Brian Klinkenberg

A review of methods used to determine the fractal dimension of linear features

An in-depth review of the more commonly applied methods used in the determination of the fractal dimension of one-dimensional curves is presented. Many often conflicting opinions about the different methods have been collected and are contrasted with each other. In addition, several little known but potentially useful techniques are also reviewed. General recommendations which should be considered whenever applying any method are made.

Ecosystem Services in Conservation Planning: Targeted Benefits vs. Co-Benefits or Costs?

There is growing support for characterizing ecosystem services in order to link conservation and human well-being. However, few studies have explicitly included ecosystem services within systematic conservation planning, and those that have follow two fundamentally different approaches: ecosystem services as intrinsically-important targeted benefits vs. substitutable co-benefits. We present a first comparison of these two approaches in a case study in the Central Interior of British Columbia. We calculated and mapped economic values for carbon storage, timber production, and recreational angling using a geographical information system (GIS). These ‘marginal’ values represent the difference in service-provision between conservation and managed forestry as land uses. We compared two approaches to including ecosystem services in the site-selection software Marxan: as Targeted Benefits, and as Co-Benefits/Costs (in Marxans cost function); we also compared these approaches with a Hybrid approach (carbon and angling as targeted benefits, timber as an opportunity cost). For this analysis, the Co-Benefit/Cost approach yielded a less costly reserve network than the Hybrid approach (1.6% cheaper). Including timber harvest as an opportunity cost in the cost function resulted in a reserve network that achieved targets equivalently, but at 15% lower total cost. We found counter-intuitive results for conservation: conservation-compatible services (carbon, angling) were positively correlated with each other and biodiversity, whereas the conservation-incompatible service (timber) was negatively correlated with all other networks. Our findings suggest that including ecosystem services within a conservation plan may be most cost-effective when they are represented as substitutable co-benefits/costs, rather than as targeted benefits. By explicitly valuing the costs and benefits associated with services, we may be able to achieve meaningful biodiversity conservation at lower cost and with greater co-benefits.

Fractals and morphometric measures: is there a relationship?

Abstract The potential role that fractal parameters may have as geomorphometric measures is investigated in a number of correlation analyses. The correlations between the fractal dimension (D) and the 24 traditional morphometric parameters used in this study are all very weak. This suggests that the fractal dimension is capturing some aspect of the surface roughness that is unique. In addition, correlations between the log-log ordinate intercept (gamma) of the variogram method and a number of geomorphometric parameters — especially those related to gradient — are consistently very strong. If the variogram method is used in the determination of the fractal dimension, both D and gamma should be reported. Together they comprise new parameters for geomorphometric analyses.

Predicting outbreaks: a spatial risk assessment of West Nile virus in British Columbia

BackgroundWest Nile virus (WNv) has recently emerged as a health threat to the North American population. After the initial disease outbreak in New York City in 1999, WNv has spread widely and quickly across North America to every contiguous American state and Canadian province, with the exceptions of British Columbia (BC), Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. In this study we develop models of mosquito population dynamics for Culex tarsalis and C. pipiens, and create a spatial risk assessment of WNv prior to its arrival in BC by creating a raster-based mosquito abundance model using basic geographic and temperature data. Among the parameters included in the model are spatial factors determined from the locations of BC Centre for Disease Control mosquito traps (e.g., distance of the trap from the closest wetland or lake), while other parameters were obtained from the literature. Factors not considered in the current assessment but which could influence the results are also discussed.ResultsSince the model performs much better for C. tarsalis than for C. pipiens, the risk assessment is carried out using the output of C. tarsalis model. The result of the spatially-explicit mosquito abundance model indicates that the Okanagan Valley, the Thompson Region, Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and southeastern Vancouver Island have the highest potential abundance of the mosquitoes. After including human population data, Greater Vancouver, due to its high population density, increases in significance relative to the other areas.ConclusionCreating a raster-based mosquito abundance map enabled us to quantitatively evaluate WNv risk throughout BC and to identify the areas of greatest potential risk, prior to WNv introduction. In producing the map important gaps in our knowledge related to mosquito ecology in BC were identified, as well, it became evident that increased efforts in bird and mosquito surveillance are required if more accurate models and maps are to be produced. Access to real time climatic data is the key for developing a real time early warning system for forecasting vector borne disease outbreaks, while including social factors is important when producing a detailed assessment in urban areas.

