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NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting spaceborne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDI's footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a description of the datasets used and the procedure for final model selection. The data used to fit our models are from a compilation of globally distributed spatially and temporally coincident field and airborne lidar datasets, whereby we simulated GEDI-like waveforms from airborne lidar to build a calibration database. We used this database to expand the geographic extent of past waveform lidar studies, and divided the globe into four broad strata by Plant Functional Type (PFT) and six geographic regions. GEDI's waveform-to-biomass models take the form of parametric Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models with simulated Relative Height (RH) metrics as predictor variables. From an exhaustive set of candidate models, we selected the best input predictor variables, and data transformations for each geographic stratum in the GEDI domain to produce a set of comprehensive predictive footprint-level models. We found that model selection frequently favored combinations of RH metrics at the 98th, 90th, 50th, and 10th height above ground-level percentiles (RH98, RH90, RH50, and RH10, respectively), but that inclusion of lower RH metrics (e.g. RH10) did not markedly improve model performance. Second, forced inclusion of RH98 in all models was important and did not degrade model performance, and the best performing models were parsimonious, typically having only 1-3 predictors. Third, stratification by geographic domain (PFT, geographic region) improved model performance in comparison to global models without stratification. Fourth, for the vast majority of strata, the best performing models were fit using square root transformation of field AGBD and/or height metrics. There was considerable variability in model performance across geographic strata, and areas with sparse training data and/or high AGBD values had the poorest performance. These models are used to produce global predictions of AGBD, but will be improved in the future as more and better training data become available.

The Landsat series constitutes an unparalleled repository of multi-decadal Earth observations, serving as a cornerstone in global environmental monitoring. However, the inconsistent coverage of Landsat data due to its long revisit intervals and frequent cloud cover poses significant challenges to land monitoring over large geographical extents. In this study, we developed a full-chain processing framework for the multi-sensor data fusion of Landsat-5, 7, 8, 9 and MODIS Terra surface reflectance products. Based on this framework, a global, 30-m resolution, and daily Seamless Data Cube (SDC) of land surface reflectance was generated, spanning from 2000 to 2022. A thorough evaluation of the SDC was undertaken using a leave-one-out approach and a cross-comparison with NASA's Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) products. The leave-one-out validation at 425 global test sites assessed the agreement between the SDC with actual Landsat surface reflectance values (not used as input), revealing an overall Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.014 (the valid range of surface reflectance values is 0–1). The cross-comparison with the HLS products at 22 Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) tiles revealed an overall Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) of 0.017 with L30 (Landsat-8-based 30-m HLS product) and a MAD of 0.021 with S30 (Sentinel-2-based 30-m HLS product). Moreover, experimental results underscore the advantages of employing the SDC for global land cover classification, achieving a sizable improvement in overall accuracy (2.4 %~11.3 %) over that obtained using Landsat composite and interpolated datasets. A web-based interface has been developed for researchers to freely access the SDC dataset, which is available at https://doi.org/10.12436/SDC30.26.20240506 (Chen et al., 2024). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest above‐ground biomass (AGB) is often estimated by converting the observed tree size using allometric scaling between the dry weight and size of an organism. However, the variations in biomass allocation and scaling between tree crowns and stems due to survival competition during a tree's lifecycle remain unclear. This knowledge gap can improve the understanding of modelling tree biomass allometry because traditional allometries ignore the dynamics of allocation.Herein, we characterised allometric scaling using the dynamic ratio (r) of the stem biomass (SB) to AGB and a dynamic exponent. The allometric models were biologically parameterised by the r values for initial, intermediate and final ages rather than only a regression result. The scaling was tested using field measurements of 421 species and 2213 different‐sized trees in pantropical regions worldwide.We found