[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
You seem to have javascript disabled. Please note that many of the page functionalities won't work as expected without javascript enabled.
 
 
Sign in to use this feature.

Years

Between: -

Subjects

remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline

Journals

remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline

Article Types

Countries / Regions

remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline
remove_circle_outline

Search Results (9,220)

Search Parameters:
Keywords = multi-source

Order results
Result details
Results per page
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
16 pages, 9676 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Falling Block Characteristics in Salt Caverns Energy Storage Space
by Shengwei Dong, Taian Fang, Jifang Wan, Shan Wang, Yanqi Zhao, Xiaowen Chen, Xiaofeng Yang and Yangqing Sun
Energies 2025, 18(1), 215; https://doi.org/10.3390/en18010215 - 6 Jan 2025
Abstract
In the current global energy sector where energy storage technology is highly regarded, the development of storage technology is crucial. Utilizing specific underground space for the storage of oil and gas and other energy sources is the direction of future development, and the [...] Read more.
In the current global energy sector where energy storage technology is highly regarded, the development of storage technology is crucial. Utilizing specific underground space for the storage of oil and gas and other energy sources is the direction of future development, and the space formed by deep-salt-mine water dissolution extraction has gradually become the preferred choice. However, in actual operation, multi-layer salt cavities are prone to collapse of interlayer and bending of pipes, seriously affecting the progress, quality, and safety of the entire energy storage space construction. Therefore, based on relevant principles, a targeted experimental platform was established, by taking photos and measurements of the falling process of specific falling objects, simulating the situation of falling objects in actual energy storage spaces and their impact on related components. In-depth research was conducted on the probability of falling objects hitting the inner pipe and the horizontal impact force under different conditions, and the experimental results were verified by rigorous numerical simulation analysis. The research results show that falling objects impacts can cause related components to bend, with the maximum impact probability reaching 5.1% and the maximum horizontal impact force reaching 24.6 N. In addition, the hydraulic fluctuations caused by the suction and drainage of the cavity pipe column have a relatively small impact on the falling object trajectory. The research findings can provide practical and effective guidance for the safe construction of specific energy storage facilities, ensuring that construction can be carried out safely and efficiently, and contribute to the steady development of the energy storage industry as a whole. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Technology of Oil and Gas Production with Low Energy Consumption)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Schematic diagram of the experimental principle and procedure: (<b>a</b>) experimental principle and (<b>b</b>) experimental procedure.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Experimental flume: (<b>a</b>) side view and (<b>b</b>) vertical view.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Falling block model.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Six-component force sensor.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Structure of the model device.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Motion observation camera position: (<b>a</b>) side view and (<b>b</b>) vertical view.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Schematic diagram of the initial experimental conditions.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Falling process of a flake-shaped block.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Falling process of a cuboid block.</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>Falling process of a cubic block.</p>
Full article ">Figure 11
<p>Typical horizontal impact force progression for a falling block.</p>
Full article ">Figure 12
<p>Influence of annular water discharge on small block movement.</p>
Full article ">Figure 13
<p>Grid range for the cavern mathematical model.</p>
Full article ">Figure 14
<p>Flow field distribution within the cylindrical cavern.</p>
Full article ">
29 pages, 7741 KiB  
Article
Groundwater Storage Estimation in the Saskatchewan River Basin Using GRACE/GRACE-FO Gravimetric Data and Machine Learning
by Mohamed Hamdi, Anas El Alem and Kalifa Goita
Atmosphere 2025, 16(1), 50; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos16010050 - 6 Jan 2025
Abstract
Climate change is having a significant impact on groundwater storage, affecting water resources in many parts of the world. To characterize this impact, remote sensing and machine learning are essential tools to analyze the data accurately and efficiently. This study aims to predicting [...] Read more.
Climate change is having a significant impact on groundwater storage, affecting water resources in many parts of the world. To characterize this impact, remote sensing and machine learning are essential tools to analyze the data accurately and efficiently. This study aims to predicting the variations of groundwater storage (GWS) using GRACE/GRACE-FO and multi-source remote sensing data, combined with machine learning techniques. The approach was applied over the Canadian Prairies region. The study area was classified into three zones of different aquifer potentials (low, medium, and high) using a combination of remote sensing data and the Classification and Regression Trees (CART) approach. The prediction model was developed using a machine-learning approach based on multiple linear regression to estimate GWS variations as a function of various environmental parameters. The results showed that the developed model was able to predict GWS variations with satisfactory accuracy (up to 95% of the explained variance) and good robustness (96% success rate). They also provided a better understanding of the variations in groundwater storage in the Canadian Prairies. Therefore, this work provides a promising method for predicting GWS, which could eventually be applied to other similar environmental conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources (2nd Edition))
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Geographic localization of the Saskatchewan River Basin (SRB).</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Geological cross section of the SRB [<a href="#B21-atmosphere-16-00050" class="html-bibr">21</a>].</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>General adopted methodology. AHP is for analytic hierarchy process, TWS is for total water storage, GWS is for groundwater storage, GRD is for grid, GPLa is for groundwater piezometric level anomalies. SWAT–MODFLOW is a coupled modeling framework that integrates the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) with the MODFLOW groundwater flow model. NARR stands for the North American Regional Reanalysis, a high-resolution dataset produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). CART refers to Classification and Regression Trees, a machine-learning algorithm used for both classification and regression tasks.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Factors conditioning the groundwater potential used for this study: (<b>a</b>) drainage density, (<b>b</b>) LULC, (<b>c</b>) mean rainfall (2019), (<b>d</b>) slope, and (<b>e</b>) soil map.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Groundwater potential map for the SRB: (<b>a</b>) zoom on very low zones and (<b>b</b>) zoom on very high zones.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Correlation between the TWS from GRACE/GRACE-FO data and TRMM precipitation data: for zones with (<b>a</b>) low groundwater potential, (<b>b</b>) medium groundwater potential, (<b>c</b>) high groundwater potential, (<b>d</b>) CART classification between TWS and Log (TRMM precipitation) for low groundwater potential zones, (<b>e</b>) Kmeans classification between TWS and Log (TRMM precipitation) for medium groundwater potential zones, and (<b>f</b>) Kmeans classification between TWS and Log (TRMM precipitation) for high groundwater potential zones.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>(<b>a</b>–<b>c</b>) Histograms showing the frequency distributions of log-transformed precipitation values for Groups 1, 2, and 3. (Columns 2–4) Scatter plots comparing TWS observed versus TWS estimated for Groups 1, 2, and 3, along with performance metrics (R<sup>2</sup>, Nash, Bias, and RMSE). These scatter plots evaluate the model’s performance in estimating TWS across the three hydrological groups.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Scatter plots comparing observed total water storage (TWS<sub>Observed</sub>) from GRACE/GRACE-FO with machine learning-based estimated TWS (TWS<sub>Estimated</sub>) for the study area. Colors represent different groups: magenta for <b>Group 1</b> (low TWS and precipitation), blue for <b>Group 2</b> (moderate TWS and precipitation), and yellow for <b>Group 3</b> (high TWS and precipitation). Performance metrics (R<sup>2</sup>, Nash, Bias, and RMSE) are provided for each group ((<b>a</b>) groupe 1, (<b>b</b>) groupe 2 and (<b>c</b>) groupe 3).</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Variation in the contribution coefficient of ETP and ST NARR (snow depth). REC stands for Relative Explained Contribution. It represents the percentage contribution of each variable to the variability or explanation of the target variable, in this case, groundwater storage (GWS), as determined by the machine learning model. (<b>a</b>,<b>d</b>): Group 1, (<b>b</b>,<b>e</b>): Group 2 and (<b>c</b>,<b>f</b>): Group 3.</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>K-fold cross validation results. The in situ GWS was calculated using groundwater level data from observation wells and specific yield values for the aquifer system. The change in GWS (in cm) (ΔGWS) was derived by multiplying changes in water levels (Δh) with the specific yield (Sy). These values were aggregated spatially to provide a regional estimate of in situ GWS, which was compared with GWS estimates from GRACE/GRACE-FO and machine-learning predictions to assess model performance ((<b>a</b>) groupe 1, (<b>b</b>) groupe 2 and (<b>c</b>) groupe 3).</p>
Full article ">
28 pages, 13562 KiB  
Article
Distribution and Structure of China–ASEAN’s Intertidal Ecosystems: Insights from High-Precision, Satellite-Based Mapping
by Zhang Zheng and Renming Jia
Remote Sens. 2025, 17(1), 155; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17010155 - 5 Jan 2025
Viewed by 286
Abstract
The intertidal ecosystem serves as a critical transitional zone between terrestrial and marine environments, supporting diverse biodiversity and essential ecological functions. However, these systems are increasingly threatened by climate change, rising sea levels, and anthropogenic impacts. Accurately mapping intertidal ecosystems and differentiating mangroves, [...] Read more.
