Published papers

Renewable natural resources, such as solar radiation, rainfall, wind, and geothermal heat, together with ecosystem services, provide the elementary supports for the sustainable development of human society. To improve regional sustainability, we studied the spatial distributions and quantities of renewable natural resources and net primary productivity (NPP) in Hokkaido, which is the second largest island of Japan. With the help of Geographic Information System (GIS) software, distribution maps for each type of renewable natural resource were generated by kriging interpolation based on statistical records. A composite map of the flow of all types of renewable natural resources was also generated by map layer overlapping. Additionally, we utilized emergy analysis to convert each renewable flow with different attributes into a unified unit (i.e., solar equivalent joules [sej]). As a result, the spatial distributions of the flow of renewable natural resources of the Hokkaido region are presented in the form of thematic emergy maps. Thus, the areas with higher renewable emergy can be easily visualized and identified. The dominant renewable flow in certain areas can also be directly distinguished. The results can provide useful information for regional sustainable development, environmental conservation and ecological management.

© 2019 by the author; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). Urban communities are particularly vulnerable to the future demand for food, energy and water, and this vulnerability is further exacerbated by the onset of climate change at local. Solutions need to be found in urban spaces. This article based around urban design practice sees urban agriculture as a key facilitator of nexus thinking, needing water and energy to be productive. Working directly with Urban Living Labs, the project team will co-design new food futures through the moveable nexus, a participatory design support platform to mobilize natural and social resources by integrating multi-disciplinary knowledge and technology. The moveable nexus is co-developed incrementally through a series of design workshops moving around living labs with the engagement of stakeholders. The methodology and the platform will be shared outside the teams so that the knowledge can be mobilized locally and globally.

This paper presents an original approach to characterizing historical fire regimes for regions with limited fire data. Fire variables were derived from satellite datasets and regional fire occurrence statistics. They defined the integral elements of a fire regime such as historical trends, spatiotemporal evolution, fire seasonality and causes. Temporal evolution was investigated based on a regime shift detection method developed by Rodionov while changes in the fire regime were analyzed for statistical significance using the Mann-Kendall trend test and Sen's slope estimator. A descriptive analysis was performed to assess fire seasonality, causes, and together formed the basis for this methodology. We validated the proposed approach by assessing historical fire activity in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), which is one of the most fire-prone regions of Russia. The assessment was conducted with data from the period of 1996-2018. We detected increases in historical fire activity as well as thresholds of change in the fire regime. Changes during the analysis period included lengthening of fire season, increased burned area extent, and extension of peak fire period. Overall, significant changes in the fire regime were detected in the regions strongly affected by warming and increasing anthropogenic alteration.

© 2012 ISPRS. In Mongolia, from 1999 to 2001 and 2009 to 2010, about 10 million livestock animals were seriously died due to starvation and the cold by effects of overgrazing and Zud: extreme snow in winter season. Thus, it is required to reduce its risk by controlling number of overwinter livestock animals. In order to do that, it is required to simulate how many animals do herders have to sell followed by carrying capacity. In order to avoid climate risk, it is necessary to manage farming comprehensively and control livestock numbers. Nevertheless it needs to consider about management, we have to research information about each management under different conditions of each area in all Mongolia. Thus, it needs to survey livestock management workflows of regional administration and GIS data about rangeland areas and their attributes in order to evaluate their nomadic life and their livestock objectively. It is essential to use some tools that have the function of processing the spatial data. It could cover wide areas and have different abilities for spatial relations. To solve this problem; we analyzed management workflows of herder and regional administration working in Mongolia, and designed a hierarchical structure of tables and data layers with the relational database. With this structure, we developed the structure of a WebGIS tool on the Adobe Flex platform for livestock management visually. It will be also useful for them to improve the accountability of activities. This system is a versatile WebGIS tool which can interact with various spatial scales.

There are serious land degradations caused by overgrazing in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Regional planning to preserve the plateau ecosystem is urgently needed. In this study, multi polynomial regression between EVI derived from MODIS satellite images and natural conditions for each pixel in time-series is taken at grazing land and conservation area. The result shows the response of EVI to land surface temperature and precipitation has a strong spatial auto correlation, and has significant relationships with elevation. The relationship expects the affection of grazing activities. In addition, the residuals are associated to the existence of grazing activities. This knowledge will be useful for mapping of grazing activities and the affection.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has so far been the most severe global public health emergency in this century. Generally, citizen science can provide a complement to authoritative scientific practices for responding to this highly complex biological threat and its adverse consequences. Several citizen science projects have been designed and operationalized for responding to COVID-19 in Iran since the infection began. However, these projects have mostly been overlooked in the existing literature on citizen science. This research sheds light on the most significant online citizen science projects to respond to the COVID-19 crisis in Iran. Furthermore, it highlights some of the opportunities and challenges associated with the strengths and weaknesses of these projects. Moreover, this study captures and discusses some considerable insights and lessons learned from the failures and successes of these projects and provides solutions to overcome some recognized challenges and weaknesses of these projects. The outcomes of this synthesis provide potentially helpful directions for current and future citizen science projects—particularly those aiming to respond to biological disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) have brought great opportunities for geographical information systems (GIS) to be integrated with cyber-physical systems (CPS) in urban management. However, the term IoT and CPS are new in the GIS realm. This article reviews the concepts of IoT and CPS from the perspective of geospatial spaces and proposes the concept of Geo CPS to develop the potential of new technology in the geographic dimension. Two forms of Geo CPS are discussed: pseudo-CPS (PCPS), which projects spatial data onto a display without interaction among data sources, and true-CPS (TCPS), which handles data sources deeply and semantically. While PCPS already has wide industrial applications, TCPS is still in its infancy. The spatial challenge for CPS in geo space involves operating conditions in an open environment, and here, the human-machine system interface will be key. A transformation of our mindset relating to GIS can lead to the creation of new value-added geographical information services. This will require new schemes and platforms for data sharing, processing, security, and privacy, etc.

