Parcel Area Research Articles

The Effect of Land Fragmentation on the Technical Inefficiency of Dairy Farms

AbstractExploiting the link between land identification and farm accountancy data, we use a uniquely detailed database to conduct a robust analysis of land fragmentation and its effect on technical inefficiency on dairy farms in Ireland. Using a stochastic production frontier model, our results show that the number of parcels, the average distance between parcels and the main farm, and the portion of land separate from the main farm all increase technical inefficiency. Such inefficiency can be reduced through increased parcel area, reduced travel distances, advisory services contact, intensive practices and hired labour. Our findings support the need for policy to improve land and labour mobility, providing evidence to support incentives to promote the transfer and long‐term leasing of agricultural land.

Automatic Deep Inference of Procedural Cities from Global-scale Spatial Data

Recent advances in big spatial data acquisition and deep learning allow novel algorithms that were not possible several years ago. We introduce a novel inverse procedural modeling algorithm for urban areas that addresses the problem of spatial data quality and uncertainty. Our method is fully automatic and produces a 3D approximation of an urban area given satellite imagery and global-scale data, including road network, population, and elevation data. By analyzing the values and the distribution of urban data, e.g., parcels, buildings, population, and elevation, we construct a procedural approximation of a city at a large-scale. Our approach has three main components: (1) procedural model generation to create parcel and building geometries, (2) parcel area estimation that trains neural networks to provide initial parcel sizes for a segmented satellite image of a city block, and (3) an optional optimization that can use partial knowledge of overall average building footprint area and building counts to improve results. We demonstrate and evaluate our approach on cities around the globe with widely different structures and automatically yield procedural models with up to 91,000 buildings, and spanning up to 150 km 2 . We obtain both a spatial arrangement of parcels and buildings similar to ground truth and a distribution of building sizes similar to ground truth, hence yielding a statistically similar synthetic urban space. We produce procedural models at multiple scales, and with less than 1% error in parcel and building areas in the best case as compared to ground truth and 5.8% error on average for tested cities.

Carbon storage capacity of tropical peatlands in natural and artificial drainage networks

Tropical peatlands store over 75 gigatons of carbon as organic matter that is protected from decomposition and fire by waterlogging if left undrained. Over millennia, this organic matter builds up between channels or rivers into gently mounded shapes called peat domes. Measurements of peat accumulation and water flow suggest that tropical peat domes approach a steady state in which the peat surface morphology is described by a uniform curvature, setting a limit on the carbon that a peatland can store. We explored the maximum amount of carbon that can accumulate as water-saturated peat in natural and artificial drainage networks of northwest and southern Borneo. We find that the maximum volume of peat accumulation in a channel-bounded parcel is proportional to the square of the parcel area times a scale-independent factor describing the shape of the parcel boundary. Thus, carbon capacity per area scales roughly with mean parcel area in the peatland. Our analysis provides a tool that can be used to predict the long-term impacts of artificial drainage, and to devise optimal strategies for arresting fires and greenhouse gas emissions in tropical peatlands.

Three‐stage assessment of parcel area quality

The most important spatial attributes of any cadastral parcel are the coordinates of its boundary points, which define the extent of property rights. The derivative of the boundaries is the area of the parcel, which, in Poland, is determined based on the coordinates of the boundary points satisfying certain conditions. It is essential that the data entered into the real estate cadastre describing the areas of the parcels are of sufficiently high quality. For this reason, the authors of this research paper propose a three‐stage assessment of the quality of the area of cadastral parcels. The first stage involves analysis of the standardised values of selected attributes of the boundary points entered into the cadastral database, describing the accuracy of their position, the source of data capture, and the monumentation method. This forms the basis for evaluating the quality level of individual boundary points throughout the entire study area. Taking the geometry of the parcel into account, this information is used to determine the quality of the data on the areas of individual parcels, which forms the second stage of the analysis. The third and final stage consists in determining the global coefficient for the quality of areas of parcels in the study area. Such an approach provides a wide range of possibilities, both for carrying out unit control procedures and for comparing the quality of spatial data on parcel areas between individual cadastral districts or areas with a specific land use. The results of the analyses carried out on the research objects, i.e., on two cadastral districts located in southern Poland, have confirmed that the proposed method may also prove useful for other purposes. It is also a universal tool that can be adapted for use in other countries.