The intertidal ecosystem serves as a critical transitional zone between terrestrial and marine environments, supporting diverse biodiversity and essential ecological functions. However, these systems are increasingly threatened by climate change, rising sea levels, and anthropogenic impacts. Accurately mapping intertidal ecosystems and differentiating mangroves, salt marshes, and tidal flats remains a challenge due to inconsistencies in classification frameworks. Here, we present a high-precision mapping approach for intertidal ecosystems using multi-source satellite data, including Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, and Landsat 8/9, integrated with the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, to enable the detailed mapping of intertidal zones across China–ASEAN. Our findings indicate a total intertidal area of 73,461 km2 in China–ASEAN, with an average width of 1.16 km. Analyses of patch area, abundance, and perimeter relationships reveal a power-law distribution with a scaling exponent of 1.52, suggesting self-organizing characteristics shaped by both natural and human pressures. Our findings offer foundational data to guide conservation and management strategies in the region’s intertidal zones and present a novel perspective to propel research on global coastal ecosystems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Coastal, Wetland, and Intertidal Zones)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Study area: ASEAN region with diverse coastal landscapes and hydrological dynamics shaping ecological and geomorphological features (Map Approval Number: GS(2024)0650).</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p><b>Workflow for intertidal ecosystem mapping.</b> The integration of multi-source remote sensing data and environmental covariates using a two-step random forest model and an expert system for the high-precision spatial distribution of mangroves, tidal flats, and marshes.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p><b>Training samples.</b> Representative training samples of intertidal ecosystems in the China–ASEAN coastal region, illustrating distinct ecological features of mangroves, marshes, tidal flats, and other land cover types, based on high-resolution imagery and spatial random sampling.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p><b>Distribution of training samples.</b> Spatial distribution of 28,138 training samples across the China–ASEAN coastal region, categorized into mangroves (9378), tidal flats (4864), salt marshes (2513), and other land cover types (11,383). The samples encompass intertidal ecosystems and other coastal and terrestrial regions, ensuring balanced coverage and a high data quality for model training. (Map Approval Number: GS(2024)0650).</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p><b>Spatial distribution and composition of intertidal ecosystems.</b> Comprehensive mapping of intertidal ecosystems across China–ASEAN, illustrating their spatial distribution, compositional proportions (mangroves, tidal flats, and salt marshes), area measurements, and average widths. (<b>a</b>–<b>f</b>) illustrate the detailed features. Notable regional differences highlight Indonesia’s dominance in ecosystem area, reflecting diverse coastal environments and conservation challenges. (Map Approval Number: GS(2024)0650).</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p><b>Area and width of intertidal ecosystems across China–ASEAN.</b> The figure presents the area and width of intertidal ecosystems across China–ASEAN countries, showcasing notable regional differences.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p><b>Power-law relationship between area and abundance in intertidal ecosystems.</b> The abundance–area relationship (AAR) of intertidal ecosystems and their sub-ecosystems—mangroves, salt marshes, and tidal flats—follows a power-law distribution. Smaller patches dominate across all the ecosystems, with salt marshes exhibiting the steepest decline in patch abundance (α = 2.42). Mangroves and the overall intertidal ecosystem share similar exponents (α = 1.52), reflecting comparable patch dynamics influenced by ecological and anthropogenic processes.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p><b>Area–Perimeter power law in intertidal ecosystems.</b> Logarithmic relationships between patch area and perimeter for intertidal ecosystems and their subsystems show high linearity (R<sup>2</sup> = 0.99). Salt marshes exhibit the highest boundary complexity (PAR = 0.12) and fragmentation, while mangroves and tidal flats demonstrate larger, less-fragmented patches. Shape complexity (SFD) and abundance highlight distinct structural characteristics among ecosystems.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p><b>Comparison of intertidal ecosystem classification across datasets.</b> In contrast to other datasets, which often focus on specific components (such as mudflats or mangroves) or offer broad classifications, our approach enables the precise delineation of intertidal ecosystems and effectively differentiates between mangroves, mudflats, and salt marshes.</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p><b>Area estimates comparison across datasets.</b> Intertidal ecosystem: +9.12% (compared to Murray et al., 2022 [<a href="#B45-remotesensing-17-00155" class="html-bibr">45</a>]). Tidal flats: −37.86% (compared to Murray et al., 2019 [<a href="#B46-remotesensing-17-00155" class="html-bibr">46</a>]). Mangroves: +3.55% (compared to Bunting et al., 2022 [<a href="#B44-remotesensing-17-00155" class="html-bibr">44</a>]), +4.91% (compared to Jia et al., 2023 [<a href="#B42-remotesensing-17-00155" class="html-bibr">42</a>]).</p>
Full article ">
36 pages, 25347 KiB  
Article
Construction of a Real-Scene 3D Digital Campus Using a Multi-Source Data Fusion: A Case Study of Lanzhou Jiaotong University
by Rui Gao, Guanghui Yan, Yingzhi Wang, Tianfeng Yan, Ruiting Niu and Chunyang Tang
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2025, 14(1), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi14010019 - 3 Jan 2025
Viewed by 485
Abstract
Real-scene 3D digital campuses are essential for improving the accuracy and effectiveness of spatial data representation, facilitating informed decision-making for university administrators, optimizing resource management, and enriching user engagement for students and faculty. However, current approaches to constructing these digital environments face several [...] Read more.
