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Geostatistical and Geospatial Approaches for the Characterization of Natural Resources in the Environment Challenges Processes and Strategies 1st Edition N. Janardhana Raju (Eds.)
Pravat Kumar Shit · Dipanwita Dutta · Tapan Kumar Das · Sandipan Das · Gouri Sankar Bhunia · Pulakesh Das · Satiprasad Sahoo Editors
Geospatial Practices in Natural Resources Management
Environmental Science and Engineering
Series Editors
Ulrich Förstner, Buchholz, Germany
Wim H. Rulkens, Department of Environmental Technology, Wageningen, The Netherlands
The ultimate goal of this series is to contribute to the protection of our environment, which calls for both profound research and the ongoing development of solutions and measurements by experts in the field. Accordingly, the series promotes not only a deeper understanding of environmental processes and the evaluation of management strategies, but also design and technology aimed at improving environmental quality. Books focusing on the former are published in the subseries Environmental Science, those focusing on the latter in the subseries Environmental Engineering.
Pravat Kumar Shit · Dipanwita Dutta ·
Tapan Kumar Das · Sandipan Das ·
Gouri Sankar Bhunia · Pulakesh Das · Satiprasad Sahoo
Editors
Geospatial Practices in Natural Resources Management
Editors
Pravat Kumar Shit Department of Geography
Raja Narendra Lal Khan Women’s College Midnapore, West Bengal, India
Tapan Kumar Das Department of Geography
Cooch Behar College
Cooch Behar, West Bengal, India
Gouri Sankar Bhunia Department of Geography
Seacom Skills University
Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Satiprasad Sahoo Centre for Environment
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Guwahati)
Guwahati, Assam, India
ISSN 1863-5520
Dipanwita Dutta
Department of Remote Sensing and GIS
Vidyasagar University
Midnapore, West Bengal, India
Sandipan Das
Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics (SIG)
Symbiosis International (Deemed University)
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Pulakesh Das Sustainable Landscapes and Restoration
World Resources Institute India
New Delhi, Delhi, India
ISSN 1863-5539 (electronic)
Environmental Science and Engineering
ISBN 978-3-031-38003-7
ISBN 978-3-031-38004-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38004-4
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Dedicated to Young Scholars in the field of Earth and Environment
Foreword
Geospatial Practices in Natural Resources Management is a timely publication considering the over-consumption and unsustainable use of natural resources worldwide. It has been a great challenge to the scientific and research community to find a solution for reducing the degradation and rapid depletion of natural resources. Despite industrialization and development, a large mass of the world’s population depends upon natural resources for their livelihood. Unsustainable use of natural resources may break the positive linkage between man and the environment, and it will further exaggerate the socio-economic vulnerability at the micro-level. In this context, the management of land, water, and forest has become a major focus across the world. This book has valuable contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations specifically goal number 12.2 aiming for the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.
Geospatial technology has become essential for precise observation, analysis and management of natural resources. Recent advancements in the fields of image processing and GIS-based tools have made it possible to handle large volumes of datasets efficiently. The significance of geospatial technology for managing natural resources has been well-recognized worldwide. United Nations has developed an Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (UN-IGIF) to address the key issues in the geospatial information network, and the United Nations initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) is playing a pivotal role in policy making for managing the geospatial information system. With its wide range of applications, remote sensing techniques have become crucial for analyzing various types of spatial datasets and managing land, water and forest resources.
The book contains 26 chapters covering all aspects of land, water and forest management including advanced techniques for mapping, monitoring and modelling natural resources. The volume will be useful for scientists, academicians, researchers and students of Environment and Earth Sciences. Moreover, the book can be a valuable reference for decision-makers and planners for preserving and managing natural resources through advanced techniques. The book attempts to present a wide range of geospatial techniques for addressing major issues related to land, water and forests
of different regions. I heartily congratulate the editorial team for the publication of this book.
Dr.N.R.Patel Scientist ‘G’ Head,
Agriculture and Soils
Department
Indian Institute of Remote Sensing Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Dehradun, India
Preface
This book demonstrates the geospatial technology approach to data mining techniques, data analysis, modeling, assessment, and visualization, and management strategies in different aspects of natural resources. The present book explores stateof-the-art techniques based on open-source software and R statistical programming and modeling in modern artificial intelligence techniques specifically focusing on the recent trends in data mining techniques and robust modeling in natural resources. Its covers major topics such as land resources, water resources, and forest resources. We are very much thankful to all the authors who have meticulously completed their documents on a short announcement and played a vital role in building this edifying and beneficial publication. We do believe that this will be a very convenient book for soil science, geographers, ecologists, environmental scientists, and others working in the field of Land-Water-Forest resources management including research scholars, environmentalists, and policymakers. We also acknowledge our deep gratitude to the Springer Publishing House for contracting with us for such timely publication.
Midnapore, India
Midnapore, India
Cooch Behar, India
Pune, India
Kolkata, India
New Delhi, India
Guwahati, India
Pravat Kumar Shit
Dipanwita Dutta
Tapan Kumar Das Sandipan Das Gouri Sankar Bhunia
Pulakesh Das Satiprasad Sahoo
Acknowledgments The preparation of this book has been guided by several subject experts. We are obliged to these experts for providing their time to evaluate the chapters published in this book. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that led to substantial improvement to the quality of this book. Because this book was for a long time in the making, we want to thank our family and friends for their continued support . This work would not have been
possible without constant inspiration from our students, knowledge from our teachers, enthusiasm from our colleagues and collaborators, and support from our family. Finally, we also thank our publisher and its publishing editor, Springer, for their continuous support in the publication of this book.
1 Big Data Analysis for Sustainable Land Management on Geospatial Cloud Framework ............................... 3 Gouri Sankar Bhunia and Pravat Kumar Shit
2 Assessing of LULC and Climate Change in Kolkata Urban Agglomeration Using MOLUSCE Model ........................ 19 Satiprasad Sahoo and Suprakash Pan
3 Field Survey and Geoinformatic Approaches for Micro-Level Land Capability Classification 31 V. S. Pawar-Patil, Sainath Aher, Vidya Chougule, Sandipan Das, and Rushikesh Patil
4 Assessment of Potential Land Suitability for Economic Activity Using AHP and GIS Techniques in Drought Prone Gandheswari Watershed, Bankura District in West Bengal ........ 61 Ujjal Senapati, Dipankar Saha, and Tapan Kumar Das
5 Spatial–Temporal Changes of Urban Sprawl, LULC and Dynamic Relationship Between Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Bio-Physical Indicators: A Study of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, West Bengal ................. 97 Gourab Saha, Sandipan Das, Suvarna Tikle, and Pravat Kumar Shit
6 Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Urban Land Use Applying Change Detection and Built-Up Index for Durgapur Municipal Corporation, Paschim Bardhaman, West Bengal ....... 111 Tapan Kumar Das, Subham Kumar Roy, Masud Karim, and Dipankar Saha
7 Studies on Impacts of Land Use/Land Cover Changes on Groundwater Resources: A Critical Review ................... 143
Suvendu Halder, Satiprasad Sahoo, Tumpa Hazra, and Anupam Debsarkar
8 Crowdsourcing as a Tool for Spatial Planning in Water Resource Management 173 Gouri Sankar Bhunia, Soumen Bramha, Manju Pandey, and Pravat Kumar Shit
9 Spatio-Seasonal Runoff and Discharge Variability in the Ganga River Basin, India: A Hydrometeorological Perspective ...................................................