Approaches to automated land subdivision using binary search algorithm in zoning applications

The planned development of urban areas depends on zoning applications. Although zoning practices are performed using different techniques, the parcelling operations that shape the future view of the city are the same. Preparing the parcelling plans is an important step that has a direct impact on ownership structure and reallocation. Parcelling operations are traditionally handled manually by a technician. This is a serious problem in terms of time and cost. In this study, by taking the zoning legislation, the production of a pre-land subdivision plan has been automatically performed for a region of Konya, which is one of the major cities in Turkey. The parcelling processes have been performed in three different ways: the first parcelling technique is parcelling with edge values, the second is parcelling with area values and the third is parcelling using both edge and area values together. For the entire parcelling process, the area of the parcel has been calculated using the Gauss method. Moreover, to effectively determine the boundaries and to calculate the parcel area in the parcelling process, the binary search technique has been used in all the methods. The experimental results show that the parcelling operations were carried out very quickly and successfully.

Potential Use of UAV-Based Mapping System to Accelerate the Production of Parcel Boundary Map in Indonesia

Recently, the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs announces a decree to accelerate a completion of the registration of land parcels of cadaster maps up to a scale of 1:1000. It is known that the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle based mapping system (UAV-Map) can produce orthophoto image with spatial resolution less than 10 cm, but it is not yet known whether UAV-Map implementation is able to identify boundary of land parcel in any condition. Therefore, this paper would analyze the planimetric accuracy that is conformed to the regulation of State Minister of Agrarian Affairs/Head of National Land Agency No.3, 1997 both for urban and rural areas. Two testing areas are established which located on urban area and rural area respectively. Flight missions are conducted using a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with a consumer grade camera and a navigational grade GPS-INS system. Orthophoto maps are produced by using Agisoft Photoscan software. Digitizing of parcel boundaries are followed both on an existing map and on the orthophoto maps. Deviations in areas are expressed in terms of the RMSE figures. Planimetric accuracies as indicated by the RMSE value are of 0,044 m for urban areas and 0,122 m for rural area. It is showed that all discrepancies of the parcels area are still below the recommended threshold values of the regulation. It is can be concluded that the orthophoto maps obtained by using a low cost UAV-Map system can be used to identify land parcels boundaries and to determine the parcel area.

Heavy metal concentrations of soils near the large opencast coal mine pits in China.

Mining is a common industrial activity and significant source of soil heavy metal (HM) pollution. However, nearly all studies on the effects of mining activities on soil environmental quality have entailed field monitoring of small regions or bibliometric analyses. This study therefore investigated the pollution of surface soils surrounding 135 large opencast coal mining pits in China. A total of 1772 surface soil samples were collected, and the concentrations of eight major HMs were determined. The HM concentrations in this study were relatively lower than the published HM concentrations of coal mine soils from 50 typical Chinese coal mines. However, pollution assessments indicated that Cd, Cu, and As concentrations were concerning. Significant correlations existed between all of the HMs and mining pit area (p<0.01), as well as between the Pb and Zn concentrations and direction (p<0.05). Climate conditions had large influences on the HM concentrations. The concentrations of all studied HMs, except for Ni, were highest in Anthrosols and lowest in hydromorphic soils. The concentrations of all HMs, except for Hg, in land use types showed a descending trend of cultivated land>garden plot>grassland. Significantly negative correlations (p<0.01) between all HM concentrations and elevation were observed. Cr, Zn, and Ni were significantly and positively correlated with the slope, and no HMs, except Cr, showed significant correlations with the parcel area. This paper provides insights for the policymakers regarding soil pollution control and management strategies near coal mine pits.