Real-scene 3D digital campuses are essential for improving the accuracy and effectiveness of spatial data representation, facilitating informed decision-making for university administrators, optimizing resource management, and enriching user engagement for students and faculty. However, current approaches to constructing these digital environments face several challenges. They often rely on costly commercial platforms, struggle with integrating heterogeneous datasets, and require complex workflows to achieve both high precision and comprehensive campus coverage. This paper addresses these issues by proposing a systematic multi-source data fusion approach that employs open-source technologies to generate a real-scene 3D digital campus. A case study of Lanzhou Jiaotong University is presented to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach. Firstly, oblique photography based on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is used to capture large-scale, high-resolution images of the campus area, which are then processed using open-source software to generate an initial 3D model. Afterward, a high-resolution model of the campus buildings is then created by integrating the UAV data, while 3D Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and OpenStreetMap (OSM) building data provide a 3D overview of the surrounding campus area, resulting in a comprehensive 3D model for a real-scene digital campus. Finally, the 3D model is visualized on the web using Cesium, which enables functionalities such as real-time data loading, perspective switching, and spatial data querying. Results indicate that the proposed approach can effectively get rid of reliance on expensive proprietary systems, while rapidly and accurately reconstructing a real-scene digital campus. This framework not only streamlines data harmonization but also offers an open-source, practical, cost-effective solution for real-scene 3D digital campus construction, promoting further research and applications in twin city, Virtual Reality (VR), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Challenges in Integration of Different Data Layers for 3D Digital Campus: (<b>a</b>) Satellite Imagery Alone; (<b>b</b>) Satellite Imagery Combined with Digital Surface Model (DSM); (<b>c</b>) Satellite Imagery Combined with Oblique Photography; (<b>d</b>) Oblique Photography Data Alone.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Case study area: Lanzhou Jiaotong University main campus in Lanzhou City (Sources: Google Earth).</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Route planning and design for oblique photography data acquisition.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Overall workflow of the proposed approach (A variety of open-source tools and libraries were used in this workflow; see <a href="#app1-ijgi-14-00019" class="html-app">Appendix A</a>).</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Coordinate transformation.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Camera View and Clip Plane Relationship: View Coordinates and NDC.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>3D Real-Scene Digital Campus System based on Cesium framework.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Stitching of Oblique Photography 3D Tiles Models and Spatial Alignment in Cesium.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Oblique Photography 3D Real-Scene Models of Lanzhou Jiaotong University.</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>Real-Scene 3D Model with Multi-Source Data Integration.</p>
Full article ">Figure 11
<p>Acquisition of location information based on LGIRA.</p>
Full article ">Figure 12
<p>Positional correction of BIM model in 3D Tile format.</p>
Full article ">Figure 13
<p>Dynamic Display of Construction Stages of the Comprehensive Teaching Building.</p>
Full article ">Figure 13 Cont.
<p>Dynamic Display of Construction Stages of the Comprehensive Teaching Building.</p>
Full article ">Figure 14
<p>Animated Weather Effects in Different Conditions.</p>
Full article ">Figure 14 Cont.
<p>Animated Weather Effects in Different Conditions.</p>
Full article ">Figure 15
<p>Location and Feature Selection GCPs for three regions in the Case Study Area.</p>
Full article ">Figure 16
<p>Establishing links between GCPs and positions in Oblique Photography Imagery.</p>
Full article ">
23 pages, 5729 KiB  
Article
Estimation of Ecological Water Requirement and Water Replenishment Regulation of the Momoge Wetland
by Hongxu Meng, Xin Zhong, Yanfeng Wu, Xiaojun Peng, Zhijun Li and Zhongyuan Wang
Water 2025, 17(1), 114; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17010114 - 3 Jan 2025
Viewed by 344
Abstract
Ensuring the ecological water requirements (EWR) suitable for wetlands are upheld is essential for maintaining the stability and health of their ecosystems, a challenge faced by wetlands globally. However, previous studies on EWRs estimation lack a comprehensive consideration of wetlands and still suffer [...] Read more.
Ensuring the ecological water requirements (EWR) suitable for wetlands are upheld is essential for maintaining the stability and health of their ecosystems, a challenge faced by wetlands globally. However, previous studies on EWRs estimation lack a comprehensive consideration of wetlands and still suffer from the problem of rough time scales. Prior studies have predominantly concentrated on its core and buffer zones, neglecting a comprehensive analysis of the wetland’s entirety and failing to account for the seasonal variations in EWRs. To fill this gap, we proposed a novel framework for estimating EWRs wetland’s entirety to guide the development of dynamic water replenishment strategies. The grey prediction model was used to project the wetland area under different scenarios and designed water replenishment strategies. We then applied this framework in a key wetland conservation area in China, the Momoge Wetland, which is currently facing issues of areal shrinkage and functional degradation due to insufficient EWRs. Our findings indicate that the maximum, optimal, and minimum EWRs for the Momoge Wetland are 24.14 × 108 m3, 16.65 × 108 m3, and 10.88 × 108 m3, respectively. The EWRs during the overwintering, breeding, and flood periods are estimated at 1.92 × 108 m3, 5.39 × 108 m3, and 8.73 × 108 m3, respectively. Based on the predicted wetland areas under different climatic conditions, the necessary water replenishment volumes for the Momoge Wetland under scenarios of dry-dry-dry, dry-dry-normal, dry-normal-dry, and normal-normal-normal are calculated to be 0.70 × 108 m3, 0.49 × 108 m3, 0.68 × 108 m3, and 0.36 × 108 m3, respectively. In years characterized by drought, the current water replenishment projects are inadequate to meet the wetland’s water needs, highlighting the urgent need for the implementation of multi-source water replenishment techniques to enhance the effectiveness of these interventions. The results of this study provide insights for annual and seasonal water replenishment planning and multi-source water management of wetlands with similar problems as the Momoge Wetland. With these new insights, our novel framework not only advances knowledge on the accuracy of wetland ecological water requirement assessment but also provides a scalable solution for global wetland water resource management, helping to improve the ecosystem’s adaptability to future climate changes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wetland Conservation and Ecological Restoration)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>River networks, nature reserve zonation (<b>a</b>), and land use types (<b>b</b>) in the Momoge Wetland.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Annual suitable ecological water requirements and threshold of target (<b>a</b>) and indicator (<b>b</b>) level in the Momoge Wetland. Target ecological water requirements refer to maintaining the wetland’s scale, promoting the conservation of biodiversity, and stability of the ecosystem’s functions and structure. Indicators of ecological water requirements refer to evapotranspiration water requirement of wetland, soil water requirement, vegetation water requirement, habitat water requirement, and water requirement for groundwater recharge.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Seasonal suitable ecological water requirement and threshold of target (<b>a</b>) and indicator (<b>b</b>) in the Momoge Wetland. Target ecological water requirements refer to maintaining the wetland’s scale, promoting the conservation of biodiversity, and the stability of the ecosystem’s functions and structure. Indicators of ecological water requirements refer to evapotranspiration water requirements of wetland, soil water requirements, vegetation water requirements, habitat water requirements, and water requirements for groundwater recharge.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>The maximum (<b>a</b>), suitable (<b>b</b>), and minimum (<b>c</b>) ecological water requirements for the wetland runoff seasons of Momoge Wetland in 1979 and 1998. The overwintering period, breeding period, and flood period refer to November to March of the following year, April to June, and July to October, respectively.</p>
Full article ">
24 pages, 10077 KiB  
Article
Deep-Learning-Based Method for the Identification of Typical Crops Using Dual-Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar and High-Resolution Optical Images
by Xiaoshuang Ma, Le Li and Yinglei Wu
Remote Sens. 2025, 17(1), 148; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17010148 - 3 Jan 2025
Viewed by 307
Abstract
Timely monitoring of distribution and growth state of crops is crucial for agricultural management. Remote sensing (RS) techniques provide an effective tool to monitor crops. This study proposes a novel approach for the identification of typical crops, including rapeseed and wheat, using multisource [...] Read more.