Raghunath Pal
10 Appraisal of Drinking Water Quality of Kalahandi District Using Geospatial Technique .................................... 195 M. Patnaik, C. Tudu, M. Priyadarshini, and C. Dalai
11 Allocation of Potential Tourism Gradient Sites at Maithon Dam of Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), India: A Geospatial Approach ........................................ 221
Manika Saha and Susmita Sengupta
12 Watershed Management Process Under MGNREGA: An Approach to Natural Resource Management Through People’s Participation 241
Soumik Halder, Sumit Panja, and Sayani Mukhopadhyay
13 Meteorological and Agricultural Drought Monitoring Using Geospatial Techniques ......................................... 273
Brij Bhushan, Apurva Dhurandher, and Akanksha Sharma
14 GIS Based Delineation of Flood Susceptibility Mapping Using Analytic Hierarchy Process in East Vidarbha Region, India ....... 305 Kanak Moharir, Manpreet Singh, Chaitanya B. Pande, and Abhay M. Varade
15 Fluoride Contamination in Groundwater—A Review ............. 331 Riddha Chaudhuri, Satiprasad Sahoo, Anupam Debsarkar, and Sugata Hazra
16 Analysis of Basin Morphometry for the Prioritization Using Geo-Spatial Techniques: A Case Study of Debnala River Basin, Jharkhand, India 355 Abdur Rahman, Jaidul Islam, and Partha Pratim Sarkar
17 Geo-Spatial Techniques to Analyze Fluvial Morphometry of River Kangshabati and Some Associated Features, in Selected Parts of Bankura District, West Bengal ............... 383
Ayan Das Gupta
18 Morphometric Analysis of Panzara River Basin Watershed, Maharashtra, India Using Geospatial Approach 401
Pranaya Diwate, Firoz Khan, Sanjeev Kumar, Kunal Chinche, Pavankumar Giri, and Varun Narayan Mishra
19 Groundwater Geochemistry and Identification of Hydrogeochemical Processes of Fluoride Enrichment in the Consolidated Aquifer System in a Rain Shadow Area of South India ................................................ 421
Anadi Gayen, Suparna Datta, A. V. Arun Kumar, V. S. Joji, and V. K. Vijesh
Part III Forest Resources
20 Temporal Areal and Greenness Variation of Marichjhapi Island, Sundarban, India ...................................... 439
Sipra Biswas and Kallol Sarkar
21 Estimation of Crop Coefficients Using Landsat-8 Remote Sensing Image at Field Scale for Maize Crop 463
Nirav Pampaniya, Mukesh K. Tiwari, Vijay J. Patel, M. B. Patel, P. K. Parmar, Sateesh Karwariya, Shruti Kanga, and Suraj Kumar Singh
22 Spatio-Temporal Assessment of Forest Health Dynamics of Sikkim Using MODIS Satellite Data by AHP Method and Geospatial Techniques 479
Rima Das and Biraj Kanti Mondal
23 Forest Degradation Susceptibility and Sustainability: Case Study of Arganeraie Biosphere Reserve, Atlantic High Atlas, Morocco ...................................................... 507
Sarrah Ezaidi, Mohamed Ait Haddou, Belkacem Kabbachi, Abdelkrim Ezaidi, Asmae Aichi, Pulakesh Das, and Mohamed Abioui
24 Utilization of PISA Model and Deduced Specific Degradation Over Semi-arid Catchment: Case of Abdelmomen Dam in Souss Basin (Morocco) ...................................... 527
Mohamed Ait Haddou, Youssef Bouchriti, Belkacem Kabbachi, Mustapha Ikirri, Ali Aydda, Hicham Gougueni, and Mohamed Abioui
25 Geospatial Practices for Airpollution and Meteorological Monitoring, Prediction, and Forecasting ......................... 549
Suvarna Tikle, Vrinda Anand, and Sandipan Das
26 Empowerment of Geospatial Technologies in Conjunction with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) 567
Aarti Kochhar, Shashikant Patel, Harpinder Singh, P. K. Litoria, and Brijendra Pateriya
About the Editors
Pravat Kumar Shit (Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor at the P.G. Department of Geography, Raja N. L. Khan Women’s College (Autonomous), West Bengal, India. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Geography from Vidyasagar University and P.G. Diploma in Remote Sensing and GIS from Sambalpur University. His research interests include applied geomorphology, soil erosion, groundwater, forest resources, wetland ecosystem, environmental contaminants and pollution, and natural resources mapping and modeling. He has published 20 books (Springer—16, Elsevier—03, CRC Press—01) and more than 85 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 78 book chapters. He is also the guest editor of Environmental Science and Pollution Research and Applied Water Science. He is currently the editor of the GIScience and Geo-environmental Modelling (GGM) Book Series, Springer Nature.
Dr. Dipanwita Dutta is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Remote Sensing and GIS, Vidyasagar University, India. Her broad area of research includes drought dynamics, dryland issues, crop monitoring, land use dynamics, and urban green space, and her research projects have been funded by UGC, DSTSERB (Government of India). Dr. Dutta has published more than 40 research articles and book chapters in reputed international journals and edited book volumes. She is a reviewer of many national and international journals. Dr. Dutta has been awarded NUFFIC fellowship for pursuing M.Sc. degree in Remote Sensing and GIS at ITC, the Netherlands, jointly with Indian
Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun. She has been awarded International Travel Grant from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, for visiting the University of Salzburg, Austria. She has also been awarded WMO-ICTP fellowship for attending an international workshop at ICTP, Italy.
Dr. Tapan Kumar Das did his M.Sc. in Geography from University of Calcutta in 1997 and had started his teaching profession since 1997. He was awarded Ph.D. from Vidyasagar University in 2012 for his remarkable research work on “Embankment Breaching and its Consequences: A Case Study in North East Sundarban, West Bengal”. He is now serving as Assistant Professor of Geography, Cooch Behar College, and shouldering his administrative responsibility as Co-ordinator, P.G. Department of Geography and Nodal Officer, UGCNSQF Skill Courses in Geoinformatics, Cooch Behar College. He has undergone NNRMS-ISRO Sponsored Certificate Course from IIRS, Dehradun, on “Application of Remote Sensing and GIS in Agriculture and Soils” and P.G. Diploma in “Geoinformatics” from ITT Council, New Delhi. He is actively engaged in research supervision under Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University. Many research publications in national and international journals of repute are in his credit. He is also involved in campus to community activity under National Service Scheme, and he has been honored with “Best Programme Officer Award” by Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University on 3rd Convocation on February 14, 2020, for his outstanding contribution to National Service Scheme and for encouraging and nurturing students who have distinguished in this field.
Dr. Sandipan Das is an Assistant Professor at Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, India. He received his Master’s degree in Geoinformatics from Pune University and Ph.D. from Symbiosis International (Deemed University). His research interests include forest biomass and productivity assessment, geospatial modeling of groundwater, water resources management, drought, and natural resource management. He has more than seven years of teaching and research experience. He has published 18 research papers, one edited book, six book chapters, and four conference proceedings. He has worked on several research projects funded by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Department of Science and Technology (DST). He is a reviewer for several scientific journals of the international repute.
Gouri Sankar Bhunia received his Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta, India, in 2015. His Ph.D. dissertation work focused on environmental control measures of infectious disease using geospatial technology. His research interests include environmental modeling, risk assessment, natural resources mapping and modeling, data mining, and information retrieval using geospatial technology. Dr. Bhunia is Associate Editor and on the editorial boards of three international journals in Health GIS and Geosciences. Dr. Bhunia has published more than 75 articles in various journals that are Scopus indexed. He is currently the editor of the GIScience and Geo-environmental Modelling (GGM) Book Series, Springer Nature.
