5 research outputs found
Community Mapping Supports Comprehensive Urban Flood Modeling for Flood Risk Management in a Data-Scarce Environment
No full textIn this paper we demonstrate a framework for urban flood modeling with community mapped data, particularly suited for flood risk management in data-scarce environments. The framework comprises three principal stages: data acquisition with survey design and quality assurance, model development and model implementation for flood prediction. We demonstrate that data acquisition based on community mapping can be affordable, comprehensible, quality assured and open source, making it applicable in resource-strained contexts. The framework was demonstrated and validated on a case study in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The results obtained show that the community mapped data supports flood modeling on a level of detail that is currently inaccessible in many data-scarce environments. The results obtained also show that the community mapping approach is appropriate for datasets that do not require extensive training, such as flood extent surveys where it is possible to cross-validate the quality of reports given a suitable number and density of data points. More technically advanced features such as dimensions of urban drainage system elements still require trained mappers to create data of sufficient quality. This type of mapping can, however, now be performed in new contexts thanks to the development of smartphones. Future research is suggested to explore how community mapping can become an institutionalized practice to fill in important gaps in data-scarce environments.Water ResourcesSanitary Engineerin
UAV-Assisted Municipal Solid Waste Monitoring for Informed Disposal Decisions [Research Data]
No full textMUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE DETECTION MODEL OF CONFERENCE PAPER (UAV-Assisted Municipal Solid Waste Monitoring for Informed Disposal Decisions)
The population growth and urbanisation trend in Africa has exacerbated municipal solid waste (MSW) generation, posing significant environmental pollution and health hazards (SDG 3, 6, 14, 15). Addressing this issue necessitates efficient waste management strategies, underpinned by accurate waste detection and mapping methodologies. This study introduces a fine-tuned MSW detection model tailored for UAV imagery. The model's efficacy was assessed within the Msimbazi delta in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Evaluation on an independent test dataset yielded an F1 score of 0.92 across all MSW instances. The generated MSW pile map revealed a threefold higher contamination level in the Msimbazi River bed compared to surrounding areas. The deployment of the fine-tuned model enables local authorities to generate regular MSW distribution maps based on UAV imagery, facilitating targeted waste disposal interventions and mitigating future risks associated with flooding, water contamination, or vector-borne diseases
Related Article: On the Bodhisattva and Worshippers, Relieves on Stone from Mathura, India, Coll. Mr. Yamanaka Jiro, Kyoto
No full textAfter having shown the necessary informations and references at our diposal of all the dated Kushân Buddha-Bodhisattva images of Mathurâ which amount to twenty-two in number, arranged in chronological order in accordance with their dating, the present author has tried to examine several images among them that have been the objects of argument, specially referring to and criticizing on the new theory advanced by Mrs. J. E. van Lohuizen-de Leeuw.
Of the dated Buddhas, the pedestal of a standing Buddha dated the year 14 (fig.1), deserves first mention, but because of its bad mutilation, it cannot be used for the stylistic study, though the inscription contains an interesting palaeographical problem. On the seated Buddha (Bodhisattva) of the year 64 from Bodhgayâ (fig. 2) and the standing Buddha from Maholi (fig. 3), in spite of their being in a good state of preservation, the author still hesitates to regard them as stylistic criteria of the Kushân art, for the former has been attributed by some scholars to a date as late as the early Gupta, and the date of the latter is still problematic as was doubted by van Lohuizen-de Leeuw.
Then the author, commenting on the last-named scholar's theory that assumes in the Post-Kushân inscriptions the figure for 100 was generally omitted when dating without mentioning the name of the ruling monarch, has checked up whether the stylistic changes would correspond to the proposed dates, each a century later than the inscribed one. Observations on three examples, all Jina images dated in the years respectively 15, 22 and 33, which she could not utilize for her purpose owing to the unavailableness of their photographs (fig. 4, 5,.8), show that her hypothesis seems to be possibly acceptable. And the same argument would be applied to those two Buddhas, both dated in the year 22 (fig. 9, 10).
