Aerial measurement of radioxenon concentration off the west coast of Vancouver Island following the Fukushima reactor accident

In response to the Fukushima nuclear reactor accident, on March 20th, 2011, Natural Resources Canada conducted aerial radiation surveys over water just off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Dose-rate levels were found to be consistent with background radiation, however a clear signal due to ¹³³Xe was observed. Methods to extract ¹³³Xe count rates from the measured spectra, and to determine the corresponding ¹³³Xe activity concentration, were developed. The measurements indicate that ¹³³Xe concentrations on average lie in the range of 30-70 Bq/m³.     

Hazardous waste site identification using aerial photography: A pilot study in Burlington County,New Jersey,USA

The objective of the project was to identify all hazardous waste sites in Burlington County, New Jersey that could be detected on existing, medium-scale aerial photographs of the county. The complete set of over 1000 black- and-white stereopairs at a scale of 1:12,000 was carefully examined for initial identification of possible sites. All suspicious sites were examined again on color transparencies of the county at the same 1:12,000 scale. Out of the 1094 black- and-white photos, 250 required further checking on color transparencies using a zoom stereoscope. This examination resulted in a final identification of 67 sites, the locations of which were delineated on 1:24,000 USGS maps. The use of air photo interpretation techniques provided an effective procedure for identifying waste sites quickly as well as providing a useful demonstration program for county and state officials.     

跟踪拍照识别白鱀豚的研究

作者从１９８６年起开展了照相识别白豚的研究。通过反复试验，采用多船弧形跟踪、单船切入拍照的方法，在观察到白豚的４８天中，共拍得１６００张照片并从中识别出１０头白暨豚。除了白暨豚背鳍上的自然标记能有效地用于个体识别之外，豚体上的色斑、图象等亦能用于个体识别。作者由此获得了白豚群体组成变化和迁移距离等科学资料，对深入研究白暨豚生态学有重要意义。     

废旧塑料浮选分离中气泡黏附行为的影响

塑料浮选作为一种基于表面活性剂的废旧塑料分选技术,是解决废旧塑料环境污染的有效方法. 为深入考察塑料浮选过程中气泡的黏附行为及影响因素,运用高速摄影技术结合气泡黏附时间模型,对比分析纯水中气泡与亲/疏水材料的黏附效果,重点比较不同溶液〔纯水、鼠李糖脂和SDS(十二烷基硫酸钠)溶液〕中气泡与疏水材料的黏附时间变化,并探讨其影响机制. 结果表明:气泡在纯水中只与疏水材料发生黏附,表面活性剂及其浓度对气泡与疏水材料的黏附时间影响显著. 在c(鼠李糖脂)和c(SDS)(二者均为0.03 mmol/L)均较低的溶液中,气泡与疏水材料的黏附时间由纯水中的158 ms分别降至120和140 ms,而二者较高(10.00 mmol/L)时黏附时间分别增至1 134和338 ms. 基于黏附时间模型分析表明,黏附时间是气泡尺寸、接触角、溶液黏度及表面张力等参数的函数,通过控制这些参数可以调控气泡在目标塑料表面的黏附时间,实现浮选效率的优化.      

Overtown: neighbourhood,change, challenge and “invironment”

This paper explores how residents of Overtown, a low-income neighbourhood in Miami, Florida, view the positive and negative aspects of their neighbourhood “invironment” through photographs taken by residents. The “invironment” [Bell, M., 2004. An invitation to environmental sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press] alludes to the interactions between environment/surroundings and the human body. Residents involved with a community social justice organisation were provided with a photographic workshop and cameras to visually document the positive and negative aspects of their neighbourhood. These participant photographers provided narratives paired with their photographs which were then exhibited at local community events. During the exhibits, community members’ comments on the photographs were recorded. This paper analyses community issues through both photographs and neighbourhood comments inspired by the photographs. The following themes of importance to residents were derived from the photographs and discussion with residents: Housing, Public Space, Neighbourhood Economy, History, Environmental/Invironmental Issues, Human Capital and Power. These themes were all connected by residents’ concerns about inequality in Overtown compared to other neighbourhoods in Miami.     

Researching Visual Environmental Communication

In 2008, we published a journal paper arguing that while scholarly work on media representations of environmental issues had made substantial progress in textual analysis, there had been much less work on visual representations. This special edition has a number of aims in this respect. It seeks to mark out where there has been progress since 2008, and the papers in this collection represent some of the fresh and exciting high quality scholarly work now emerging on an expanding number of topics and using different methods. We argue that we need to think more openly about what we mean by “the visual.” We begin by placing research into visual representations of the environment into the wider trajectory of visual studies research. We then proceed to review key trends in visual environmental communication research and to delineate core dimensions, contexts and sites of visual analysis.     

