Paleocanais no megaleque do rio Taquari: mapeamento e signifcado geomorfológico

This paper presents the results of the frst systematic mapping of the paleochannel network on the Taquari megafan (Pantanal, Brazil). We used remote sensing data collected by the ASTER sensor, which captures images with 15 m square pixels. A total of 34 scenes, acquired from 2001-2006, were used in the analysis. These data were processed using a decorrelation stretch technique in order to obtain a better visual identifcation of the paleochannels. The mapping procedure began with the overlay of a 1:50.000 IBGE articulation, in order to systematize the extraction of features and to reduce the subjectivity inherent to visual analysis methods. We mapped a total of 33,205 km of paleochannels. The density of these features is related to the relative ages of distinct geomorphological compartments, known as depositional lobes. The mapped features preserve avulsion events that occurred on the megafan. The results suggest that low-magnitude avulsions occur more frequently than larger events.

Prevention of soil-transmitted helminth infection

Soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) form one of the most important groups of infectious agents and are the cause of serious global health problems. The most important STHs are roundworms (Ascaris lumbricoides), whipworms (Trichuris trichiura) and hookworms (Necator americanus or Ancylostoma duodenale); on a global level, more than a billion people have been infected by at least one species of this group of pathogens. This review explores the general concepts of transmission dynamics and the environment and intensity of infection and morbidity of STHs. The global strategy for the control of soil-transmitted helminthiasis is based on (i) regular anthelminthic treatment, (ii) health education, (iii) sanitation and personal hygiene and (iv) other means of prevention with vaccines and remote sensoring. The reasons for the development of a control strategy based on population intervention rather than on individual treatment are discussed, as well as the costs of the prevention of STHs, although these cannot always be calculated because interventions in health education are difficult to measure. An efficient sanitation infrastructure can reduce the morbidity of STHs and eliminates the underlying cause of most poverty-related diseases and thus supports the economic development of a country.

Geoinformação na gestão dos recursos hídricos em sub-bacia hidrográfica

By remote sensing, geodatabase digital processing, information and expeditions to Capivara's sub-basin, was possible to identify the changes in the landscape mainly the expansion of eucalyptus, sugar-cane, and orange trees, being the last two, mainly on the Periferic Depression of Basaltic Cuesta. A significant portion of the soil on this geological area is formed from sandstones, providing high permeability to them, making them important places to groundwater recharge areas as sensible to contamination by pesticides. Throughout last decade was observed that the native vegetation fragments stabilization, keeping a reason of 26.5% on the land used between 2000 and 2010. The pasture decrease being substituted by eucalyptus, sugar-cane and orange trees call attention for the changes in the agribusiness model demanded by the current economic and social necessity. Pasture decrease followed by erosions decrease on sub-basin is evidence that these two aspects are strongly related.

Wavelets and decision trees for target detection over sea surface using cosmo-skymed SAR data

We are investigating the combination of wavelets and decision trees to detect ships and other maritime surveillance targets from medium resolution SAR images. Wavelets have inherent advantages to extract image descriptors while decision trees are able to handle different data sources. In addition, our work aims to consider oceanic features such as ship wakes and ocean spills. In this incipient work, Haar and Cohen-Daubechies-Feauveau 9/7 wavelets obtain detailed descriptors from targets and ocean features and are inserted with other statistical parameters and wavelets into an oblique decision tree. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

Land use image classification through optimum-path forest clustering

Land use classification has been paramount in the last years, since we can identify illegal land use and also to monitor deforesting areas. Although one can find several research works in the literature that address this problem, we propose here the land use recognition by means of Optimum-Path Forest Clustering (OPF), which has never been applied to this context up to date. Experiments among Optimum-Path Forest, Mean Shift and K-Means demonstrated the robustness of OPF for automatic land use classification of images obtained by CBERS-2B and Ikonos-2 satellites. © 2011 IEEE.

Is it possible to make pixel-based radar image classification user-friendly?

In this paper we would like to shed light the problem of efficiency and effectiveness of image classification in large datasets. As the amount of data to be processed and further classified has increased in the last years, there is a need for faster and more precise pattern recognition algorithms in order to perform online and offline training and classification procedures. We deal here with the problem of moist area classification in radar image in a fast manner. Experimental results using Optimum-Path Forest and its training set pruning algorithm also provided and discussed. © 2011 IEEE.