Pulakesh Das works as a Senior Project Associate with the Sustainable Landscapes and Restoration program at World Resources Institute India (WRI India). He comes with over ten years of experience in analyzing and integrating various satellite, remote sensing and collateral geospatial data using geo-statistical and machine learning approaches. Before joining WRI India, he taught for two years (2017–2019) as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Remote Sensing and GIS at Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. Between 2013 and 2017, Pulakesh worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Ocean, River, Atmosphere and Land
Sciences (CORAL) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. He holds a Ph.D. from IIT Kharagpur, and a master’s in Remote Sensing and GIS from Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, India. He has published 40 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters and co-edited three books.
Satiprasad Sahoo is currently an Assistant Professor at the International Institute of Geospatial Science and Technology (IIGST), South Asian Institute for Advanced Research and Development (SAIARD), Kolkata. He had completed B.Sc. (Geography) from the University of Calcutta (in 2009), M.Sc. (Remote Sensing and GIS) from the Vidyasagar University (in 2011), and M.Sc. (Geography) from the CSJM University (in 2013). Moreover, He had completed M.S. (by research) in Water Management from School of Water Resources, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, in 2016. He had completed a Ph.D. in Hydroenvironmental Modeling from the Jadavpur University, in 2019. He had also completed Postdoctoral research at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and Nalanda University. His research interest lies in the fields of remote sensing, geographic information system, groundwater hydrology, real-time hydroenvironmental modeling, watershed monitoring and development, the effect of climate change, identification of critical reaches, and environmental impact assessment.
Abbreviations
AAI Aridity Anomaly Index
AHP Analytical Hierarchy Process
AI Aridity Index
AI Artificial Intelligence
ALOS Advanced Land Observing Satellite
ANN Artificial Neural Network
AOD Aerosol Optical Depth
API Application Programming Interface
ASTER Advance Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer
AUC Area Under the Curve
AVHRR Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer
C.G.W.B. Central Ground Water Board
CAGR Compound Annual Growth Rate
CART Classification and Regression Trees
CCT Continuous Contour Trench
CDI Crop Drought Index
CGWB Central Ground Water Board
CMIP5 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5
CR Consistency Ratio
CSO Civil Society Organisation
CWSI Crop Water Stress Index
DEM Digital Elevation Model
DL Deep Learning
DN Digital Number
DTM Digital Terrain Model
DVC Damodar Valley Corporation
EC Electrical Conductivity
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
ET Evapotranspiration
ETM+ Enhanced Thematic Mapper
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
GAM Generalized Additive Model
GCS Ground Control Station
GEE Google Earth Engine
GIS Geographic Information Systems
GLAS Geoscience Laser Altimeter System
GOSAT Greenhouse Gases Observing SATellite
GPEI Global Polio Eradication Initiative
GPM Global Precipitation Measurement
GPS Global Positioning System
GRACE Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
GWQI Groundwater Quality Index
HGB Himalayan Geothermal Belt
ICT Information and Communication Technologies
IDW Inverse Distance Weighted
IMD Indian Meteorological Department
IoT Internet of Things
ISO International Organization for Standardization
ISO-DATA Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Technique
ISRIC International Soil Reference and Information Centre
ISRO Indian Space Research Organizations
JAXA Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Kc Crop coefficients
LAI Leaf Area Index
LCC Land Capability Classification
LIDAR Light Detection and Ranging
LISS Linear Imaging Self-Scanning Sensor
LST Land Surface Temperature
LULC Land Use and Land Cover
MCDA Multi-criteria Decision Analysis
MCDM Multi-criteria Decision Making
MERIS Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer
MGNREGA Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
ML Machine Learning
MLP Multilayer Perceptron
MNDWI Modified Normalized Differentiate Water Index
MODIS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
MSS Multispectral Scanner
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NBSS & LUP
National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning
NBT Nature-Based Tourism
NDBI Normalized Difference Built-Up Index
NDVI Normalized Differential Vegetation Index
NRM Natural Resource Management
NRSC National Remote Sensing Centre
Abbreviations
OGC Open Geospatial Consortium
OLI Operational Land Imager
OSAVI Optimized Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index
PA Protected Areas
PDSI Palmer Drought Severity Index
PISA Previsioni Interimento Serbatoi Artificiali
PLSI Potential Land Suitability Index
PM Particulate Matter
PRA Participatory Rural Appraisal
QGIS Quantum GIS
RADAR Radio Detection and Ranging
RCPs Representative Concentration Pathways
RI Random Consistency Index
RMSE Root Mean Square Error
ROC Receiver Operating Characteristic
RUSLE Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation
RVI Ratio Vegetation Index
SAVI Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index
SCIAMACHY SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY
SDI Spatial Data Infrastructures
SDS Spatial Data Science
SMI Soil Moisture Index
SOI Survey of India
SPEI Standardized Precipitation ET Index
SPI Standardized Precipitation Index
SRTM Shuttle Radar Topography Mission
ST Staggered Trench
SWAT Soil and Water Assessment Tool
SWE Sensor Web Enablement
SWIR Short-Wave Infrared Band
TCC Tree Canopy Cover
TIRS Thermal Infrared Sensor
TM Thematic Mapper
TOMS Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer
TROPOMI TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument
TWI Topographic Wetness Index
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
UHI Urban Heat Island
USGS United States Geological Survey
UTM Universal Transverse Mercator
VCI Vegetation Condition Index
VES Vertical Electrical Sounding
VIIRS Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite
VIs Vegetation Indices
WGS World Geodetic System
WQI Water Quality Index
WRF Weather Research and Forecasting
WSN Wireless Sensor Networks
Xgboost Extreme Gradient Boosting
XRF X-Ray Fluorescence
Part I Land Resources
Chapter 1
Big Data Analysis for Sustainable Land Management on Geospatial Cloud Framework
Gouri Sankar Bhunia and Pravat Kumar Shit
Abstract The advancements of the 1980s led to the creation of various important technologies, including GPS and satellite imagery, which allowed for the sustainable management of land resources. This must be done while preserving sustainable landuse systems and confronting concerns such as climate change, water scarcity, and the risk of increasing erosion and productivity due to extreme weather events. In several areas, geospatial Big Data analytics is transforming the way firms’ function. Although there are many research workson geographic data analytics and realtime data processing of massive spatial data streams in the literature, only a few have covered the entire geospatial big data analytics and geospatial data science project lifecycle. Because of the volume, pace, and variety of the data being analysed, big data analysis differs from typical data analysis. In comparison to conventional data analysis projects, geospatial data science initiatives are likely to be more difficult and require advanced technologies. The current study introduces a novel geographic big data mining and machine learning framework for geospatial data gathering, fusion, storage, management, processing, analysis, visualisation, and land resource modelling and evaluation. Any data science project that has a robust procedure for land resource data analysis and clear instructions for comprehensive analysis is always a positive. It also aids in estimating the amount of time and resources required early in the process to gain a good picture of the land resource challenges that must be overcome. Automation and the use of artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), drones, satellite imagers, and Big Data lay the foundation for a global “Digital Twin,” which will aid in the development of site-specific conservation and management practices that will boost incomes and ensure the long-term sustainability of land use/land cover systems.
