黄土高原数字地形分析研究进展

黄土高原数字地形分析以我国黄土高原为研究对象,基于该区域不同尺度DEM数据提取各类坡面地形因子及特征地形要素,并通过对各种地形因子和特征要素的自身特点、空间分异规律及各因子与要素之间的相互关系建立地学统计模型,从更深层次探讨黄土地貌演化及其空间分异规律,深化对黄土高原的认识。该文总结了黄土高原数字地形分析的基本理论与分析方法,从该区域的DEM数据模型、地形特征要素、地形信息图谱、地形纹理、沟壑信息图谱和地貌发育演化机理等方面对黄土高原数字地形分析的研究成果进行较全面地梳理与分析。可以看出,黄土高原数字地形分析已成为数字地形分析领域独具特色的研究方向,其中很多方法均已成为地貌计量学的重要研究手段。

基于EEMD-瞬时频率变换的黄土高原典型地貌沟蚀活跃区识别研究

黄土沟谷是黄土高原物质和能量交换最频繁、形态和形状变化最剧烈的区域。黄土沟沿线作为沟蚀的重要地形特征线,是研究黄土沟蚀特征的重要切入点。该文以黄土峁区(窑家湾)、黄土梁区(安塞)和黄土塬区(长武)3个典型小流域为研究样区,以低空摄影测量生成的1 m分辨率DEM为实验数据,采用集合经验模态分解(EEMD)-瞬时频率变换方法分析各样区黄土沟沿线地形剖面的变化特征。结果表明,黄土高原不同地貌类型区沟沿线地形剖面变化特征差异明显,各样区的沟蚀活跃区多分布于沟头,沟蚀方式以沟头的溯源侵蚀最为活跃,反映了黄土高原地貌的发育进程和沟蚀活跃性,3个样区中黄土梁区(安塞)的沟蚀和沟谷发育最活跃,与实地调查结果一致。

索网天线找形分析的参变量变分有限元法

针对柔性空间索网天线的非线性特点,建立了基于参变量变分描述索网拉压非线性和共旋列式描述几何非线性的有限元控制方程,应用Lemke与改进牛顿法进行求解。通过对索网预张力平衡计算,证明改进牛顿法比Newton-Raphson法具有更强的收敛能力。进一步将力密度法迭代原理与有限元法结合应用于索网天线的非线性找形分析中,获得了理想的索网构型。本文的索网找形方法可广泛应用于空间索网天线结构的设计。

Automatic recognition of loess landforms using Random Forest method

The automatic recognition of landforms is regarded as one of the most important procedures to classify landforms and deepen the understanding on the morphology of the earth. However, landform types are rather complex and gradual changes often occur in these landforms, thus increasing the difficulty in automatically recognizing and classifying landforms. In this study, small-scale watersheds, which are regarded as natural geomorphological elements, were extracted and selected as basic analysis and recognition units based on the data of SRTM DEM. In addition, datasets integrated with terrain derivatives(e.g., average slope gradient, and elevation range) and texture derivatives(e.g., slope gradient contrast and elevation variance) were constructed to quantify the topographical characteristics of watersheds. Finally, Random Forest(RF) method was employed to automatically select features and classify landforms based on their topographical characteristics. The proposed method was applied and validated in seven case areas in the Northern Shaanxi Loess Plateau for its complex andgradual changed landforms. Experimental results show that the highest recognition accuracy based on the selected derivations is 92.06%. During the recognition procedure, the contributions of terrain derivations were higher than that of texture derivations within selected derivative datasets. Loess terrace and loess mid-mountain obtained the highest accuracy among the seven typical loess landforms. However, the recognition precision of loess hill, loess hill–ridge, and loess sloping ridge is relatively low. The experiment also shows that watershed-based strategy could achieve better results than object-based strategy, and the method of RF could effectively extract and recognize the feature of landforms.