Cropland Classification Using Sentinel-1 Time Series: Methodological Performance and Prediction Uncertainty Assessment

Methods based on Sentinel-1 data were developed to monitor crops and fields to facilitate the distribution of subsidies. The objectives were to (1) develop a methodology to predict individual crop species or or management regimes; (2) investigate the earliest time point in the growing season when the species predictions are satisfactory; and (3) to present a method to assess the uncertainty of the predictions at an individual field level. Seventeen Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) scenes (VV and VH polarizations) acquired in interferometric wide swath mode from 14 May through to 30 August 2017 in the same geometry, and selected based on the weather conditions, were used in the study. The improved k nearest neighbour estimation, ik-NN, with a genetic algorithm feature optimization was tailored for classification with optional Sentinel-1 data sets, species groupings, and thresholds for the minimum parcel area. The number of species groups varied from 7 to as large as 41. Multinomial logistic regression was tested as an optional method. The Overall Accuracies (OA) varied depending on the number of species included in the classification, and whether all or not field parcels were included. OA with nine species groups was 72% when all parcels were included, 81% when the parcels area threshold (for incorporating parcels into classification) was 0.5 ha, and around 90% when the threshold was 4 ha. The OA gradually increased when adding extra Sentinel-1 scenes up until the early August, and the initial scenes were acquired in early June or mid-May. After that, only minor improvements in the crop recognition accuracy were noted. The ik-NN method gave greater overall accuracies than the logistic regression analysis with all data combinations tested. The width of the 95% confidence intervals with ik-NN for the estimate of the probability of the species with the largest probability on an individual parcel varied depending on the species, the area threshold of the parcel and the number of the Sentinel-1 scenes used. The results ranged between 0.06–0.08 units (6–8% points) for the most common species when the Sentinel-1 scenes were between 1 June and 12 August. The results were well-received by the authorities and encourage further research to continue the study towards an operational method in which the space-borne SAR data are a part of the information chain.

Admissible relative errors of the parcel area of a land parcel map base created as a synthesis of individual survey maps

Actualmente en Uruguay la cartografía base catastral está dada por un parcelario digital integrado y actualizado pero cuyas características geométricas no son adecuadas para que sea interoperable con otras capas de información de alta exactitud.Se está considerando generar una nueva cartografía, para lo que hay que especificar metodología y requerimientos, determinando la exactitud geométrica que es posible y razonable alcanzar para posteriormente exigirla a la hora de la contratación de dicho trabajo. En este trabajo se ensayó el procedimiento de agregar cada parcela con la(s) parcela(s) lindera(s) formando una unidad. Como en Uruguay las áreas públicas no disponen de mensura, el proceso de unión se interrumpe al llegar a una ruta, un curso de agua, etc. Los planos de mensura rurales (del orden de 250 000) están digitalizados pero no vectorizados, por lo cual tras hacerlo se realizó un trabajo de escalado, rotación y eventualmente deformación para luego integrarlo con sus vecinos. Para las rutas y caminos públicos se dispone de trazas GNSS, lo que permitió darle a cada bloque coordenadas absolutas. La exactitud de la cartografía resultante se valoró en términos del error relativo del área de cada parcela, resultando que el error cometido es de distribución normal, con media 0.10% y desviación estándar 3.51%, dejando así al 82.0% de las parcelas con menos del 5% de error. En términos de error planimétrico, crucial para asegurar la interoperabilidad, el mismo fue de 53.79 m al 95% de nivel de confianza.

Investigating domestic gardens’ densities, spatial distribution and types among city districts

Domestic gardens are the major contributor to greening the spatial plan in some compact cities. Irbid, Jordan is a densely populated city that has limited and deteriorating natural vegetation and is located in an arid to semi-arid climate. We investigated the density of domestic gardens (proportion of gardened residential units) in Irbid city and explored some properties of domestic gardens. The research focused on the city domestic garden types, their distribution, gardens proportions and association to household economic status and parcel area. Four hundred and thirty residential units were selected randomly using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The sample size for each district was identified proportionally relative to the district’s total residential units. Parcel area, district population, household income and landscape properties information were obtained from GIS maps, homeowners’ interviews or on site observations. Sixty-two percent of the city residential units had gardens and those gardens were distributed unequally (21–100%) among city districts. Rural areas had higher garden densities (proportions) compared to that at the city center. Around 50% of the city gardens were utilitarian and were concentrated in the rural areas, while the aesthetically designed gardens represented 21% of the total gardens and were significantly concentrated near the core urban area of the city. Around 53% of the city domestic gardens were categorized as side yards. The districts’ domestic garden proportions and parcel sizes were positively correlated. The proportions of aesthetic gardens were positively correlated with districts’ median income while utilitarian garden proportions strongly and inversely correlated with districts income. This knowledge about the proportions of domestic gardens distribution, trends, garden attributes and other factors that interfere with the existence and shape of domestic gardens has implications for species composition and can serve as a basis for green infrastructure planning, sustainable environmental planning strategies, and land use policies.