that the scaling fluctuated with tree size, and this fluctuation was driven by the trade‐off relationship of biomass allocation between the tree crown and stem depending on the dynamic crown trait. The allometric scaling between SB and AGB varied from 0.8 to 1.0 for a tree during its entire lifecycle. The fluctuations presented a general law for the allometric scaling of the pantropical tree biomass and size. Our model quantified the trade‐off and explained 94.1% of the allometric relationship between the SB and AGB (93.8% of which between D2H and AGB) for pantropical forests, which resulted in a better fit than that of the traditional model. Considering the effects of the trade‐off on modelling, the actual biomass of large trees could be substantially greater than conventional estimates.These results highlight the importance of coupling growth mechanisms in modelling allometry and provide a theoretical foundation for better describing and predicting forest carbon accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background The uncut Roux-en-y anastomosis (URYA) has some clinical advantages after distal gastrectomy (DG). Little evidence exists regarding the influence of peristalsis on this anastomosis. We aimed to evaluate short-term outcomes of isoperistaltic URYA (iso-URYA) comparing with antiperistaltic URYA (anti-URYA) after DG. Method Patients who underwent URYA for gastric cancer (GC) between January 2016 and December 2018 were selected from Shanghai Changhai Hospital, Navy Medical University. Short-term outcomes were compared between iso-URYA group and anti-URYA group after 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM). Result A total of 612 patients were selected. 392 patients underwent iso-URYA and 220 patients underwent anti-URYA. After PSM, 183 patients for each group were included in the final analysis. No differences were found between them in terms of short-term complications, nutritional status and quality of life 1 year after surgery. Endoscopic examination showed that anti-URYA group had more severe gastritis (P = 0.036). In addition, the recanalization rate was significantly higher when the afferent loop was blocked by stapler. Conclusion The iso-URYA and anti-URYA group present similar results in short term outcomes. Ligation blocking afferent loop leads to lower recanalization rate.

The spatiotemporal distribution of ecosystem service values (ESVs) and ecological risk are critical indicators to represent the regional ecological protection level and potential of sustainable development, which largely depend on land-use patterns. Aiming to contribute to global climate mitigation, China has proposed dual-carbon goals that would remarkably influence the land-use/cover change (LUCC) distribution. Based on the Landsat land cover data of 2000, 2010 and 2020 and multisource satellite products, several driving factors are integrated into the patch-generating land use simulation (PLUS) model to simulate future LUCC patterns for the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) under rapid urbanization, cropland protection and carbon neutral (CN) scenarios from 2020 to 2050. Spatial–temporal ecosystem service and ESVs are allocated using INVEST and the equivalent factor method and thus ecological risks are evaluated using the entropy method. Results indicate that forest growth is the largest under the CN scenario, especially in the northwestern and northeastern GBA, exceeding 25,800 km2 in 2050, which results in both the highest habitat quality and carbon storage. The largest ESVs, reaching higher than 5210 yuan/pixel, are found in the CN scenario, particularly expanding toward the suburban area, leading to the lowest ecological risks. From 2020 to 2050, habitat quality, carbon storage and ESVs improve, while ecological risks decline in the CN scenario. This research provides implications for economic and ecological balanced development and gives references to the carbon-neutral pathway for the GBA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data-driven flood susceptibility modeling is an efficient way to map the spatial distribution of flood likelihood. The quality of the flood susceptibility model relies on the learning technique and the data used for learning. The performance of learning techniques has been extensively examined. However, to date, the impact of data sampling strategies has received limited attention. Random sampling is widely favored because of its ease of use. It treats flood-related data as tabular and excludes their spatial dimensions. Flood occurrence is typically uneven over space. Therefore, non-flood sampling should not be completely random. To represent the impact of the spatial dimension, this study proposed a new sampling approach based on spatial dependence, called inverse-occurrence sampling. It selects more non-flood data in low-risk areas than in high-risk areas. The new sampling approach was compared with random and stratified sampling, using six machine learning techniques in two urban areas in