Carlos Arturo Aguirre-Salado

Tree growth response to ENSO in Durango, Mexico

The dynamics of forest ecosystems worldwide have been driven largely by climatic teleconnections. El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the strongest interannual variation of the Earth’s climate, affecting the regional climatic regime. These teleconnections may impact plant phenology, growth rate, forest extent, and other gradual changes in forest ecosystems. The objective of this study was to investigate how Pinus cooperi populations face the influence of ENSO and regional microclimates in five ecozones in northwestern Mexico. Using standard dendrochronological techniques, tree-ring chronologies (TRI) were generated. TRI, ENSO, and climate relationships were correlated from 1950–2010. Additionally, multiple regressions were conducted in order to detect those ENSO months with direct relations in TRI (p < 0.1). The five chronologies showed similar trends during the period they overlapped, indicating that the P. cooperi populations shared an interannual growth variation. In general, ENSO index showed correspondences with tree-ring growth in synchronous periods. We concluded that ENSO had connectivity with regional climate in northern Mexico and radial growth of P. cooperi populations has been driven largely by positive ENSO values (El Niño episodes).

Comparison of data gap-filling methods for Landsat ETM+ SLC-off imagery for monitoring forest degradation in a semi-deciduous tropical forest in Mexico

A number of methods to overcome the 2003 failure of the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) scan-line corrector (SLC) are compared in this article in a forest-monitoring application in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The objective of this comparison is to determine the best approach to accomplish SLC-off image gap-filling for the particular landscape in this region, and thereby provide continuity in the Landsat data sensor archive for forest-monitoring purposes. Four methods were tested: (1) local linear histogram matching (LLHM); (2) neighbourhood similar pixel interpolator (NSPI); (3) geostatistical neighbourhood similar pixel interpolator (GNSPI); and (4) weighted linear regression (WLR). All methods generated reasonable SLC-off gap-filling data that were visually consistent and could be employed in subsequent digital image analysis. Overall accuracy, kappa coefficients (κ), and quantity and allocation disagreement indices were used to evaluate unsupervised Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis (ISODATA) land-cover classification maps. In addition, Pearson correlation coefficients (r) and root mean squares of the error (RMSEs) were employed for estimates agreement with fractional land cover. The best results visually (overall accuracy > 85%, κ < 9%, quantity disagreement index < 5.5%, and allocation disagreement index < 12.5%) and statistically (r > 0.84 and RMSE < 7%) were obtained from the GNSPI method. These results suggest that the GNSPI method is suitable for routine use in reconstructing the imagery stack of Landsat ETM+ SLC-off gap-filled data for use in forest-monitoring applications in this type of heterogeneous landscape.

Mapping aboveground biomass by integrating geospatial and forest inventory data through a k -nearest neighbor strategy in North Central Mexico

As climate change negotiations progress, monitoring biomass and carbon stocks is becoming an important part of the current forest research. Therefore, national governments are interested in developing forest-monitoring strategies using geospatial technology. Among statistical methods for mapping biomass, there is a nonparametric approach called k-nearest neighbor (kNN). We compared four variations of distance metrics of the kNN for the spatially-explicit estimation of aboveground biomass in a portion of the Mexican north border of the intertropical zone. Satellite derived, climatic, and topographic predictor variables were combined with the Mexican National Forest Inventory (NFI) data to accomplish the purpose. Performance of distance metrics applied into the kNN algorithm was evaluated using a cross validation leave-one-out technique. The results indicate that the Most Similar Neighbor (MSN) approach maximizes the correlation between predictor and response variables (r=0.9). Our results are in agreement with those reported in the literature. These findings confirm the predictive potential of the MSN approach for mapping forest variables at pixel level under the policy of Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+).

Typical testors generation based on an evolutionary algorithm

Typical testors are useful for both feature selection and feature relevance determination in supervised classification problems. However, reported algorithms that address the problem of finding the set of all typical testors have exponential complexity. In this paper, we propose to adapt an evolutionary method, the Hill-Climbing algorithm, with an acceleration operator in mutation process, to address this problem in polinomial time. Experimental results with the method proposed are presented and compared, in efficiency, with other methods, namely, Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Univariate Marginal Distribution Algorithm (UMDA).

Modeling susceptibility to deforestation of remaining ecosystems in North Central Mexico with logistic regression

Determining underlying factors that foster deforestation and delineating forest areas by levels of susceptibility are of the main challenges when defining policies for forest management and planning at regional scale. The susceptibility to deforestation of remaining forest ecosystems (shrubland, temperate forest and rainforest) was conducted in the state of San Luis Potosi, located in north central Mexico. Spatial analysis techniques were used to detect the deforested areas in the study area during 1993–2007. Logistic regression was used to relate explanatory variables (such as social, investment, forest production, biophysical and proximity factors) with susceptibility to deforestation to construct predictive models with two focuses: general and by biogeographical zone. In all models, deforestation has positive correlation with distance to rainfed agriculture, and negative correlation with slope, distance to roads and distance to towns. Other variables were significant in some cases, but in others they had dual relationships, which varied in each biogeographical zone. The results show that the remaining rainforest of Huasteca region is highly susceptible to deforestation. Both approaches show that more than 70% of the current rainforest area has high and very high levels of susceptibility to deforestation. The values represent a serious concern with global warming whether tree carbon is released to atmosphere. However, after some considerations, encouraging forest environmental services appears to be the best alternative to achieve sustainable forest management.