G. S. Bhunia (B)
Independent Researcher, Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal, India e-mail: rsgis6gouri@gmail.com
P. K. Shit
Department of Geography, Raja N L Khan Women’s College (Autonomous), Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal, India
Keywords Big data · Geospatial · Data mining · Sustainability · Land use/Land cover
1.1 Introduction
The extent to which human actions have an impact on environmental processes has long been a focus of land management research. These variations, which frequently have a spatial dimension, can be quantified and qualitatively measured. Nonetheless, charting the temporal and geographical changes of urban and rural land remains a difficult endeavour since technology tools and techniques have not yet been adequate to assist planners’ and decision makers’ everyday practise and spatiotemporal requirements. Field surveys and participatory mapping, for example, are time-consuming, costly, and labor-intensive tools for land use planning (Cao et al. 2019). Advances in data collection methods, as well as increased computer power, have enabled the practical use of algorithms that were previously only considered theoretical remedies that could not be implemented. The approaches to imaging land usage belong under the category of remote sensing (RS), and the procedures by which they are analysed are done using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies. RS sensors and techniques have advanced significantly in recent decades. They can deliver a vast volume of high-quality data with excellent spatial resolution (Samardži´cetal. 2017). The increasing availability of data such as Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR), Multispectral (MSS), Hyperspectral, Unnamed Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-borne data, and other commercially available satellite data as well as data from other airborne platforms has increased land use planning skills and knowledge (Chaturvedi and de Vries 2021). Within the last millennia, roughly three-quarters of the Earth’s terrestrial surfacehave been affected by various anthropogenic activities. Land use change has significant impact on carbon sources and sinks (Arneth et al. 2014), causes habitat loss, and underlies food production (Arneth et al. 2019), so it’s crucial for managing global sustainability issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, and food security (Powers and Jetz 2019). Over the last five decades, the big data revolution, which includes tools for capturing, processing, analysing, and visualising massive datasets in a short amount of time, has resulted in an explosion of data diversity (Runting et al. 2020). Significant advancements in data growth in the bio-geophysical sciences have enabled scientists to detect, analyse, and understand environmental changes at micro to global sizes, separating what is caused by humans from what is not. LULC data are still hampered by fragmented material, various sizes, a dearth of spatial or temporal precision, and unreliable time series, even in the age of satellites, ‘big data,’ and a growing tendency of extending access to information. Land cover (the biophysical features of a land surface, such as grassland) is covered by satellite remote sensing, which has a high geographical resolution but short temporal coverage (Pongratz et al. 2018).
Spatial data sets that exceed the capabilities of typical computer systems are referred to as geospatial big data. They’ve always been large data, and the volume of such data is increasing year after year. The relevance of automated geographic knowledge discovery is highlighted by the increasing growth and widespread use of geospatial data. In a geographical reference system, position coordinates are frequently used in geospatial data to represent how objects and entities relate to geographic space. Geospatial data refers to these things and objects. Existing data mining approaches, which are beyond storage capacity, make it difficult to evaluate large volumes of geographical data. The process of discovering fascinating and previously unknown spatial patterns is defined as geospatial data science. Conventional data mining techniques for extracting geographical distribution are limited by the complexity of spatial data sets. Geographic data mining, spatial machine learning, and spatial statistics are all part of geospatial data science.
Because vast amounts of spatial data have been acquired in diverse applications from remote sensors, geospatial data science has recently become an extremely demanding science. The massive development of geographic data and extensive usage of spatial databases need automated spatial knowledge discovery (Saah et al. 2019). Land use and Land cover data is used in national development plans to evaluate changes in a country’s natural capital, which is then used to determine budget priorities and allocations. Land cover maps also serve as the foundation for hydrology models that governments employ to assess flood risk and readiness in order to enhance climate change resilience (Tolentino et al. 2016). Foresters use land cover maps to create sustainable agricultural management policies, incorporate biodiversity conservation, and participate in climate finance approaches like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and the Role of Conservation, Sustainable Forest Management, and Forest Carbon Stock Enhancement in Developing Countries (Potapov et al. 2019).
1.2 Land Resource Monitoring Using Satellite Data: Prospects and Challenges
Remote sensing technology has become one of the most effective technologies for surveying the Earth at local, regional, and global spatial scales over the last five decades. The non-destructive nature of these space-based studies enables for quick assessment of the ambient atmosphere, its underneath surface, and the ocean mixed layer (Dubovik et al. 2021). Satellite instrumentation can also study Inhospitable or in-accessible terrainwithout endangering humans or equipment. Comprehensive (but sparse) field observations are supplemented by contiguous satellite observations, which provide information of unparalleled volume and content for theoretical modelling and data integration (Kuemmerle et al. 2013). The architecture of
Fig. 1.1 Timeline of selected technological changes; EO—Earth Observation; GPS—Global Positioning System, GNSS—Global Navigational Satellite System
satellite sensors was frequently highly target-specific in the early stages of observational satellite development. For example, Landsat and the Advanced Very HighResolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instruments, were debuted in the 1970s to measure land surfaces and clouds, while the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instruments observed total column ozone and the High-resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instruments endorsed weather forecasting and climate monitoring (Dubovik et al. 2021).
One of the most significant advantages of satellite remote sensing is the capacity to examine large areas of the Earth without taking much time. There is a need to investigate the synergy of complimentary observations because no single sensor can offer extensive information on a targeted object in a complicated environment. Several natural phenomena with higher temporal and spatial variability are not fully caught by polar orbiting imagers in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which attain global coverage in a minimal level of one day (but usually two or more days). This constraint is addressed by high-orbit geostationary observations (GEO), which provide many daily views of the same target (Kim et al. 2020). Therefore, there is a trade-off between spatial coverage and satellite imageresolution (usually higher coverage results in lower spatial resolution). For several applications, obtaining observations with both large geographic-temporal coverage and high spatial resolution is required, but it is also quite difficult (Fig. 1.1).
While satellite observations have demonstrated their excellent capabilities, the latest evidence produced by our satellite equipment has inadequate information content for several situations. Multi-Angular Polarimeters (MAPs) have long been considered as the best data source for measuring precise columnar features of atmospheric aerosol and cloud (Stamnes et al. 2018). Numerous advanced polarimetric sorties are designed to be implemented by European and US space agencies in the coming years, including 3MI (Multi-View Multi-Channel Multi-Polarization Imaging mission) on MetOp-SG satellite (Fougnie et al. 2018), Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) instrument (Diner et al. 2018), Spex (Spectropolarimeter for Planetary Exploration) and Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP) as part of NASA PACE mission (Werdell et al. 2019), Multi Spectral Imaging Polarimeter (MSIP)/Aerosol-UA (Milinevsky et al. 2019), MAP instruments as part of Copernicus CO2 M Mission (Janssens-Maenhout et al. 2020). The MAI/TG-2, CAPI/ TanSat, DPC/GF-5, and SMAC/GFDM are among the polarimetric remote sensing
instruments that CNSA has successfully launched, with the POSP, PCF, and DPC-Lidar to follow in the future years (Dubovik et al. 2014).
Similar to this, it is anticipated that there will be more satellite-based lidars and radars since active remote sensing equipment offer detailed data on the vertical variability of the atmosphere (Chand et al. 2008; Dubovik et al. 2021). Almost all of the main space agencies are working on space-based lidar projects. For instance, NASA launched the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) onboard the ICESat satellite in 2003 (Kwok et al. 2004), the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) onboard the CALIPSO satellite in 2006 (Winker et al. 2007), the CloudAerosol Transport System (CATS) onboard the International Space Station in 2015 (Yorks et al. 2016). In addition, the ESA started up the Aladin wind lidar onboard the Aeolus satellite as part of the Living Planet Program (LPP) in 2018 (Källén 2008), the CNSA will release the DPC-Lidar onboard the CM-1 satellite in 2021 (Dubovik et al. 2014), and the joint European/Japanese EarthCARE satellite (due to launch in 2023) will include high-performance lidar and radar technology that has never (Illingsworth et al. 2015).