Guangzhou, China, with distinct flood mechanisms, that is, Tianhe (flood density 1.5/km2, clustered distribution, average slope 9.02°, downtown district) and Panyu (flood density 0.15/km2, random distribution, average slope 4.55°, suburban district). Learning techniques include support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), artificial neural networks (ANNs), convolutional neural networks (CNNs), CNN-SVM, and CNN-RF. The main findings of this study were as follows: (1) Sampling approaches had a greater impact on model performance than learning techniques in terms of area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The AUC variations caused by learning techniques ranged from 0.04 to 0.09. Meanwhile, the AUC variations caused by sampling approaches were between 0.15 and 0.22, all larger than 0.1. (2) The new sampling approach outperformed that of the other two sampling approaches for high average AUC values and small AUC variations. The outperformance is robust in regard to multiple learning techniques and different flooding mechanisms. AUCs in the inverse group had a narrower range (0.14–0.18 in Tianhe and 0.35–0.39 in Panyu) than in the random group (0.24–0.28 in Tianhe and 0.43–0.53 in Panyu) and the stratified group (0.23–0.30 in Tianhe and 0.42–0.48 in Panyu). (3) The most accurate learning technique for AUC was CNN-RF, followed by SVM, CNN-SVM, RF, CNN, and ANN. (4) ANN- and CNN-based models tended to produce polarized patterns in flood susceptibility maps, contradicting the ascending order of flood density with increasing susceptibility levels. Flood density outliers tended to appear in the models derived using RF and CNN-RF. Finally, the newly proposed sampling approach is suggested to be applied to flood susceptibility mapping to reflect the impact of spatial dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regarding global warming, the threat of flooding is projected to increase due to the change in intensity and frequency of single drivers and amplification caused by multi-driver interactions. This interaction becomes more complicated in developing regions with rapidly changing land cover. As a result, demands on flood risk management are rising especially in small watersheds, which are more vulnerable to driver disturbances compared with large watersheds. Existing studies focused on large watersheds rather than small watersheds. However, the findings derived from large-scale analysis cannot be transferred to small watersheds directly. This research investigated the flood responses in the Yonghe River Watershed (YRW) (63.8 km2) in Guangzhou, China, considering the impact of land cover change. The YRW experienced a disastrous compound flood on 22 May 2020. A hydrodynamic model integrating the Hydrologic Engineering Center's Hydrologic Modeling System and River Analysis System (HEC-HMS and HEC-RAS, respectively) was established and calibrated using the inundation depths observed during the flood. Model analysis using multiple scenarios showed that the watershed is river-dominated, and flood responses to the three factors are nonlinear but with different increasing rates. The response curves for tide levels and land cover changes increase faster at high values, whereas the rainfall intensity curves vary slightly. These findings highlight the importance of integrating tidal impacts into flood risk management, even in river-dominated coastal watersheds. The study further recommends that in small watersheds, 50% imperviousness is an indicator of the urgent demand for flood risk management measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea ice drift is a crucial parameter for sea ice flux, atmospheric and ocean circulation, and ship navigation. Pattern matching is widely used to retrieve sea ice drift from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, but it often yields mismatched vectors and coarse spatial resolution. This study presents a framework to enhance the spatial resolution and accuracy of pattern-matching sea ice drift derived from SAR images. The framework employs the Accelerated-KAZE feature extraction method and Brute-Force feature matcher to extract feature-tracking sea ice drift vectors from SAR data, with mismatched vectors subsequently removed. The pattern-matching vectors are then refined by fusing with these feature-tracking vectors, using a Co-Kriging algorithm. Using the sea ice drift product from the Technical University of Denmark space as the pattern-matching vector field for refinement, the framework's effectiveness is evaluated by comparing the refined vectors with buoy displacements and pattern-matching vectors across five selected regions. Results show a reduction in velocity and direction root mean square error (RMSE) by 0.47 km/d (22%) and 4.97° (28%), respectively, and an enhanced spatial resolution from 10 km to 1 km. The findings demonstrate the framework's success in improving the accuracy and resolution of pattern-matching sea ice drift from SAR imagery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]