🌳 Random Forests and Living Trees

English translation of my earlier article on applying satellite imagery and machine learning to map urban land cover.

What started as a local research project in Kryvyi Rih turned into something much larger — the results sparked a heated discussion among residents, officials, and industry representatives about the real condition of green buffers around large industrial sites.

The methodology developed during that work is still being used today — adapted for new environmental and urban projects.

🔗 https://www.datastory.org.ua/random-forests-and-living-trees/

#RemoteSensing #MachineLearning #LandCoverMapping #UrbanEcology #EnvironmentalMonitoring #RandomForest #GeospatialAnalysis #GIS #RStats #SAGAGIS #QGIS #IndependentResearch #OpenSource #EnvironmentalDataScience #KryvyiRih #LULC

💧 Exploring how contaminated mine waters behave in a carbonate aquifer — through the lens of metasomatic zoning and thermodynamic #geochemical modeling.

Using #PHREEQC simulations, data analysis in #RStats, and geospatial visualization in #QGIS, I’m studying how mine drainage transforms groundwater systems and mineral equilibria over time.

📘 The draft version (v0.75) of my monograph on this topic has already been downloaded 550+ times on #Zenodo — showing how relevant this issue has become for both science and environmental policy.

It’s independent research that links theory, modeling, and practical hydrogeochemical assessment — focused on the long-term impact of mine waters in the Kryvyi Rih region.

🔗 Read or download:
https://zenodo.org/records/16741148

#Geochemistry #Groundwater #MineWater #EnvironmentalGeochemistry #Hydrogeology #WaterPollution #Metasomatism #OpenScience #IndependentResearch #EnvironmentalDataScience #Aquifer #HeavyMetals #Sustainability #SvystunovaGully

One of the biggest challenges was handling non-drainage depressions — they can be both real hydrological features and digital artefacts.

Instead of “filling sinks”, I used a mixed approach:
– identifying real depressions manually (tailing ponds, collapse funnels, drainage portals),
– and letting the model naturally route flow into them.

It turned out to be an effective way to simulate realistic runoff in a heavily disturbed terrain.

#sagagis #RStats #RStats #environmentaldatascience

It's always a good day in my #EnvironmentalDataScience group when we run into things like - the data product we want to share is too big for our standard data repository so we have use better compression to make it fit.

"Setting zip to -9 captain!"