Physiographically controlled allometry of specific sediment yield in the canadian cordillera: a lake sediment‐based approach

It is generally supposed that specific sediment yield declines as the drainage basin area increases, as part of the mobilized sediment becomes trapped in the downstream cascade of storage zones. In British Columbia, using fluvial suspended sediment load data, Church and Slaymaker (Nature 1989, Vol 337, pp. 452–454) have observed a pattern of increasing specific sediment yield at all spatial scales up to 3×104km2. This trend has been attributed to the dominance of secondary remobilization of Quaternary sediments over primary denudation of the land surface. Using a larger data set of lake sediment‐based estimates of long‐term sediment yield, sub‐regional patterns of specific yield have been investigated for the Canadian Cordillera. Between spatial scales of 0.9 and 190 km2 sediment yield trends are differentiated by physiography, as indicated by the variable allometry observed in the specific sediment yield–drainage basin area relations. Highest sediment yields were observed in the Coast Mountains where specific sediment yields conform to the regional pattern described by Church and Slaymaker. However, in flat‐lying plateau and major valley areas specific sediment yield decreases with increasing drainage area, thus conforming to the conventional model of sediment delivery. In several other sub‐regions of intermediate relief there were no significant relations between specific yield and drainage area. These results suggest that no single model of sediment yield is adequate to describe sediment transfer processes in the Canadian Cordillera at the sub‐regional scale.

Ecological niche modeling of Cryptococcus gattii in British Columbia, Canada.

Background Cryptococcus gattii emerged on Vancouver Island, British Columbia (BC), Canada, in 1999, causing human and animal illness. Environmental sampling for C. gattii in southwestern BC has isolated the fungal organism from native vegetation, soil, air, and water. Objectives Our aim was to help public health officials in BC delineate where C. gattii is currently established and forecast areas that could support C. gattii in the future. We also examined the utility of ecological niche modeling (ENM) based on human and animal C. gattii disease surveillance data. Methods We performed ENM using the Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Prediction (GARP) to predict the optimal and potential ecological niche areas of C. gattii in BC. Human and animal surveillance and environmental sampling data were used to build and test the models based on 15 predictor environmental data layers. Results ENM provided very accurate predictions (> 98% accuracy, p-value < 0.001) for C. gattii in BC. The models identified optimal C. gattii ecological niche areas along the central and south eastern coast of Vancouver Island and within the Vancouver Lower Mainland. Elevation, biogeoclimatic zone, and January temperature were good predictors for identifying the ecological niche of C. gattii in BC. Conclusions The use of human and animal case data for ENM proved useful and effective in identifying the ecological niche of C. gattii in BC. These results are shared with public health to increase public and physician awareness of cryptococcal disease in regions at risk of environmental colonization of C. gattii.

A geographical approach to identifying vegetation-related environmental equity in Canadian cities

The research in this paper addresses human — environment interactions in Canadian cities by examining the spatial distribution of vegetation in relation to various socioeconomic indicators. Specifically, intercity and intracity comparisons are evaluated using correlation analysis and geographically weighted regression (GWR). Vegetation abundance estimates derived from spectral mixture analysis of Landsat imagery are compared with Canadian census data for the cities of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver to quantify vegetation-related environmental equity in Canadas largest urban centres. Results exhibit strong and consistent correlations between median family income and vegetation fraction for Montreal (r = 0.473), Toronto (r = 0.467), and Vancouver (r = 0.456). Furthermore, examining the GWR results suggests that employing an adaptive bandwidth kernel technique with a manual selection of ten neighbours for each observation provides a greater range and higher median values for local regression estimates (Montreal: 0.69; Toronto: 0.74; Vancouver: 0.73) as compared with the Akaike information criterion-selection method. Finally, we discuss the potential application of the presented analysis techniques for urban planning and community-development initiatives, specifically associated with managing vegetation-related environmental equity at various scales. Possible applications of these techniques for urban planning purposes are discussed, and key methodological considerations for performing such an analysis are highlighted.

