023441   GHOSH S, KUMAR S (Geography Dep, Chandrapur Coll, Chandrapur, Email: sandipanghosh19@gmail.com) : Estimation of geomorphic threshold in permanent gullies of lateritic terrain in Birbhum, West Bengal, India . Curr Sci 2017, 113(3), 478-85.

The present geomorphic study focusses on predicting threshold conditions and vulnerable locations where gully heads might develop in the lateritic terrain, located at the eastern plateau fringe of Rajmahal Basalt Traps, Birbhum, West Bengal, India. The modern concept of geomorphic threshold is applied here on gully erosion hazard to identify the critical slope of gully head (S) and upstream drainage area (A) with a core relationship of S = a A^–b . Based on 118 gully heads we have statistically derived significant relationships between slope and drainage area (r = –0.55); overland flow (Q) and slope length (L; r = 0.694); relative shear stress (?)and slope (r = 0.915); as well as overland flow detachment rate (H) and eroding force of overland flow (F; r = 0.980). The established S–A critical relationship, as geomorphic threshold, is expressed as S = 17.419A^–0.2517, above which gully initiation occurred on the laterites. This equation can be used as a predictive model to locate the vulnerable untrenched slopes (i.e. potential gully erosion locations) in other lateritic areas of West Bengal. The constant b value (0.2517) and Montgomery-Dietrich envelope suggest a relative dominance of overland flow (52.51% of sample gully heads) in the erosion processes. The result of erosion model predicts an annual soil loss of 2.33–19.9 kg m^–2 year^–1 due to overland flow above the gully heads.

10 illus, 4 tables, 41 ref

023440   BABU C P, RAMASWAMY C (Geological Oceanography Div, CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, Email: pbabu@nio.org) : Phosphorus accumulation associated with intense diagenetic metal-oxide cycling in sediments along the eastern continental margin of India . Curr Sci 2017, 113(3), 473-8.

Sequential phosphorus extractions were carried out to understand phosphorus cycling and enrichment in surface sediments along the eastern continental margin of India. Phosphorus associated with authigenic (P_aut) and biogenic (P_bio) phases is high by a factor of 2–10 in the continental shelf sediments compared to slope and deep-sea sediments. Phosphorus associated with Fe oxides (P_Fe) is enriched by a factor of 2–5 in the continental slope and rise sediments (500–3000 m water depth) compared to shelf sediments. Fe–Mn oxy (hydroxides) formed during early diagenesis adsorb phosphate from the water column or pore waters, thereby enriching the P_Fe fraction in the continental slope sediments. These results are in contrast with those from the Arabian Sea, where wide and intense mid-depth oxygen minimum zone (150–1200 m water depth) releases P_Fe to pore waters and enhances P_aut accumulation in the continental slope sediments.

4 illus, 1 table, 38 ref

022429   Yadav P;Purohit K C;Rudola A (Geography Dep, Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal Univ, BGR Campus, Pauri (Garhwal)-246 001, Email: ypradeep26@rediffmail.com) : Correlation between sex-ratio and literacy rate in Deoria town: A geographical analysis. J Mount Res 2017, 12(Dec), 97-103.

This paper is an attempt to analyze the correlation between sex-ratio and literacy rate in Deoria town. Literacy and sex-ratio are two important demographic features of population. Literacy plays an important role in bringing equality in the sex-ratio. In this paper spearman's rank correlation method has been used to analyze the relationship between sex ratio and literacy rate in Deoria town. The study reveals that there is moderate and positive correlation, p=0.014 between sex ratio and literacy rate in the town. It means high literacy rate, high sex ratio. Both variables are independent of each other.

3 illus, 7 tables, 7 ref

022428   Siddi Raju R;Sudarsana Raju G (Geology Dep, Yogi Vemana Univ, Kadapa-516 003) : Applications of remote sensing and GIS for delineation of groundwater potential zones in and around thondur mandal, kadapa. Indian J envir Prot 2016, 36(9), 743-50.

Groundwater is one of the most valuable natural resources, which supports human civilization. The supply of groundwater is not unlimited and, therefore, its use should be properly planned based on the understanding of the groundwater systems behaviour in order to ensure its sustainable use. Again a judicious use of groundwater, proper evaluation is required. Groundwater development and manage-ment programme needs the analyses of a large volume of multidisciplinary data from various sources. Integrated use of remote sensing and GIS can provide the appropriate platform for convergence of multidisciplinary data from various sources for appropriate planning. In the present study, an integrated remote sensing and GIS based methodology is developed and tested for the evaluation of the ground-water resources of Thondur mandal, Kadapa district, A.P., IRS P6 LISS-III satellite data is used for data analysis, existing maps and field observation data have been utilized to extract information on the hydrogeomorphic features of the study area. According to landuse land cover 69.2% of the land covered with agricultural land-crop Land, 0.53% of builtup land, 5.56% of forest land, 3.55% of water bodies and 21.04% of waste lands-barren rocky/stony waste. Utilization of water and land is more because of rapid boost in population, urbanization, - 69 - industrialization so planning for modern land and water conservation and management need for GIS and remote sensing is essential for extreme feature. The ground water potential zones have been derived for the Thondur mandal and it has been divided into mainly 3 categories, namely high, moderate and poor potential zone. High groundwater potential zones shares about 25.06 km² (9.57%) of the total study area. Most of the area is covered within the moderate potential zones. This zone covers within the study extent by 183.35 km² (70.04%). The poor groundwater potential zones shares about 53.45 km² (20.41%) of the total study area. Further, it is concluded that the integrated approach of geological, hydrological and satellite image interpretation in GIS environment should be applied for sustainable development and management of groundwater resources.

11 illus, 13 ref

022427   Sarkar P S (NO, , Usha Kiran Apartment, 46/1, Madhapara, Rahara-700 118) : Growth in city life and loss in water capacity: Kolkata in a new look. Indian J envir Prot 2016, 36(9), 730-3.

As per the census record Kolkata's population has increased at a rate of 2% per year when Delhi's population rose by 4.1 % and in the case of Mumbai it is 3.1 % only and it can be viewed that Kolkata is a place of 16 million people. As of 2011, the Kolkata city had 4.5 million residents; the urban agglomeration, which comprises the city and surrounding, was home to approximately 14.1 million. The total area covered under the city is 185 km² as metropolis and 1886.67 km² as metro. But it is eventually said that a city is not only 'concrete' built but built with a context of environment. The city is placing it itself as a place for living where the growth of population and expansion in its size are associated with lacking of proper infrastructure. In these days to mitigate the gap in water level is a challenge in the city for a sustainable growth with the determined policy or programmes. This study has taken initiative to find out the relationship among the population growth; rapid urbanization with the water scarcity and its immediate environs for policy action that would help to promote urbanization also.

