Journal articles

2020 Validation of flood risk maps using open source optical and radar satellite imagery

Quirós, Elia; Gagnon, Alexandre S. 2020. «Validation of flood risk maps using open source optical and radar satellite imagery». Transactions in GIS, (Online Version of Record before inclusion in an issue). https://doi.org/10.1111/tgis.12637

Flood risk maps delineate areas potentially at risk of flooding and are thus a crucial tool in flood risk management. In Spain, such maps are provided as open geospatial data. This article compares the flood‐prone areas according to those maps for floods of different return periods with the spatial extent of two floods that severely affected southwestern Spain using open source optical and radar satellite imagery. Results using the recall metric were found to be very good and are the most relevant to emergency preparedness services as this metric focuses on the correctly predicted flooded areas. It was also found that the 500‐year flood risk map was the one with the best precision and accuracy for both flood events. The results confirm the accuracy of the flood risk maps based on open source remote sensing imagery and hence demonstrate the potential of publicly available and freely distributed remote sensing data in their development.

2020 Columbus: aportes de la teledetección y análisis de coste anisotrópico a un debate histórico

2020 Assessing the potential of multispectral and thermal UAV imagery fromarchaeological sites. A case study from the Iron Age hillfort of Villasviejasdel Tamuja (Cáceres, Spain)

2019 Radiography of an Iron Age hillfort: non-invasive archaeology in the settlement of Villasviejas del Tamuja (Botija, Cáceres)

2019 Study of uncertainty and repeatability in structured-light 3D scanners

2019 Assessing the resistance of a breeding amphibian community to a large wildfire

Muñoz, Alberto; Felicísimo, Ángel M.; Santos, Xavier. Assessing the resistance of a breeding amphibian community to a large wildfire. Acta Oecologica (publicado online en junio de 2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.actao.2019.06.002

Socioeconomic and global climate changes are modifying fire regimes towards larger and more intense fires. Studying the response of organisms to the occurrence of large fires is crucial to anticipate shifts in patterns of biodiversity in fire-prone regions. Amphibia is the most threatened terrestrial vertebrate taxon, although it is also the least studied in relation to its response to fire. We evaluated the resistance to fire (similarity in species composition before and after fire) and reproductive success during the first breeding season after a fire of an amphibian community at the Mediterranean basin. We sampled 33 aquatic habitats, including ponds and streams located inside and outside the perimeter of the fire, and reported the presence of adult amphibians and their reproductive success. The community composition in burnt and unburnt areas was compared by similarity analysis. Generalized Linear Models were used to test the effects of fire (burnt or unburnt area), habitat type (stream or pond), distance to the perimeter of the wildfire, and altitude on total and breeding species richness. We did not find significant differences in amphibian community composition between burnt and unburnt areas, or in total species richness per water point. Of the 12 species found in the study area, only frogs of the genus Hyla declined in the burnt area due to the destruction of their preferred microhabitat, i.e. vegetation surrounding ponds. In contrast, breeding occurrence and breeding species richness declined in burnt streams and ponds. These results suggest a high amphibian resistance to fire at the community level, although the reduction of breeding activity can threaten the persistence of a rich community in future scenarios of increased recurrence of megafires.

2019 The role of abiotic mechanisms of long-distance dispersal in the American origin of the Galápagos flora

2019 Overstory-understory land cover mapping at the watershed scale: accuracy enhancement by multitemporal remote sensing analysis and LiDAR

2018 Solar potential of rooftops in Cáceres city, Spain

2018 A method of downscaling temperature maps based on analytical hillshading for use in species distribution modelling

2018 Circular Statistics Applied to the Study of the Solar Radiation Potential of Rooftops in a Medium-Sized City

2019 Relationship of NDVI and oak (Quercus) pollen including a predictive model in the SW Mediterranean region

González-Naharro, R., Quirós, E., Fernández-Rodríguez, S., Silva-Palacios, I., Maya-Manzano, J. M., Tormo-Molina, R., Pecero-Casimiro, R., Monroy-Colin, A., Gonzalo-Garijo, Á. Relationship of NDVI and oak (Quercus) pollen including a predictive model in the SW Mediterranean region. Science of The Total Environment, 2019, 676, 407-419 . DOI 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.213.

