Geomorphometric Analysis Across Environments: A GIS-Based Comparative Framework for Land Surface, Sea Surface, and Deep-Sea Floor Management"
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1. Problem Statement
While GIS tools for terrain analysis (slope, curvature, contouring, cut/fill, viewshed) are well-established for terrestrial environments, their direct application to marine environments—both the dynamic sea surface and the static deep-sea floor—is fraught with conceptual and technical misinterpretations. Researchers and practitioners often transfer algorithms and thresholds from land to the sea without adjusting for data sparsity, physical processes, or the role of the water column. This project aims to systematically identify, quantify, and model the differences in managing these three surfaces using identical GIS operations, producing a transferable methodological framework.
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2. Research Questions
1. How do the definitions and GIS computation workflows for contour, curvature, slope, cut/fill, and visibility differ between land, sea surface, and deep-sea floor?
2. What are the quantitative effects of data resolution, error propagation, and reference surfaces (geoid vs. ellipsoid vs. tidal datum) on each analysis?
3. Can a unified GIS processing chain be designed that adapts parameters dynamically to each environment while using the same core algorithms?
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3. Objectives
No. Objective Corresponding Aspect
1 Compare contour generation and interpretation: static elevation (land) vs. dynamic topography (sea surface) vs. isobaths (deep-sea). Contour
2 Assess curvature algorithms (profile, plan, mean) for identifying flow convergence/divergence in each environment. Curvature
3 Develop a unified cut/fill analysis that distinguishes between anthropogenic earthworks (land), dredging (sea floor), and natural sedimentary processes (all). Cut/Fill
4. Quantify slope threshold equivalences: e.g., what deep-sea slope (%) corresponds to a “hazardous” land slope for ROV navigation? Slope
5 Re-define “visibility” for each environment: optical line-of-sight (land), radar horizon (sea surface), and acoustic shadow modeling (deep-sea). Visibi
