Future Land Use for Insect Meat Production Among Countries: A Global Classification

A potentially suitable alternative to reduce land use by livestock production is insect meat production. However, land use predictions for insect meat production, which are important in the planning of food production strategies in each country, have not been well-performed. To consider the strategy of insect meat production with regard to land use, the categorical perspectives of countries would be highly useful. Here, using previous simulation results, we used random forest machine learning to classify the potential land use of 157 countries for insect meat production under future climate change. From the categorical maps, we showed the global distribution of five different country categories and found that the land area of the countries may be an important factor in considering the future increase in insect meat production. Our classification could be used to help formulate future food policies by considering the increase in insect meat production in each country, as well as regionally and/or globally.

The Road to Operationalization of Effective Tropical Forest Monitoring Systems

The urgency to preserve tropical forest remnants has encouraged the development of remote sensing tools and techniques to monitor diverse forest attributes for management and conservation. State-of-the-art methodologies for mapping and tracking these attributes usually achieve accuracies greater than 0.8 for forest cover monitoring; r-square values of ~0.5–0.7 for plant diversity, vegetation structure, and plant functional trait mapping, and overall accuracies of ~0.8 for categorical maps of forest attributes. Nonetheless, existing operational tropical forest monitoring systems only track single attributes at national to global scales. For the design and implementation of effective and integrated tropical forest monitoring systems, we recommend the integration of multiple data sources and techniques for monitoring structural, functional, and compositional attributes. We also recommend its decentralized implementation for adjusting methods to local climatic and ecological characteristics and for proper end-user engagement. The operationalization of the system should be based on all open-source computing platforms, leveraging international support in research and development and ensuring direct and constant user engagement. We recommend continuing the efforts to address these multiple challenges for effective monitoring.

Dynamic Coastal-Shelf Seascapes to Support Marine Policies Using Operational Coastal Oceanography: The French Example

In the context of maritime spatial planning and the implementation of spatialized Good Environmental Status indicators in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), the definition of a mosaic composed of coherent and standardised spatial units is necessary. We propose here a characterization of seascapes in time and space within the specific framework of the MSFD in the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay areas. A spatio-temporal classification of coastal-shelf water masses is carried out using twelve essential oceanographic and derived variables from operational coastal oceanography using the HYCOM model. Partitioning is computed using a multivariate hybrid two-step clustering process defining a time series of categorical maps representing hydrographical patch classes. Main patch occurrence is analyzed to understand their spatio-temporal dynamics and their oceanographic characteristics. Finally, patch classes are combined with MSFD marine sub-region delimitations to build seascapes, including ecosystem approach management and marine policy considerations.

Zoning of the republic of Kazakhstan as to the risk of natural focal diseases in animals: the case of rabies and anthrax

Rabies and anthrax, being natural focal diseases, are characterized by the ability to persist in areas with a certain combination of environmental factors without human intervention. These infections annually cause sporadic outbreaks in domestic, livestock and wild animals in the Republic of Kazakhstan (RK) receiving close attention of the veterinary service. In particular, targeted mass vaccination and surveillance are conducted, which requires zoning of the country according to the exposure to the diseases.This paper presents a zoning approach based on the estimation of suitability to the study diseases using the Environmental Niche Modelling method. Retrospective data on animal rabies outbreaks in the RK for 2003-2014, as well as data on anthrax burial sites for 1933-2014 were used. The following environmental factors were treated as potential explanatory variables: 1) a set of climate data derived variables BIOCLIM; 2) altitude above the sea level; 3) land cover type; 4) the maximum green vegetation fraction and 5) soil type.The modelling outcomes for both diseases indicate elevated risks along the northern and southeastern borders of the RK that not only follows the distribution of historic disease cases, but also accounts for potentially suitable environmental conditions. To comply with the requirements of the veterinary service, gridded risk maps were converted into categorical maps by averaging risk values within municipal districts and ranking according to four categories: low, medium, high, and very high.The maps obtained may be used as recommendations to the veterinary service as a basis for developing regionspecific anti-epizootic measures.