Techniques of remote sensing are being used to develop phenological studies. Our goal is to study the correlation among the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) related with oak trees included in three set data polygons (15, 25 and 50 km to aerobiological sampling point as NDVI-15, 25 and 50), and oak (Quercus) daily average pollen counts from 1994 to 2013. The study was developed in the SW Mediterranean region with continuous pollen recording within the mean pollen season of each studied year. These pollen concentrations were compared with NDVI values in the locations containing the vegetation under a study based on two cartographic sources: the Extremadura Forest Map (MFEx) of Spain and the Fifth National Forest Inventory (IFN5) from Portugal. The importance of this work is to propose the relationship among data related in space and time by Spearman and Granger causality tests. 9 out of 20 studied years have shown significant results with the Granger causality test between NDVI and pollen concentration, and in 12 years, significant values were obtained by Spearman test. The distances of influence on the contribution of Quercus pollen to the sampler showed statistically significant results depending on the year. Moreover, a predictive model by using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was applied with better results in NDVI25 than for NDVI15 or NDVI50. The addition of NDVI25 with the lag of 5 days and some weather parameters in the model was applied with a RMSE of 4.26 (Spearman coefficient r = 0.77) between observed and predicted values. Based on these results, NDVI seems to be a useful parameter to predict airborne pollen.

2018 Recursos abiertos de información geográfica para investigación y documentación científica

2018 Early geomagnetic data from the Astronomical Observatory of Madrid (1879-1901)

2018 Analysis of free image-based modelling systems applied to support topographic measurements

2014 VecStatGraphs2D, A Tool for the Analysis of Two-Dimensional Vector Data: An Example Using QuikSCAT Ocean Winds

2017 Grandes terremotos en la región Ibero-Mogrebi

2017 Metric Properties of Sundials using 3-D Models from Digital Photography

2017 The 2016 south Alboran earthquake (M w = 6.4): A reactivation of the Ibero-Maghrebian region?

2017 Resource communication: Variability in estimated runoff in a forested area based on different cartographic data sources

2016 Source mechanism studies of earthquakes in the Ibero-Maghrebian region and their tectonic implications

2016 Detection and Labeling of Sensitive Areas in Hydrological Cartography Using Vector Statistics

2016 Local-scale models reveal ecological niche variability in amphibian and reptile communities from two contrasting biogeographic regions

Muñoz, A.; Santos, X.; Felicísimo, Á. M. Local-Scale Models Reveal Ecological Niche Variability in Amphibian and Reptile Communities from Two Contrasting Biogeographic Regions. PeerJ 2016, 4, e2405. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2405.

Abstract: Ecological Niche Models (ENMs) are widely used to describe how environmental factors influence species distribution. Modelling at a local scale, compared to a large scale within a high environmental gradient, can improve our understanding of ecological species niches. The main goal of this study is to assess and compare the contribution of environmental variables to amphibian and reptile ENMs in two Spanish national parks located in contrasting biogeographic regions, i.e., the Mediterranean and the Atlantic area. The ENMs were built with maximum entropy modelling using 11 environmental variables in each territory. The contributions of these variables to the models were analysed and classified using various statistical procedures (Mann–Whitney U tests, Principal Components Analysis and General Linear Models). Distance to the hydrological network was consistently the most relevant variable for both parks and taxonomic classes. Topographic variables (i.e., slope and altitude) were the second most predictive variables, followed by climatic variables. Differences in variable contribution were observed between parks and taxonomic classes. Variables related to water availability had the larger contribution to the models in the Mediterranean park, while topography variables were decisive in the Atlantic park. Specific response curves to environmental variables were in accordance with the biogeographic affinity of species (Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean species) and taxonomy (amphibians and reptiles). Interestingly, these results were observed for species located in both parks, particularly those situated at their range limits. Our findings show that ecological niche models built at local scale reveal differences in habitat preferences within a wide environmental gradient. Therefore, modelling at local scales rather than assuming large-scale models could be preferable for the establishment of conservation strategies for herptile species in natural parks.

2015 How to describe species richness patterns for bryophyte conservation?

Hespanhol, H.; Cezón, K.; Felicísimo, Á. M.; Muñoz, J.; Mateo, R. G. How to Describe Species Richness Patterns for Bryophyte Conservation? Ecology and Evolution 2015, 5 (23), 5443–5455. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1796.