航空绿化遥感中的遮蔽校正计算

对航空绿化遥感调查中存在的绿化信息定量提取精度不足的缺陷,在分析航空遥感成像特点基础上,探讨了遮蔽现象对城市绿化信息提取精度的影响,进而推导出航空遥感遮蔽校正的计算公式,在实例研究的过程中,提出了3种遮蔽校正方法,并对其的计算结果进行了对比,分析了各自的适用条件。     

“空地一体化”环境应急监测与管理系统设计

在总结我国环境应急管理体系建设现状的基础上,提出了"空地一体化"的环境应急监测与管理体系的框架和功能设计,介绍了引入无人机监测系统对环境应急体系的功能改进。最后从无人机机载传感器、"空地一体化"数据分析处理和通讯保障3个维度对关键技术的选择问题进行了探讨,分析了其现状、技术难点与发展趋势,以期为现代化的环境应急体系建设提供有益的参考。     

A land management history for central Queensland,Australia as determined from land-holder questionnaire and aerial photography

Features of the land management history over a 125,755 km(2) area of central Queensland, Australia were determined from a variety of sources. A random sample of 205 site locations provided the basis for determining trends in land use. Trends in vegetation clearing were determined using sequential aerial photography for the sample sites, revealing a steady rate averaging nearly 1% of the region per annum over 41 years. This measure of sustained clearing over a large region is higher than recently published clearing rates from South America. Land types have been selectively cleared with over 90% of the Acacia on clay land type having been cleared. A land-holder questionnaire pertaining to the random sites yielded a response rate of 71% and provided information on vegetation clearing, ploughing, tree killing (ring-barking or tree poisoning), and fire frequency, season and intensity. The land-holder responses were compared with independent data sources where possible and revealed no mis-information. However, land-holders may have been marginally less likely to respond if the sample area had been cleared, although this effect was not statistically significant. Ploughing and tree killing are variable depending on land type, but the former has affected about 40% of the Acacia on clay land type, effectively eliminating options for natural regrowth. The proportion of decade-site combinations that were reported as having no fires increased from 22% in the 1950s to an average of 42% for subsequent decades, although the reporting of more than one fire per decade has been relatively constant through the study period. The reporting of at least one fire per decade varies from 46% for the Acacia on sand land type to 77% for the Eucalypt on sand land type for decade-site combinations. Fires are more intense when associated with clearing than in uncleared vegetation, but the proportion of cool and hot fires is relatively constant between land types in uncleared vegetation. Nearly all fires reported were either in spring or summer and this seasonally restricted regime is probably at variance with Aboriginal fire regimes. This study describes the rapid transformation of central Queensland. This has yielded substantially increased agricultural production but may also result in a range of negative impacts and these are discussed.     

Modelling trends in woody vegetation structure in semi-arid Australia as determined from aerial photography

Accounting of carbon stocks in woody vegetation for greenhouse purposes requires definition of medium term trends with accurate error assessment. Tree and shrub cover was sampled through time at randomly located sites over a large area of central Queensland, Australia using aerial photography from 1945 to 1999. Calibration models developed from field data for the same land types as those represented within the study area allowed for the extrapolation of overstorey and understorey cover, basal area and biomass values and these were modelled as trends over the latter half of the 20th century. These structural attributes have declined over the region because of land clearing with values for biomass changing from a mean of 58.0(+/-1.2)t/ha in 1953 to 41.1(+/-1.0)t/ha in 1991. The biomass of Acacia on clay and Eucalypt on texture contrast soils land types has declined most dramatically. Within uncleared vegetation there was an overall trend of increase from 56.1(+/-1.2)t/ha in 1951 to 67.6(+/-1.3)t/ha in 1995. The increase in structural attributes within uncleared vegetation was most pronounced for the Eucalypt on texture contrast soils and Eucalypt on clay land types. It was demonstrated that the sites sampled were representative of their land types and that spatial bias of the photography, undetected tree-killing, sampling error, inherent variability of structural attributes and measurement error should not have impacted greatly on bias or precision of trend estimates for well-sampled land types. Certainly the errors are not likely to be substantial for trends averaged over all land types and they provide an accurate assessment of the magnitude and direction of change. The technique presented here would appear to be a robust means of accounting for the above-ground woody component of woodlands and open forests and will also contribute to a broader understanding of savanna dynamics.