Despite recent advancements, recording global land use intensity continues to face significant obstacles. First, fine-scale land use intensity data with worldwide coverage, especially for grazing and forestry systems, is still not widely available (Fritz et al. 2011). Statistical data is frequently only available at the national level, continuous ground-based data gathering only covers a few locations, and remote sensing tends to catch the spectrum impacts of land use intensity variations, which are often modest. Unfortunately, data gaps are more prevalent in emerging nations, many of which suffer fast land use change and are regarded to have significant potential for increasing land-based productivity (Bouwman et al. 2011). Second, existing datasets are frequently contradictory in time (for example, due to changes in survey methodology or data processing), space (for example, due to changes in political boundaries), or map legends, necessitating significant harmonisation operations. Third, emerging land use intensity metrics are frequently ambiguous (e.g., due to positional inaccuracy, unreliable input data, or processing algorithm constraints), as evidenced by large discrepancies between alternative worldwide cropland extent maps or fertiliser application maps, and are primarily unquantified due to a shortage of formal validation (Dendoncker et al. 2008). Fifth, worldwide datasets are often imprecise, resulting in significant bias in area estimations or data downscaling (Ozdogan and Woodcock 2006). Finally, there are significant conceptual issues in framing land use intensity worldwide (Erb et al. this issue).
1.3 Open Geospatial Software and Data for Land Resource Management
Knowledge is the first and highest level of implementation for the theory and practice of openness. “Knowledge is open if anybody is free to access, use, alter, and distribute it—subject, at most, to procedures that ensure provenance and openness,” according to the Open Knowledge Foundation (Open Knowledge Foundation 2019). The idea of open-source software development is based on a community of developers working together on a software product. Three major international standards development groups have typically generated open standards for geographic information: the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Several of the geographic information standards are based on general-purpose IT standards produced by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Several software developers now contribute to opensource geospatial software as part of their employment, which used to be done without any legal commitment or financial recompense. This method can promote innovation by reducing the constraints that typically restrict proprietary computer operating systems and software products, including software licencing prices. Numerous desktop systems are also available on web or mobile platforms (see, for example, QGIS Ecology, or gvSIG mobile and gvSIG Online) and/or are utilised as geospatial processing back-ends for web-based or cloud-based services (e.g., GRASS GIS, QGIS) (Table 1.1).
There are rapidly growing geospatial software development projects affiliated with open-source data science languages, analysis and simulation platforms, virtual reality engines, and web services as geospatial data and tools become ubiquitous across scientific disciplines, industries, governments, and communities. “R” has lately risen to prominence as one of the most popular open-source data science languages in remote sensing and geospatial science, thanks to its well-established capability for georeferenced data processing and wide collection of spatial analytic capabilities. To
Table 1.1 Open-source geospatial foundation for Land resource management
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The total strength of the Navy at the Restoration was 156, this number being made up of the following entities: first-rates, secondrates, third-rates, fourth-rates, fifth-rates, sixth-rates, hoys (small sloop-rigged merchant vessels adapted for war purposes), hulks (for transporting horses, &c.), sloops, ketches, pinks and yachts. Sir Walter Raleigh refers[101] to “hoyes” of Newcastle as needing a slight spar-deck addition fore and aft. He speaks of them as being ready in stays and in turning to windward. They drew but little water, and carried six demi-culverin and four sakers. Manwayring defines the ketch somewhat vaguely as “a small boate such as uses to come to Belingsgate with mackrell, oisters &c.” The ketch was a twomasted ship, not necessarily fore and aft rigged as we speak of them nowadays, but with the mainmast stepped well aft.[102] Descended from the Dutch galliot, the ketch was especially used at the end of the seventeenth century as a “bomb-ketch.” The illustration in Fig. 62 is from an old French print in the United Service Museum, Whitehall, where it is called a “Galiote à bombe.” Bomb ketches were first
employed by Louis XIV in the bombardment of Algiers with great success. They were about 200 tons burthen, and built very strongly, so as to bear the downward recoil of the mortars. The reason for the large triangular space left between the mainmast and the bowsprit is to give plenty of room for the mortar to fire. The hold was closely packed with old cables, cut into lengths, the yielding elastic qualities of the packing assisting in taking up the force of the recoil.[103] The stamp used by the Hakluyt Society on their publications is ketchrigged. About the time of the beginning of Charles II., the fore and aft ketch would be rapidly developing. The pink was also of Dutch extraction. She is—for the Dutch craft have scarcely altered since the seventeenth century—a cutter or yawl-rigged small open boat, and clinker-built.
About 1660 Chatham was the most important of the royal dockyards, Pett being in charge there. Sir Anthony Dean made a report on the state of the Navy in 1674, at the close of the Third Dutch war. As a result the sum of £300,000 was voted by Parliament to build twenty ships as suggested by Sir Anthony. As to the comparative strength of the European nations at this time, the following list is instructive. On April 24, 1675, England had ninety-two ships carrying twenty to one hundred guns and upwards: France had ninety-six ships and Holland one hundred and thirty-six. As we mentioned just now, the shallowness of the Dutch waters prohibited the building of big ships, so that they were unable to build threedeckers, and the largest ships carried no more than eighty or ninety guns. In addition to the figures quoted above, we must add three fireships to the English, four to the French, and forty to the Dutch fleets.
The £300,000 voted by Parliament was really with a view of meeting the increase in the French Navy. It was during the first year of the reign of our Charles II. that young Louis XIV. took the government of the French into his own hands. There was then practically no French Navy in existence, if we except a handful of frigates. But three years before Sir Anthony Deane’s recommendation was approved by Parliament, France had increased her fleet to fifty ships of the line, besides a large number of
frigates and small craft. It was during Louis’ regime, in fact, that England had to look, not to Spain, nor to the Dutch for signs of possible trouble on the sea, but to France, which rose rapidly to a position of the first importance as a naval power. Thus, English firstrates were to be built not with a view of the shallow-draught Dutchmen but in order to be able to contend with the fine French fleet whose vessels were the superior to ours in size, though our first-rates were capable of standing an enemy’s battery better than most ships.
English second-rates had the advantage financially of needing fewer men. They drew less water, carried a smaller weight of ordnance, but by reason of the fire from their three decks were able to render a good account of themselves in battle. Fourth-rates served only as convoys, and likewise the fifth-rates. In Pepys’s time England had as many as thirty-six fourth-rates.