A large amount of data for inconspicuous taxa is stored in natural history collections; however, this information is often neglected for biodiversity patterns studies. Here, we evaluate the performance of direct interpolation of museum collections data, equivalent to the traditional approach used in bryophyte conservation planning, and stacked species distribution models (S‐SDMs) to produce reliable reconstructions of species richness patterns, given that differences between these methods have been insufficiently evaluated for inconspicuous taxa. Our objective was to contrast if species distribution models produce better inferences of diversity richness than simply selecting areas with the higher species numbers. As model species, we selected Iberian species of the genus Grimmia (Bryophyta), and we used four well‐collected areas to compare and validate the following models: 1) four Maxent richness models, each generated without the data from one of the four areas, and a reference model created using all of the data and 2) four richness models obtained through direct spatial interpolation, each generated without the data from one area, and a reference model created with all of the data. The correlations between the partial and reference Maxent models were higher in all cases (0.45 to 0.99), whereas the correlations between the spatial interpolation models were negative and weak (−0.3 to −0.06). Our results demonstrate for the first time that S‐SDMs offer a useful tool for identifying detailed richness patterns for inconspicuous taxa such as bryophytes and improving incomplete distributions by assessing the potential richness of under‐surveyed areas, filling major gaps in the available data. In addition, the proposed strategy would enhance the value of the vast number of specimens housed in biological collections.

2015 Use of Soil Apparent Electrical Resistivity Contact Sensors for the Extensive Study of Archaeological Sites: Apparent Electrical Resistivity Sensors in Archaeological Sites

2016 Evaluación del impacto del cambio climático en los bosques de los Andes del Norte y Centro

2015 FORCLIM: Impacto del Cambio Climático en los Bosques Iberoamericanos

2015 A state-and-transition model of Iberian dehesas based on spatial patterns

2015 Large Earthquakes at the Ibero-Maghrebian Region: Basis for an EEWS

2014 Design of a WSN for the Sampling of Environmental Variability in Complex Terrain

2014 Rupture process of the Lorca (southeast Spain) 11 May 2011 (M w = 5.1) earthquake

2014 The use of spherical statistics to analyze digital elevation models: An example from LIDAR and ASTER GDEM

2013 A new spin on a compositionalist predictive modelling framework for conservation planning: A tropical case study in Ecuador

2012 Analysis of uncertainty and repeatability of a low-cost 3D laser scanner

2012 Do stacked species distribution models reflect altitudinal diversity patterns?

Mateo, R. G.; Felicísimo, A. M.; Pottier, J.; Guisan, A.; Muñoz, J. Do Stacked Species Distribution Models Reflect Altitudinal Diversity Patterns? PLoS ONE 2012, 7 (3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0032586

The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of stacked species distribution models in predicting the alpha and gamma species diversity patterns of two important plant clades along elevation in the Andes. We modelled the distribution of the species in the Anthurium genus (53 species) and the Bromeliaceae family (89 species) using six modelling techniques. We combined all of the predictions for the same species in ensemble models based on two different criteria: the average of the rescaled predictions by all techniques and the average of the best techniques. The rescaled predictions were then reclassified into binary predictions (presence/absence). By stacking either the original predictions or binary predictions for both ensemble procedures, we obtained four different species richness models per taxa. The gamma and alpha diversity per elevation band (500 m) was also computed. To evaluate the prediction abilities for the four predictions of species richness and gamma diversity, the models were compared with the real data along an elevation gradient that was independently compiled by specialists. Finally, we also tested whether our richness models performed better than a null model of altitudinal changes of diversity based on the literature. Stacking of the ensemble prediction of the individual species models generated richness models that proved to be well correlated with the observed alpha diversity richness patterns along elevation and with the gamma diversity derived from the literature. Overall, these models tend to overpredict species richness. The use of the ensemble predictions from the species models built with different techniques seems very promising for modelling of species assemblages. Stacking of the binary models reduced the over-prediction, although more research is needed. The randomisation test proved to be a promising method for testing the performance of the stacked models, but other implementations may still be developed.

2012 Estimating the uncertainty of terrestrial laser scanner measurements

2011 The 2010 Granada, Spain, Deep Earthquake

2013 The earthquakes of 29 July 2003, 12 February 2007, and 17 December 2009 in the region of Cape Saint Vincent (SW Iberia) and their relation with the 1755 Lisbon earthquake

Pro, C.; Buforn, E.; Bezzeghoud, M.; Udías, A. The Earthquakes of 29 July 2003, 12 February 2007, and 17 December 2009 in the Region of Cape Saint Vincent (SW Iberia) and Their Relation with the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. Tectonophysics 2013, 583, 16–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2012.10.010.