1 illus, 3 tables, 3 ref

022426   Bhuarya S K;Manikandan N;Chaudhary J L; Khalkho D;Pradhan S (Agrometeorology Dep, IGKV, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, Email: shivbhuaarya@gmail.com) : Temperature trend analysis of four stations of Chhattisgarh state. J Agrometeorol 2017, 19(4), 378-9.

^ssc1 table, 5 ref

021371   Sharma T (NO, , ) : Role of GIS in development of smart cities. J Remote Sensing GIS 2017, 8(2), 38-44.

Smart cities may define as a sustainable growth of urban area that gives an extra ordinary living condition by improving economy, environment, mobility, governance and energy efficiency etc. Smart cities are enabling automation and real-time integrated city monitoring and management through various technologies like a geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), and remote sensing (RS) through the network of sensors, cameras, wireless devices and data centers. GIS plays an important role in transforming a city into a smart city. GIS, not only does map display but it is also useful in surveying, engineering and planning for the collection, processing, management and presentation of spatial information. High spatial resolution satellite images help to prepare urban land use maps depicting urban land uses such as agricultural, residential, industrial, commercial, public and semi-public (uses recreational, transportation etc). This paper explains the importance of GIS in smart city infrastructure.

^iia

021370   Palanichamy A (Geography Dep, Post Doctoral Fellow, UGC - Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj Univ, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, Email: alagugeo@gmail.com) : Application of GIS in the investigation of groundwater level and fluctuation in Tiruchirappalli district, Tamil Nadu. Int J Geomatics Geosci 2017, 7(4), 343-51.

Ground water occurs under phreatic to semi confined conditions in the inter-granular pore spaces in sands and sandstones and the bedding planes and thin fractures in shales. In the area underlain by Cretaceous sediments, ground water development is rather poor due to the rugged nature of the terrain and the poor quality of the formation water. Water level fluctuations of the observation wells between two periods over the area indicates the net changes in the ground water regime during the period in response to the recharge and discharge components and it is an important parameter for planning sustainable ground water development. Tiruchchirappalli district, one of the three districts carved out of the composite district of the same name is located in the central part of Tamil Nadu between 10° 18' and 11° 25' north latitudes and 78° 08' and 79° 0' east longitudes. The groundwater data were analysed for their long - term pattern, and were interpreted graphically to understand the dynamics of the groundwater level and. The average water level depths and fluctuation. The spatial variation maps of the same were generated using spline interpolation technique in Arc GIS software. The groundwater level of the study area for both the seasons from 1990 to 2011 was interpreted. During the pre monsoon season the groundwater level varied from 4 metres to 12 metres in depth and during the post monsoon season the groundwater level was found to be from 3 metre to 9 meters.

4 illus, 10 ref

021369   Mehta M;Rao R;Doley G J;Rajsekhar A;Sindhwani S (NO, , ) : AOD retrieval over different lulc features using awifs data a case study over Dehradun. J Remote Sensing GIS 2017, 8(2), 54-7.

In this study, an attempt is made to estimate the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) using a physically based radiative transfer model i.e. SMART (Simple Model for Atmospheric Radiative Transfer) over different LULC features. The forward procedure requires the data from Band B2: 0.52-0.59 μm of Resourcesat-2 Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS). While some of the atmospheric parameters, through transmittance, spherical albedo have been parameterized, few of them are utilized from other sensors e.g., MODIS, OMI etc. AOD - 37 - observations at the time of satellite pass using ground based instrumentation, i. e., handheld sun photometer have also been recorded both for the calibration process and validation of the results.One Sentence Summary: Using SMART model (a physically based approximate model), aerosol optical depth is retrieved over different LULC classes and compared with that using sun photometer for the simultaneous passes.

021368   Imchen T;Sawant S S;Ezaz W (NO, CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa-403 004, Email: timchen@nio.org) : Exposure of Eichhornia crassipes (Mart.) Solms to salt water and its implications. Curr Sci 2017, 113(3), 439-43.

In this article, we discuss the effect of salinity on the viability and decomposition of Eichhornia crassipes plant under normal photoperiod, dark condition and physiological response. Highest concentration of total organic carbon (27.43 mg C l^-1) was recorded in 15 psu salinity after 45 days. The TOC output was more in case of leaf (3.6 mg C l^-1) than petiole (2.39 mg C l^-1) under dark condition, after 21 days in freshwater. Salt stress was found to enhance the superoxide dismutase activity at 20 psu in both leaf and petiole. Enzyme activity declined when salt-stressed plants were transferred to nutrient enriched freshwater. This indicated that 20 psu could be a plant's salt tolerance limit. The potential transfer test conducted in this study showed that Eichorrnia introduction through shipping activities is less likely.

5 illus, 30 ref

021367   Ige-Olumide O O;Umar R N (NO, , ) : GIS based fire incident emergency response: A case study of kano urban markets, kano state, Nigeria. J Remote Sensing GIS 2017, 8(2), 15-24.

Fire, a terrific type of disaster, can destroy properties and lives which in turn brings about physical, social, structural, economic and welfare disturbances in a community. Market fire is not an exception of such destruction. The aim of this research is to assess the markets' fire emergency response with a view to optimize the use of road network for quick - 36 - response to the incident in the study area. This study explored geospatial techniques and Crimestat software to develop Journey-to-Incident model for ascertaining the distance fire fighters cover for responding to the market fire incident in the metropolitan Kano vis-a-vis the international standard of 3 min, for markets fire emergency responses, to reduce the damages to properties. The study revealed that the markets are located along the major routes and this makes them accessible to responders from different directions and this enables assessing the proximity to the nearest fire fighter's stations using GIS network analysis. The study compared the modelling of the responses of some of the urban markets and the network analysis responses time, which gave the condition that there are impediments of traffic lights and some blockages along the roads, taken into cognizance the speed limits. The variation between the documented and network analysis response travel times for Bachirawa (Wood Sellers) market was higher. This was because the barricade mounted presently along the Katsina road divide, does not allow crossing the road. As such, fire fighting vehicle had to travel for 6 min to make a turn at Kofar Ruwa junctions. In conclusion, the GIS technique has proven to be an effective tool for better understanding of spatial events like fire incident in relation to location of the facility to respond to such inferno by considering the underlying route impediments hindering quickest response should be integrated into emergency management plan for fire incident, especially in the identified markets and other areas to meet the international standard.

021366   Ghosh S;Guchhait S K (Geography Dep, Chandrapur College, Chandrapur-713 145, Email: sandipanghosh19@gmail.com) : Estimation of geomorphic threshold in permanent gullies of lateritic terrain in Birbhum, West Bengal, India. Curr Sci 2017, 113(3), 478-85.