We are able to gather a good deal of information respecting naval matters of the time from Pepys’s Diary. In the early part of the reign war with the Dutch had broken out again, and in 1667 the Dutch had actually sailed up the Thames estuary and burnt our ships in the Medway. In spite of the ultimate good results to the English Navy under Charles II., the daring and pluck which had been so conspicuous in the Elizabethan seamen appear to have been not always alive. But what worse evidence could be wished of the condition of the English character of the time when we remember that while a Dutch fleet of eighty ships burned the forts of Sheerness and ascended the Medway as far as Chatham, capturing and destroying our men-of-war, Charles II. “amused himself with a mothhunt in the supper room, where his mistresses were feasting in splendour”? Under the date of July 4, 1666, Pepys writes in his diary:
“With the Duke, all of us discoursing about the places where to build ten great ships: the King and Council have resolved on none to be under third-rates; but it is impossible to do it, unless we have more money towards the doing it than yet we have in any view. But, however, the show must be made to the world. In the evening Sir W. Pen came to me, and we walked together, and talked of the late fight. I find him very plain, that the whole conduct of the late fight was
ill; that two-thirds of the commanders of the whole fleet have told him so: they all saying, that they durst not oppose it at the Council of War, for fear of being called cowards, though it was wholly against their judgment to fight that day with the disproportion of force, and then we not being able to use one gun of our lower tier, which was a greater disproportion than the other. Besides, we might very well have staid in the Downs without fighting, or anywhere else, till the Prince could have come up to them; or at least, till the weather was fair, that we might have the benefit of our whole force in the ships that we had. He says three things must be remedied, or else we shall be undone by this fleet. First, that we must fight in a line, whereas we fight promiscuously, to our utter and demonstrable ruine: the Dutch fighting otherwise; and we, whenever we beat them. Secondly, we must not desert ships of our own in distress, as we did, for that makes a captain desperate, and he will fling away his ship, when there are no hopes left him of succour. Thirdly, the ships when they are a little shattered must not take the liberty to come in of themselves, but refit themselves the best they can, and stay out— many of our ships coming in with very small disableness. He told me that our very commanders, nay, our very flag-officers, do stand in need of exercising among themselves, and discoursing the business of commanding a fleet: he telling me that even one of our flagmen in the fleet did not know which tacke lost the wind, or kept it, in the last engagement. He says it was pure dismaying and fear that made them all run upon the Galloper, not having their wits about them: and that it was a miracle they were not all lost.”
From his entry made on October 20, 1666, we gather that the “fleet was in such a condition, as to discipline, as if the Devil had commanded it.... Enquiring how it came to pass that so many ships had miscarried this year ... the pilots do say that they dare not do nor go but as the Captains will have them, and if they offer to do otherwise the Captains swear they will run them through. He [i.e. Commissioner Middleton] says that he heard Captain Digby (my Lord of Bristoll’s son, a young fellow that never was but one year, if that, in the fleet) say that he did hope he should not see a tarpawlin [i.e. a sailor] have the command of a ship within this twelve months.”
And again on October 28:
“Captain Guy to dine with me, and he and I much talk together. He cries out on the discipline of the fleet, and confesses really that the true English valour we talk of, is almost spent and worn out.”
It was Pepys who urged that ships should be built of greater burden, stronger and beamier, for at that time the men-of-war needed to be girdled round the hull. They were crank-sided, could not well carry their guns on the upper decks, especially in bad weather, and not enough room was left for the carrying of stores and victuals. He gives the following comparison between the two principal ships of the French, Dutch and English:
F
Soll Royall (more correctly Le Soleil Royal), 1940 tons.
Royall Lewis (Le Royal Louis), 1800 tons.
Besides these, two others were 140 feet long on the keel with 48 feet beam.
D
The White Elephant, 1482 tons.
Golden Lion, 1477 tons.
The former was 131 feet long on the keel, the latter 130 feet. Both had 46·9 feet beam, drew 19 feet 8 inches of water, and carried three decks.
E
The Royal Charles, “with the girdling of 10 inches measure,” was 1531 tons.
The Prince (says Pepys) “is full as big now girdled and as long on the gun-deck as the Charles, but having a long rake they measure short on the keel or she would be 1520 tons.”
It must be observed in reference to the above figures that the Dutch ships had a greater rake forward and would measure much
bigger, being very beamy Pepys mentions that “the excellent French and Dutch ships with two decks are more in number and much larger than our third-rates.”
The Soleil Royal mentioned above was a fine three-masted ship of the line, carrying 108 guns. She was a worthy example of the high state of excellence reached by the French naval architects of this period. She was lost, however, when the combined English and Dutch fleets in 1692 defeated the French off Cape La Hogue. This was a decisive blow to another of those plans for the invasion of England, and the naval battle in which the French fleet was utterly destroyed has been regarded by historians as the greatest naval victory won by the English between the defeat of the Armada and the battle of Trafalgar.
F . 63. T “R C .” B 1672.
We give in Fig. 63 an illustration of the Royal Charles mentioned above. This delightful picture is from a photograph of a model in the South Kensington Museum. Built at Portsmouth in 1672 to the designs of Sir Anthony Deane, she carried 100 guns: her length was 136 feet, beam 46 feet, depth 18 feet 3 inches, draught 20 feet 6 inches. The arms of England and the lantern that ornamented her stern are still preserved in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, for the Royal Charles was one of those vessels which were either captured or destroyed when the Dutch came up to Chatham in 1667. In the beautiful model before us the ports are correctly gilded. The rake and length of the bowsprit are in accordance with the information that has been handed down to us. At the extreme end of the latter will be seen the sprit topmast, up which the sprit topsail was hoisted. A jackstaff is at the top of the sprit topmast. The present model does not show topgallant yards, but as we know from Heyward they were found in the inventory of this ship. Below the sprit topmast and on the bowsprit will be noticed the spritsail yard now kept fixed to the bowsprit.
As to what vessels of the seventeenth century looked like under way the delightfully realistic picture which Mr. Charles Dixon has painted for our frontispiece will materially help our imagination. And here perhaps we may say a word regarding the subject of the flags carried at this period. After the union of England and Scotland in 1603 all British vessels flew the Union flag of the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew in the maintop for a time, English and Scotch ships also carrying their national colours in the foretop. Ensigns of red, white or blue with the St. George’s Cross on a white canton next to the ensign staff were also commonly carried until the time of the Commonwealth. But on May 5, 1634, it was ordered that men-of-war alone were to fly the Union flag in future, and that merchantmen according to their nationality were to fly the St. George’s or the St. Andrew’s flag merely. This rule ended in February, 1649, when Parliament directed men-of-war to fly as an ensign the St. George’s Cross on a white field.[104] The Union flag was carried on the sprit topmast as shown in the frontispiece, and to-
day the Jack is still seen at the bows of our men-of-war, though they be built of wood no longer.
Edward Heyward in his book just mentioned gives still further details of contemporary ships. The rule which he mentions for ascertaining the length of the mainmast was that it should be half the length of the keel and once the length of the beam put together. The mainstay was to be in thickness half of the diameter of the mainmast. The shrouds were to be one half the thickness of the stay, and the topmast shrouds to be one half the main shrouds’ thickness. One ton of hemp required three barrels of tar. As to the ship’s boats of the Sovereign, her longboat measured 50 feet 10 inches long, 12½ feet broad, and 4¼ feet deep. Her pinnace was 36 feet long, 9½ feet broad, 3¼ feet deep. Her skiff was 27 feet long, 7 feet broad, and 3 feet deep. Fourth-rates only carried a longboat and a pinnace, fifth-rates carrying simply a longboat, while sixth-rates had only a 22feet boat.
The Prince mentioned in the above list was the Prince Royal of James I.’s reign. Her career had been a distinctly varied one. As originally launched she was the Victory belonging to Elizabeth’s reign. She fought against the Armada, having been turned into a galleon two years before the fight. In 1610 as stated she had been rebuilt and called the Prince Royal, but this “rebuilding” was during this period something far more than any moderate adaptation. After the death of Charles I. her name was called during the Commonwealth the Resolution, and at the Restoration this was changed yet again to the Royal Prince. According to Le Sieur Dassie in his “L’Architecture Navale” printed in Paris in the year 1677, Le Soleil Royal had a tonnage of 2500 as well as 120 guns and 1200 men. Le Royal Louis had the same tonnage and the same number of guns, but only a thousand men. He gives also a very full and interesting inventory of un vaisseau du premier rang of 2000 tons. Every detail is mentioned even to the ornements de chapelle. Very confusing is the naming of the three masts as used by the French at this time and embodied in Dassie’s work. Thus, as we hinted in a previous chapter, the foremast is the misaine, the main is the grand mast, while the mizzen is the mast d’artimont, or exactly the reverse
of what we should have expected them to be named. From such a work as Dassie’s and, some years later, of Jean Bernoulli in his “Essay d’Une Nouvelle Théorie de la Manœuvre des Vaisseaux,” printed at Basle in 1724, we see how at last the scientific study of naval architecture had begun to make headway. The action of heavy bodies passing through the liquid sea, the relation of speed to design, were being slowly understood. Finally in 1794 the same scientific treatment was applied to sails. In “A Treatise Concerning the True Method of finding the proper area of the sails for Ships of the Line and from thence the length of masts and yards,” by F H. af. Chapman, printed in London, the area of the sails in regard to the stability of ships is thoroughly entered into.