But in the case of the seated Buddha from Anyor of the year 51 without ruler's name (fig, 11), it is difficult to give a real date to this image worked on the influence of the Gandhâra art. One may not be fully persuaded of her argument, in which, even admitting an exception of her:own theory and without referring to palaeography, she tried to show that this Buddha-type ought to belong to the middle of the first century of the Kaniṣka era, while the other type exemplified by the above-mentioned Buddha of the year 22 (fig. 9) could be dated a century later. According to her, all Buddhas of the same type fall in the same period, so naturally the seated Buddha in the Indian Museum (fig. 12) too, and its doubtful date may be restored to be the year 50, though the Buddha in question obviously indicates the later style than that of the year 51.
In this way the author, after re-examining those debatable images, has underlined that only a very few works among the dated Buddhas deserve to be used as the chronological and stylistic criteria in the development of the Kushân Mathurâ art, and that the Buddha (Bodhisattva) of the year 3 from Sârnâth (fig. 13) and that of the year 39 in the Indian Museum (fig. 14) could be the representatives respectively among those of the standing and right-shoulder-bared type and the seated and right-shoulder-bared one. Lastly he has emphasized that the style-critical researches should be done carefully in treating the dated Buddha and Jina images.
As an appendix, the author has published a colour-reproduction of the interesting relief representing the Bodhisattva and Worshippers owned by the Yamanakas, Kyoto, and discussing its stylistic position to be occupied among the Mathurâ sculptures, has proposed to date it in the late Kushân or the early Post-Kushân.journal articl
On the Dated Buddha Images in the Kushan Art of Mathura
No full textAfter having shown the necessary informations and references at our diposal of all the dated Kushân Buddha-Bodhisattva images of Mathurâ which amount to twenty-two in number, arranged in chronological order in accordance with their dating, the present author has tried to examine several images among them that have been the objects of argument, specially referring to and criticizing on the new theory advanced by Mrs. J. E. van Lohuizen-de Leeuw.
Of the dated Buddhas, the pedestal of a standing Buddha dated the year 14 (fig.1), deserves first mention, but because of its bad mutilation, it cannot be used for the stylistic study, though the inscription contains an interesting palaeographical problem. On the seated Buddha (Bodhisattva) of the year 64 from Bodhgayâ (fig. 2) and the standing Buddha from Maholi (fig. 3), in spite of their being in a good state of preservation, the author still hesitates to regard them as stylistic criteria of the Kushân art, for the former has been attributed by some scholars to a date as late as the early Gupta, and the date of the latter is still problematic as was doubted by van Lohuizen-de Leeuw.
Then the author, commenting on the last-named scholar's theory that assumes in the Post-Kushân inscriptions the figure for 100 was generally omitted when dating without mentioning the name of the ruling monarch, has checked up whether the stylistic changes would correspond to the proposed dates, each a century later than the inscribed one. Observations on three examples, all Jina images dated in the years respectively 15, 22 and 33, which she could not utilize for her purpose owing to the unavailableness of their photographs (fig. 4, 5,.8), show that her hypothesis seems to be possibly acceptable. And the same argument would be applied to those two Buddhas, both dated in the year 22 (fig. 9, 10).
But in the case of the seated Buddha from Anyor of the year 51 without ruler's name (fig, 11), it is difficult to give a real date to this image worked on the influence of the Gandhâra art. One may not be fully persuaded of her argument, in which, even admitting an exception of her:own theory and without referring to palaeography, she tried to show that this Buddha-type ought to belong to the middle of the first century of the Kaniṣka era, while the other type exemplified by the above-mentioned Buddha of the year 22 (fig. 9) could be dated a century later. According to her, all Buddhas of the same type fall in the same period, so naturally the seated Buddha in the Indian Museum (fig. 12) too, and its doubtful date may be restored to be the year 50, though the Buddha in question obviously indicates the later style than that of the year 51.
In this way the author, after re-examining those debatable images, has underlined that only a very few works among the dated Buddhas deserve to be used as the chronological and stylistic criteria in the development of the Kushân Mathurâ art, and that the Buddha (Bodhisattva) of the year 3 from Sârnâth (fig. 13) and that of the year 39 in the Indian Museum (fig. 14) could be the representatives respectively among those of the standing and right-shoulder-bared type and the seated and right-shoulder-bared one. Lastly he has emphasized that the style-critical researches should be done carefully in treating the dated Buddha and Jina images.