The present geomorphic study focusses on predicting threshold conditions and vulnerable locations where gully heads might develop in the lateritic terrain, located at the eastern plateau fringe of Rajmahal Basalt Traps, Birbhum, West Bengal, India. The modern concept of geomorphic threshold is applied here on gully erosion hazard to identify the critical slope of gully head (S) and upstream drainage area (A) with a core relationship of S = aA^-b. Based on 118 gully heads we have statistically derived significant relationships between slope and drainage area (r = -0.55); overland flow (Q) and slope length (L; r = 0.694); relative shear stress (τ) and slope (r = 0.915); as well as overland flow detachment rate (H) and eroding force of overland flow (F; r = 0.980). The established S-A critical relationship, as geomorphic threshold, is expressed as S = 17.419A^-0.2517, above which gully initiation occurred on the laterites. This equation can be used as a predictive model to locate the vulnerable un-trenched slopes (i.e. potential gully erosion locations) in other lateritic areas of West Bengal. The constant b value (0.2517) and Montgomery-Dietrich envelope suggest a relative dominance of overland flow (52.51% of sample gully heads) in the erosion processes. The result of erosion model predicts an annual soil loss of 2.33- 19.9 kg m^-2 year^-1 due to overland flow above the gully heads.

10 illus, 4 tables, 41 ref

021365   Ghorai D;Roy S;Paul A K (NO, , ) : Land use/land cover assessment of Tamil Nadu coast, India using remote sensing and GIS techniques. J Remote Sensing GIS 2017, 8(2), 25-37.

Land use/land cover (LULC) mapping and monitoring has a significant role for regional planning, environmental and resource management towards sustainable management. The present study has been carried out for assessment of land use/land cover change in coastal districts of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry during last three decades. The study illustrated an integrated approach of remote sensing and GIS techniques to assess dynamic land use/cover in the coastal zone and estimate change rate using mean value theorem (MVT). Landsat satellite images of last - 35 - three decades have been used to extract land use/land cover information. The satellite images are classified into twenty classes using a Multi-Disciplinary Approach (MDA) in GIS environment. The study shows the growing pattern of built-up land including urban and rural settlement during 1991-2014. The highest urban sprawl has observed about 4.31% (2014) in northern part of the study area. Agricultural/crop, plantation and scrub/grass land covers half of the study area. The study indicates that agricultural area has increased by 9.1% during 1991-2014 across the study area whereas the major increment of the agricultural land observed in Triunenvel and Kanyakumari districts, southern zone of the study area due to integrated watershed and irrigation management practices. The study shows a positive change rate and growing pattern of saltpan and fish pond along the Tamil Nadu coast, which is a significant impact of socio-economy. The study indicates towards land alteration/transformation, which may caused by demographic pressure and natural threats. The study also indicates the use of geospatial technology along with satellite image for land use/cover mapping and monitoring as well as management and sustainable development planning.

021364   Babu C P;Ramaswamy V (Geological Oceanography Div, CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa-403 004, Email: pbabu@nio.org) : Phosphorus accumulation associated with intense diagenetic metal-oxide cycling in sediments along the eastern continental margin of India. Curr Sci 2017, 113(3), 473-8.

Sequential phosphorus extractions were carried out to understand phosphorus cycling and enrichment in surface sediments along the eastern continental margin of India. Phosphorus associated with authigenic (P_aut) and biogenic (P_bio) phases is high by a factor of 2-10 in the continental shelf sediments compared to slope and deep-sea sediments. Phosphorus associated with Fe oxides (P_Fe) is enriched by a factor of 2-5 in the continental slope and rise sediments (500-3000 m water depth) compared to shelf sediments. Fe-Mn oxy(hydroxides) formed during early diagenesis adsorb phosphate from the water column or pore waters, thereby enriching the PFe fraction in the continental slope sediments. These results are in contrast with those from the Arabian Sea, where wide and intense mid-depth oxygen minimum zone (150-1200 m water depth) releases P_Fe to pore waters and enhances P_aut accumulation in the continental slope sediments.

4 illus, 1 table, 38 ref

021363   Akhil R;Jayapal G (Planning Assistant/GIS, Town and Country Planning, Kakkanad, Email: agniamba@gmail.com) : Use of morphometric parameters in prioritizing sub watersheds based on runoff potential and infiltration capacity - a case study in the midland region of peruvamba river basin, Kannur district, Kerala. Int J Geomatics Geosci 2017, 7(4), 333-42.

Morphometry is one of the important analysis using in understanding the watershed or basin characteristics. Morphometric change of a river basin is the result of actions induced by various factors like vegetation, geology, climate etc. Hence studying the morphometry is indirectly connecting all these mentioned factors. For the present study an attempt has been made in connecting the morphometric parameters with the runoff and infiltration capacity for prioritizing the sub watersheds of Peruvamba River. Nine morphometric parameters having positive and negative influence on runoff and infiltration are taken for ranking the sub watersheds. After that the ranks scored for all parameters by each sub watersheds are added together. This sum value is taken for prioritization of sub watersheds based on infiltration capacity and runoff potential. The sub watersheds with minimum sum values have been given least priority as they have more infiltration capacity and vice versa. After the prioritization field verification has been done and the result came to be positive.

3 illus, 6 tables, 27 ref

019450   Singh V K;Pravendra Kumar;Singh B P;Malik A (soil and water conservation engineering Dep, Gobind Ballabh Pant Univ of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, Email: vijaysinghswce@gmail.com) : Comparative study of adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and multiple linear regression (MLR) for rainfall-runoff modelling. Int J Sci Nat 2016, 7(4), 714-23.

Runoff prediction has an important role in water management and flood prediction. Floods are one of the most serious natural disaster and present major social concerns. The effective flood management is always of great apprehension in the field of hydrology and water resources engineering. In the present study, two different techniques namely adaptive neurofuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and multiple linear regression (MLR) has been employed, to estimate daily runoff for Arpa river, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India. The data of monsoon season (June 1st to September 30th) of five years (2001- 2005) were used for training of models and data of two years (2006-2007) were used for testing of developed models. ANFIS model trained used to two different type membership function (MFs) viz. Gaussian and Generalized bell, and conventional techniques was used multiple linear regression (MLR). Also Gamma test (GT) was used to finding the reliable input combination of input variables. The performance of the models were evaluated qualitatively by visual observation and quantitatively using different performance indices viz. root mean square error (RMSE), correlation coefficient (r), coefficient of efficiency (CE) and t-Test. It was found that the performance of the ANFIS model is better than the MLR models in estimation of daily runoff for Arpa River.