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Cycling has proven to be an important strategy in decreasing the risk of non-communicable diseases. This study aimed to discover barriers and enabling factors influencing satisfaction and safety perceptions towards the use of bicycle roads in the Seoul metropolitan area, South Korea. A cross-sectional survey of 190 youth and adult individuals was conducted. Sex, age, purpose of bicycle use, perceived safety, availability of facilities, road gradient, road width, and traffic on the bicycle road were associated with cycling regularity. Multivariate regression analysis showed that the sufficiency of bicycle parking space, moderate slope, and enough bicycle signs were significant enabling factors for satisfaction with the use of bicycle roads. Narrow bicycle roads were found to be a barrier to satisfaction with the use of bicycle roads. Moderate slope, enough bicycle signs, and enough maintenance facilities around bike roads were found to be enabling factors in the perceived safety of the use of bicycle roads, whereas traffic on the side of the bicycle road was found to be a barrier to perceived safety. Based on these findings,

Urban and rural areas often meet their water demands from a shared stock of finite water resources. Against the changing climate, the rising water demands in fast-growing urban areas are leading to increasing water-use conflicts with the co-dependent rural areas. Although poor water governance is frequently cited as the key reason for such urban–rural conflicts, it is also recognized as a potential pathway to resolve them. In the case of Nagpur Region in Central India, water stress has today become a subject of serious concern. The water demands in Nagpur City are primarily met through the multipurpose Pench Dam on priority, but the recently declining water availability has raised undue concerns for irrigation in the Pench command areas. To substantiate the limited understanding of ongoing water conflicts in the wider Nagpur Metropolitan Area, this study analyzes a specific set of secondary data related to the history of the Pench Project and its water utilization trends. By uncovering the periodic decline in irrigated area and the increasing groundwater use for irrigation, the cross-sectoral and transboundary implications of increasing water transfer to Nagpur City are revealed. To address these concerns, this study then suggests feasible governance strategies based on benefit sharing and multi-stakeholder engagement.

There are serious land degradations caused by overgrazing in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Regional planning to preserve the plateau ecosystem is urgently needed. In this study, we develop a method to detect land degradations using time-series satellite images with a concept of resistance and resilience. A case study on plain field in Qinghai-Tibet plateau shows significant relationships between land degradation and topographical factors. In addition, the tendency of grazing activities had changed over the drought year. This knowledge will assist to predict the process of land degradations caused by grazing activity and prevent grazing activity to invade preserved area.

Water is one of the most important earth resources which is essential to human health, society and environment. Studies on water extraction and changes have been subjects of academic studies for many years. Remote sensing as an efficient and reliable tool has been used in recent years and Landsat satellite imagery were one of the most common data due to their advantages in spatial resolution and cost. Improvement of new Landsat 8, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) data attracted more attentions recently. This study uses the Landsat 8 OLI imagery data source for water information extraction based on the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Modified Normalized Water Index (MNDWI) and Automated Water Extraction Index (AWEI) to compare the effect of using The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM) in mountainous area. The study area is Kermanshah, in west of Iran, a mountainous area which has difficulties for water extraction due to shadows and dark objects. Due to small area of water bodies in study area user's accuracy were used for evaluation of results. User accuracy for water class gives results of 23.68%, 24.34% and 22.57% for NDWI, MNDWI and AWEI, respectively. In other words, around 77% of pixels which classified as water are not water and are misclassified pixels. Applying DEM data improves results to 27.44%, 29.1% and 27.22% for NDWI, MNDWI and AWEI, respectively which shows slight increase of 3.76%, 4.88% and 4.65%.

© 2017 WIT Press. Energy performance of residential and non-residential buildings is a vital topic because of fast urbanization in the world. The accommodation buildings are considered as high energy intensive comparing to other commercial building' categories. In addition, it has an important contribution in tourism industry. Therefore, variety of models and plans have been applied to reduce the energy consumption of accommodation buildings. This research depends on database of energy consumption of commercial buildings in Japan as main source of data. Data-base for Energy Consumption of Commercial building (DECC) is a national survey, it is disclosed by Japan Sustainable Building Consortium (JSBC). Base on DECC, a benchmark system is developed by applying regression and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) methods to assess the energy performance of accommodation building in Kanto region-Japan. The study investigate the primary energy model of selected samples according to consumption' trends of electricity, gas and clean water. The developed benchmarks by ANN and regression models were compared to ensure a robust benchmark system as a powerful tool for energy performance' assessment. This study points out the necessity to benchmark the energy performance of accommodation buildings and other categories in Japan. In addition, it is important to consider other variables that affect energy use of buildings.