Publications related to Elevation

At what spatial scale does natural selection operate? Using multiscale frameworks to calibrate the effects of environmental factors across landscape continuums

Patterns in nature arise from processes interacting across a continuum of spatial scales, where new relationships emerge at each level of investigation. These patterns are nested features encompassing fine-scale local patterns, such as topography and geolo ...

EPFL2024

A seasonal snowpack model forced with dynamically downscaled forcing data resolves hydrologically relevant accumulation patterns

Michael Lehning, Dylan Stewart Reynolds, Tobias Jonas

The Mountain snowpack stores months of winter precipitation at high elevations, supplying snowmelt to lowland areas in drier seasons for agriculture and human consumption worldwide. Accurate seasonal predictions of the snowpack are thus of great importance ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Impact of Topography on Rural Cycling Patterns: Case Study of Bugesera District, Rwanda

Jérôme Chenal, Akuto Akpedze Konou, Baraka Jean-Claude Munyaka, Rim Mrani

Rural mobility in Africa is an under-researched issue. Rural communities have often suffered from reduced mobility that has hampered their access to essential services and facilities such as education, health care, food, and clean water. In many rural comm ...

2023

swissALPS: a Dataset for Imbalanced Land Cover Mapping in Alpine Regions

Valérie Zermatten

Our dataset consists of very high-resolution aerial images (50cm) and a digital elevation model (50cm) that covers approx. 2300 km2 of land above 2000m altitude in the southwestern part of Switzerland. Our land cover labels focus on alpine land cover that ...

IEEE DataPort2023

Dataset for a flume experiment on sediment augmentation

Christian Mörtl

Dataset for the paper "Influence of hydrograph shape and sediment augmentation repetition frequency on sediment transport dynamics and bed morphology evolution". It includes coordinates of the defined areas of interest and digital elevation models from the ...

EPFL2022

Downscaling of Historical Wind Fields over Switzerland Using Generative Adversarial Networks

Anthony Christopher Davison, Ophélia Mireille Anna Miralles

Near-surface wind is difficult to estimate using global numerical weather and climate models, because airflow is strongly modified by underlying topography, especially that of a country such as Switzerland. In this article, we use a statistical approach ba ...

2022

Three-Dimensional Numerical Modelling of Al-Salam Storm Water Pumping Station in Saudi Arabia

Azin Amini, Azad Koliji

The Al-Salam Pump Station will be constructed in the framework of Jeddah Storm water Masterplan (JSWM) in Saudi Arabia. The station discharges the incoming flow from the Al-Salam storm tunnel to the Red Sea. Its structure includes a circular deep wet well ...

IAHR2022

Evaluation of Site Errors in LLS Magnetic Direction Finding Caused by Large Hills Using the 3D‐FDTD Technique

Farhad Rachidi-Haeri, Wolfgang Schulz, Hannes Kohlmann

Angle and amplitude estimation errors in magnetic direction finding, called site errors, are important sensor-specific errors in lightning location systems (LLS). They are known to be caused by nearby cables and overhead lines due to induced currents. Due ...

2021

Multiscale Very High Resolution Topographic Models in Alpine Ecology: Pros and Cons of Airborne LiDAR and Drone-Based Stereo-Photogrammetry Technologies

Stéphane Joost, Estelle Rochat, Kevin Leempoel, Annie Sandrine Guillaume, Aude Rogivue

The vulnerability of alpine environments to climate change presses an urgent need to accurately model and understand these ecosystems. Popularity in the use of digital elevation models (DEMs) to derive proxy environmental variables has increased over the p ...

2021

Method for flattening substrates or layers using 3d printing and etching

Niels Quack, Teodoro Graziosi, Marcell Kristof Kiss, Nathanaël Restori

The present invention concerns a layer or substrate flattening method comprising the steps of: - providing a layer or substrate (1) to be flattened; - measuring a topography or surface profile of at least one area (3) of the layer or substrate to be flatte ...

2021

How Forward-Scattering Snow and Terrain Change the Alpine Radiation Balance With Application to Solar Panels

Michael Lehning, Annelen Kahl

Rough terrain in mid- and high latitudes is often covered with highly reflective snow, giving rise to a very complex transfer of incident sunlight. In order to simplify the radiative transfer in weather and climate models, snow is generally treated as an i ...

2021

REMA topography and AntarcticaLC2000 for WRF

Michael Lehning, Franziska Gerber

Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) topography and AntarcticaLC2000 landuse dataare now available as static data input for the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). Topographyand landuse are made available at a spatial resolution of 1 km ...

2020

Reduction of a Cone-Shaped Terrain Grounding Resistance by Remote Grounding

Marcos Rubinstein, Antonio Sunjerga, Farhad Rachidi-Haeri

Tall structures such as wind turbines and mobile phone base stations are often installed in remote and hilly locations to gain more power or to have line of sight to end users. Those locations are usually very rocky and characterized by a low-conductivity ...

IEEE2019

Implications of observation-enhanced energy-balance snowmelt simulations for runoff modeling of Alpine catchments

Alain Michel Prenleloup, Tobias Jonas

Snow is an important component of the water balance of many mountain watersheds worldwide. In a warming climate, snowmelt modeling and consequent soil water input, is often challenged by complex conditions such as rain-on-snow situations. This is why detai ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2019

Potential and uncertainty of wind energy in the Swiss Alps

Albertus Christiaan Kruyt

Switzerland has committed itself to an ambitious energy strategy. It aims to replace the exist- ing nuclear generation capacity with predominantly indigenous renewable resources. Wind power could play a significant role in this transition, yet the wind res ...

EPFL2019

Multiscale landscape genomic models to detect signatures of selection in the alpine plant Biscutella laevigata

Stéphane Joost, Kevin Leempoel

Plant species are known to adapt locally to their environment, particularly in mountainous areas where conditions can vary drastically over short distances. The climate of such landscapes being largely influenced by topography, using fine-scale models to e ...

2018

Extracting High Resolution Snow Distribution Information with Inexpensive Autonomous Cameras

Wolf Hendrik Huwald, Steven Vincent Weijs

This study details a procedure to derive high resolution snow cover information using low-cost autonomous cameras. Images from time lapse photography of target areas are used to obtain temporally resolved binary snow-covered area information. Various image ...

EasyChair2018

Small-scale spatio-temporal dynamics of snowmelt and its influence on runoff generation in a high Alpine catchment

Tristan Jonas Brauchli

Snow is one of the most complex materials occurring in nature. In clouds, it can be seen either as a crystal with various shapes or as a freshwater resource that will fall down to the Earth's surface. Once on the ground, it can be described as a thermodyna ...

EPFL2018

Impact of climate change in Switzerland on socioeconomic snow indices

Michael Lehning, Charles Fierz

Snow is a key element for many socioeconomic activities in mountainous regions. Due to the sensitivity of the snow cover to variations of temperature and precipitation, major changes caused by climate change are expected to happen. We analyze the evolution ...

Springer Verlag2017

Integrating models across temporal and spatial scales to simulate landscape patterns and dynamics in mountain pasture-woodlands

Alexander Ludwig Johannes Peringer

Context Pasture-woodlands are semi-natural landscapes that result from the combined influences of climate, management, and intrinsic vegetation dynamics. These landscapes are sensitive to future changes in land use and climate, but our ability to predict t ...

Springer2017