Novel opportunities for wildlife conservation and research with real-time monitoring.

The expansion of global communication networks and advances in animal-tracking technology make possible the real-time telemetry of positional data as recorded by animal-attached tracking units. When combined with continuous, algorithm-based analytical capability, unique opportunities emerge for applied ecological monitoring and wildlife conservation. We present here four broad approaches for algorithmic wildlife monitoring in real time--proximity, geofencing, movement rate, and immobility--designed to examine aspects of wildlife spatial activity and behavior not possible with conventional tracking systems. Application of these four routines to the real-time monitoring of 94 African elephants was made. We also provide details of our cloud-based monitoring system including infrastructure, data collection, and customized software for continuous tracking data analysis. We also highlight future directions of real-time collection and analysis of biological, physiological, and environmental information from wildlife to encourage further development of needed algorithms and monitoring technology. Real-time processing of remotely collected, animal biospatial data promises to open novel directions in ecological research, applied species monitoring, conservation programs, and public outreach and education.

Resource Wars and Conflict Ivory: The Impact of Civil Conflict on Elephants in the Democratic Republic of Congo - The Case of the Okapi Reserve

Human conflict generally has substantial negative impacts on wildlife and conservation. The recent civil war (1995-2006) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) resulted in a significant loss of wildlife, including elephants, due to institutional collapse, lawlessness and unbridled exploitation of natural resources such as minerals, wood, ivory and bushmeat. We used data from distance sampling surveys conducted before and after the war in a protected forest, the Okapi Faunal Reserve, to document changes in elephant abundance and distribution. We employed Generalized Additive Models to relate changes in elephant distribution to human and environmental factors. Populations declined by nearly fifty percent coinciding with a major increase in elephant poaching as indicated by reports of ivory trade during the war. Our results suggest that humans influenced elephant distribution far more than habitat, both before and after the war, but post-war models explained more of the variation. Elephant abundance declined more, closer to the park boundary and to areas of intense human activity. After the war, elephant densities were relatively higher in the centre of the park where they were better protected, suggesting that this area may have acted as a refuge. In other sites in Eastern DRC, where no protection was provided, elephants were even more decimated. Post-war dynamics, such as weakened institutions, human movements and availability of weapons, continue to affect elephants. Survival of remaining populations and recovery will be determined by these persistent factors and by new threats associated with growing human populations and exploitation of natural resources. Prioritizing wildlife protection, curbing illegal trade in ivory and bushmeat, and strengthening national institutions and organizations in charge of conservation will be crucial to counter these threats.

Geospatial Technologies and the Geographies of Hope and Fear

Abstract The geographies of hope and fear are a rich vein of investigation in our discipline. Social theorists have discussed how geospatial technologies (GSTs) are things to be feared. They point to the loss of privacy, to the use of technologies in warfare, and to the growth of surveillance. I explore this understanding and the “evil” side of geospatial technologies, and I present the alternative view—a view of these technologies as harbingers of hope. GSTs have a positive role to play in environmental protection, in health, and in social justice. There is a need for the involvement of more human geographers in technological development in order to allow for critical analyses of the social impacts generated by these technologies. Only by shining the spotlight of critical geographical analyses on development of GSTs, and their uses, can we ensure that technological development is kept on a path of positive development. This addition of the social to the technological is imperative and requires an active role on the part of geographers. Geographers, and geography as a discipline, are well suited to this challenge, and as islands of researchers coalesce into a synergistic “mainland community” of cooperative investigation into GSTs the result will be a well-woven fabric of socially responsible technology.