Accuracy Estimation Analysis of Land Parcel Area Determination Based on Aerosurveying Materials in Comparison with Results of Ground Geodetic Measurements

The presence of a large number of territorial units with a high price of land determines the appropriate accuracy of their area determination in the short term. The widespread use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a modern geospatial mapping technology. Using an UAV equipped with appropriate devices for aerosurveying  such as, for example, the Trimble UX5  is economically feasible in comparison with ground geodetic measurements, since the latter requires a lot of costs. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to analyze accuracy estimation of land parcel area determination based on aero surveying materials using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in comparison with results of ground geodetic measurements using a total station. As a result, a comparison of detailed plan and an existing base of land parcel measurements with accuracy estimations have been made. Based on our analysis and experimental studies, we can state that the UAV allows more efficient data collection within the requirements of land management in comparison with ground geodetic measurements. The use of aero surveying materials for determination of land parcel areas has been proposed. The results of the study provide an opportunity to improve the reliability of land parcel data in the normative and methodological framework.

Moving through the matrix: Promoting permeability for large carnivores in a human-dominated landscape

Landscape connectivity for wildlife populations is declining globally due to increasing development and habitat fragmentation. However, outside of full protection of undeveloped wildlife corridors, conservation planners have limited tools to identify the appropriate level of densification such that landscape permeability for wildlife is maintained. Here we sought to determine the development characteristics that contribute to movement potential in an exurban landscape for a large carnivore, the puma. We first fit a piecewise step-selection function from movement paths from 28 male pumas to identify threshold levels of development that produce barriers to movement. We then applied this threshold to projected housing densities of existing parcels under a full General Plan buildout scenario in Santa Cruz County to illustrate how parcels at risk of increasing above the puma movement threshold can be identified. Finally, we tested the relative importance of characteristics associated with parcels and the surrounding area on relative puma movement. We found that pumas exhibit avoidance of housing density that saturates at a threshold, and that puma utilization of parcels at risk of densification above this threshold is predicted by parcel area and the housing density and area of surrounding parcels. Our work suggests that maintaining permeability in developing landscapes is likely contingent on preventing densification and parcel subdivision in exurban areas. We discuss how our findings and approach can be used by conservation planners to promote landscape permeability in already partially developed landscapes.

Gunung Gare Kota Pagar Alam Dengan Konsep Zero Runoff System

Internal runoff is caused conversion of green land into be constructed where if there is rain with high rainfall intensity then rainfall runoff will become large and trigger water puddle (overflow) because of reduced area to absorb water. Zero runoff rainwater needs to be applied to the building and land use where the runoff volume (input) can be withstand up to 100% and runoff flow volume (outflow) of 0% or maximum of 3% so that it can reduce the impact of decreasing peak floods (water puddle) the purpose is to analyze the runoff of rain water from the roof of building so it can be useful for processing and utilization of rain water and analyze the needs of absorption wells, reservoir and maximum discharge to retention pond. Roof of parcel area of 13.438,24 m2 is 0,88336 m3/s the need of absorption wells in building is as much as 8 units of recharge wells with Ø 100 cm.reservoir that is needed in the building is 45 units of reservoir with size 30m3. The volume of retention ponds to accommodate runoff discharge from the land use area of 273.339,4 m2 and the roof ot the building area of 13.438,24 m2 is equal to 12.259,4 m3/year at Gunung Gare office complex of Pagar Alam city.