10 illus, 7 tables, 23 ref

019449   Katara A;Dev P (School of Studies in Earth Science, Vikram Univ, Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh) : Quantitative geomorphic analysis of thandla area, Jhabua district, Madhya Pradesh and its application in ground water exploration: a case study. Int J multidiscipl Res Dev 2017, 4(12), 9-14.

The paper deals with the application of quantitative geomorphic analysis in the exploration strategy of ground water resource in Thandla area of Jhabua district, Madhya Pradesh, has been carried out on the basis of Survey of India Toposheet no. 46 I/12, on a 2 cm = 1 km scale. The drainage basin has been divided into seven sub-basins A, B, C, D, E, F and G. The Linear, Areal and Relief parameters have been calculated. The determinations of morphometric variables include number and order of streams, length, width and area of the basin. The - 45 - determinations of important parameters such as the Bifurcation ratio (1 to 7), Drainage density (1.33 to 2.28 1/km), Length of Overland flow (0.219 to 0.375 km), Stream frequency (1.716 to 3.302 1/km²), Form factor (0.430 to 0.916), Circularity ratio (0.974 to1.35), Elongation ratio (10.68 to 19.18 km), Lemniscates (0.272 to 0.580), Basin relief (5 to 25 m), Relief ratio (0.588 to 3.809 m) and Ruggedness number (9.7 to 45.6) in respect of seven sub-basins of the study drainage basin have been determined. The application of morphometric parameters has been discussed. The morphometric data enables to locate favourable ground water potential locations in Thandla study area.

2 illus, 13 tables, 11 ref

019448   Bora D J;Borah M (Mathematical Sciences Dep, Tezpur Univ, Napaam, Tezpur, (Assam), Email: dhrubabora@tezu.ernet.in) : Regional analysis of maximum rainfall using L-moment and TL-moment: A comparative case study for the north east India. J appl nat Sci 2017, 9(4), 2366-71.

In this study it has been tried to develop a suitable model for maximum rainfall frequency analysis of the North East India using best fit probability distribution. The methods of L-moment have been employed for estimation of five probability distributions, namely Generalized extreme value (GEV), Generalized Logistic (GLO), Pearson type 3 (PE3), 3 parameter Log normal (LN3) and Generalized Pareto (GPA) distributions. The methods TL-moment have been used for estimating the parameters of three probability distributions namely Generalized extreme value (GEV), Generalized Logistic (GLO) and Generalized Pareto (GPA) distributions. PE3 distribution has been selected as the best fit distribution using L-moment and GPA distribution using TL-moment method. Relative root mean square error (RRMSE) and Relative Bias (RBIAS) are employed to compare between the results found from L-moment and TL-moment analysis. It is found that PE3 distribution designated by L-moment method is the most suitable and the best fit distribution for rainfall frequency analysis of the North East India. Also the L-moment method is significantly more efficient than TL-moment.

4 illus, 7 tables, 10 ref

019447   Atayi J;Kabo-Bah A T;Akpoti K (Environmental Management Dep, School of Natural Resources, Univ of Energy and Natural Resources, P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana, Email: atayijulia@gmail.com) : Effects of large-scale mining on land use and land cover changes using remotely sensed data. Int J Sci Nat 2016, 7(4), 724-33.

Land cover is the natural or basic elements of the environment that link and impacts many parts of the local, regional and global levels of the environment. The study was conducted in two capital districts of the Brong-Ahafo Region which lies within the green belt of Ghana in the moist semi-deciduous forest zone. This research was to assess the - 44 - effects of largescale mining on the Land Use Land Cover (LULC) using remotely sensed data. Also, this study tries to find out, total area of the various land use categories, percentage change and annual rate of change of LULC changes as a result of the mining activities from 2005 to 2015. Iterative Self-Organizing Data (ISODATA) under unsupervised classification showed an overall accuracy and kappa coefficient of 80.8% and 0.754 for 2005, 92.8% and 0.908 for 2008, 89.2% and 0.861 for 2012 and 87.6% and 0.841 for 2015 respectively. The results from the LULC analysis showed that, Forest Evergreen was the most dominant land cover type in 2005 with a total area of 1492.93 ha (44.94%), but decreased as the year's increases with increasing built-up areas. The built-up areas which consists of mining areas increased from 316.05 ha (9.51%) in 2005 to 1047.27 ha (31.53%) in 2015. We recommend effective management of degraded areas by incorporating tree planting as this compiles with the 1998 Forest Policy. Concurrent reclamation should be adopted by the mining sectors to achieve a sustainable and successful post-closure outcome. Also decision makers should adopt the use of remote sensing and GIS tools as this would enhance identification of areas that are degraded, their rate and extent.

8 illus, 6 tables, 21 ref

018519   Xiao Y;Shao J;Cui Y;Zhang G;Zhang Q (School of Water Resources and Environment, China Univ of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China, Email: jshao@cugb.edu.cn) : Groundwater circulation and hydrogeochemical evolution in nomhon of qaidam basin, northwest China. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-16.

In this study, analysis of hydrogeological conditions, as well as hydrochemistry and isotopic tools were used to get an insight into the processes controlling mineralization, recharge conditions, and flow pattern of groundwater in a typical arid alluvial-lacustrine plain in Qaidam Basin, northwest China. Analysis of the dissolved constituents reveals that groundwater evolves from fresh water (TDS =300-1000 mg/l) to saline water (TDS ≥5000 mg/l) along the flow paths, with the water type - 55 - transiting from HCO₃úCl-Na úMg to HCO₃úCl-Na, and eventually to Cl-Na. Groundwater chemical evolution is mainly controlled by water-rock interaction and the evaporation-crystallization process. Deuterium and oxygen-18 isotopes in groundwater samples indicate that the recharge of groundwater is happened by meteoric water and glacier melt-water in the Kunlun Mountains, and in three different recharge conditions. Groundwater ages, estimated by the radiogenic (³H and ¹⁴C) isotope data, range from present to Holocene (<126>28 ka). Based on groundwater residence time, hydrogeochemical characteristics, field investigation, and geological structure distribution, a conceptual groundwater flow pattern affected by uplift structure is proposed, indicating that shallow phreatic water is blocked by the uplift structure and the flow direction is turned to the northwest, while high pressure artesian water is formed in the confined aquifers at the axis of the uplift structure.

10 illus, 1 table, 46 ref

018518   Venkatesan V (NO, , ) : Extraction of drainage pattern and watershed from SRTM data using gis tools: A cas study. J Remote Sensing GIS 2016, 7(1), 1-9.

