Remote Sensing Handbook, Volume IV


Book Description

Volume IV of the Six Volume Remote Sensing Handbook, Second Edition, is focused on the use of remote sensing in forestry, biodiversity, ecology, land use and land cover, and global terrestrial carbon mapping and monitoring. It discusses remote sensing studies of multi-scale habitat modeling, forest informatics, tree and stand height studies, land cover and land use (LCLU) change mapping, forest biomass and carbon modeling and mapping, and advanced image analysis methods and advances in land remote sensing using optical, radar, LiDAR, and hyperspectral remote sensing. This thoroughly revised and updated volume draws on the expertise of a diverse array of leading international authorities in remote sensing and provides an essential resource for researchers at all levels interested in using remote sensing. It integrates discussions of remote sensing principles, data, methods, development, applications, and scientific and social context. FEATURES Provides the most up-to-date comprehensive coverage of remote sensing science for forests, biodiversity, land cover and land use change (LCLUC), biomass, and carbon. Discusses and analyzes data from old and new generations of satellites and sensors spread across 60 years. Extensive forestry, LCLUC studies, biomass, and carbon using optical, radar, LiDAR, and hyperspectral data. Includes numerous case studies on advances and applications at local, regional, and global scales. Introduces advanced methods in remote sensing such as machine learning, cloud computing, and AI. Highlights scientific achievements over the last decade and provides guidance for future developments. This volume is an excellent resource for the entire remote sensing and GIS community. Academics, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as practitioners, decision makers, and policymakers, will benefit from the expertise of the professionals featured in this book and their extensive knowledge of new and emerging trends.




Wild Thoughts from Wild Places


Book Description

In Wild Thoughts from Wild Places, award-winning journalist David Quammen reminds us why he has become one of our most beloved science and nature writers. This collection of twenty-three of Quammen's most intriguing, most exciting, most memorable pieces introduces kayakers on the Futaleufu River of southern Chile, where Quammen describes how it feels to travel in fast company and flail for survival in the river's maw. Readers learn of the commerce in pearls (and black-market parrots) in the Aru Islands of eastern Indonesia. Quammen even finds wildness in smog-choked Los Angeles -- embodied in an elusive population of urban coyotes, too stubborn and too clever to surrender to the sprawl of civilization. With humor and intelligence, David Quammen's Wild Thoughts from Wild Places also reminds us that humans are just one of the many species on earth with motivations, goals, quirks, and eccentricities. Expect to be entertained and moved on this journey through the wilds of science and nature.




On the Logics of Planetary Computing


Book Description

A new breed of low Earth orbit satellites is making planetary-scale observation and analysis ubiquitous. This book explores how this condition feeds spatially explicit artificial intelligence, GeoAI, in redefining the study of landscapes, and how it impacts one particular land dispute in the Alas Mertajati in Central Bali, Indonesia. This book combines scholarship from the humanities and engineering to forge a novel way of presenting planetary computing in its GeoAI vernacular. From data collection to model evaluation, the book describes how multi-spectral, high-resolution satellite data and machine learning algorithms respond to uncommon land cover conditions, including sustainable land care practices such as agroforestry while contextualizing the operations within science and media studies. Together with the installation logics-of-geoai.org, this book offers full-spectrum immersion into the unstable nexus of geography and artificial intelligence. This book will be of interest to any experimental artist, social scientist, curious AI engineer, or a free-range scholar. It will likewise appeal to students and scholars of science technology studies, media studies, geography, and ethnography.




Superdove


Book Description

Why do we see pigeons as lowly urban pests and how did they become such common city dwellers? Courtney Humphries traces the natural history of the pigeon, recounting how these shy birds that once made their homes on the sparse cliffs of sea coasts came to dominate our urban public spaces. While detailing this evolution, Humphries introduces us to synanthropy: The concept that animals can become dependent on humans without ceasing to be wild; they can adapt to the cityscape as if it were a field or a forest. Superdove simultaneously explores the pigeon's cultural transformation, from its life in the dovecotes of ancient Egypt to its service in the trenches of World War I, to its feats within the pigeon-racing societies of today. While the dove is traditionally recognized as a symbol of peace, the pigeon has long inspired a different sort of fetishistic devotion from breeders, eaters, and artists—and from those who recognized and exploited the pigeon's astounding abilities. Because of their fecundity, pigeons were symbols of fertility associated with Aphrodite, while their keen ability to find their way home made them ideal messengers and even pilots. Their usefulness largely forgotten, today's pigeons have become as ubiquitous and reviled as rats. But Superdove reveals something more surprising: By using pigeons for our own purposes, we humans have changed their evolution. And in doing so, we have helped make pigeons the ideal city dwellers they are today. In the tradition of Rats, the book that made its namesake rodents famous, Superdove is the fascinating story of the pigeon's journey from the wild to the city—the home they'll never leave.




1999: Victory Without War


Book Description

“Nixon raises all the timely questions about the present state of the world, and then answers them both systematically and thoroughly.” —The New York Times In this acclaimed national bestseller, Richard Nixon offers a comprehensive strategy for the West—a vital plan of action that will help ensure peace, prosperity, and freedom in the next century. From glasnost and summitry to arms control and “Star Wars,” from Nicaragua and China to Europe and Japan, he gives seasoned, no-nonsense advice on all tough foreign policy issues. The former President draws on a lifetime of experience in international affairs to examine the crucial challenges facing the United States and the West and how best to go forward in the 21st century.




Crossing the Barriers


Book Description

The memoirs of a prominent Minnesota politician and one of the country's first openly gay elected officials.




Television


Book Description




Feral Pigeons


Book Description

This definitive monograph focuses on the population, biology, and behavioral ecology of feral pigeons, a familiar but seldom studied bird. Includes a thorough listing of primary references of U.S. and European scholarly literature.




European Spatial Data for Coastal and Marine Remote Sensing


Book Description

This volume presents full paper contributions from the International Conference of European Spatial Data for Coastal and Marine Remote Sensing (EUCOMARE) 2022, with the support of the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Union, held in Saint Malo, France. EUCOMARE aims to promote academic and technical exchange on coastal related studies including coastal environmental and socio-economic issues, with the use of European remotely sensed data. The book is an excellent resource for scientists, engineers, and programme managers eager to learn about the recent developments and achievements in the field of remote sensing applications on marine and coastal areas. Readers will learn about recent advances in sensors' radiometric, spatial, temporal and spectral resolution, as well as new data processing approaches in remote sensing for monitoring and mapping the various characteristics of marine, coastal and aquatic systems.




Seed


Book Description