The Energy and Resources Institute. New Delhi. Chaurey A and Kandpal T C, 2009. Solar lanterns for domestic lighting in India: Viability of central charging station model; Energy Policy 37, pp. 4910-4918.

ID: 61092
Title: Advances in Nanotechnological Research and Development in Medicine from Marine Resources.
Author: Mrinal K Ghose
Editor: P K Bhattacharya
Year: 2014
Publisher: Dr. R k Pachauri.
Source: Centre for Ecological Sciences
Reference: TIDEE Vol.13 (4) 439-445 (2014)
Subject: TERI information Digest on Energy and Environment.
Keywords: Marine organisms, Bioactive compounds, Human cell ultrastructure, Immune system.
Abstract: Nanoscience suggests a solid body of theory, upon which a technology could be built. The concept of nanotechnological research in the fields of marine science and technology is quite recent. This paper discusses the potentials for applications of nanotechnology in the areas of marine biomedicines, marine toxicology, marine industrial chemicals, and others. It holds a great promise for developing countries where fish and shelfish are a major source of food, as well as an industrial commodity. This technology points out that several marine organisms contain many bioactive chemical compounds with various pharmacological properties and have provided useful drugs. Therefore, it is seen that there is an immense potential for nanotechnology in marine sciences. This paper emphasizes that today there is a great need for exploitation of biologically active compounds and untapped food resources. Marine pollution control and management with the applications of nanotechnology have also been discussed in this paper. It includes that medical science will of course be heavily involved through the application of nanotechnology, which will impact not only human cell ultrastructure and effects on the immune system, but should also contribute to solving the riddle of allergy. This paper brings out that the advances in nanotechnological research will go a long way in innovations in chemical industries.
Location: T E 15 New Biology Building.
Literature cited 1: Medina C, Santos-Martinez MJ, Radomski A, Corrigan OI, Radomski MW.2007.Nanopartices: Pharmacological and Toxicological Significance.Br ? Pharmacol 150:pp.552-558. Gregoriadis G, Ryman BE.1972.Fate of Protein-containing Liposomes Injected in to Rats: An Approach to the Treatment of Storage Diseases. Eur ? Biochem 24: pp.485-491.
Literature cited 2: McCormack B, Gregoriadis G.1994.Drugs-in-cyclodextrins-inliposomes: A Novel Concept in Drug Delivery. Int ? Pharm 112: pp.249-258. Illum L, Davis S S.1984.The organ Uptake of Intravenously Administered Colloidal Particles can be Altered Using a Non-ionic Surfactant (Poloxamer 338). FEBS Lett 167: pp. 79-82.