Timely monitoring of distribution and growth state of crops is crucial for agricultural management. Remote sensing (RS) techniques provide an effective tool to monitor crops. This study proposes a novel approach for the identification of typical crops, including rapeseed and wheat, using multisource remote sensing data and deep learning technology. By adopting an improved DeepLabV3+ network architecture that integrates a feature-enhanced module and an attention module, multiple features from both optical data and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data are fully mined to take into account the spectral reflectance traits and polarimetric scattering straits of crops. The proposal can effectively address the limitations of using a single data source, alleviating the misclassification problem brought by the spectral similarity of crops in certain bands. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed crop identification DeepLabV3+ (CI-DeepLabV3+) method outperforms traditional classification methods and the original DeepLabV3+ network, with an overall accuracy and F1 score of 94.54% and 94.55%, respectively. Experimental results also support the conclusion that using multiple features from multi-source data can indeed improve the performance of the network. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Map of the study area.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Phenological calendar of the two crops.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Sub-images of the study area (orange rectangle: forest, yellow rectangle: wheat, red rectangle: rapeseed). (<b>a</b>) GF-2 optical image. (<b>b</b>) Sentinel-1 PolSAR image.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Pictures taken in the field. (<b>a</b>) Wheat; (<b>b</b>) rapeseed; and (<b>c</b>) vegetation.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Spectral reflectance of different vegetation type.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>The scattering characteristics of different land cover types.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Diagram of the CI-DeepLabV3+ network.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Schematic diagram of the enhanced module structure.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Schematic diagram of the structure of the attention module.</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>(<b>a</b>) Classification result with Feature Set 1: utilizing solely PolSAR feature information; (<b>b</b>) classification result with Feature Set 2: utilizing solely optical feature information; and (<b>c</b>) classification result with Feature Set 3: concurrently leveraging both optical and PolSAR feature information.</p>
Full article ">Figure 11
<p>Classification results of the CI-DeepLabV3+ model with different feature sets (wheat is marked in red and rapeseed is marked in green): (<b>a</b>) GF-2 optical image (false color); (<b>b</b>) ground truth label image; (<b>c</b>) classification result with Feature Set 1; (<b>d</b>) classification result with Feature Set 2; and (<b>e</b>) classification result with Feature Set 3.</p>
Full article ">Figure 12
<p>Classification results of different methods. (<b>a</b>) GF-2 optical image (false color display); (<b>b</b>) ground truth label image; (<b>c</b>) classification result with SVM; (<b>d</b>) classification result with U-net; (<b>e</b>) classification result with DeepLabV3+; and (<b>f</b>) classification result with CI-DeepLabV3+.</p>
Full article ">Figure 13
<p>The results for different combinations of hyperparameters.</p>
Full article ">Figure 14
<p>Performance metrics for varying sample sizes. (<b>a</b>) F1 score for wheat and rapeseed; (<b>b</b>) IOU for wheat and rapeseed; and (<b>c</b>) OA for wheat and rapeseed.</p>
Full article ">Figure 14 Cont.
<p>Performance metrics for varying sample sizes. (<b>a</b>) F1 score for wheat and rapeseed; (<b>b</b>) IOU for wheat and rapeseed; and (<b>c</b>) OA for wheat and rapeseed.</p>
Full article ">
26 pages, 4300 KiB  
Article
HGeoKG: A Hierarchical Geographic Knowledge Graph for Geographic Knowledge Reasoning
by Tailong Li, Renyao Chen, Yilin Duan, Hong Yao, Shengwen Li and Xinchuan Li
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2025, 14(1), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi14010018 - 3 Jan 2025
Viewed by 289
Abstract
The Geographic Knowledge Graph (GeoKG) serves as an effective method for organizing geographic knowledge, playing a crucial role in facilitating semantic interoperability across heterogeneous data sources. However, existing GeoKGs are limited by a lack of hierarchical modeling and insufficient coverage of geographic knowledge [...] Read more.
The Geographic Knowledge Graph (GeoKG) serves as an effective method for organizing geographic knowledge, playing a crucial role in facilitating semantic interoperability across heterogeneous data sources. However, existing GeoKGs are limited by a lack of hierarchical modeling and insufficient coverage of geographic knowledge (e.g., limited entity types, inadequate attributes, and insufficient spatial relationships), which hinders their effective use and representation of semantic content. This paper presents HGeoKG, a hierarchical geographic knowledge graph that comprehensively models hierarchical structures, attributes, and spatial relationships of multi-type geographic entities. Based on the concept and construction methods of HGeoKG, this paper developed a dataset named HGeoKG-MHT-670K. Statistical analysis reveals significant regional heterogeneity and long-tail distribution patterns in HGeoKG-MHT-670K. Furthermore, extensive geographic knowledge reasoning experiments on HGeoKG-MHT-670K show that most knowledge graph embedding (KGE) models fail to achieve satisfactory performance. This suggests the need to accommodate spatial heterogeneity across different regions and improve the embedding quality of long-tail geographic entities. HGeoKG serves as both a reference for GeoKG construction and a benchmark for geographic knowledge reasoning, driving the development of geographical artificial intelligence (GeoAI). Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Overview of HGeoKG.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>The HGeoKG ontology.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Hierarchical structure of spatial relationships. (<b>a</b>) Coarse-grained spatial relationship; (<b>b</b>) fine-grained spatial relationship.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Hierarchical structure of regions.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>An example of HGeoKG. (<b>a</b>) is an example of an RDF triple in turtle format, and (<b>b</b>) is a partial visualization of the GeoKG. Blue nodes represent geographic entities, green nodes represent attribute values, blue edges represent spatial relationships, and green edges represent attribute relationships.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>HGeoKG construction process.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Spatial distribution of HGeoKG-MHT-670K. (<b>a</b>) Regional distribution; (<b>b</b>) geographic entity distribution.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Data statistics in the coarse and fine-grained regions of HGeoKG-MHT-670K.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8 Cont.
<p>Data statistics in the coarse and fine-grained regions of HGeoKG-MHT-670K.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Frequency distribution of entities and relationships in the Triples of HGeoKG-MHT-670K. The entities or relations on the horizontal axis are ranked in descending order of frequency. (<b>a</b>) All entities; (<b>b</b>) attribute entities only; (<b>c</b>) geographic entities only; (<b>d</b>) all relations; (<b>e</b>) attribute relations only; (<b>f</b>) spatial relations only.</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>Experimental results in coarse-grained regions with different levels of sparsity. (<b>a</b>) All triples; (<b>b</b>) attribute triples only; (<b>c</b>) spatial triples only.</p>
Full article ">Figure 11
<p>Comparison between global and local training. (<b>a</b>) ConvE; (<b>b</b>) TransE; (<b>c</b>) DistMult; (<b>d</b>) RGCN.</p>
Full article ">Figure 12
<p>Performance of entity embeddings with different ratio on geographic knowledge reasoning tasks.</p>
Full article ">
31 pages, 9251 KiB  
Article
Seasonal Land Use and Land Cover Mapping in South American Agricultural Watersheds Using Multisource Remote Sensing: The Case of Cuenca Laguna Merín, Uruguay
by Giancarlo Alciaturi, Shimon Wdowinski, María del Pilar García-Rodríguez and Virginia Fernández
Sensors 2025, 25(1), 228; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25010228 - 3 Jan 2025
Viewed by 272
Abstract
Recent advancements in Earth Observation sensors, improved accessibility to imagery and the development of corresponding processing tools have significantly empowered researchers to extract insights from Multisource Remote Sensing. This study aims to use these technologies for mapping summer and winter Land Use/Land Cover [...] Read more.