The illustration in Fig. 64 is of a model of a Dutch man-of-war now in the Royal United Service Museum, Whitehall. It is supposed to be of contemporary date, belonging roughly to the period of Louis XIV’s. rule, 1661-1715. The rigging may be relied upon, but the model is too broad in proportion to her length. The guns are also exaggerated in size, but for all that it may serve to assist the reader in visualising the ships of what was so important a maritime Power. The notable characteristic of the Dutch and French craft of the seventeenth century as opposed to the English was that the two former had their sterns terminating squarely, while the English rounded the lines of the stern above water more. This foreign characteristic of the square stern is everywhere noticeable in the contemporary paintings and engravings of Holland. Over and over again we see the overhanging stern gallery, with the transom stern below, going in (so to speak), for the gallery above to project out. We find it in the earliest yachts of Holland, in the Dutch East Indiamen as well as the ships of the line. The reader will recollect at an earlier period we referred to the “tumble-home” which had become a new phase in naval architecture consequent on the introduction of cannon on board ship. This during the ensuing two centuries had been overdone, so that the upper deck bore a ridiculously narrow proportion to the width of the ship at the water-line, but the Dutch in the height of their naval knowledge were the first of the nations to relinquish it. It is to the Dutch of the last part of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries that we owe the beginnings of the fore-and-aft rig and of yachting as we mentioned earlier. But in order that our attention may not be distracted from the history of the squaresail, it will be more convenient to deal with the development of the smaller craft in Chapter IX.
We have already referred to the great influence for good exercised on the English Navy by Dutch and French naval architects. Among the points of superiority which the smaller French craft possessed over ours was that their lower guns were as much as four feet above the water, an improvement that made for greater safety. They could also stow four months’ provisions, whereas our frigates were narrower and sharper, and carried their guns little more than three feet clear of the water, having space only for ten weeks’ provisions. It
was as improvements on these defects that the Resolution and Rupert had been built by Sir Anthony Deane. During the reign of Charles II., also, Sir Philip Howard made an invention for sheathing his Majesty’s ships with lead in preference to using wooden boards with a layer of tar and hair between the sheath and the ship, the whole having been covered outside with a composition of sulphur, oil and other ingredients. The old method of sheathing with elm boards had been introduced by Hawkins during Elizabeth’s reign, but it does not appear to have been successful, for in a report dated October 12, 1587, the chief shipwrights state that the Bonaventure, which had been treated according to Hawkins’ method, had decayed timbers under her sheathing. But the reader will recollect that as far back as the reign of Edward VI. the ships that voyaged to the NorthEast under Chancellor and Willoughby had part of their underbody covered with thin sheets of lead, while the ancients of the time of Caligula and even before, had also adopted this method of preserving the hulls of ships. So Howard was really a reviver rather than an inventor.
Still, since complaint had been made that Hawkins’ method necessitated frequent cleaning, and the roughness of the woodsheathed bottom interfered with the sailing abilities, Howard’s plan was adopted. The first experiment of using his milled lead sheathing was made on the Phœnix at Portsmouth in 1670-71, and afterwards on the Dreadnought, the Henrietta, and others in 1672. The Phœnix was careened at Sheerness in 1673, after two voyages to the Straits, and inspected by the King himself. In the same year Howard’s new method was finally adopted for the Navy by the Lords of the Admiralty. Considerable opposition was made by some critics, who rightly pointed out that the action of the lead was to corrode very rapidly the iron nails and rudder-irons of the ship, and eventually in 1682 the Navy Board reported against a further use of this sheathing.
An experiment of quite a different nature was made in 1674 in utilising cypress trees from the new colony of Virginia. They were said to be large enough for the masts of yachts, and both lighter and tougher than fir, which was then being used. It is curious how
persistently the galley endeavoured, in spite of every discouragement, to make its reappearance in England. This, however, was owing to the success with which it had flourished in the Mediterranean. In 1666 the Duke of Florence presented Charles II. with two of the best galleys that could be built, one of which went from Leghorn to Tangier. Anthony Deane, the younger, subsequently built a galley called the James at Blackwall; another, called the Charles, was built at Woolwich, by Phineas Pett the younger, the date of both being 1676. They were classed in Pepys’s “Register of the Royal Navy” as fourth-rates. From the naval papers of the period we find that 1000 loads of timber will build a third-rate of 1000 tons. A ship of 1000 tons costs £10 a ton to build, and the life of a ship was about thirty years. Great merchant ships cost from £6 to £8 2s. 6d. to build, but merchantmen of 250 tons cost from £5 to £7 a ton.
By the end of the seventeenth century the sailing ship had reached a stage in development which, till the close of the eighteenth century, altered but little. Naval architecture, thanks to French influence, was progressing. Eddystone lighthouse was built, and Dampier had undertaken his famous voyage to Australia. The naval authorities had by now become firmly convinced of the folly of the high-charged decks, with the enormous rake ascending from the low bows to the lofty stern. But another change was also beginning to take place. For some time it had been customary when a fleet of ships voyaged in company to have them rigged as nearly as possible with spars and sails of the same size, so that in the event of anything carrying away, each ship would be able to supply the other with a sail, or spar, or rope of the proper dimensions. Later, as ships became bigger and carried more sails and spars, this idea had been extended to the individual ship. Thus, soon after the Revolution, Cloudesley Shovel advocated the supplying of two spare topmasts to every ship, and fitting spritsails in such a manner that when necessity arose they might serve as main topsails. The yards, too, of spritsail, topsail, mizzen topsail, and main topgallant were to be made so as to be interchangeable. By about the beginning of the eighteenth century, the triangular headsails are seen on full-rigged Dutch ships, whilst the lateen mizzen still continues. The reader will recollect that this shaped headsail had first been introduced on the
Dutch sloops of the sixteenth century, with their foresail working on a stay as to-day, having a sprit mainsail, resembling that of the modern Thames barge, but with no jib for the present. Now, in the century we are discussing, the Dutchman uses the same shaped headsail for his big ships, the spritsail underneath the bowsprit still remaining. In course of the first half of the eighteenth century this innovation spread to France and to England. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, also, besides the fore staysails, main and foretopmast staysails and main topmast studding sails were in use in our ships. The cables were each 100 fathoms long, made of 21-inch hemp, and the bower anchors weighed 74 cwts. for a first-rate. The length of the longboats was 36 feet, the pinnaces 33 feet, and the skiff 27 feet. The heaviest guns were 42-pounders.[105] By the middle of the eighteenth century the staysails and triangular headsails had become quite common, and two instead of one spritsail are found under the bowsprit. The sprit topmast disappears, but the jackstaff is used in its place to fly the Union Jack when at anchor, being taken in when under way, otherwise it would hinder the working of the triangular headsails. An important change now takes place in the mizzen. The reader will recollect that for several hundred years it had been used in its Mediterranean triangular shape on European ships. Instead of the yard coming quite low down, as in Fig. 63 of Charles II.’s ship, the angle the yard makes with the mizzen mast is nearer to a right angle. Thus, instead of the sail being triangular it is rectangular, having four sides instead of three. The next stage is to cut off that part of this sail which projects forward of the mast, though the yard itself is still allowed to extend ahead of the mast without having any canvas on its forward end. The luff of the sail is laced to the mast, hoops not being used. Finally, by at least 1768, the portion of the yard still found without any canvas is lopped off, and the vangs which had been used all the time for the mainsail of the sloops are seen coming down from the peak to the stern. Also, following the example of the contemporary Dutch fore-and-afters, there is no boom. If the reader will now look at the mizzen of the corvette model in Fig. 69 he will see this penultimate stage clearly shown. The final stage comes later when a boom is added, and that, too, may be traced for its origin to the Dutch fore-and-afters, which, discarding
the sprit extending diagonally across the mainsail, added a tiny gaff and a much longer boom, the sail being loose-footed. Instead of the long bowsprit of the early Stuarts, the middle of the eighteenth century saw this mast-like projection cut into two pieces, so as to make bowsprit and jib-boom. Topgallants now become far more frequently used.
