Localized 3D-structural features of dynamic-chemical processes of urban air pollution in Beijing winter

The Beijing City Air Pollution Observation Field Experiment (BECAPEX) is described with emphases on the “point-surface” research approach and composite analysis. The analysis results of measurements from four observation sites across the Beijing urban area from January to March indicate that the overall impact of urban emission sources in the heating season is significant, and the staggered impact of urban emission sources has different features at observation sites over different parts of Beijing in both heating and non-heating seasons. The pollutants NOx, SO2 and CO in the urban boundary layer have the in-phase variation features over a large area. 03 concentrations at different sites have the same variation trend but its change is reversed phases with above pollutants. The pollutants over the urban area in heating and non-heating seasons also have the synchronous variation trend. The comprehensive sounding of BECAPEX indicates that pollutants and aerosol verticalprofiles are closely correlated to the vertical structure of the large-scale inversion layer in the urban boundary layer over the urban area. The localized 3D-structural features of local urban polluting processes associated with the peripheral areas are discussed with a “point-surface” comprehensive sounding technique.     

Land cover classification of remotely sensed image with hierarchical iterative method

Based on the analysis of the single-stage classification results obtained by the multitemporal SPOT 5 and Landsat 7 ETM+ multispectral images separately and the derived variogram texture, the best data combinations for each land cover class are selected, and the hierarchical iterative classification is then applied for land cover mapping. The proposed classification method combines the multitemporal images of different resolutions with the image texture, which can greatly improve the classification accuracy. The method and strategies proposed in the study can be easily transferred to other similar applications.     

Trend of urban system structure under the restriction of water and land resources in Xinjiang

On the basis of studies on water and land resources affecting urban development and urban system structure in Xinjiang, this paper analyzes the utilization status and shortage of urban water resources. It is considered that both the consumption and waste of urban water resources are in an increase trend. Most cities and towns in Xinjiang are in shortage of water resources, however, waste of water resources are serious, especially in small towns. The development of the megapolis and moderate cities is evidently restricted by limited land resources. Though there are relatively large spaces of expanding the small cities and towns, the output benefits of water and land resources are low. In order to achieve the ordinal expansion of urban system structure in Xinjiang, it is suggested to take the urban spatial development pattern of ＂one circle and three belts＂ and the resources-economized strategy in the rapid development of urbanization.     

Land potential appraisal for urban land reserve based on GIS：

With the rapid urbanization, land banking has become an important means for rational land use and land configuration optimizing. Rational urban land reserve and supply plan are keys for an urban land banking. GIS has been used to model urban growth, growth at the ruralurban fringe specifically. This paper identifies that the urban land banking potential can be evaluated based on RS and GIS technology. 10 indicators were chosen in the integrated index system. As a case of Metropolitan area in Chongqing, urban land banking potential was evaluated based on RS and GIS technology. With GIS, two steps can help to finish potential analysis of land banking. One is goal driven process, such as the process of planning and definition; the other step is datadriven process, such as the process of Manipulating. The results are used to establish the current land banking plan.      

Land cover classification of remotely sensed image with hierarchical iterative method

Land cover classification is one of the most wide ly used applications of remote sensing. The use ofmultitemporal remote sensing data in land cover clas sification is one of the effective methods of obtainingaccurate land cover/land use data. For a particularimage, different land cover types often show a similarspectral response and are difficult to separate. Theadvantage of using multitemporal data is that differentvegetation types show different spectral characteristicsin…     

Urban Transport and Sustainable Transport Strategies： A Case Study of Karachi, Pakistan

The uncontrolled growth in urbanization and motorization generally contributes to an urban land use and transportation system that is socially, economically, and environmentally unsustainable. This paper uses Karachi as a case study, which is the largest urban and economic centre of Pakistan, passing through an uncontrolled phase of rapid urbanization and motorization. The paper first reviews research related to sustainable transportation systems to comprehend the concept of sustainable development and transporta-tion. The paper then evaluates the existing transportation and infrastructure system, national transportation policies, and urban transportation projects to determine if the current paradigm is moving toward or away from sustainable transportation. Furthermore, the principles for sustainable urban transportation are devel-oped to see what significance national transportation policies have given to urban transportation from a sus-tainable transportation point of view. Finally some strategies are suggested, adoption of which may lead to a sustainable urban development and transportation system in Karachi.     