As an appendix, the author has published a colour-reproduction of the interesting relief representing the Bodhisattva and Worshippers owned by the Yamanakas, Kyoto, and discussing its stylistic position to be occupied among the Mathurâ sculptures, has proposed to date it in the late Kushân or the early Post-Kushân.journal articl
The Chronology of Mathura Buddhas in the Kushan Period
No full textThis is a tentative approach to the chronology of Mathura Buddhas in the Kushan Period (which covers some 350 years from around the beginning of the first century to the mid-fourth century A. D. including the Kshatrapa or Pre-Kushan and the Post-Kushan Periods). To stand on a steady foundation for stylistic researches, the author has started by examining the dated BuddhaBodhisattvas which are listed in chronological order in the present paper. They are grouped into two categories, that is, a group of twentysix examples with a date and a king's name of the Second Kushan Dynasty and a group of nine with a date and no king's name. The former undoubtedly dates down to the time of the Second Dynasty, and the latter is attributed to the PostKushan. (As for the procedure of the arrangement of them and the problems on the doubtful inscriptions, refer to the author's paper in the Bijutsu Kenkyu, No. 184). It is unnecessary to remark that these dated Buddha-Bodhisattvas are the most fundamental materials and serve as the key objects for the stylistic studies. But some of them are fragmentary or mutilated, consisting for instance of the legs and the pedestal only. Therefore they are not necessarily equal in academic importance.
Generally, Mathura Buddhas are classified into the following four types: (1) Right-shoulderuncovered standing type; (2) Right-shoulderuncovered seated type; (3) Both-shoulder-covered standing type; and (4) Both-shoulder-covered seated type. The author for each type discusses the important dated works in the above-mentioned list and their relationship to other undated works, and he thus attempts to clarify the stylistic development of each type. In the author's opinion, the colossal Buddha from Sahet h-Maheth of the first type belongs to the reign of Kanishka, not to that of Huvishka as is said by some scholars, and the huge Buddha from Maholi of the same type is placed at the end of the Second Kushan Dynasty. In discussing the second type, the author examines stylistic and technical characteristics of several dated examples, e. g. the inscribed Buddha from Jamalpur in Kanishka's reign (the date defaced) and the one from Palikhera dated in the year 39 in Huvishka's reign, then, moving back to their earlier stage, comes to the famous well-preserved Buddha from Katra, which he places in the late Pre-Kushan or Kshatrapa Period as its reasonable stylistic postion. On the contrary, he attributes two Buddhas from Ahicchatra, the one undated and the other dated in the year 32, to the Post-Kushan Period from a stylistic standpoint. The undated Buddha labelled A4 of the Mathura Museum, a typical example of the third type, should be regarded, in the author's view, as a work produced in the middle of the Second Dynasty's rule, because it is the most possible that the Gandhara influence then appeared to affect the Mathura School. The fourth type is further subdivided into two groups mainly by the treatment of the drapery, exemplified by one from Anyor dated in the year 51 and another undated one from Sitala-Ghati. Both are characterized by clumsy copies of the Gandharan drapery and show that it was not grasped in its true sense by Mathura sculptors. Their crudeness in workmanship and evident degeneration in style point to a later date to which they belong, even later than the Buddha A4 mentioned above. And it deserves notice that the trend they show has something related to the new development of the drapery of Mathura Buddhas in the Gupta Period.
After detailed discussion of the Mathura Buddhas in the Kushan Period, the writer comes to the following conclusion. The Buddha types themselves do not necessarily run parallel with the stylistic development. Generally speaking, however, the right-shoulder-uncovered type, either standing or seated, appeared at Mathura at the earlier date in the late Pre-Kushan Period), and the advent or the introduction of the both-shouldercovered type took place later, probably from the middle of the Second Kushan Dynasty at the earliest. Also, whereas in the former type, the facial expression and the treatment of the drapery show a pure Indian character in style and technique peculiar to the Kushan Mathura School of sculpture, the latter type remarks more or less à relationship to that of the Gandhara School, especially in the drapery.
And, lastly, the author emphasizes that Mathura had its own Buddha images of the pure Indian type before the introduction of the Gan
d haran influence, but that this does not necessarily mean that the advent of the Buddha image itself at Mathura precedes in date that in Gandhara.journal articl