This paper proposes a fast and an inexpensive method for delineating the drainage and watershed of a sub-basin. Planning of the water resource management is evolving from simple local-scale problems toward complex spatially explicit regional scale. Such problems have to be addressed with distributed models that can compute runoff and erosion at different spatial and temporal scales. In general, watershed can range from as little as one hectare to hundreds or thousands of square kilometers. The spatial scale for which a model is designed can influence the specific processes of hydrological cycle. This paper seeks to estimate watershed and drainage delineation from topographical map using shuttle radar topographical mapper digital elevation model (SRTM - DEM) in ArcGIS 10. A simple automatic delineation was carried out at sindapalli uppodai sub basin of vaippar River basin; Tamilnadu, India. Results showed that by using watershed function in ArcGIS 10 for watershed delineation in the sindapalli uppodai sub basin can be determined. This work is mainly a case-study of simple applicability of GIS as a tool of watershed delineation and drainage extraction. The total area of watershed calculated from watershed layer is about 147.4 sq. km but, according to topomaps it is works out to be 143.7 sq. km. The drainage pattern delineated from the topomaps is synchronized with the DEM based delineation.

18 ref

018517   Taghavi F;Owlad E;Ackerman S A (Institute of Geophysics, Tehran Univ, Tehran, Iran, Email: e.owlad@inio.ac.ir) : Enhancement and identification of dust events in the south-west region of Iran using satellite observations. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-17.

South-west Asia including the Middle East is one of the most prone regions to dust storm events. In recent years, there was an increase in the - 54 - occurrence of these environmental and meteorological phenomena. Remote sensing could serve as an applicable method to detect and also characterise these events. In this study, two dust enhancement algorithms were used to investigate the behaviour of dust events using satellite data, compare with numerical model output and other satellite products and finally validate with in-situ measurements. The results show that the use of thermal infrared algorithm enhances dust more accurately. The aerosol optical depth from MODIS and output of a Dust Regional Atmospheric Model (DREAM8b) are applied for comparing the results. Ground-based observations of synoptic stations and sun photometers are used for validating the satellite products. To find the transport direction and the locations of the dust sources and the synoptic situations during these events, model outputs (HYSPLIT and NCEP/NCAR) are presented. Comparing the results with synoptic maps and the model outputs showed that using enhancement algorithms is a more reliable way than any other MODIS products or model outputs to enhance the dust.

11 illus, 3 tables, 54 ref

018516   Sudhakar Reddy C;Jha C S;Manaswini G;Padma Alekhya V V L;Vazeed Pasha S;Satish K V;Diwakar P G;Dadhwal V K (National Remote Sensing Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Balanagar, Hyderabad-500 037, Email: drsudhakarreddy@gmail.com) : Nationwide assessment of forest burnt area in Indian using resourcesat-2 AWiFS data. Curr Sci 2017, 112(7), 1521-32.

This study provides application of Resourcesat-2 AWiFS satellite imagery for forest burnt area assessment in India. AWiFS datasets covering peak forest fire months of 2014 have been analysed. The total burnt area under vegetation cover (forest, scrub and grasslands) of India was estimated as 57,127.75 sq. km. In 2014, 7% of forest cover of India was affected by fires. Of the major forest types, dry deciduous forests are affected by the highest burnt area, followed by moist deciduous forests. Among the biogeographic zones, the highest forest burnt area was recorded in Deccan followed by North East and Western Ghats. The highest burnt area was recorded in Odisha followed by Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand, Manipur and Karnataka. Spatial analysis shows that 232 grid cells in India have a burnt area greater than 20 sq. km. The database generated would be useful in ecological damage assessment, fire risk modelling, carbon emissions accounting and biodiversity conservation.

12 illus, 5 tables, 59 ref

018515   Sinha R;Saxena S;Singh M (Earth Sciences Dep, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur-208 016, Email: rsinha@iitk.ac.in) : Protocols for riverine wetland mapping and classification using remote sensing and GIS. Curr Sci 2017, 112(7), 1544-52.

Wetlands are one of the most important ecological environments that also have high socio-economic importance. India hosts a large number of wetlands, among which most are in the Indo-Gangetic Plains formed by riverine processes. In order to understand the extensive system of riverine wetlands and their distinction from other floodplain water bodies, mainly the waterlogged areas, a mapping and classification system has been proposed and applied for wetlands in the Begusarai district of north Bihar plains, India. The proposed hydro-geomorphic classification system is hierarchical, simple, and robust, and can be implemented through quick processing of satellite images integrated with minimal ancillary data.

6 illus, 4 tables, 24 ref

018514   Singh S;Agrawal S;Ghosh A (Centre for Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru-560 012, Email: aghosh@ceas.iisc.ernet.in) : Understanding deep earth dynamics: A numerical modelling approach. Curr Sci 2017, 112(7), 1463-73.

Enhancement in computing power and better data availability have paved the way for deciphering the earth's deeper dynamics and have provided viable explanations for various surface phenomena. Tools such as seismic tomography, - 53 - numerical modelling and geophysical observations such as stresses, gravity anomalies, heat flow, etc. have helped us in addressing the mechanisms of plate driving forces, anomalous geoid variations, cratonic stability, topographic support, intraplate earthquakes and similar outstanding issues in geodynamics. Due to lack of direct observations from deep earth, numerical modelling has aided considerably in learning about subsurface processes. With better algorithms being developed everyday, it is the right time to tap their potential to push the frontiers of human knowledge.

7 illus, 140 ref

018513   Sensarma S;Singh H;Rana R S;Paul D;Sahni A (Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Lucknow Univ, Lucknow-226 007, Email: sensarma2009@gmail.com) : Nature and composition of interbedded marine basaltic pumice in the <126>52-50 ma vastan lignite sequence, western India: Implication for early eocene morb volcanism offshore Arabian sea. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-19.

The recognition of pyroclasts preserved in sedimentary environments far from its source is uncommon. We here describe occurrences of several centimetres-thick discontinuous basaltic pumice lenses occurring within the Early Eocene Vastan lignite mine sedimentary sequence, western India at two different levels - one at <126>5 m and the other at 10 m above a biostratigraphically constrained 52 Ma old marker level postdating the Deccan Volcanism. These sections have received global attention as they record mammalian and plant radiations. We infer the repetitive occurrence of pumice have been sourced from a <126>52-50 Ma MORB related to sea-floor spreading in the western Arabian Sea, most plausibly along the Carlsberg Ridge. Pyroclasts have skeletal plagioclase with horsetail morphologies ± pyroxene ± Fe-Ti oxide euhedral crystals, and typically comprise of circular polymodal (radii ≤10 to ≥30 μm), non-coalescing microvesicles (<62>40-60%). The pumice have undergone considerable syngenetic alteration during oceanic transport and post-burial digenesis, and are a composite mixture of Fe-Mn-rich clay and hydrated altered basaltic glass (palagonite). The Fe-Mn-rich clay is extremely low in SiO₂, Al₂O₃, TiO₂, MgO, alkalies and REE, but very high in Fe₂O₃, MnO, P, Ba, Sr contents, and palagonitization involved significant loss of SiO₂, Al₂O₃, MgO and variable gain in Fe₂O₃, TiO₂, Ni, V, Zr, Zn and REE. Bubble initiation to growth in the ascending basaltic magma (liquidus <126>1200-1250 °C) may have occured in <126>3 hr. Short-distance transport, non-connected vesicles, deposition in inner shelf to more confined lagoonal condition in the Early Eocene and quick burial helped preservation of the pumice in Vastan. Early Eocene Arabian Sea volcanism thus might have been an additional source to marginal sediments along the passive margin of western India.