Scenario simulation and forecast of land use/cover in northern China

Modeling land use/cover scenario changes and its potential impacts on structure and functions of ecosystem in typical regions are helpful to understanding the interactive mechanism between land use/cover system and ecosystem. Based on the analysis of the existing land use/cover simulation and forecast models, a land use/cover scenario dynamics model by the integration of System Dynamics （SD） model, Back Propagation Neural Network （BPNN） and Cellular Automata （CA） model is developed with land use/cover scenario changes in northern China in the next 30 years and simulated in this paper. The model is to simulate the land use/cover scenario demands by using a SD model at first, and then allocating the land use scenario patterns at the local scale with the considerations of land use/cover suitability, inheritance ability and neighborhood effect by using BPNN-CA model to satisfy the balance between land use/cover scenario demands and supplies. It integrates the advantages of SD, BPNN and CA. Macro-driving factors and the micro-spatial pattern are also fully taken into account. The BPNN simplifies the identification of the factors＇ weights used in CA model and improves the reliability of the simulation results. The simulation accuracy of the model developed in this paper was found to be about 74%. It suggests that the model has the ability to reflect the complexity of land use/cover system at different scales to some extent and it is a useful tool for assessing the potential impacts of land use system on ecosystem. The simulated results also indicate that the urban land, water area and forest will increase significantly, and farmland and unable land will decrease gradually. Obvious land use/cover changes will take place in the farming-pastoral zone and the southeast area of northern China.     

Assessment of soil erosion risk on area alongside a typical section of road in Longitudinal Range-Gorge Region

Assessment of soil erosion risk on the area alongside a road not only provides important guidance to prevent and alleviate soil erosion, but also reflects a road built on soil erosion. The area alongside the road from Simao to Jinghong is chosen as the typical case; spatial analysis of GIS and BP neural network of artificial neural network are used as the methods; 5 factors of 3 aspects, such as topography, climate and land cover, are chosen to assess soil erosion risk on the area alongside a section of typical road. The results are that the area proportion of easier erosion land （the value of erosion risk is from 2.5 to 3.5） is relatively bigger; and the erosion risk of an area alongside the road in a certain distance is higher than an area far away from the road. It shows that the road has an effect on soil erosion of the area alongside it; the effect can be directly or indirectly caused by road construction; and the effect is reflected by the land cover change （including land use and vegetation status） caused by road construction.     

China’s urban expansion from 1990 to 2010 determined with satellite remote sensing

Based on the same data source of Landsat TM/ETM+ in 1990s,2000s and 2010s,all urban built-up areas in China are mapped mainly by human interpretation.Mapping results were checked and refined by the same analyst with the same set of criteria.The results show during the last 20 years urban areas in China have increased exponentially more than 2 times.The greatest area of urbanization changed from Northeastern provinces in 1990s to the Southeast coast of China in Jiangsu,Guangdong,Shandong,and Zhejiang in 2010s.Urban areas are mostly converted from croplands in China.Approximately 17750 km 2 croplands were converted into urban lands.Furthermore,the conversion from 2000 to 2010 doubled that from 1990 to 2000.During the 20 years,the most urbanized provinces are Jiangsu,Guangdong,Shandong and Zhejiang.We also analyzed built-up areas,gross domestic production (GDP) and population of 147 cities with a population of greater than 500000 in 2009.The result shows coastal cities and resource-based cities are with high economic efficiency per unit of built-up areas,resource-based cities have the highest population density,and the economic efficiency of most coastal provinces are lower than central provinces and Guangdong.The newly created urban expansion dataset is useful in many fields including trend analysis of urbanization in China;simulation of urban development dynamics;analysis of the relationship among urbanization,population growth and migration;studies of carbon emissions and climate change;adaptation of climate change;as well as land use and urban planning and management.     

Development of Simulation System for the Disaster Evacuation Based on Multi-Agent Model Using

This paper presents a simulation system for the disaster evacuation based on multi-agent model considering geographical information. This system consists of three parts, the modeling for the land and buildings using GIS data, the analysis of disaster evacuation using multi-agent model, and the visualization for the numerical results using the virtual reality technique. By introducing the numerical solver of the natural disaster to the present system, it is possible to evaluate not only the damage of structure but also the damage of human being. Furthermore, it is possible to investigate the appropriate evacuation route by the simulation. The Dijkstra algorithm is used to obtain shortest route to the refuge. In addition, the visualization using virtual reality technique is curried out to understand the feeling of refugee. The present system is applied to the evacuation analysis by the flood flow in urban area and is shown to be a useful tool to investigate the damage by natural disasters.     

Effects of spectral sampling rate and range of CO2 absorption bands on XCO2 retrieval from TanSat hyperspectral spectrometer

The spectral sampling rate and range of CO2 absorption bands are critical for the optimal design of hyperspectral instrument for CO2 observation satellite. Undersampling of spectra in space-based spectrometer significantly contaminates signals measured in the CO2 1.61 ktm-band. The CO2 dry-air column （XCO2） error due to spectral undersampling can be up to ,1 ppm, which is the target precision of the Chinese Carbon Satellite （TanSat） for a single sounding. Undersampling error depends on surface albedo, solar zenith angle, and scattering properties in the atmosphere. The spectral sampling rate is recommended to be greater than 2.0 pixels per full width at half maximum to avoid undersampling. Reduction of spectral resolution and the use of narrower spectral regions can improve spectral sampling with little changes in CO2 retrieval sensitivity without losing much information. The full-band approach provides direct constraints on the wavelength-dependent surface albedo and particle scattering from the measurements. To keep a broader band, we recommend reduction of the spectral resolution by a factor of two.     

