The alpine terrestrials of the Maloti-Drakensberg in southern Africa play crucial roles in ecosystem functions and livelihoods,yet they face escalating degradation from various factors including overgrazing and climat...The alpine terrestrials of the Maloti-Drakensberg in southern Africa play crucial roles in ecosystem functions and livelihoods,yet they face escalating degradation from various factors including overgrazing and climate change.This study employs advanced Digital Soil Mapping(DSM)techniques coupled with remote sensing to map and assess wetland coverage and degradation in the northern Maloti-Drakensberg.The model achieved high accuracies of 96%and 92%for training and validation data,respectively,with Kappa statistics of 0.91 and 0.83,marking a pioneering automated attempt at wetland mapping in this region.Terrain attributes such as terrain wetness index(TWI)and valley depth(VD)exhibit significant positive correlations with wetland coverage and erosion gully density,Channel Network Depth and slope were negative correlated.Gully density analysis revealed terrain attributes as dominant factors driving degradation,highlighting the need to consider catchment-specific susceptibility to erosion.This challenge traditional assumptions which mainly attribute wetland degradation to external forces such as livestock overgrazing,ice rate activity and climate change.The sensitivity map produced could serve as a basis for Integrated Catchment Management(ICM)projects,facilitating tailored conservation strategies.Future research should expand on this work to include other highland areas,explore additional covariates,and categorize wetlands based on hydroperiod and sensitivity to degradation.This comprehensive study underscores the potential of DSM and remote sensing in accurately assessing and managing wetland ecosystems,crucial for sustainable resource management in alpine regions.展开更多
This paper presents a comparative visualization strategy of slope failure susceptibility maps for analyzing different types of simultaneous occurrences of slope failures. Through the SEM （structural equation modeling...This paper presents a comparative visualization strategy of slope failure susceptibility maps for analyzing different types of simultaneous occurrences of slope failures. Through the SEM （structural equation modeling）, slope failure susceptibility maps are produced by using causal factors （i.e., geographical information, satellite remotely sensed data）. As for a conventional pair-wise comparative procedure, the differences between susceptibility maps are delineated on difference maps, that can be, however, applied for evaluating differences only between pairs of susceptibility maps. One of the strong requirements from specialists working on slope stability evaluation is a comparative and visualization strategy of susceptibility maps with respect to ＂different types of simultaneous slope failures＂, for which the discussion is insufficient in the previous research activities for constructing the quantitative models for slope failure hazard mapping. As a measure, a color composite map based on susceptibility maps has been produced. The combination of assigning susceptibility maps to RGB-color planes is determined based on an index of ＂NCCT （normalized correlated color temperature）＂ which represents the relationship between chromaticity and human visual perception. Through the cases examined, the result indicates that the proposed color composite map, as a heuristic visualization strategy, is useful for simultaneously evaluating the hazardous areas affected by ＂different types of slope failures＂.展开更多
基金The Afromontane Research Unit of the University of the Free State partially funded this project.
文摘The alpine terrestrials of the Maloti-Drakensberg in southern Africa play crucial roles in ecosystem functions and livelihoods,yet they face escalating degradation from various factors including overgrazing and climate change.This study employs advanced Digital Soil Mapping(DSM)techniques coupled with remote sensing to map and assess wetland coverage and degradation in the northern Maloti-Drakensberg.The model achieved high accuracies of 96%and 92%for training and validation data,respectively,with Kappa statistics of 0.91 and 0.83,marking a pioneering automated attempt at wetland mapping in this region.Terrain attributes such as terrain wetness index(TWI)and valley depth(VD)exhibit significant positive correlations with wetland coverage and erosion gully density,Channel Network Depth and slope were negative correlated.Gully density analysis revealed terrain attributes as dominant factors driving degradation,highlighting the need to consider catchment-specific susceptibility to erosion.This challenge traditional assumptions which mainly attribute wetland degradation to external forces such as livestock overgrazing,ice rate activity and climate change.The sensitivity map produced could serve as a basis for Integrated Catchment Management(ICM)projects,facilitating tailored conservation strategies.Future research should expand on this work to include other highland areas,explore additional covariates,and categorize wetlands based on hydroperiod and sensitivity to degradation.This comprehensive study underscores the potential of DSM and remote sensing in accurately assessing and managing wetland ecosystems,crucial for sustainable resource management in alpine regions.
文摘This paper presents a comparative visualization strategy of slope failure susceptibility maps for analyzing different types of simultaneous occurrences of slope failures. Through the SEM （structural equation modeling）, slope failure susceptibility maps are produced by using causal factors （i.e., geographical information, satellite remotely sensed data）. As for a conventional pair-wise comparative procedure, the differences between susceptibility maps are delineated on difference maps, that can be, however, applied for evaluating differences only between pairs of susceptibility maps. One of the strong requirements from specialists working on slope stability evaluation is a comparative and visualization strategy of susceptibility maps with respect to ＂different types of simultaneous slope failures＂, for which the discussion is insufficient in the previous research activities for constructing the quantitative models for slope failure hazard mapping. As a measure, a color composite map based on susceptibility maps has been produced. The combination of assigning susceptibility maps to RGB-color planes is determined based on an index of ＂NCCT （normalized correlated color temperature）＂ which represents the relationship between chromaticity and human visual perception. Through the cases examined, the result indicates that the proposed color composite map, as a heuristic visualization strategy, is useful for simultaneously evaluating the hazardous areas affected by ＂different types of slope failures＂.