12 illus, 2 tables, 61 ref

018512   Rodriguez-Rivera V;Alfonso-Corrado C; Aguirre-Hidalgo V;Campos J E;Venegas-Barrera C S;Clark-Tapia R (Instituto de Estudios Ambientales, Universidad de la Sierra Juarez, UNSIJ. Av. Universidad s/n, Ixtlan de Juarez, 68725 Oaxaca, Mexico, Email: rclark@unsij.edu.mx) : Galls and host occurrences along a forest gradient in Sierra juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico. J envir Biol 2017, 38(1), 139-45.

This study evaluates the abundance and environmental factors that regulate the regional distribution (hosts and study sites) and specific distribution (microhabitat oviposition) of the galls in the Sierra Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico. During dry and wet periods, eleven sampling sites, the presence and abundance of galls were examined. Ecological niche analysis was performed to relate gall niche occurrence/breadths with geographical and climatic gradients at two levels: regional distribution and specific distribution. Oak had the highest number of galls as compared to pines. Among the oaks, the Quercus section recorded twice the amount of galls (9 ± 2.14) than the Lobatae section (4.7 ± 2.19). As for the specific distribution level, over 70 % of the galls were located both at - 52 - the underside of leaves and at primary stem. We believe that abundance and distribution of galls and hosts could be associated with climatic factors. It was found that galls are highly sensitive to climatic and geographical changes. Galls are also attached to specific host structures for their survival. Climatic changes and structural disturbance can generate a crisis of co-extinction.

1 illus, 6 tables, 38 ref

018511   Rafiq F;Ahmed S;Ahmad S;Khan A A (NO, , ) : Urban flood Hazard modeling for Noida city. J Remote Sensing GIS 2016, 7(1), 10-26.

This contemporary work unveils the usage of a new methodology to carry out an accurate hazard mapping of urban flood footprints. It is based on wetness transformation. It is a procedure of conversion of multi-spectral-bands into three dimensional feature space. The present study embraces conversion of thematic mapper (TM) imagery of Landsat to a three dimensional array; brightness, wetness and greenness, followed by the technique of change detection to locate inundated areas in urban regions. Efficient thresholding of the normalized difference image generated during change detection has shown promising results in identifying the flood extents which include standing water due to flood and mud surge caused by the flood. Prior to wetness transformations, dark object subtraction has been used in lower wavelengths to avoid errors due to scattering in urban areas. The study shows promising results in eliminating most of the problems associated with urban flooding like misclassification due to presence of asphalt, scattering in lower wavelengths and delineating mud surge. The methodology is implemented over Noida, business capital of state of Uttar Pradesh, India and tested on September 1980 flood event. The results are validated by satellite imageries on Google Earth to bolster the methodology of accurate extraction of urban flood footprint.

018510   Parsaie A;Haghiabi A H (Water Engineering Dep, Lorestan Univ, Khorramabad, Iran, Email: abbas_parsaie@yahoo.com) : Mathematical expression of discharge capacity of compound open channels using MARS technique. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-15.

In this paper, analytical methods, artificial neural network (ANN) and multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) techniques were utilised to estimate the discharge capacity of compound open channels (COC). To this end, related datasets were collected from literature. The results showed - 51 - that the divided channel method with a coefficient of determination (R²) value of 0.76 and root mean square error (RMSE) value of 0.162 has the best performance, among the various analytical methods tested. The performance of applied soft computing models with R²=0.97 and RMSE = 0.03 was found to be more accurate than analytical approaches. Comparison of MARS with the ANN model, in terms of developed discrepancy ratio (DDR) index, showed that the accuracy of MARS model was better than that of MLP model. Reviewing the structure of the derived MARS model showed that the longitudinal slope of the channel (S), relative flow depth (H_r) and relative area (A_r) have a high impact on modelling and forecasting the discharge capacity of COCs.

14 illus, 2 tables, 50 ref

018509   Pandey S;Parcha S K (NO, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, G.M.S Road, Dehra Dun-248 001, Email: pandeshivani@gmail.com) : Provenance, tectonic setting and source-area weathering of the lower cambrian sediments of the Parahio valley in the spiti basin, India. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-16.

The geochemical study of siliciclastic rocks from the Lower Cambrian of Parahio Valley has been studied to describe the provenance, chemical weathering and tectonic setting. The K₂O/Al₂O₃ ratio and positive correlation of Co (r=0.85), Ni (r=0.86), Zn (r=0.82), Rb (r=0.98) with K₂O reflects that the presence of clay minerals control the abundances of these elements and suggests a warm and humid climate for this region. The chondrite normalized REE pattern of the samples is equivalent to upper continental crust, which reflects enriched LREE and flat HREE with negative Eu anomaly. The tectonic setting discriminant diagram log[K₂O/Na₂O] vs. SiO₂; [SiO₂/Al₂O₃] vs. log[K₂O/Na₂O]; [SiO₂/20] - [K₂O+Na₂O] - [TiO₂+Fe₂O₃+MgO] indicates transitional tectonic setting from an active continental margin to a passive margin. The discriminant function plot indicates quartzose sedimentary provenance, and to some extent, the felsic igneous provenance, derived from weathered granite, gneissic terrain and/or from pre-existing sedimentary terrain. The CIA value indicates low to moderate degree of chemical weathering and the average ICV values suggests immature sediments deposited in tectonically active settings. The A-CN-K diagram indicates that these sediments were generated from source rocks of the upper continental crust.

11 illus, 3 tables, 77 ref

018508   Njanko T;Chatue C N;Kwekam M;Bella Nke B E; Sandjo A F Y;Fozing E M (Lab of Environmental Geology, The Univ of Dschang, P. O. Box 67, Dschang, Cameroon, Email: tnjanko@gmail.com) : Numba ductile deformation zone (northwest Cameroon): A geometric analysis of folds based on the fold profiler method. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-10.