Spatial analyzing system for urban land use management based on GIS and multi-criteria assessment modeling

Urban land management requires the integration of a wide range of data on ecological process, environmental process and process on urban planning and development. This paper combined land suitability modeling with remote sensing （RS）, landscape ecological analysis and geographic information system （GIS） to develop a spatial analyzing system for urban expansion land management. The spatial analyzing system incorporates the use of a multi-criteria mechanism in GIS for the suitability evaluation of urban expansion land. Grey relational analysis （GRA） was combined with analytic hierarchy process （AHP） to address the uncertainties during the process of evaluation. This approach was applied to explicitly identify constraints and opportunities for future land conservation and development in Changsha City, China. Validation of the methodology showed a high degree of coincidence with the previous independent studies as regards ecological suitability. The methodology can be useful in environmental protection, land management and regional planning.     

Spatiotemporal vegetation cover variations in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau under global climate change

Empirical Orthogonal Function （EOF） analysis and the related Principal Components （PC） analysis are used to extract valuable vegetation cover derived information from the National Oceanic and Atmos-pheric Administration （NOAA-AVHRR）＇s Leaf Area Index （LAI） satellite images. Results suggest that from 1982 to 2000 global climate change has contributed to an increase in vegetation cover in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The correlation between rainfall and LAI EOF PC1 and PC2 indicates that rainfall is the major climatic factor influencing interannual variations of average vegetation cover throughout the entire Plateau. However, annual mean vegetation cover trends in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are mainly out of phase with air temperature increasing, which is primarily responsible for nonsynchro-nous changes of vegetation cover. In the southern ridge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, recent warming trends contribute to humid weather and favorable conditions for vegetation growth. By contrast, higher temperatures have led to arid conditions and insufficient rainfall in the northern part of the Plateau, leading to drought and other climatic conditions which are not conducive to increased vegetation cover.     

Three-year changes of surface albedo of degraded grassland and cropland surfaces in a semiarid area

Diurnal, seasonal and interannual variations of surface albedo of degraded grassland and cropland surfaces at a semiarid area of Tognyu have been investigated based on the continuous three years observational data from 2003 to 2005. The changes of surface albedo with solar elevation angle and soil moisture have been discussed also. It has been found that surface albedo has almost the same diurnal and seasonal variations on degraded grassland and cropland surfaces in the semiarid area, while surface albedo is large in winter and small in summer. The diurnal variation of the surface albedo has relationship with the weather condition. The diurnal cycle of the surface albedo likes the ＂U＂ shape curve in sunny day, while it is low-high after the rain, and high-low after the snow. The surface albedo has large variation in cloudy day, while it has no any variation in overcast day. The large difference of the surface albedo can be 0.04 in winter between two land surfaces, because the snow has large effects on the surface albedo in winter. The rainfall is an important factor in summer on the surface albedo, while the difference of the surface albedo is 0.01 only between two land surfaces. The differences of the surface albedo can also be 0.04 in autumn due to vegetation growing. The seasonal-average surface albeo from 2003-2005 is 0.25, 0.22, 0.24, 0.32 respectively in spring, summer, autumn and winter on the degraded grassland surface, while it is 0.25, 0.21,0.22, 0.33 respectively in spring, summer, autumn and winter on the cropland surface. The surface albedo becomes smaller with the increase of solar elevation angle. When the solar elevation angle is greater than 40°, the surface albedo changes very little and tends to be a constant. The surface albedo has negative exponent functions with soil moisture in the growing season.     

Experimental investigation of effect of partial filling on the impulse of pulse detonation engine

Using poor-detonable liquid C8H16/air mixture with low-energy system (total spark energy of 50 mJ) and a new one-step detonation initiation method developed in this study, partial-tube fill experiments have been conducted in a fixed length PDE tube with a fuel/air mixture section of different length, covering a wide range of the detonation tube fill fraction (ratio of fuel/air mixture length to tube length). Impulse was calculated by integrating the pressure differential at the closed end of the tube. Based on the re- sults obtained experimentally, it is found that the fuel-based specific impulse declines when fill fraction increases. On the other hand, the total-mixture-based specific impulse rises as fill fraction increases. A multi-cycle partial-fill model is developed to predict the impulse obtained from a partially-filled detona- tion tube, which is valuable for the optimization of PDE performance.     