Recent advancements in Earth Observation sensors, improved accessibility to imagery and the development of corresponding processing tools have significantly empowered researchers to extract insights from Multisource Remote Sensing. This study aims to use these technologies for mapping summer and winter Land Use/Land Cover features in Cuenca de la Laguna Merín, Uruguay, while comparing the performance of Random Forests, Support Vector Machines, and Gradient-Boosting Tree classifiers. The materials include Sentinel-2, Sentinel-1 and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission imagery, Google Earth Engine, training and validation datasets and quoted classifiers. The methods involve creating a multisource database, conducting feature importance analysis, developing models, supervised classification and performing accuracy assessments. Results indicate a low significance of microwave inputs relative to optical features. Short-wave infrared bands and transformations such as the Normalised Vegetation Index, Land Surface Water Index and Enhanced Vegetation Index demonstrate the highest importance. Accuracy assessments indicate that performance in mapping various classes is optimal, particularly for rice paddies, which play a vital role in the country’s economy and highlight significant environmental concerns. However, challenges persist in reducing confusion between classes, particularly regarding natural vegetation features versus seasonally flooded vegetation, as well as post-agricultural fields/bare land and herbaceous areas. Random Forests and Gradient-Boosting Trees exhibited superior performance compared to Support Vector Machines. Future research should explore approaches such as Deep Learning and pixel-based and object-based classification integration to address the identified challenges. These initiatives should consider various data combinations, including additional indices and texture metrics derived from the Grey-Level Co-Occurrence Matrix. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Feature Papers in Remote Sensors 2024)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Number of relevant Scopus-indexed studies using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 for remote sensing (2016–2023).</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>The study area.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Harmonized Sentinel-2MultiSpectral Instrument—Level-2A composites.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Harmonized Sentinel-2MultiSpectral Instrument-Level-2A indices.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Sentinel-1 Ground Range Detected medium composites per polarisation and season.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Elevation and slope derived from the shuttle radar topography mission.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Representative features of each class.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Simplified flow chart of the methodology.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Feature importance according to the feature and the classifier.</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>Maps according to the models.</p>
Full article ">Figure 11
<p>Potential applications of LULC cartography in air, water and soil quality assessments.</p>
Full article ">
20 pages, 2217 KiB  
Article
Determining Dominant Factors of Vegetation Change with Machine Learning and Multisource Data in the Ganjiang River Basin, China
by Zhiming Xia, Kaitao Liao, Liping Guo, Bin Wang, Hongsheng Huang, Xiulong Chen, Xiangmin Fang, Kuiling Zu, Zhijun Luo, Faxing Shen and Fusheng Chen
Land 2025, 14(1), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/land14010076 - 3 Jan 2025
Viewed by 283
Abstract
Vegetation is a fundamental component of terrestrial ecosystems, and accurately assessing the effects of seasonal climate variations, extreme weather events, and land use changes on vegetation dynamics is crucial. The Ganjiang River Basin (GRB), a key region for water conservation and recharge in [...] Read more.
Vegetation is a fundamental component of terrestrial ecosystems, and accurately assessing the effects of seasonal climate variations, extreme weather events, and land use changes on vegetation dynamics is crucial. The Ganjiang River Basin (GRB), a key region for water conservation and recharge in southeastern China, has experienced significant land use changes and variable climate in the past. However, comprehensive evaluations of how these changes have impacted vegetation remain limited. To address this gap, we used machine learning models (random forest and XGBoost) to assess the impact of seasonal and extreme climate variables, land cover, topography, soil properties, atmospheric CO2, and night-time light intensity on vegetation dynamics. We found that the annual mean NDVI showed a slight increase from 1990 to 1999 but has decreased significantly over the last 8 years. XGBoost was better than the RF model in simulating the NDVI when using all five types of data source (R2 = 0.85; RMSE = 0.04). The most critical factors influencing the NDVI were forest and cropland ratio, followed by soil organic carbon content, elevation, cation exchange capacity, night-time light intensity, and CO2 concentration. Spring minimum temperature was the most important seasonal climate variable. Both linear and nonlinear relationships were identified between these variables and the NDVI, with most variables exhibiting threshold effects. These findings underscore the need to develop and implement effective land management strategies to enhance vegetation health and promote ecological balance in the region. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vegetation Cover Changes Monitoring Using Remote Sensing Data)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>The location of Ganjiang River Basin and the weather stations used in this study. The following is the corresponding name of each weather station: AF—anfu, ANY—anyuan, CY—chongyi, DY—dingnan, FC—dayu, FY—fenyi, GA—gaoan, GX—ganxian, HC—huichang, JAX—jianxian, JGS—jinggangshan, JS—jishui, LA—lean, LH—lianhua, LN—longnan, ND—ningdu, NK—nankang, QN—quannan, RJ—ruijin, SC—suichuan, SCH—shicheng, SG—shanggao, SY—shangyou, TH—taihe, WA—wanan, WZ—wanzai, XF—xinfeng, XG—xingan, XGuo—xingguo, XJ—xiajiang, XP—xiaping, XY—xinyu, YC—yichun, YD—yudu, YF—yifeng, YOF—yongfeng, YX—yongxin, ZS—zhangshu.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Land cover of Ganjiang River Basin for: (<b>a</b>) 1990 and (<b>b</b>) 2018.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Framework of NDVI estimation integrating different sources of data with RF and XGBoost models. Rain, rainfall; Tem, mean temperature; Tmax, max temperature; Tmin, min temperature; Hum, air humidity; WS, wind speed; Sun, sun hour; SU25, summer days; CWD, consecutive wet days; DEM, elevation; T_OC, soil organic carbon content at 0–30 cm; T_CEC_CLAY, 0–30 cm cation exchange capacity of clay layer soil; Light, night-time light.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Temporal change of annual mean NDVI across the 38 sites in the GRB between 1990 and 2018, where the black solid-line box, the red solid-line circle, and the blue solid-line triangle represent three time spans: 1990–1999, 2000–2009, and 2010–2018, respectively.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>The change of NDVI slope trends and significance levels at 38 sites across the GRB during 1990–2018. The ascending arrows are for significant positive trends, descending arrows for significant negative trends, and double-headed arrows for no significant trend. The following is the corresponding name of each weather station: AF—anfu, ANY—anyuan, CY—chongyi, DY—dingnan, FC—dayu, FY—fenyi, GA—gaoan, GX—ganxian, HC—huichang, JAX—jianxian, JGS—jinggangshan, JS—jishui, LA—lean, LH—lianhua, LN—longnan, ND—ningdu, NK—nankang, QN—quannan, RJ—ruijin, SC—suichuan, SCH—shicheng, SG—shanggao, SY—shangyou, TH—taihe, WA—wanan, WZ—wanzai, XF—xinfeng, XG—xingan, XGuo—xingguo, XJ—xiajiang, XP—xiaping, XY—xinyu, YC—yichun, YD—yudu, YF—yifeng, YOF—yongfeng, YX—yongxin, ZS—zhangshu.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Evaluation of model performance using different sources of data based on the random forest (RF) and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model. Data_1: Climate + CO<sub>2</sub> data; Data_2: Data_1 + DEM + Soil data; Data_3: Data_2 + Light + Land cover data; (<b>a</b>) coefficient of determination; (<b>b</b>) root mean squared error.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Variable importance of input features for the XGBoost model predicting the NDVI: (<b>a</b>) the relative importance of the first 20 predictor variables, (<b>b</b>) the relative importance of climate variables at different time scales, (<b>c</b>) the relative importance aggregated by feature type. For each category, the relative importance shown is the sum of that calculated for all features in each category. Note that 1, 2, 3, and 4 represent the different seasons (1 for spring, 2 for summer, 3 for autumn, and 4 for winter). For example, WS_1 indicates spring wind speed and tem_2 indicates summer temperature. Climate: climate variables and climate extreme index; Human: land cover and night-time light. Error bar is based on 100 runs for the model.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Partial dependence plots for the most important nine features based on the XGBoost model: (<b>a</b>) forest ratio; (<b>b</b>) cropland ration; (<b>c</b>) organic carbon content; (<b>d</b>) DEM; (<b>e</b>) cation exchange capacity of clay layer; (<b>f</b>) night −time light; (<b>g</b>) CO<sub>2</sub> concentration; (<b>h</b>) spring min temperature; (<b>i</b>) min temperature. The black lines are smoothed representations of the response, with fitted values (model predictions) for the training data. The trend of the line, rather than the actual values, describe the nature of the dependence of the NDVI on the predictors.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Temporal changes in the average ratio of (<b>a</b>) forest and (<b>b</b>) cropland across the 38 sites in the GRB between 1990 and 2018.</p>
Full article ">
22 pages, 6045 KiB  
Article
Advancing County-Level Potato Cultivation Area Extraction: A Novel Approach Utilizing Multi-Source Remote Sensing Imagery and the Shapley Additive Explanations–Sequential Forward Selection–Random Forest Model
by Qiao Li, Xueliang Fu, Honghui Li and Hao Zhou
Agriculture 2025, 15(1), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15010092 - 3 Jan 2025
Viewed by 287
Abstract
Potato, a vital food and cash crop, necessitates precise identification and area estimation for effective planting planning, market regulation, and yield forecasting. However, extracting large-scale crop areas using satellite remote sensing is fraught with challenges, such as low spatial resolution, cloud interference, and [...] Read more.