The Numba ductile deformation zone (NDDZ) is characterised by folds recorded during the three deformation phases that affected the banded amphibole gneiss. Fold-shape analyses using the program Fold Profiler with the aim to show the importance of folding events in the structural analysis of the NDDZ and its contribution to the Pan-African orogeny in central Africa have been made. Classical field method, conic sections method and Ramsay's fold classification method were applied to (i) have the general orientation of folds, (ii) analyze the fold shapes and (iii) classify the geometry of the folded bands. Fold axes in banded amphibole gneiss plunge moderately (<60>15°) towards the NNE or SSW. The - 50 - morphology of F₁, F₂ and F₃ folds in the study area clearly points to (i) Z-shape folds with SE vergence and (ii) a dextral sense of shear motion. Conic section method reveals two dominant families: F₁ and F₃ folds belong to parabolic shape folds, while F2 folds belong to parabolic shape and hyperbolic shape folds. Ramsay's scheme emphasizes class 1C (for F₁, F₂ and F₃ folds) and class 3 (for F₂ folds) as main fold classes. The co-existence of the various fold shapes can be explained by (i) the structuration of the banded gneiss, (ii) the folding mechanisms that associate shear with a non-least compressive or flattening component in a ductile shear zone and (iii) the change in rheological properties of the band during the period of fold formation. These data allow us to conclude that the Numba region underwent ductile dextral shear and can be integrated (i) in a correlation model with the Central Cameroon Shear Zone (CCSZ) and associated syn-kinematic intrusions and (ii) into the tectonic model of Pan-African belt of central Africa in Cameroon.

5 illus, 39 ref

018507   Moeeni H;Bonakdari H;Ebtehaj I (Civil Engineering Dep, Razi Univ, Kermanshah, Iran, Email: bonakdari@yahoo.com ) : Monthly reservoir inflow forecasting using a new hybird SARIMA genetic programming approach. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-13.

Forecasting reservoir inflow is one of the most important components of water resources and hydroelectric systems operation management. Seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) models have been frequently used for predicting river flow. SARIMA models are linear and do not consider the random component of statistical data. To overcome this shortcoming, monthly inflow is predicted in this study based on a combination of seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) and gene expression programming (GEP) models, which is a new hybrid method (SARIMA-GEP). To this end, a four-step process is employed. First, the monthly inflow datasets are pre-processed. Second, the datasets are modelled linearly with SARIMA and in the third stage, the non-linearity of residual series caused by linear modelling is evaluated. After confirming the non-linearity, the residuals are modelled in the fourth step using a gene expression programming (GEP) method. The proposed hybrid model is employed to predict the monthly inflow to the Jamishan Dam in west Iran. Thirty years' worth of site measurements of monthly reservoir dam inflow with extreme seasonal variations are used. The results of this hybrid model (SARIMA-GEP) are compared with SARIMA, GEP, artificial neural network (ANN) and SARIMA-ANN models. The results indicate that the SARIMA-GEP model (R²=78.8, VAF =78.8, RMSE =0.89, MAPE =43.4, CRM =0.053) outperforms SARIMA and GEP and SARIMA-ANN (R²=68.3, VAF =66.4, RMSE =1.12, MAPE =56.6, CRM =0.032) displays better performance than the SARIMA and ANN models. A comparison of the two hybrid models indicates the superiority of SARIMA-GEP over the SARIMA-ANN model.

9 illus, 6 tables, 46 ref

018506   Mesele S H;Govindu V;Nigusse A G (NO, , ) : GIS based spatial analysis for urban water supply: A case of kedamay woyane sub-city, mekelle city, Ethiopia. J Remote Sensing GIS 2016, 7(1), 54-63.

Access to drinking water supply is one of the universally recognized basic socioeconomic and environmental problems as it is one of the basic needs for human survival. However, this problem is more acute in developing countries like Ethiopia where there is absence and inequity distribution of drinking water access among the society. Nerveless, the problem is more serious in the country's urban cities like Mekelle city, where the water distribution and access is worst. This research was conducted in Mekelle city, Kedamay Woyane sub-city with the objective to understand the urban water supply distribution using G1S and surveying. A total of 97 respondents were selected using stratified sampling method and proportional sampling was applied to each stratum. Both primary and secondary data collection methods were employed to collect the data. The collected data were analyzed using softwares SPSS and ArcGIS. The findings of the current study show that the water users of Kedamay Woyane sub-city have been experiencing water accessibility and consumption problem. The water consumption is largely related with socio-economic factors such as population, size of community, living standard of the people, industrial and commercial activity. An average of 867,768.9 m3 of water was lost (leaked) from 2003-2006. The amount of water produced in 2003 was 951.070 m3 but of which 20.1% (191165.1 m3) was leaked or lost. The production coverage was 59.2% in 2003, 71.6% in 2004, 77.9% in 2005 and 63.3% in 2006. GIS provides a variety of support in asset inventory like keeping record of pipes, valves fittings, and meters, together with their characteristics and status. The study also indicated that the underground water boreholes serving the residences are not enough and arc found at high depth (150-350 m) which demands huge power, Electric power availability substantially - 49 - determines water access to residences and consequently it increases the acute shortage of water in the sub-city. Based on the outcomes of the study it is clear that the yield of the water source and pipeline network is not enough to satisfy the demand of the sub-city, practically on ground. So, the concerned body should have to look for other sources of water and has to adopt the GIS based system to easily identify them and the spatial problems related to distribution and its access.

018505   Madhulatha A;George J P;Rajagopal E N (National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), A-50, Sector-62, Noida-201 309, Email: madhulatha11@gmail.com) : All-sky radiance simulation of megha-tropiques SAPHIR microwave sensor using multiple scattering radiative transfer model for data assimilation applications. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-16.

Incorporation of cloud- and precipitation-affected radiances from microwave satellite sensors in data assimilation system has a great potential in improving the accuracy of numerical model forecasts over the regions of high impact weather. By employing the multiple scattering radiative transfer model RTTOV-SCATT, all-sky radiance (clear sky and cloudy sky) simulation has been performed for six channel microwave SAPHIR (Sounder for Atmospheric Profiling of Humidity in the Inter-tropics by Radiometry) sensors of Megha-Tropiques (MT) satellite. To investigate the importance of cloud-affected radiance data in severe weather conditions, all-sky radiance simulation is carried out for the severe cyclonic storm - 48 - 'Hudhud' formed over Bay of Bengal. Hydrometeors from NCMRWF unified model (NCUM) forecasts are used as input to the RTTOV model to simulate cloud-affected SAPHIR radiances. Horizontal and vertical distribution of all-sky simulated radiances agrees reasonably well with the SAPHIR observed radiances over cloudy regions during different stages of cyclone development. Simulated brightness temperatures of six SAPHIR channels indicate that the three dimensional humidity structure of tropical cyclone is well represented in all-sky computations. Improved correlation and reduced bias and root mean square error against SAPHIR observations are apparent. Probability distribution functions reveal that all-sky simulations are able to produce the cloud-affected lower brightness temperatures associated with cloudy regions. The density scatter plots infer that all-sky radiances are more consistent with observed radiances. Correlation between different types of hydrometeors and simulated brightness temperatures at respective atmospheric levels highlights the significance of inclusion of scattering effects from different hydrometeors in simulating the cloud-affected radiances in all-sky simulations. The results are promising and suggest that the inclusion of multiple scattering radiative transfer models into data assimilation system can simulate the cloud-affected microwave radiance data which provide detailed information on three dimensional humidity structure of the atmosphere in the presence of cloud hydrometeors.