Characteristics of carbon storage in Shanghai’s urban forest

Urban forest has undergone rapid development in China over the last three decades because of the acceleration of urbanization.Urban forest thus plays an increasingly important role in carbon sequestration at a regional and national scale.As one of the most urbanized cities in China,Shanghai showed an increase of forest coverage from 3% in the 1990s to 13% in 2009.Based on CITY-green model and the second soil survey of Shanghai,the forest biomass carbon(FBC) was estimated to be 0.48 Tg in the urban area and,forest soil organic carbon(SOC)(0-100 cm soil depth) is 2.48 Tg in the urban and suburban areas,respectively.These values are relatively within the median and lower level compared with other Chinese megacities,with the FBC of 0.02 Tg in Harbin to 47.29 Tg in Chongqing and the forest SOC of 1.74 Tg in Nanjing to 418.67 Tg in Chongqing.For the different land-use types in Shanghai,the SOC density ranges from 13.8(tidal field) to 38.6 t ha-1(agricultural land).On average,the forest SOC density(31.5 t ha-1) in Shanghai is lower than that in agricultural lands(38.6 t ha-1) and higher than that in lawns(26.5 t ha-1) and gardens(21.3 t ha-1).In Shanghai,the SOC density in newly established urban parks is generally lower than that in older parks.In the northern and southeastern suburban areas(e.g.,Baoshan,Yangpu,and Nanhui districts),greenspace SOC density is higher than that in the central commercial areas(Hongkou,Putuo,Changning,and Zhabei districts) and in newly developed district(Pudong District).Uncertainties still exist in the estimation of urban forest carbon in Shanghai,as well as in other Chinese cities.Thus,future research directions are also discussed in this paper.     

Characteristics and laws of MODS coupling relation in arid zone under global change

Global change has influenced the distribution pattern and spatio-temporal changes of resources in arid zone, and has restrained the land use and land cover change, which is shown by water-heat state, landscape structure, climate effect, and human activities. The above-mentioned characteristics have a close coupling relation with the mountain-oasisdesert system （MODS）. The climate in Central Asia arid zone is warm and wet, which is different from that in northern China which takes a tendency of aridity, and the mechanism has restricted the characteristics and laws of MODS. Systematic interface characteristics and process, especially the formation, transformation and consumption laws of water resource reflect directly MODS＇s response to global change in arid zone. Spatio-temporal pattern, dynamic change, scale change and coupling mode of MODS reflect the ecology mechanism between the systems and within the systems.     

Wavelet analysis of pressure fluctuation signals in a gas-solid fluidized bed

It has been shown that much dynamic information is hidden in the pressure fluctuation signals of a gas-solid fluidized bed. Unfortunately, due to the random and capricious nature of this signal, it is hard to realize reliable analysis using traditional signal processing methods such as statistical analysis or spectral analysis, which is done in Fourier domain. Information in different frequency band can be extracted by using wavelet analysis. On the evidence of the composition of the pressure fluctuation signals, energy of low frequency (ELF) is proposed to show the transition of fluidized regimes from bubbling fluidization to turbulent fluidization. Plots are presented to describe the fluidized bed‘s evolution to help identify the state of different flow regimes and provide a characteristic curve to identify the fluidized status effectively and reliably.     

Long term monitoring of urban subsidence by Permanent Scatterer DInSAR

When using differential SAR interferometry (DInSAR) to monitor the surface deformation over a long time scale, it is often strongly affected by the spatial and temporal decorrelations and atmospheric dishomogeneities. The recently developed Permanent Scatterers (PS) technique proposed by Fertti et al. can overcome these difficulties by interpreting time-series of interferometric phase only at coherent point scatterers. In this study, we apply this PS technique using 25 ERS-1/2 scenes from 1992 to 2000 to monitor the subsidence in Suzhou. By using the linear deformation model, the deformation map in Suzhou urban area over the eight years is obtained. And the calculated results are in good agreement with the measurements of leveling.     

Long term monitoring of urban subsidence by Permanent Scatterer DInSAR

When using differential SAR interferometry (DInSAR) to monitor the surface deformation over a long time scale, it is often strongly affected by the spatial and temporal decorrelations and atmospheric dishomogeneities. The recently developed Permanent Scatterers (PS) technique proposed by Fertti et al. can overcome these difficulties by interpreting time-series of interferometric phase only at coherent point scatterers. In this study, we apply this PS technique using 25 ERS-1/2 scenes from 1992 to 2000 to monitor the subsidence in Suzhou. By using the linear deformation model, the deformation map in Suzhou urban area over the eight years is obtained. And the calculated results are in good agreement with the measurements of leveling.