Potato, a vital food and cash crop, necessitates precise identification and area estimation for effective planting planning, market regulation, and yield forecasting. However, extracting large-scale crop areas using satellite remote sensing is fraught with challenges, such as low spatial resolution, cloud interference, and revisit cycle limitations, impeding the creation of high-quality time–series datasets. In this study, we developed a high-resolution vegetation index time–series by calculating coordination coefficients and integrating reflectance data from Landsat-8, Landsat-9, and Sentinel-2 satellites. The vegetation index time–series were enhanced through using linear interpolation and Savitzky–Golay (S-G) filtering to reconstruct high-quality data. We employed the harmonic analysis of NDVI time–series (HANTS) method to extract features from the time–series and evaluated the classification accuracy across five feature sets: vegetation index time–series features, band means, vegetation index means, texture features, and color space features. The Random Forest (RF) model, utilizing the full feature set, emerged as the most accurate, achieving a precision rate of 0.97 and a kappa value of 0.94. We further refined the feature subset using the SHAP-SFS feature selection method, leading to the SHAP-SFS-RF classification approach for differentiating potato from non-potato crops. This approach enhanced accuracy by approximately 0.1 and kappa value by around 0.2 compared to the RF model, with the extracted areas closely aligning with statistical yearbook data. Our study successfully achieved the accurate extraction of potato planting areas at the county level, offering novel insights and methodologies for related research fields. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Digital Agriculture)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Geographical positioning of the research region.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Wuchuan County field potatoes in June, July, and August.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>The technical roadmap of this study.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Time–series reconstruction roadmap.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Comparison of satellite image reconstruction before and after (for example, on 30 June).</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Time–series curves of the original and reconstructed VIs. (<b>a</b>) NDVI time–series; (<b>b</b>) EVI time–series; (<b>c</b>) SAVI time–series; (<b>d</b>) RVI time–series; (<b>e</b>) MSAVI time–series; (<b>f</b>) GNDVI time–series.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Confusion matrix for four models based on full features.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>The overall accuracy of the 5 input feature sets.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Ranking of feature importance based on SHAP values (SHAP values are shown on the scale of 1 × 10<sup>−15</sup>).</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>The correlation linking the model’s classification precision to the quantity of input features (red triangles represent the best feature dimensions).</p>
Full article ">Figure 11
<p>Spatial distribution map of potatoes in Wuchuan County.</p>
Full article ">
26 pages, 1149 KiB  
Article
A Massively Parallel SMC Sampler for Decision Trees
by Efthyvoulos Drousiotis, Alessandro Varsi, Alexander M. Phillips, Simon Maskell and Paul G. Spirakis
Algorithms 2025, 18(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/a18010014 - 2 Jan 2025
Viewed by 187
Abstract
Bayesian approaches to decision trees (DTs) using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samplers have recently demonstrated state-of-the-art accuracy performance when it comes to training DTs to solve classification problems. Despite the competitive classification accuracy, MCMC requires a potentially long runtime to converge. A [...] Read more.
Bayesian approaches to decision trees (DTs) using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samplers have recently demonstrated state-of-the-art accuracy performance when it comes to training DTs to solve classification problems. Despite the competitive classification accuracy, MCMC requires a potentially long runtime to converge. A widely used approach to reducing an algorithm’s runtime is to employ modern multi-core computer architectures, either with shared memory (SM) or distributed memory (DM), and use parallel computing to accelerate the algorithm. However, the inherent sequential nature of MCMC makes it unsuitable for parallel implementation unless the accuracy is sacrificed. This issue is particularly evident in DM architectures, which normally provide access to larger numbers of cores than SM. Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) samplers are a parallel alternative to MCMC, which do not trade off accuracy for parallelism. However, the performance of SMC samplers in the context of DTs is underexplored, and the parallelization is complicated by the challenges in parallelizing its bottleneck, namely redistribution, especially on variable-size data types such as DTs. In this work, we study the problem of parallelizing SMC in the context of DTs both on SM and DM. On both memory architectures, we show that the proposed parallelization strategies achieve asymptotically optimal O(log2N) time complexity. Numerical results are presented for a 32-core SM machine and a 256-core DM cluster. For both computer architectures, the experimental results show that our approach has comparable or better accuracy than MCMC but runs up to 51 times faster on SM and 640 times faster on DM. In this paper, we share the GitHub link to the source code. Full article
(This article belongs to the Collection Parallel and Distributed Computing: Algorithms and Applications)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Memory architectures.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>An example of a DT with <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>d</mi> <mo>(</mo> <mi mathvariant="bold">T</mi> <mo>)</mo> <mo>=</mo> <mn>3</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math>, <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>m</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>5</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math>, and six leaf nodes with a quantitative response of two classes.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Parallel redistribution—examples on SM and DM for <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>N</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>8</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math> and <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>P</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>4</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math>. Each tree node is encoded with a letter and number for brevity. The <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mo>−</mo> <mn>1</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math> s represent fake tree nodes.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Runtimes for MCMC and SMC vs. total sample size <math display="inline"><semantics> <msub> <mi>N</mi> <mi>T</mi> </msub> </semantics></math>.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4 Cont.
<p>Runtimes for MCMC and SMC vs. total sample size <math display="inline"><semantics> <msub> <mi>N</mi> <mi>T</mi> </msub> </semantics></math>.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Speed-ups for SMC for <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>K</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>10</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math> iterations and increasing number of samples <span class="html-italic">N</span>.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5 Cont.
<p>Speed-ups for SMC for <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>K</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>10</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math> iterations and increasing number of samples <span class="html-italic">N</span>.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Speed-ups for multi-chain MCMC for <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>K</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>10</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math> samples per chain and increasing number of chains <span class="html-italic">N</span>.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6 Cont.