After the Revolution, at the end of James II.’s reign, the three ranks of Admiral, Vice-Admiral, and Rear-Admiral, were established, and the practice of having red, blue, and white ensigns, which had been introduced during the time of Charles I., continued. These ensigns were shown on an ensign staff, each having a cross of St. George on a white field in the upper canton. The Jack flown on the staff on the bowsprit was blue with a white saltire and a red cross with white fimbriation over all. Signals were made, not by a combination of flags, but by changing the position of flags.
When Queen Anne died in 1714, there were in our Navy seven first-rates, thirteen second-rates, forty-two third-rates, sixty-nine fourth-rates, forty-two fifth-rates, and twenty-four sixth-rates. As to the meaning signified by these classes, the first-rates were vessels of one hundred guns, or upwards, carrying them on three decks. Second-rates carried from ninety to one hundred guns on three decks: third-rates had from sixty-four to eighty-four guns on two complete decks: fourth-rates had from fifty to sixty guns on two decks: fifth-rates had from thirty to forty-four guns, whilst sixth-rates carried only twenty to thirty guns. There were also in the service smaller vessels classed as sloops, and others classed as gun-brigs and bombs. The progress which had been going on in rigging, during the early years of the eighteenth century, continued in respect of size of tonnage and also in the weight of armament now carried. Regard, too, was paid to the proper seasoning of timber. The action of the Navy Board in 1719 established a scale of dimensions and tonnage for the construction of ships of the six separate rates, and this influence was felt for nearly a century after, although the establishment was not always strictly adhered to. Improvements went on with regard to internal structure and ventilation, and in order to counteract the injurious effects of bilge water. The result was that both the health of the ship herself and of her crew were improved when once the foul gases accumulating below had been overcome. Collaterally with the progress of the science of naval architecture in England was the development in France. Ever since the time of Jean Baptiste Colbert, during the reign of Louis XIV., France had stood superior to any European Power in ship-designing. Nor were English naval architects and shipwrights slow to avail themselves of whatever opportunity presented itself for studying the lines and structure of the foreigner. Whenever one of the crack ships of the enemy became an English prize it followed that within the next few years an improved English man-of-war, based on the design of the foreigner, would be launched As an example of the beautiful vessels which France was capable of building, about the middle of the eighteenth century, the illustration in Fig. 65 will at once be evidence. This is the Terrible, captured from the French in 1747, and afterwards passed into the English Navy. She was a two-decker with
three masts, and carried 74 guns. Her gun-deck was 164 feet 1 inch long, and her beam was 47 feet 3 inches, while her depth was 20 feet 7½ inches. Her tonnage worked out at 1590. The illustration has been taken from a contemporary print in the Royal United Service Museum.
F . 66. H.M.S. “R G .” 100 G , 2047 T . F 1782.
Fig. 66 represents H.M.S. Royal George, of 100 guns, one of the most famous ships of the eighteenth century. Her size—2047 tons— alone makes her remarkable, apart altogether from her good looks. Her length on the keel was 143 feet 5½ inches, beam 51 feet 9½ inches, depth 21 feet 6 inches. Built at Woolwich she ended her days as tragically as another vessel we mentioned before, and owing to a similar cause. While she was being careened as she lay at anchor in Spithead for some repairs to her hull below the waterline, she sank on August 29, 1782. To-day she is still famous as the ship in which Rear-Admiral Kempenfelt, together with nine hundred men, women, and children, went down to their graves. The illustration is taken from an engraving, by T. Baston, in “Twenty-two Prints of several of the Capital ships of his Majesties Royal Navy,” in the Print Room of the British Museum.
Still another experiment was made in 1761 in order to find some suitable method for sheathing ships’ bottoms. At last lead had been finally discarded. But now the sensible plan of using copper was tried on the Alarm, a 32-gun frigate. Finding that not only did this preserve the ship’s planking, but also increased the speed of the ship through the water, vessels of all classes were subsequently covered in the same way. The plates of copper were affixed to the hull, tough sheets of paper being placed in between the sheathing and the hull.
Nelson’s historic flagship, the Victory, of 100 guns, was built in 1765. Her immediate predecessor of the same name was launched in 1735, being the finest first-rate of her time, until she was lost in a terrible storm off the Alderney Race, every one of the 1000 souls on board perishing with her. The illustration of Nelson’s Victory in Fig. 67 was taken recently in Portsmouth Harbour where this fine old ship still swings to the tide. Her length is (measured on the gun-deck) 186
Photo. S. Cribb.
feet, beam 52 feet, depth of hold 21 feet 6 inches, whilst her tonnage is 2162, or slightly larger than the Royal George previously mentioned. The reader will notice the Jack flying in the place previously referred to. Very interesting to us who have traced its development is the stage at which the bow has arrived. Gone is the towering forecastle, though the name still survives as designating the fore-part of even small cabined craft. Even the diminished rake of the seventeenth century from bow to stern has disappeared too. In order that the reader may also obtain some idea of the stern, and the three lanterns which would have been part of the ship’s inventory when she set out for the Mediterranean on her last voyage with Nelson, the illustration in Fig. 68 may be worthy of notice. It is only quite recently that the Admiralty have added these replicas, which look not a little incongruous as they tower above submarines and torpedoboats churning up the water below. The flags flying in Fig. 67 were intended to represent Nelson’s immortal signal. It was quite recently discovered, however, that the wrong signals had been flown on Trafalgar Day each year, for the code of a far too modern date was relied upon. This mistake has been rectified, and the correct flags are now flown on October 21.
F . 68. T S H.M.S. “V ,” T P L A .
Photo S Cribb
F . 69. C , 340 T , 1780.
The illustration in Fig. 69 represents a corvette of about the year 1780. Corvettes were vessels having far less freeboard and without the high quarter-deck. They were ship-rigged and carried less than twenty guns. Those carried on the ship before us would be sixpounders. Her crew would number 125, her tonnage would be 340, her length on the gun-deck, 101 feet, length of keel, 85·5 feet, beam 28 feet, depth of hold 12·5 feet. As to her canvas carried, the triangular headsails with the two spritsails will be seen. In addition to her courses, she carries topsails, topgallants, and royals on the fore and main masts. The converted lateen has already been referred to, but it should be noticed that while she has on the mizzen a topsail, topgallant and royal, and also a cross-jack yard, yet no sail is set on the latter, as it is to-day on a full-rigged ship. This yard had been in