Stability analysis unit and spatial distribution pattern of the terrain texture in the northern Shaanxi Loess Plateau

Terrain texture analysis is an important method of digital terrain analysis in quantitative geomorphological research and in the exploration of the spatial heterogeneity and autocorrelation of terrain features. However, a major issue often neglected in previous studies is the calculation unit of the terrain texture, that is, the stability analysis unit. As the test size increases, the derived terrain textures become increasingly similar so that their differences can be ignored. The test size of terrain texture is defined as the stability analysis unit. This study randomly selected 48 areas within the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi in China as the study sites and used the gray level co-occurrence matrix to calculate the terrain texture. The stability analysis unit of the terrain texture was then extracted, and its spatial distribution pattern in the Loess Plateau was studiedusing spatial interpolation method. Four terrain texture metrics, i.e., homogeneity, energy, correlation, and contrast, were extracted on the basis of the stability analysis unit, and the spatial variation patterns of these parameters were studied. Results showed that the spatial distribution pattern and the terrain texture metrics reflected a trend of high–low–high from north to south, which correlated with the spatial distribution of the landforms at the Loess Plateau. In addition, the terrain texture measures was significantly correlated with the terrain factors of gully density and slope, and this relationship showed that terrain texture measures based on the stability analysis unit could reflect the basic characteristics of terrain morphology. The stability analysis unit provided a reasonable analytical scale for terrain texture analysis and could be used as a measure of the regional topography to accurately describe basic terrain characteristics.

A terrain openness index for the extraction of karst Fenglin and Fengcong landform units from DEMs

The Fenglin and Fengcong landform units are considered to be an important representation for defining the degree of development of Karst landforms. However, these terrain features have been proven difficult to delineate and extract automatically because of their complex morphology. In this paper, a new method for identifying the Fenglin and Fengcong landform units is proposed. This method consists of two steps:(1) terrain openness calculation and(2) toe line extraction. The proposed method is applied and validated in the Karst case area of Guilin by using ASTER GDEM with one arc-second resolution. The openness of both the positive and negative terrain and a threshold were used to extract toe lines for segmenting depressions and pinnacles in Fenglin and Fengcong landforms. A comparison between the extracted Fenglin and Fengcong landform units and their real units from high resolution images wascarried out to evaluate the capability of the proposed method. Results show the proposed method can effectively extract the Fenglin and Fengcong landform units, and has an overall accuracy of 93.28%. The proposed method is simple and easy to implement and is expected to play an important role in the automatic extraction of similar landform units in the Karst area.

A GIS-based research on the distribution of rural settlements in Yulin of northern Shaanxi

The development and distribution pattern of rural settlements was greatly limited by their natural and social environment. Taking Yulin prefecture in northern Shaanxi抯 Loess Plateau area as an example, 1:250,000 map-scale national geographical database as a major information source, a GIS-based research was conducted to investigate the spatial distribution of the rural settlements. In this paper, many significant characteristics of the rural settlement distribution are reviewed by means of a series of GIS-based information processing methodology. The results obtained in this study should be helpful for the urban and rural settlements reconstruction planning in this area.

Identifying ephemeral gullies from high-resolution images and DEMs using flow-directional detection

Ephemeral gullies,which are widely developed worldwide and threaten farmlands,have aroused a growing concern.Identifying and mapping gullies are generally considered prerequisites of gully erosion assessment.However,ephemeral gully mapping remains a challenge.In this study,we proposed a flow-directional detection for identifying ephemeral gullies from high-resolution images and digital elevation models(DEMs).Ephemeral gullies exhibit clear linear features in high-resolution images.An edge detection operator was initially used to identify linear features from high-resolution images.Then,according to gully erosion mechanism,the flow-directional detection was designed.Edge images obtained from edge detection and flow directions obtained from DEMs were used to implement the flow-directional detection that detects ephemeral gullies along the flow direction.Results from ten study areas in the Loess Plateau of China showed that ranges of precision,recall,and Fmeasure are 6 o.66%-90.47%,65.74%-94.98%,and63.10%-91.93%,respectively.The proposed method is flexible and can be used with various images and DEMs.However,analysis of the effect of DEM resolution and accuracy showed that DEM resolution only demonstrates a minor effect on the detection results.Conversely,DEM accuracy influences the detection result and is more important than the DEM resolution.The worse the vertical accuracy of DEM,the lower the performance of the flow-directional detection will be.This work is beneficial to research related to monitoring gully erosion and assessing soil loss.