Building emergy analysis of Manhattan: Density parameters for high-density and high-rise developments

To better understand how cities work, this study performs emergy (spelled with an “m”) synthesis of buildings on Manhattan Island. Conventional emergy studies have focused on much larger unit of analysis; however, architects, urban designers, and policymakers are operating on a smaller scale of building, block, neighborhood, and district. This study contributes to overcoming the scale and resolution mismatch between the macro- and micro-levels. Overall emergy for entire buildings on Manhattan Island is computed by adopting square-foot-base building cost estimation technique to emergy synthesis. We found that high-density and high-rise developments can achieve their maximum empower at the range of 1–5 Floor Area Ratio (FAR; an indicator of development density computed as total building floor area divided by total parcel area) and building height under 40 stories.

The biostimulant manufactured using diazotrophic endophytic bacteria and humates is effective to increase sugarcane yield

BackgroundThe use of biostimulants in agriculture has demonstrated great potential but more consistent field results are required for wider farm acceptance. We evaluated different delivering methods for the biostimulant produced with plant growth-promoting bacteria mixed with humic acid-like substances isolated from vermicompost in the commercial sugarcane crop yield during 3 consecutive years.ResultsFoliar spray had a better performance than furrow application and the best result was obtained when the biostimulant was applied at 60 days after emergence, thus enhancing 37% of the stem yield when compared to control. In the first and second ratoons, the productivity increases 5 and 24%, respectively. The first ratoon was marked by severe drought stress that hit all the southeastern of Brazil. Moreover, the assay using strip plot design with a large parcel area confirms the promotion of sugarcane yields by biostimulant during two consecutive ratoons increasing 19 and 18% that represent 11 and 13 tons ha−1 more than the control. The use of biostimulant did not change soluble solid content and polarizable sugars in the sugarcane juice obtained from both experiments.ConclusionsThe biostimulant formulated with endophytic diazotrophic bacteria and humic acids represents a low-cost technology that increases the sugarcane yield with economic use of fertilizers to enhance crop yield.Graphical abstractBiostimulant manufactured with plant growth-promoting bacteria and humates

Types of Cadastral Maps in Slovak Republic and Accuracy of the Land Area

The technical progress has affected in all parts of science. This paper is reflecting the changes of creation and accuracy of the maps, used for tax purposes from Austria-Hungary to present. From the precision of coordinates of the break points, which are defining the running of boundary, depends the precision of the parcel area as well. This information is more important because of the prices of land in present.

Accurate area determination in the cadaster: case study of Slovenia

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses methodological problems of accurate area determination in the cadaster. The paper contrasts the ambiguous legal definition of the parcel boundary and parcel area in relation to the theoretically well-defined geodetic parcel boundary and the geodetic parcel area on the reference ellipsoid. To align with the real world, parcel area must account for terrain elevation. Various approximate methods for area determination which can be used in the cadaster are tested. A highly accurate method for parcel area computation is proposed, based on an equal-area projection. Considering the geodetic parcel area as a reference, the achievable accuracy of different methods is evaluated. For this analysis, the coordinates of the parcel boundary points are treated as error-free. Finally, the relevance of various systematic errors is discussed in relation to the statistical uncertainty of the parcel area, which could be gained by an a real-time kinematic GNSS survey. A case study is presented for the territory of Slovenia, its georeferencing rules, land demarcation pattern, and characteristics of its topography. Based on the results of this study, some general recommendations for the parcel area determination are given.

Multi-scale heterogeneity in vegetation and soil carbon in exurban residential land of southeastern Michigan, USA.