The Cape Saint Vincent region is of major seismological interest for its tectonic complexity and for the occurrence of the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake. No structure capable of generating such a large earthquake has yet been convincingly identified, but all authors agree that there is a possibility of a similar earthquake occurring offshore of the Cape sometime in the future. To shed some light on the region's dynamics, we here examine the mechanism of the three largest earthquakes to have occurred in the last 40 years west of the Cape – 29 July 2003 (Mw = 5.3), 12 February 2007 (Mw = 6.1), and 17 December 2009 (Mw = 5.5). By inversion of the body waves and the kinematic slip distribution, we estimated the three earthquakes to have had similar characteristics (dimensions, maximum slip, stress drop, source time function, focal depth, and rupture velocity), although there were differences in the geometry of the rupture that reflect the great seismotectonic complexity of the zone. The focal mechanisms of the 2003 and 2007 earthquakes were similar, corresponding to thrusting motion, but the 2009 earthquake had a dip-slip motion in a vertical plane. As deduced from the slip distributions, the three shocks show NE–SW rupture planes, with the energy released propagating to the NE, compatible with the regional NW–SE horizontal compression produced by the convergence of the Eurasian and African plates. Applied to the generation of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, this direction of faulting would correspond to a complex rupture along NE–SW trending thrust faults at the Gorringe Bank, the Horseshoe Scarp, and the Marquis de Pombal Fault, with the rupture propagating to the NE towards the Portuguese coast. Such a model could explain that unusually large and tsunami-generating earthquake.

2011 Modelos de distribución de especies: una revisión sintética

2010 Profile or group discriminative techniques? Generating reliable species distribution models using pseudo-absences and target-group absences from natural history collections

Mateo, R. G.; Croat, T. B.; Felicísimo, Á. M.; Muñoz, J. Profile or Group Discriminative Techniques? Generating Reliable Species Distribution Models Using Pseudo-Absences and Target-Group Absences from Natural History Collections. Diversity and Distributions 2010, 16, 84–94. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2009.00617.x.

Aim The presence‐only data stored in natural history collections is the most important source of information available regarding the distribution of organisms. These data and profile techniques can be used to generate species distribution models (SDMs), but pseudo‐absences must be generated to use group discriminative techniques. In this study, we evaluated whether the SDMs generated with pseudo‐absences are reliable and also if there are differences in the results obtained with profile and group discriminative techniques.

Location Ecuador, South America.

Methods The SDMs were generated with a training data set for each of the five species of Anthurium and six different methods: two profile techniques (BIOCLIM and Gower’s distance index), three group discriminative techniques [logistic multiple regression (LMR), multivariate adaptative regression splines (MARS) and Maxent] and a mixed modelling approach genetic algorithm for rule‐set production (GARP), which employs a combination of profile and group discriminative techniques and generates its own pseudo‐absences. For LMR, MARS and Maxent, three types of absences were generated: (1) random pseudo‐absences in equal number to presences and excluding a buffer area around presences (except for Maxent, which assumes that this background sample includes presences), (2) a large number (10,000) of random pseudo‐absences, also excluding a buffer area around each presence and (3) ‘target‐group absences’ (TGA), consisting of sites where other species of the group have been collected by the specialist, but not the species being modelled. To compare the predictive performance of the SDMs, the area under the curve statistic was calculated using an independent testing data set for each species.

Results MARS, Maxent and LMR produce better results than the profile techniques. The models created with TGA are generally more accurate than those generated with pseudo‐absences.

Main conclusions The advantages and disadvantages of different options for using pseudo‐absences and TGA with profile and group discriminative modelling techniques are explained and recommendations are made for the future.

2013 Three-Dimensional Models of Archaeological Objects: From Laser Scanners to Interactive PDF Documents

2010 Positional accuracy analysis of satellite imagery by circular statistics

2010 Full Positional Accuracy Analysis of Spatial Data by Means of Circular Statistics

2010 Effects of the number of presences on reliability and stability of MARS species distribution models: the importance of regional niche variation and ecological heterogeneity

Mateo, R. G.; Felicísimo, Á. M.; Muñoz, J. Effects of the Number of Presences on Reliability and Stability of MARS Species Distribution Models: The Importance of Regional Niche Variation and Ecological Heterogeneity. Journal of Vegetation Science 2010, 21, 908–922. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1654-1103.2010.01198.x.

