Landscape responses to degradation caused by aridification bring the landscape system into a new equilibrium state. The system transformation may entail irreversible changes to its constituting ...parameters. This paper analyses the impact of aridification on landscape degradation processes in the sand-covered landscapes of the Hungarian Danube-Tisza Interfluve region at the regional, landscape, and local site scales. Changes in groundwater level (well data), lake surface area (Modified Normalized Difference Water Index) and vegetation cover (Enhanced Vegetation Index) were analysed over time periods of 12–60 years. Significant regional variation in decreasing groundwater levels is observed and limits the regional applicability of this indicator. Applying the lake surface area parameter from remote sensing data demonstrated greater utility, identifying several local lakes in the landscapes which have dried out. Analysis of the vegetation response indicated minor changes over the 2000–2014 time period and did not indicate a landscape system change. Landscape degradation as a result of changes in groundwater, vegetation, land cover and land use is clearly identified exclusively in local lake areas, but at the landscape scale, changes in the water balance are found in phases of system stability and transformation. Thresholds are identified to support policy and management towards landscape degradation neutrality.
Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are popular for many reasons, such as increasing productivity for developers and improving communication with domain experts. Both textual and graphical DSLs are ...viable solutions with complementary pros and cons: while graphical DSLs shorten the learning curve and facilitate documentation and communication, textual DSLs aim at higher productivity thanks to more efficient editor functionalities. This paper presents the industrial experience on the adoption of a hybrid approach combining an existing textual DSL with a read-only graphical state machine representation (visualization), equipped with a selective abstraction functionality that offers user-specific, highly configurable views on states and transitions. Our approach is the result of an evolutionary process to improve the modelling experience, relying on frequent user feedback. We argue that a well-tailored visualization is a suitable way to shorten the learning curve and ease the adoption of model-driven approaches in industrial settings.
The mining of models from data finds widespread use in industry. There exists a variety of model inference methods for perfectly deterministic behaviour, however, in practice, the provided data often ...contains noise due to faults such as message loss or environmental factors that many of the inference algorithms have problems dealing with. We present a novel model mining approach using Partial Max-SAT solving to infer the best possible automaton from a set of noisy execution traces. This approach enables us to ignore the minimal number of presumably faulty observations to allow the construction of a deterministic automaton. No pre-processing of the data is required. The method's performance as well as a number of considerations for practical use are evaluated, including three industrial use cases, for which we inferred the correct models.
The model framework MULBO (Multicriteria Landscape Assessment and Optimisation) is a spatially explicit decision support method on the basis of risk evaluations for landscape functions. Its principal ...purpose is the establishment of optimal land use patterns as scenarios, which are balanced compromises between conflicting goals for the reduction of assessed risks. A user manual for MULBO has been developed which contains the individual assessment tools, the landscape optimisation method LNOPT 2.0, a multiplicity of applications, as well as information about data and techniques. After an introductory discussion of fundamentals for spatial decision-making, the methods and contents of MULBO are presented and discussed on basis of applications in a rural area in the southern part of Saxony-Anhalt (Germany). An applied project converts the scenario results recently into possible practices.
Two spatial optimization approaches, developed from the opposing perspectives of ecological economics and landscape planning and aimed at the definition of new distributions of farming systems and of ...land use elements, are compared and integrated into a general framework. The first approach, applied to a small river catchment in southwestern France, uses SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) and a weighted goal programming model in combination with a geographical information system (GIS) for the determination of optimal farming system patterns, based on selected objective functions to minimize deviations from the goals of reducing nitrogen and maintaining income. The second approach, demonstrated in a suburban landscape near Leipzig, Germany, defines a GIS-based predictive habitat model for the search of unfragmented regions suitable for hare populations (Lepus europaeus), followed by compromise optimization with the aim of planning a new habitat structure distribution for the hare. The multifunctional problem is solved by the integration of the three landscape functions (“production of cereals,” “resistance to soil erosion by water,” and “landscape water retention”). Through the comparison, we propose a framework for the definition of optimal land use patterns based on optimization techniques. The framework includes the main aspects to solve land use distribution problems with the aim of finding the optimal or best land use decisions. It integrates indicators, goals of spatial developments and stakeholders, including weighting, and model tools for the prediction of objective functions and risk assessments. Methodological limits of the uncertainty of data and model outcomes are stressed. The framework clarifies the use of optimization techniques in spatial planning.
Implementation of sustainable landscape policy directions can be held back by various constraints. These limitations may include: an absence of reliable integrated landscape character predictions, ...unproductive tensions arising from poorly informed public and institutional debate, low levels of political resolve due to uncertainty, and limitations on program and project design due to either inadequate availability, or ineffective use of ecological and social data. The need for new methodologies to speed the attainment of sustainable land use is pressing when considered in the context of information indicating that the condition of the world's ecosystems remains in decline. This decline is measurable by the changes in ecosystem services. Taking an ecosystem services view offers an opportunity to address some of the limitations noted earlier. The ecosystem services concept links natural resource management more clearly to the broader functionality of natural systems. Ecosystem services like clean water, productive soils and distinct flora and fauna are generated or maintained by healthy functioning ecosystems. Dwelling on these services and the practices that alter them defines the reasons for natural resource management. Modelling these ecosystems and their services is the key way to understanding these relationships. The utilisation of land use modelling methods to inform, and be informed by community and stakeholder landscape preferences, represents a potential step forward in the evolution of approaches to deliver sustainable landscape policy objectives. This paper presents a summary of examples of a multi-criteria land use optimisation technique that has been used to envision land use combinations most likely to achieve sustainable landscapes in Germany. A number of the sustainable landscape principles arising from Victoria's rural land stewardship project, such as use of an ecosystem services framework to better inform long-term land use planning along with calls to better connect community input to landscape function and land use decisions, are also considered.
Due to climatic change, the prognosticated shift of agricultural land into dry steppes in the south of Western Siberia by 200-300 km in the next 25 years forebodes that wide ranges of steppes will be ...affected by desertification. The steppes taken under culture in the 1950s in the districts of Novosibirsk and Altai were protected around 1968 by a high number of hedges. Following the economic decline of Siberian agriculture, the risk of recurrence of active morphological and other unwanted processes grows, which constitutes an early stage of desertification. In this study, special emphasis has been taken on the description of the desertification indicators and land use basics in the Kulunda Steppe, through the example of a detailed pedological investigation of the farm Ivanovskoe (ca. 20,000 ha) near Bagan in the northern Kulunda Steppe. Desertification is analysed and evaluated in detail, especially by the proportion of rough material on agriculturally used Chernozem which has increased significantly since cultivation. Deflation damage is still proven on most of these soils. The saline lakes in the area are already drying up slowly. The river Bagan carries much less water than before steppe cultivation.
PDF