<p>Speed-ups for multi-chain MCMC for <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>K</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>10</mn> </mrow> </semantics></math> samples per chain and increasing number of chains <span class="html-italic">N</span>.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Speed-up gain of SMC vs. single-chain MCMC for (approximately) the same accuracy.</p>
Full article ">
27 pages, 1702 KiB  
Review
Deep Learning Applications in Ionospheric Modeling: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities
by Renzhong Zhang, Haorui Li, Yunxiao Shen, Jiayi Yang, Wang Li, Dongsheng Zhao and Andong Hu
Remote Sens. 2025, 17(1), 124; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17010124 - 2 Jan 2025
Viewed by 351
Abstract
With the continuous advancement of deep learning algorithms and the rapid growth of computational resources, deep learning technology has undergone numerous milestone developments, evolving from simple BP neural networks into more complex and powerful network models such as CNNs, LSTMs, RNNs, and GANs. [...] Read more.
With the continuous advancement of deep learning algorithms and the rapid growth of computational resources, deep learning technology has undergone numerous milestone developments, evolving from simple BP neural networks into more complex and powerful network models such as CNNs, LSTMs, RNNs, and GANs. In recent years, the application of deep learning technology in ionospheric modeling has achieved breakthrough advancements, significantly impacting navigation, communication, and space weather forecasting. Nevertheless, due to limitations in observational networks and the dynamic complexity of the ionosphere, deep learning-based ionospheric models still face challenges in terms of accuracy, resolution, and interpretability. This paper systematically reviews the development of deep learning applications in ionospheric modeling, summarizing findings that demonstrate how integrating multi-source data and employing multi-model ensemble strategies has substantially improved the stability of spatiotemporal predictions, especially in handling complex space weather events. Additionally, this study explores the potential of deep learning in ionospheric modeling for the early warning of geological hazards such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis, offering new insights for constructing ionospheric-geological activity warning models. Looking ahead, research will focus on developing hybrid models that integrate physical modeling with deep learning, exploring adaptive learning algorithms and multi-modal data fusion techniques to enhance long-term predictive capabilities, particularly in addressing the impact of climate change on the ionosphere. Overall, deep learning provides a powerful tool for ionospheric modeling and indicates promising prospects for its application in early warning systems and future research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in GNSS Remote Sensing for Ionosphere Observation)
29 pages, 5358 KiB  
Article
An Approach for Spatial Statistical Modelling Remote Sensing Data of Land Cover by Fusing Data of Different Types
by Antonella Belmonte, Carmela Riefolo, Gabriele Buttafuoco and Annamaria Castrignanò
Remote Sens. 2025, 17(1), 123; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17010123 - 2 Jan 2025
Viewed by 304
Abstract
Remote sensing technologies continue to expand their role in environmental monitoring, providing invaluable advances in soil assessing and mapping. This study aimed to prove the need to apply spatial statistical models for processing data in remote sensing (RS), which appears to be an [...] Read more.
Remote sensing technologies continue to expand their role in environmental monitoring, providing invaluable advances in soil assessing and mapping. This study aimed to prove the need to apply spatial statistical models for processing data in remote sensing (RS), which appears to be an important source of spatial data at multiple scales. A crucial problem facing us is the fusion of multi-source spatial data of different natures and characteristics, among which there is the support size of measurement that unfortunately is little considered in RS. A data fusion approach of both sample (point) and grid (areal) data is proposed that explicitly takes into account spatial correlation and change of support in both increasing support (upscaling) and decreasing support (downscaling). The techniques of block cokriging and kriging downscaling were employed for the implementation of such an approach, respectively. The method is applied to soil sample data, jointly analysed with hyperspectral data measured in the laboratory, UAV, and satellite data (Planet and Sentinel 2) of an olive grove after filtering soil pixels. Each data type had its own support that was transformed to the same support as the soil sample data so that the data fusion approach could be applied. To demonstrate the statistical, as well as practical, effectiveness of such a method, it was compared by a cross-validation test with a univariate approach for predicting each soil property. The positive results obtained should stimulate advanced statistical techniques to be applied more and more widely to RS data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in Geomatics (Second Edition))
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Study area and soil sample locations.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Maps of Planet reflectance bands at 3 m spatial resolution after the filtering of the soil data because of the screen operated by the olive tree canopies (<b>a</b>). The same maps at 1 m spatial resolution after applying deconvolution by kriging of Planet bands (<b>b</b>).</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>The soil maps of B11-B12 Sentinel 2 bands at 20 m spatial resolution (<b>a</b>) and after applying them deconvolution by kriging at a resolution of 1 m spatial resolution (<b>b</b>).</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>Linear model of coregionalisation (LMC) of the UAV multispectral data. The plotted black points are the experimental values whereas the solid red lines are the model of coregionalisation. The green lines are the hull of perfect correlation while the horizontal dashed lines are the experimental variances.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Maps of UAV multispectral data obtained by applying block cokriging.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Direct variograms of the fusion data set. The plotted black points are the experimental values whereas the solid red lines are the model of coregionalisation. The horizontal dashed lines are the experimental variances.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Cross-variograms of the fusion data set. The plotted black points are the experimental values whereas the solid red lines are the model of coregionalisation. The green lines are the hull of perfect correlation while the horizontal dashed lines are the experimental variances.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Maps of clay and sand using the data fusion of all variables (<b>a</b>) and univariate ordinary kriging (<b>b</b>).</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Maps of kriging standard deviation for clay and sand using the data fusion of all variables (<b>a</b>) and univariate ordinary kriging (<b>b</b>).</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>Variograms of clay and sand. The plotted black points are the experimental values, whereas the solid red lines are the fitted theoretical variogram models. The horizontal dashed lines are the experimental variances.</p>
Full article ">
31 pages, 4905 KiB  
Article
Multi-Domain Assessment of Thermomechanical Recycling Based on Bio-Based and Petroleum-Based Additively Manufactured Components
by Niko Nagengast, Nicolas Mandel, Christian Bay, Frank Döpper, Christian Neuber, Hans-Werner Schmidt, Clara Usma-Mansfield and Franz Konstantin Fuss
Recycling 2025, 10(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/recycling10010003 - 2 Jan 2025
Viewed by 316
Abstract
The surge in global population growth and the escalating demand for social and economic prosperity present formidable challenges in the 21st century. However, asserting the sustainability of some ecological impact reduction initiatives, such as recycling, requires a comprehensive evaluation within various domains, including [...] Read more.