An evolutionary algorithm with acceleration operator to generate a subset of typical testors

The proposed Hill-Climbing algorithm incorporates an acceleration operator.The acceleration operator improves the exploration capability of the algorithm.Local search is more adequate than global search for generating typical testors.The proposed algorithm has better performance than other heuristics reported. This paper is focused on introducing a Hill-Climbing algorithm as a way to solve the problem of generating typical testors - or non-reducible descriptors - from a training matrix. All the algorithms reported in the state-of-the-art have exponential complexity. However, there are problems for which there is no need to generate the whole set of typical testors, but it suffices to find only a subset of them. For this reason, we introduce a Hill-Climbing algorithm that incorporates an acceleration operation at the mutation step, providing a more efficient exploration of the search space. The experiments have shown that, under the same circumstances, the proposed algorithm performs better than other related algorithms reported so far.

Forest Cover Mapping in North-Central Mexico: A Comparison of Digital Image Processing Methods

Vegetation type is an environmental attribute that varies across the landscape and over time. Its continuous assessment is important for monitoring land use changes and forest degradation. There are advanced methods that can estimate the fractional cover of vegetation types within each pixel. This paper compares some methods for subpixel mapping of forest cover in the state of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived spectral data (MCD43A4). Three methods were tested: (1) Bayesian posterior probability, (2) the Fuzzy k nearest neighbor (FkNN), and (3) linear spectral mixture analysis (LSMA). While the Bayesian approach gave the poorest correlations, FkNN (r = 0.78) and LSMA (r = 0.81) estimations were successfully validated with information obtained from a Landsat image. This paper represents an interesting attempt to compare rarely reported FkNN with traditional approaches such as LSMA and the Bayesian one.

A parallel hill-climbing algorithm to generate a subset of irreducible testors

The generation of irreducible testors from a training matrix is an expensive computational process: all the algorithms reported have exponential complexity. However, for some problems there is no need to generate the entire set of irreducible testors, but only a subset of them. Several approaches have been developed for this purpose, ranging from Univariate Marginal Distribution to Genetic Algorithms. This paper introduces a parallel version of a Hill-Climbing Algorithm useful to find a subset of irreducible testors from a training matrix. This algorithm was selected because it has been one of the fastest algorithms reported in the state-of-the-art on irreducible testors. In order to efficiently store every different irreducible testor found, the algorithm incorporates a digital-search tree. Several experiments with synthetic and real data are presented in this work.

Construction of aboveground biomass models with remote sensing technology in the intertropical zone in Mexico

Spatially-explicit estimation of aboveground biomass (AGB) plays an important role to generate action policies focused in climate change mitigation, since carbon (C) retained in the biomass is vital for regulating Earth’s temperature. This work estimates AGB using both chlorophyll (red, near infrared) and moisture (middle infrared) based normalized vegetation indices constructed with MCD43A4 MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and MOD44B vegetation continuous fields (VCF) data. The study area is located in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, a region that comprises a part of the upper limit of the intertropical zone. AGB estimations were made using both individual tree data from the National Forest Inventory of Mexico and allometric equations reported in scientific literature. Linear and nonlinear (exponential) models were fitted to find their predictive potential when using satellite spectral data as explanatory variables. Highly-significant correlations (p = 0.01) were found between all the explaining variables tested. NDVI62, linked to chlorophyll content and moisture stress, showed the highest correlation. The best model (nonlinear) showed an index of fit (Pseudo — r2) equal to 0.77 and a root mean square error equal to 26.00 Mg/ha using NDVI62 and VCF as explanatory variables. Validation correlation coefficients were similar for both models: linear (r = 0.87**) and nonlinear (r = 0.86**).

Developing a Hierarchical Model for the Spatial Analysis of PM10 Pollution Extremes in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area

We implemented a spatial model for analysing PM10 maxima across the Mexico City metropolitan area during the period 1995–2016. We assumed that these maxima follow a non-identical generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution and modeled the trend by introducing multivariate smoothing spline functions into the probability GEV distribution. A flexible, three-stage hierarchical Bayesian approach was developed to analyse the distribution of the PM10 maxima in space and time. We evaluated the statistical model’s performance by using a simulation study. The results showed strong evidence of a positive correlation between the PM10 maxima and the longitude and latitude. The relationship between time and the PM10 maxima was negative, indicating a decreasing trend over time. Finally, a high risk of PM10 maxima presenting levels above 1000 μg/m3 (return period: 25 yr) was observed in the northwestern region of the study area.