Initial analysis from a Lidar observation campaign of sugar cane fires in the central and western portion of the S̃ao Paulo State - Brazil

The central and western portion of the S̃ao Paulo State has large areas of sugar cane plantations, and due to the growing demand for biofuels, the production is increasing every year. During the harvest period some plantation areas are burnt a few hours before the manual cutting, causing significant quantities of biomass burning aerosol to be injected into the atmosphere. During August 2010, a field campaign has been carried out in Ourinhos, situated in the south-western region of S̃ao Paulo State. A 2-channel Raman Lidar system and two meteorological S-Band Doppler Radars are used to indentify and quantify the biomass burning plumes. In addiction, CALIPSO Satellite observations were used to compare the aerosol optical properties detected in that region with those retrieved by Raman Lidar system. Although the campaign yielded 30 days of measurements, this paper will be focusing only one case study, when aerosols released from nearby sugar cane fires were detected by the Lidar system during a CALIPSO overpass. The meteorological radar, installed in Bauru, approximately 110 km northeast from the experimental site, had recorded echoes (dense smoke comprising aerosols) from several fires occurring close to the Raman Lidar system, which also detected an intense load of aerosol in the atmosphere. HYSPLIT model forward trajectories presented a strong indication that both instruments have measured the same air masss parcels, corroborated with the Lidar Ratio values from the 532 nm elastic and 607 nm Raman N2 channel analyses and data retrieved from CALIPSO have indicated the predominance of aerosol from biomass burning sources. © 2011 SPIE.

Mapeamento geoambiental como subsídio na determinação de áreas de instabilidades da faixa de dutos Osvat/Osplan - São Sebastião, SP

Works of linear engineering such as roads, pipelines and transmission lines have specific mapping due to their large scale impact on the environment, thus requiring mapping methods that are both efficient and of low cost. This paper presents a proposal of Geoenvironmental mapping for works linear. The work chosen for the implementation of the method was the Osvat/Osplan pipeline located in the cities of São Sebastião and Caraguatatuba. The geoenvironment mapping was elaborate trough photo-interpretation of images of the ETM+/Landsat-7 sensor and analysis of the drainage network, thus resulting in the partitioning of the geoenvironmental units and the fracture area (structural lineaments and lines of strikes), these maps were subsequently integrated into a product called Map of environmental susceptibility to gravitational and erosive processes, which helped define the areas with potential geotechnical problems that could damage both the pipeline and the environment.

O rio Paraguai no megaleque do Nabileque, sudoeste do Pantanal mato-grossense, MS

The Nabileque fluvial fan is a Quaternary depositional system located along the southwestern border of the Pantanal, covering an area of approximately 9,100 km 2. It is a peculiar alluvial system because it is not associated with inflow from adjacent plateaus. The Nabileque megafan is formed by the Paraguay River at the exit of the Pantanal wetland, coalescing with the Pilcomayo megafan of the Chaco basin. A geomorphological zonation analysis was performed making use of remote sensing data with field verification. Most of the area is a vast alluvial plain made of Pleistocene deposits, whose surface is marked by the presence of an intricate network of distributary paleochannels. Areas blanketed by Pleistocene deposits are dissected by erosional streams and subject to frequent flooding events. The Paraguay River flows in a meander belt constrained by NE fractures associated with the Transbrasiliano Lineament, but deflects towards the SSE after the Negro River confluence composing the system's peripheral drainage. An abandoned meander belt is preserved within a remarkable N-S incised-valley that is interpreted as the ancient Paraguay River course. Processes of avulsion and river capture are suggested to explain the observed changes of the river course. The Nabileque River is an underfit stream within the incised-valley, cutting paleomeanders and point bars of the previous Paraguay River course.

Building roof contour extraction from LiDAR data

This paper proposes a method for the automatic extraction of building roof contours from a LiDAR-derived digital surface model (DSM). The method is based on two steps. First, to detect aboveground objects (buildings, trees, etc.), the DSM is segmented through a recursive splitting technique followed by a region merging process. Vectorization and polygonization are used to obtain polyline representations of the detected aboveground objects. Second, building roof contours are identified from among the aboveground objects by optimizing a Markov-random-field-based energy function that embodies roof contour attributes and spatial constraints. Preliminary results have shown that the proposed methodology works properly.

