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InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) is widely recognized as a crucial remote sensing tool for monitoring various geological disasters because it provides all-day and all-weather monitoring. Nevertheless, the current interpretation methods for InSAR heavily depend on the interpreter's experience, which hinders efficiency and fails to meet the requirements for the timely detection of geologic hazards. Furthermore, the results obtained through current InSAR processing carry inherent noise interference, further complicating the interpretation process. To address those issues, this paper proposes an approach that enables automatic and rapid identification of deformation zones. The proposed method leverages IPTA (Interferometric Point Target Analysis) technology for SAR data processing. It combines the power of HNSW (Hierarchical Navigable Small Word) and DBSCAN (Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) algorithms to cluster deformation results. Compared with traditional methods, the computational efficiency of the proposed method is improved by 11.26 times, and spatial noise is suppressed. Additionally, the clustering results are fused with slope units determined using DEM (Digital Elevation Model), which facilitates the automatic identification of slopes experiencing deformation. The experimental verification in the western mountainous area of Beijing has identified 716 hidden danger areas, and this method is superior to the traditional technology in speed and automation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adverse effects caused by PM2.5 have drawn extensive concern and it is of great significance to identify its spatial distribution. Satellite-derived aerosol optical depth (AOD) has been widely used for PM2.5 estimation. However, the coarse spatial resolution and the gaps caused by data deficiency impede its better application at the urban scale. Additionally, obtaining accurate results in unsampled spatial areas when PM2.5 ground sites are insufficient and distribute sparsely is also a challenging issue for PM2.5 spatial distribution estimation. This paper aimed to develop a model, i.e., spatially local extreme gradient boosting (SL-XGB), combining the powerful fitting ability of machine learning and optimal bandwidths of local models, to better estimate PM2.5 concentration at the urban scale by using Beijing as the study area. This paper adopted simplified high-resolution MODIS aerosol retrieval algorithm (SARA) AOD at 500 m resolution as the major independent variable, hence, ensuring the estimation can be operated at a fine scale. Moreover, the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model was adopted to fill the gaps in SARA AOD, thus improving its availability. Then, based on full-covered SARA AOD and other multisource data, the SL-XGB model, integrating multiple local XGBoost models and particular optimal bandwidths, was trained to estimate PM2.5 concentration. For comparison, SL-XGB and two other models, XGBoost and geographically weighted regression (GWR), were evaluated by 10-fold cross validation (CV). The sample-based CV results reveal that the SL-XGB performed the best as assessed through R2 (0.88), root mean square error (RMSE = 24.08 μg/m3) and mean prediction error (MPE = 16.90 μg/m3). Additionally, SL-XGB also performed the best in the site-based CV with a R2 of 0.86, a RMSE of 26.15 μg/m3 and a MPE of 17.97 μg/m3, which shows its good spatial generalization ability. These results demonstrate that SL-XGB can better simultaneously handle non-linear and spatial heterogeneity issues despite spatially limited data at the urban scale. As far as the PM2.5 concentration distribution was concerned, it presented a gradient increase in PM2.5 concentrations from the northwest to the southeast in Beijing, with abundant spatial details. Overall, the proposed approach for PM2.5 estimation showed outstanding performance and can support preventive pollution control and mitigation at the urban scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a new algorithm (BUNTUS—Built-up, Nighttime Light, and Travel time for Urban Size) using remote sensing techniques to delineate urban boundaries. The paper is part of a larger study of the role of urbanisation in changing fossil fuel emissions. The method combines estimates of land cover, nighttime lights, and travel times to classify contiguous urban areas. The method is automatic, global and uses data sets with enough duration to establish trends. Validation using ground truth from Landsat-8 OLI images revealed an overall accuracy ranging from 60% to 95%. Thus, this approach is capable of describing spatial distributions and giving detailed information of urban extents. We demonstrate the method with examples from Brisbane, Australia, Melbourne, Australia, and Beijing, China. The new method meets the criteria for studying overall trends in urban emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Onboard the Chinese GaoFen-5 (GF5) satellite, the Environmental trace gases Monitoring Instrument (EMI) is a nadir-viewing wide-field spectrometer that was launched on May 9, 2018. EMI measures the back-scattered earthshine solar radiance in the ultraviolet and visible spectral range. By using the differential optical absorption spectrometry (DOAS) method and the EMI measurements in the VIS1 band (405–465 nm), we performed retrievals of NO2. Some first retrieval results of NO2 from EMI and a comparison with OMI and TROPOMI products are presented in this paper. The monthly mean total vertical column densities (VCD) of NO2 show similar spatial distributions to OMI and TROPOMI (r > 0.88) and their difference is less than 27%. A comparison of the daily total VCD shows that EMI could detect the NO2 patterns in good agreement with OMI (r = 0.93) and TROPOMI (r = 0.95). However, the slant column density (SCD) uncertainty (0.79 × 1015 molec cm−2) of the current EMI algorithm is relatively larger than OMI. The daily variation pattern of NO2 from EMI in Beijing in January 2019 is consistent with TROPOMI (r = 0.96). The spatial distribution correlation of the tropospheric NO2 VCD of EMI with OMI and TROPOMI is 0.88 and 0.89, respectively, but shows an overestimate compared to OMI (15%) and TROPOMI (23%), respectively. This study demonstrates the capability of using EMI for global NO2 monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]