INFLUÊNCIA HIPSOMÉTRICA NA FRAGMENTAÇÃO EM REGIÕES SEMIÁRIDAS

A degradação da floresta nativa, em regiões secas, encontra-se em expansão devido a exploração da madeira e à conversão da vegetação em distintos usos. Assim, objetivou-se analisar a fragmentação da paisagem em áreas semiáridas e a influência do gradiente altitudinal nesse processo. Para tanto, as imagens RapidEye adquiridas no ano de 2014 foram segmentadas, identificadas e classificadas em Floresta e Outros usos, bem como confeccionados mapas categóricos para utilizar no software Fragstats e gerar dados para análise das métricas da paisagem. Os resultados dos parâmetros determinaram que as regiões secas possuem uma alta quantidade de fragmentos menores que cinco ha demonstrando um alto retalhamento. O ambiente Baixada é o mais prejudicado, diante da maior quantidade de fragmentos menores e da distância entre os mesmos, isso é devido a cobertura florestal desse ambiente está sob pressão sendo mais vulnerável à fragmentação, em virtude do cultivo agrícola e pastagem. De forma oposta se encontra o ambiente Chapada, no qual a classe Floresta comporta-se como a matriz da paisagem. Portanto, a altitude influencia o processo de fragmentação da vegetação nativa de regiões semiáridas, uma vez que ao aumentar a altitude também aumenta a conectividade entre os fragmentos.Palavras-chave: Análise da paisagem, métricas, Brasil, gradiente, fragstats. HYPSOMETRIC INFLUENCE IN FRAGMENTATION IN SEMI-ARID REGIONS ABSTRACT:The degradation of native forest, in dry regions, is expanding due to the exploitation of wood and the conversion of vegetation to different uses. Thus, the objective was to analyze the fragmentation of the landscape in semi-arid areas and the influence of the altitudinal gradient in this process. To do so, the RapidEye images acquired in the year of 2014 were segmented, identified and classified in Forest and Other uses, and also categorical maps were made to be used in the Fragstats software and generate data for analysis of the landscape metrics. The results of the parameters determined that the dry regions have a high amount of fragments smaller than five, demonstrating a high shredding. The Lowland environment is the most affected, due to the greater amount of smaller fragments and the distance between them, this is due to the forest cover of this environment is under pressure being more vulnerable to fragmentation, due to the agricultural cultivation and pasture. On the opposite side is the Plateau environment, in which the Forest class behaves as the matrix of the landscape. Therefore, altitude influences the fragmentation process of native vegetation of semiarid regions, since increasing the altitude also increases the connectivity between the fragments.Keywords: Landscape analysis, metrics, Brazil, gradient, fragstats.

Landscape Structure at Different Altitudes in Dry Areas

The objective was to analyze the forest landscape structure of fragments at different altitudes in dry region. In order to do so, RapidEye images acquired in the year of 2014 were segmented, identified the Forest and Other uses classes and classified. Categorical maps were made and inserted in raster format in the Fragstats software, and text files were generated for calculations of class-level metrics and landscape-wide and then analyzed. The results of the parameters determined that the most affected and fragmented environments are those with lower altitudes, because of the forest cover of these environments is under strong pressure, since they are surrounded mainly by the Agropecuarian class, providing more susceptibility to fragmentation and external influences. Therefore, using the metrics together it was verified that there is a high shredding and this shredding has relation with the altitudinal gradient, since the lower the altitude, the lower the connectivity and thus the lower forest cover.

Landscape Changes and Fragmentation Analysis in a Guinea Savannah Ecosystem: Case study of Talensi and Nabdam Districts of the Upper East region, Ghana

Landcover change is an observed natural change dynamics at both the local and regional levels. However, its scales are exacerbated by human interaction with its natural environment. The study examines these spatio-temporal changes in landcover and the level to which the change is accompanied by fragmentation of the identifiable cover types in the Talensi and Nabdam districts in Northern Ghana. The research uses digital classification of Landsat satellite imagery for 1999 and 2007 to produce the cover types which results in good accuracy levels of 66.39% and 63.03% respectively. Fragmentation analysis of the landscape was computed using FRAGSTATS® software for categorical maps obtained from the classified landcover maps for the two years. All cover types increased marginally. However, Bare areas decreased by as much as 17.17% and that of water decreased from 3% to 1%. The changing landscape involving conversions within and among various cover types is accompanied by fragmentation in all classes but more pronounced in the Bare class. The Bare class type which has more patches corresponds to the class with increased cover size and rather strangely decreases in the mean path size.