Zoneamento geoambiental aplicado ao planejamento da gestão ambiental e territorial do município de Colorado D'Oeste, RO

This research is based on the physical characterization of the environment to support definition of the best land use for the county of Colorado D'Oeste, in State of Rondônia, Brazil. Remote sensing and geoprocessing techniques were applied to support the preparation of a Geoenvironmental Zoning, which was used to define strategies of territorial and environmental management in that county. Digital and analogical remote sensing products, acquired by satellites, and additional cartographic and thematic maps allowed a morphostructural analysis to define low and high structural associated study site tectonic. Subsequently, this information was used to support analysis of the physiographic compartmentation of the study area. Based on this study information, it is possible to define geoenvironmental subzones and local hidrological regime, soils, mineral components, texture, color, and sedimentary materials. By integrating previous described information, a synthesis cartographic map generated. Accordingly, this Cartographic Sheet spatially defined the best land use over the study area, indicates zones for conservation, agricultural, and regeneration (areas that should be recovered). Finally, the results of this research can contribute and support governmental and non-governmental organization and local communities could improve land use and soil management, avoiding natural resource destruction and future land scarcity in the county of Colorado D'Oeste.

Identificação de paleocanais na região da confluência entre os rios Ivaí e Paraná com o uso de dados de sensoriamento remoto e reconhecimento de fácies sedimentares

The confluence of Ivaí River together with the Paraná one is located near Icaraíma city on the Northwest of Paraná State. In this region, several paleochannels showed quaternary dynamic of Ivaí and Paraná Rivers floodplain. The aim of study was to apply multispectral indices and a data transformation of Landsat 5 TM data, associated with fieldwork and sedimentary facies to identify paleochannels. The results of the Normalized Difference Vegetation, Normalized Difference Water e Modificated Normalized Difference Water indices did not show satisfactory gains. However, the Tasseled Cap Wetness has provided an important gain of information on recognizing paleochannels facies. Through the remote sensing results sediment cores were realized and the sedimentary facies showed its correspondence with remote sensing interpretation.

Análise de fraturamentos para determinação de áreas instáveis na faixa de dutos Osvat/Osplan - São Sebastião, em São Paulo

The present work aimed at characterizing geological features that identify areas with high ruptibility (fracturing) in the Osvat/Osplan pipeline in São Sebastião, São Paulo. The analysis of ruptile geological structures (lines of strikes and structural lineaments) through the use of orbital remote sensing was used as systematic mapping. The analysis of these features enables the inference of factors, such as permeability, infiltration and degree of shear in the region, factors which influence the processes of erosion and landslides in the area. On the map of structural lineaments, points of lineaments intersection from different directions were analyzed, followed by the counting of the frequency of these items per unit area, allowing the statistical modeling of spatial distribution, generating the map of density of structural lineament intersections, which allows determining areas with the highest percolation of fluid in the rock structure. However, on the map of lines of strikes, a space analysis was conducted to identify the two directions with higher frequency of lines of strikes in order to establish the maximums 1 and 2 and to identify the areas of abrupt changes of direction of these strike lines. In such areas where abrupt changes of directions of maximum lines of strikes occur, consequently there will be intense percolation of fluids, responsible for higher alterability of the rock/soil complex, facilitating the installation of erosion processes and landslides, increasing the area instability and consequently the vulnerability of the pipeline.

Uso de sig e fotografias aéreas na determinação de conflitos na rede de drenagem na bacia experimental do Rio Pardo

This study aimed to detect and evaluate potential conflicts in the land use along the Rio Pardo's tributaries and sub-tributaries from its source which is in Pardinho, SP to the water capture system by the Basic Sanitation Company located in Botucatu, SP. It was used 2005 colored aerial photos, taking as a tool for assessing the Geographical Information System - IDRISI Andes. The results showed that the riparian forests were substituted predominantly by pastures, which is called conflict. In other words, the 1590.82ha of environmental preservation areas (PPA's) that should be protected by riparian forests and meadows (41.51%) in 2005, were used as pastures, being in conflict with the legislation. The aerial pictures associated to SIG-Idrisi proved to be efficient tools in mapping the area and monitoring the environmental impacts.

Submerged macrophytes height estimation by echosounder data sample

Traditional methods of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) survey last long and then, they are high cost. Optical remote sensing is an alternative, but it has some limitations in the aquatic environment. The use of echosounder techniques is efficient to detect submerged targets. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate different kinds of interpolation approach applied on SAV sample data collected by echosounder. This study case was performed in a region of Uberaba River - Brazil. The interpolation methods evaluated in this work follow: Nearest Neighbor, Weighted Average, Triangular Irregular Network (TIN) and ordinary kriging. Better results were carried out with kriging interpolation. Thus, it is recommend the use of geostatistics for spatial inference of SAV from sample data surveyed with echosounder techniques. © 2012 IEEE.