Question: What are the effects of the number of presences on models generated with multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS)? Do these effects vary with data quality and quantity and species ecology?

Location: Spain and Ecuador.

Methods: We used two data sets: (1) two trees from Spain, representing high‐occurrence number data sets with real absences and unbalanced prevalence; (2) two herbs from Ecuador, representing low‐occurrence number data sets without real absences and balanced prevalence. For model quality, we used two different measures: reliability and stability. For each sample size, different replicates were generated at random and then used to generate a consensus model.

Results: Model reliability and stability decrease with sample size. Optimal minimum sample size varies depending on many factors, many of which are unknown. Regional niche variation and ecological heterogeneity are critical.

Conclusions: (1) Model predictive power improves greatly with more than 18‐20 presences. (2) Model reliability depends on data quantity and quality as well as species ecological characteristics. (3) Depending on the number of presences in the data set, investigators must carefully distinguish between models that should be treated with skepticism and those whose predictions can be applied with reasonable confidence. (4) For species combining few initial presences and wide environmental range variation, it is advisable to generate several replicate models that partition the initial data and generate a consensus model. (5) Models of species with a narrow environmental range variation can be highly stable and reliable, even when generated with few presences.

2010 El viento y la dispersión de las plantas

2009 Modelling the occurrence of gullies in rangelands of southwest Spain

2009 Influence of sea surface winds on shearwater migration detours

2009 Testing Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) as a Method of Land Cover Classification of TERRA-ASTER Satellite Images

2008 Ocean Surface Winds Drive Dynamics of Transoceanic Aerial Movements

2008 Propuesta de metodología para el análisis del error de posición en bases de datos espaciales mediante estadística circular y mapas de densidad

2007 Rupture length and velocity for earthquakes in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge from directivity effect in body and surface waves

2007 The 1980, 1997 and 1998 Azores earthquakes and some seismo-tectonic implications

2006 Methodological proposal for multispectral stereo matching

2005 Learning machines applied to potential forest distribution

2005 Accuracy, reliability, and depuration of SPOT-HRV and Terra ASTER Digital Elevation Models

2004 Wind as a Long-Distance Dispersal Vehicle in the Southern Hemisphere

2004 Seismic Sources on the Iberia-African Plate Boundary and their Tectonic Implications

Buforn, E.; Bezzeghoud, M.; Ud�as, A.; Pro, C. Seismic Sources on the Iberia-African Plate Boundary and Their Tectonic Implications. Pure and Applied Geophysics 2004, 161 (3), 623–646. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-003-2466-1.

The plate boundary between Iberia and Africa has been studied using data on seismicity and focal mechanisms. The region has been divided into three areas: A; the Gulf of Cadiz; B, the Betics, Alboran Sea and northern Morocco; and C, Algeria. Seismicity shows a complex behavior, large shallow earthquakes (h < 30 km) occur in areas A and C and moderate shocks in area B; intermediate-depth activity (30 < h < 150 km) is located in area B; the depth earthquakes (h 650 km) are located to the south of Granada. Moment rate, slip velocity and b values have been estimated for shallow shocks, and show similar characteristics for the Gulf of Cadiz and Algeria, and quite different ones for the central region. Focal mechanisms of 80 selected shallow earthquakes (8 mb 4) show thrust faulting in the Gulf of Cadiz and Algeria with horizontal NNW-SSE compression, and normal faulting in the Alboran Sea with E-W extension. Focal mechanisms of 26 intermediate-depth earthquakes in the Alboran Sea display vertical motions, with a predominant plane trending E-W. Solutions for very deep shocks correspond to vertical dip-slip along N-S trends. Frohlich diagrams and seismic moment tensors show different behavior in the Gulf of Cadiz, Betic-Alboran Sea and northern Morocco, and northern Algeria for shallow events. The stress pattern of intermediate-depth and very deep earthquakes has different directions: vertical extension in the NW-SE direction for intermediate depth earthquakes, and tension and pressure axes dipping about 45 for very deep earthquakes. Regional stress pattern may result from the collision between the African plate and Iberia, with extension and subduction of lithospheric material in the Alboran Sea at intermediate depth. The very deep seismicity may be correlated with older subduction processes.

2004 A comparison between some statistical methods commonly used in predictive modeling

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