Exurban residential land (one housing unit per 0.2-16.2ha) is growing in importance as a human-dominated land use. Carbon storage in the soils and vegetation of exurban land is poorly known, as are the effects on C storage of choices made by developers and residents. We studied C storage in exurban yards in southeastern Michigan, USA, across a range of parcel sizes and different types of neighborhoods. We divided each residential parcel into ecological zones (EZ) characterized by vegetation, soil, and human behavior such as mowing, irrigation, and raking. We found a heterogeneous mixture of trees and shrubs, turfgrasses, mulched gardens, old-field vegetation, and impervious surfaces. The most extensive zone type was turfgrass with sparse woody vegetation (mean 26% of parcel area), followed by dense woody vegetation (mean 21% of parcel area). Areas of turfgrass with sparse woody vegetation had trees in larger size classes (> 50cm dbh) than did areas of dense woody vegetation. Using aerial photointerpretation, we scaled up C storage to neighborhoods. Varying C storage by neighborhood type resulted from differences in impervious area (8-26% of parcel area) and area of dense woody vegetation (11-28%). Averaged and multiplied across areas in differing neighborhood types, exurban residential land contained 5240±865g C/m2 in vegetation, highly sensitive to large trees, and 13 800±1290g C/m2 in soils (based on a combined sampling and modeling approach). These contents are greater than for agricultural land in the region, but lower than for mature forest stands. Compared with mature forests, exurban land contained more shrubs and less downed woody debris and it had similar tree size-class distributions up to 40cm dbh but far fewer trees in larger size classes. If the trees continue to grow, exurban residential land could sequester additional C for decades. Patterns and processes of C storage in exurban residential land were driven by land management practices that affect soil and vegetation, reflecting the choices of designers, developers, and residents. This study provides an example of human-mediated C storage in a coupled human-natural system.

Parcel Fragmentation and Land Consolidation

Parcel Fragmentation is the division of parcel into smaller pieces having individual ownership. The main parameters used for measurement of Parcel Fragmentation have been considered the spatial location of parcel, shape &amp; size of parcel and number of parcel. The main causes of Parcel Fragmentation are; inheritance, population growth, land market, historical/ cultural perspective, personal prestige &amp; status, economic &amp; physical process, quality of soil and physical condition of parcels. The main impacts seen due to the Parcel Fragmentation are as reduction of agricultural production, increases of agricultural production cost, increases land disputes, increases transport cost, wasted time for the workers travelling, supervision, securing &amp; management, reduce parcel area due to walls &amp; fences and cannot use modern equipment in agricultural activities. Land Consolidation is the reverse act of Parcel Fragmentation. It is the process of formation of single or individual parcel by merging several parcels having enough size&amp; suitable shape and helps to reduce those impacts which are seen in the fragmented parcels so it is profitable to move in the direction of Land Consolidation.

Implications of construction method and spatial scale on measures of the built environment.

BackgroundResearch surrounding the built environment (BE) and health has resulted in inconsistent findings. Experts have identified the need to examine methodological choices, such as development and testing of BE indices at varying spatial scales. We sought to examine the impact of construction method and spatial scale on seven measures of the BE using data collected at two time points.MethodsThe Children’s Environmental Health Initiative conducted parcel-level assessments of 57 BE variables in Durham, NC (parcel N = 30,319). Based on a priori defined variable groupings, we constructed seven mutually exclusive BE domains (housing damage, property disorder, territoriality, vacancy, public nuisances, crime, and tenancy). Domain-based indices were developed according to four different index construction methods that differentially account for number of parcels and parcel area. Indices were constructed at the census block level and two alternative spatial scales that better depict the larger neighborhood context experienced by local residents: the primary adjacency community and secondary adjacency community. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to assess if indices and relationships among indices were preserved across methods.ResultsTerritoriality, public nuisances, and tenancy were weakly to moderately preserved across methods at the block level while all other indices were well preserved. Except for the relationships between public nuisances and crime or tenancy, and crime and housing damage or territoriality, relationships among indices were poorly preserved across methods. The number of indices affected by construction method increased as spatial scale increased, while the impact of construction method on relationships among indices varied according to spatial scale.ConclusionsWe found that the impact of construction method on BE measures was index and spatial scale specific. Operationalizing and developing BE measures using alternative methods at varying spatial scales before connecting to health outcomes allows researchers to better understand how methodological decisions may affect associations between health outcomes and BE measures. To ensure that associations between the BE and health outcomes are not artifacts of methodological decisions, researchers would be well-advised to conduct sensitivity analysis using different construction methods. This approach may lead to more robust results regarding the BE and health outcomes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12942-016-0044-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.