The surge in global population growth and the escalating demand for social and economic prosperity present formidable challenges in the 21st century. However, asserting the sustainability of some ecological impact reduction initiatives, such as recycling, requires a comprehensive evaluation within various domains, including performance, ecology, and economics, and contemporary advancements in integrating quantitative assessments of material and manufacturing properties, coupled with mathematical decision-making approaches, contribute to mitigating subjectivity in determining the efficiency of recycling. This paper implements a robust multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach to address the complexities of recycling, validating its implementation and effectiveness through a case study. The focus is set on the application of bio-based polylactic acid (PLA) and petroleum-based polypropylene (PP) additively manufactured (AM) parts produced through Fused Filament Fabrication (an approach to ecology/performance domains). The work introduces a cost analysis focusing on calculating thermomechanical recycling within the economic domain. The well-known Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) provides a structured framework for decision-making (the ecological impact domain) with the focus being on application. The assessment or recycling viability, encompassing AHP calculations, preprocessing, and supplementary tools, is provided by developing an open-source software tool for practitioners in the field of material science and manufacturing. The results indicate a preference for industrial-scaled recycling over virgin or lab-recycled manufacturing, particularly for petroleum-based polypropylene. The versatility and simple utilization of the software tool allow seamless integration for diverse use cases involving different materials and processes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Challenges and Opportunities in Plastic Waste Management)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>Proposed decision-making approach to assess the meaningfulness of recycling based on multi-attributive, quantifiable data.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Performed research methodology defining the investigated material and geometry, the recycling process, the assessment domains with the corresponding parameters and their measurement standards, and the multi-attributive decision-making method.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Example of AHP structure: The bottom level (leaf nodes) contains only value vectors for the alternative virgin material (v), lab-recycled material (l), and industrial-recycled material (i), which are normalized to be between 0 and 1. Each higher node only contains a weight matrix, which relates the influence of its respective child nodes. During tree processing, the values for the alternatives are propagated up based on the (calculated) value-weight node through the tree following the same structure.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>The figure shows the calculation of an AHP. A tree structure must be defined before applying the process. The algorithm needs values for all leaf nodes and weights for all other nodes in the tree. It is a variant of post-order tree traversal where all leaf nodes get processed before parents. The parents collect the value vectors of all their children in a matrix and perform a matrix–vector multiplication with the relative preference Eigenvector lambda to generate their own value vector.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Data flow diagram between user, preprocessing, cost calculation, and tree calculation. Open rectangles define data structures mostly in the form of spreadsheets and circles denote processes that are executed. Cost calculation and preprocessing are supplied as standalone scripts while consistency checks are contained as part of the tree setup and calculation.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Pairwise comparison matrices of the implemented AHP method from level 0 to level 2 corresponding to the defined criteria at each level and a comparison score from 1 (equally important in comparison) to 9 (way more important in comparison).</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Eigenvalues of scenario 1 with PLA as the investigated material applied to a simple cuboid geometry.</p>
Full article ">Figure 8
<p>Eigenvalues of scenario 1 with PP as the investigated material applied to a simple cuboid geometry.</p>
Full article ">Figure 9
<p>Eigenvalues of scenario 2 with PLA and PVA as the investigated materials applied to a complex impeller geometry.</p>
Full article ">Figure 10
<p>Eigenvalues of scenario 2 with PP and PP support as the investigated materials applied to a complex impeller geometry.</p>
Full article ">Figure 11
<p>Eigenvalues of scenario 3 with PP and PP support and PLA and PVA as the investigated materials applied to a complex impeller geometry.</p>
Full article ">Figure 12
<p>Overview of the investigated scenarios: (i) scenario 1 with simple cuboid geometry (PLA and PP); (ii) scenario 2 with complex impeller geometry (PLA and PP); (iii) scenario 3 with complex geometry and comparison of PLA and PP materials.</p>
Full article ">
12 pages, 3161 KiB  
Article
Surface Plasmon Mediated Angular and Wavelength Tunable Retroreflectors Using Parallel-Superimposed Surface Relief Bi-Gratings
by Maxwell Dollar, Yazan Bdour, Paul Rochon and Ribal Georges Sabat
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(1), 339; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15010339 - 1 Jan 2025
Viewed by 427
Abstract
This study presents the design and fabrication of light retroreflectors utilizing surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in parallel-superimposed bi-grating structures. The bi-gratings were inscribed onto a thin azobenzene molecular glass film via photolithography and subsequently coated with a thin gold layer to support SPR. [...] Read more.
This study presents the design and fabrication of light retroreflectors utilizing surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in parallel-superimposed bi-grating structures. The bi-gratings were inscribed onto a thin azobenzene molecular glass film via photolithography and subsequently coated with a thin gold layer to support SPR. The two superimposed gratings operate in tandem, with one grating coupling incident light into the SPR mode and the other coupling it back out toward the light source, thereby achieving retroreflection. Monochromatic retroreflection is demonstrated for a target wavelength (785 nm) at angles from 5° to 10°, while multi-wavelength retroreflection is achieved for red, orange, and green wavelengths at corresponding angles. The findings highlight the potential of these bi-gratings for applications in optical sensing, communication, and advanced photonic systems, where compact, tunable, and angularly responsive designs are essential. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1
<p>(<b>a</b>) Schematic representation of two separate gratings, which, when superimposed, form a parallel-superimposed bi-grating structure capable of retroreflection. The diagram illustrates the retroreflection process, including the incident wavevector, diffraction orders, excitation of surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and the back-coupled retroreflected light. (<b>b</b>) The SPR dispersion curve for a sinusoidal gold-coated grating plotted with the light curve. (<b>c</b>) Dispersion curve illustrating the in-coupling and out-coupling of SPR in the parallel-superimposed bi-grating structure at an arbitrary angle <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>θ</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mo>±</mo> <mn>6</mn> <mo>°</mo> </mrow> </semantics></math>. The dashed line indicates the in-coupling of incident light into SPR by the first grating (pitch <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <msub> <mi>K</mi> <mn>1</mn> </msub> </mrow> </semantics></math>) at <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>θ</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mo>+</mo> <mn>6</mn> <mo>°</mo> </mrow> </semantics></math>, while the dotted line shows the out-coupling of SPR by the second grating (pitch <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <msub> <mi>K</mi> <mn>2</mn> </msub> </mrow> </semantics></math>), resulting in retroreflection at <math display="inline"><semantics> <mrow> <mi>θ</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mo>−</mo> <mn>6</mn> <mo>°</mo> </mrow> </semantics></math>.</p>
Full article ">Figure 2
<p>Side-view schematic (not to scale) illustrating the fabrication process of a gold-coated superimposed bi-grating. The schematic outlines the step-by-step process, including the sequential inscription of gratings and subsequent gold coating on an azobenzene thin film.</p>
Full article ">Figure 3
<p>Schematic depiction of a single bi-grating, highlighting its position on the actual glass slide sample. The slide contains six separate superimposed bi-gratings inscribed in an azobenzene thin film and coated with 50 nm gold layer.</p>
Full article ">Figure 4
<p>AFM analysis of the grating surfaces. (<b>a</b>) Surface topography image of sample Bi-grating-6 (20 µm × 50 µm) obtained via AFM. (<b>b</b>) 3D representation of the Bi-grating-6 surface profile, illustrating the depth and structure of the gratings. (<b>c</b>) Detailed surface profile measurement of Bi-grating-6.</p>
Full article ">Figure 5
<p>Experimental setup for the monochromatic retroreflection measurements. The setup includes a horizontally polarize and collimated white light source illuminating the samples through a semi-transparent mirror, with retroreflected light collected in reflection mode using a spectrometer.</p>
Full article ">Figure 6
<p>Monochromatic retroreflection performance of samples Bi-grating-1 to Bi-grating-6. (<b>a</b>) 3D graph illustrates the retroreflection of the target wavelength (785 nm) across a range of incidence angles (5° to 10°). (<b>b</b>) A 2D graph showing the spectra at key retroreflection angles (5° to 10°), with each spectrum vertically offset by 25 a.u. for better visualization.</p>
Full article ">Figure 7
<p>Multi-wavelength retroreflection observed in samples Bi-grating-7, Bi-grating-8, and Bi-grating-9 simulating a stoplight effect. (<b>a</b>) Normalized spectral response of each sample, indicating distinct retroreflected wavelengths: 550 nm (green) at 5°, 590 nm (orange) at 10°, and 650 nm (red) at 15°. (<b>b</b>) A 2D graph presenting the observed spectra at 5°, 10°, and 15° angles of incidence. (<b>c</b>) SPRi results showing distinct wavelengths meeting SPR conditions at their respective angles of incidence.</p>
Full article ">
Back to TopTop