The impact of resolution on the accuracy of hydrologic data derived from DEMs

Hydrologic data derived from digital elevation models (DEM) has been regarded as an effective method in the spatial analysis of geographical information systems (GIS). However, both DEM resolution and terrain complexity has impacts on the accuracy of hydrologic derivatives. In this study, a multi-resolution and multi-relief comparative approach was used as a major methodology to investigate the accuracy of hydrologic data derived from DEMs. The experiment reveals that DEM terrain representation error affects the accuracy of DEM hydrological derivatives (drainage networks and watershed etc.). Coarser DEM resolutions can usually cause worse results. However, uncertain result commonly exists in this calculation. The derivative errors can be found closely related with DEM vertical resolution and terrain roughness. DEM vertical resolution can be found closely related with the accuracy of DEM hydrological derivatives, especially in the smooth plain area. If the mean slope is less than 4 degrees, the derived hydrologic data are usually unreliable. This result may be helpful in estimating the accuracy of the hydrologic derivatives and determining the DEM resolution that is appropriate to the accuracy requirement of a particular user. By applying a threshold value to subset the cells of a higher accumulation flow, a stream network of a specific network density can be extracted. Some very important geomorphologic characteristics, e.g., shallow and deep gullies, can be separately extracted by means of adjusting the threshold value. However, such a flow accumulation- based processing method can not correctly derive those streams that pass through the working area because it is hard to accumulate enough flow direction values to express the stream channels at the stream's entrance area. Consequently, errors will definitely occur at the stream抯 entrance area. In addition, erroneous derivatives can also be found in deriving some particular rivers, e.g., perched (hanging up) rivers, anastomosing rivers and braided rivers. Therefore, more work should be done to develop and perfect the algorithms.

Uncertainty of Slope Length Derived from Digital Elevation Models of the Loess Plateau, China

Although many studies have investigated slope gradient uncertainty derived from Digital Elevation Models(DEMs), the research concerning slope length uncertainty is far from mature. This discrepancy affects the availability and accuracy of soil erosion as well as hydrological modeling. This study investigates the formation and distribution of existing errors and uncertainties in slope length derivation based on 5-m resolution DEMs of the Loess Plateau in the middle of China. The slope length accuracy in three different landform areas is examined to analyse algorithm effects. The experiments indicate that the accuracy of the flat test area is lower than that of the rougher areas. The value from the specific contributing area(SCA) method is greater than the cumulative slope length(CSL), and the differences between these two methods arise from the shape of the upslope area. The variation of mean slope length derived from various DEM resolutions and landforms. The slope length accuracy decreases with increasing grid size and terrain complexity at the six test sites. A regression model is built to express the relationship of mean slope length with DEM resolution less than 85 m and terrain complexity represented by gully density. The results support the understanding of the slope length accuracy, thereby aiding in the effective evaluation of the modeling effect of surface process.

Clustering gully profiles for investigating the spatial variation in landform formation on the Chinese Loess Plateau

The gully is the most dynamic and changeable landform unit on the Loess Plateau,and the characteristics of gully landforms are key indicators of gully evolution.Different gully profiles are connected and combined through runoff nodes.Thus,it is necessary to cluster gully profiles into a gully profile combination(GPC)to reveal the spatial variation in gully landforms throughout the Loess Plateau.First,the gradient and gully evolution index(GEI)of two sample areas in Changwu and Suide in Shaanxi Province,China are calculated and analysed based on GPC.Then,the gradient and GEI are calculated by using 90-m-resolution digital elevation model(DEM)data for the severe soil erosion area with the basin as the research unit.On this basis,the spatial variation in the development degree is analysed with Getis-Ord Gi*.The results show that the degree of gully undercutting decreases from southeast to northwest under the influence of rainfall.Due to the soil properties,the loess in the northwest is more prone to collapse,resulting in the decrease of GEI from northwest to southeast.The development degree of gullies is closely related to rivers.The strong erosive capacity of rivers leads to greater differences in gullies within the basin.At the same time,the skewness and kurtosis of the gully index in the basin are correlated;when the distribution of the gully index in the basin is less normal,the distribution of the gully index is more concentrated.These results reveal the spatial variation characteristics of the Loess Plateau based on GPC.

Thermal Stress Analysis of Floating-Gate Tunneling Oxide Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory During Manufacturing Process

In this study,finite element modeling was used to evaluate the residual thermal stress in floating-gate tunneling oxide electrically erasable programmable read only memory(FLOTOX E2PROMs)manufacturing process.Special attention is paid to the tunnel oxide region,in which high field electron injection is the basis to E2PROMs operation.Calculated results show the presence of large stresses and stress gradients at the fringe:This may contribute to the invalidation of E2PROMs.A possible failure mechanism of E2PROM related to residual thermal stress-induced leakage is proposed.