11 illus, 4 tables, 41 ref

018504   Kundu K;Halder P;Mandal J K (NO, , ) : Gis based tool to digitize polygon and line segments of a black and white map. J Remote Sensing GIS 2016, 7(1), 27-41.

In this paper a GIS based tool has been proposed to digitize polygon and line objects through efficient usage of RGB values of the segments of raster maps. For digitization of polygon, initially a closed loop is drawn inside the polygon segment. Beginning from the initial point of the closed loop, eight connected pixels calculation is incorporated to obtain the points existing in between the loop and the actual boundary. The points which exist outside the loop are compared with the RGB value of the boundary points to calculate the boundary. The boundary points are stored in the boundary array after arranging them in the cyclic order. In the existing tool, the polygon segment is digitized using the single click but the drawback is that lot of memory space is required for the processing. The concept of single click boundary calculation is also integrated in this tool to vectorise the small and/or narrow segments where drawing of closed loop inside the segment is difficult. For digitization of line, initially a point is selected on the line. Then, gradually scanning is performed from that point to both sides of selected point until it reaches the junction points. After that two arrays for both directions are merged to obtain the actual line coordinates. The polygon boundary and line segments points are minimized by obtaining minimum number of points of the segment which reduce the space complexity and minimize to the essential boundary points compared to the existing tools.

14 ref

018503   Guha S;Dey A (Geography Dep, Dinabandhu Andrews College, Kolkata-700 084, Email: subhanilguha@gmail.com) : Morphological changes in parts of Hugli estuary during 1999 to 2008 applying remote sensing and GIS technique. Envir Ecol 2016, 34(4), 1813-7.

The present study shows coastal morphological changes in a complex dynamic coastal zone like Hugli Estuary. This is an area where eustatic, iso-static and tectonic forces control the significant geo-morphological changes in a combine manner. The prime objective of the research work is to detect and estimate of the recently developed zones under erosion and - 47 - aceretion of the estuary using a series of multi-temporal satellite images namely IRS IC 28/11/ 99, IRS IC 27/03/2000, IRS ID 19/02/2001, IRS P6 20/ 11/2005 and IRS P6 28/02/2008. The entire analytical research work has been performed under a sophisticated remote sensing and GIS platform to achieve higher accuracy and precision in computation. The final outpur reveals that in very recent years, some parts of the area reflect severe rate of erosion while the rest of the area indicates high rate of accretion. Frequent tides with severe cyclones and soil erosion due to large scale deforestation are strongly responsible for the land use change for the entire study area in recent years.

1 illus, 3 tables, 8 ref

018502   Ghorai D;Mahapatra M;Paul A K (NO, , ) : Application of remote sensing and gis techniques for decadal change detection of mangroves along Tamil Nadu coast, India. J Remote Sensing GIS 2016, 7(1), 42-53.

Mangrove forests arc among of the most productive and biologically important ecosystems of the world. The mangrove forests aids stabilize shorelines and reduce the devastating impact of natural disasters such as tsunamis and hurricanes. They also provide breeding and nursing grounds for marine and pelagic species, and food, medicine, fuel and building materials for local communities. Despite of its immense importance, it is declining due to increasing coastal population, urbanization and industrial development and frequent natural disasters such as storm surge, tsunami etc. Up-to-date information with regard to the extent and condition of mangrove ecosystems is essential for conservation, restoration measures and proper management of coastal zone. In this article we aims at the decadal changes of mangroves forest during 1991 to 2014 timeframe along the Tamil Nadu coast, India using remote sensing and GIS techniques. Tamil Nadu coast is the longest coastline (1076 km) in the east coast of India. Landsat TM images for the year 1991, Landsat ETM+ for the year 2000 (30 m spatial resolution) and Landsat OLI images dated 2014 (30 m spatial resolution) were used. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDV1) and soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) were used to classify the images based on density. The decadal change analysis of mangroves reveals that the extent of mangroves was increased from 5986.20 ha in 1991 to 6421.48 ha in 2000 and it is further increased to 6756.30 ha in 2014 along Tamil Nadu coast. The increase of mangroves happens due to following reasons such as new mangroves plantation, awareness of the benefits of mangroves and coastal zone management plan. The findings of our research are expected to provide up to date information of mangroves' change along the Tamil Nadu coast for conservation and restoration measures.

018501   Gajalakshmi K;Anantharama V (NO, , ) : Micro watershed delineation and codification in chickballapur district using GIS techniques. J Remote Sensing GIS 2016, 7(1), 75-80.

Enhanced and reproducible methods for - 46 - watershed modelling and assessment are essential tools for monitoring and management of watersheds. However, only few integrated studies propose advanced open source data and methodologies for watershed modelling and assessment. In this study, free downloadable DEM is processed using GIS tools to delineate watersheds through drainage map. Seven watersheds were identified in chickballapur district. Further sub watershed, mini and micro watersheds were delineated hierarchically. The nine-digit watershed codification is proposed for each micro watershed. Recognizing each hydrologic unit with unique code provides a single stand to synergize all the types of developmental programs related to water resource planning and management, and avoiding doubling of interventions of different departments.

018500   G/Yohannes H B;Govindu V;Nigusse A G (NO, , ) : Impact of linear infrastructure on land utilization using GIS. J Remote Sensing GIS 2016, 7(1), 64-74.

In all urban centers of the Tigray region and the nation as whole, there is inefficient urban land utilization and development. The bottlenecks in the supply of serviced land arc caused by inadequate provision of infrastructure and services. Moreover, the government often provides arterial infrastructure, leaving the provision of secondary and tertiary infrastructure to individuals or private sector developers. As a result private sectors or individuals assembled raw land only. Land closest to the arterial infrastructure was developed causing ribbon or corridor development. Parcels further away from existing physical linear infrastructure are economically inefficient than those closest. Urban land utilization in Mekelle city in general and AdiHaki Dejen area in particular is inefficient due to lack of infrastructure provision and under regulation. Therefore, the objective the study was to evaluate the impact of physical linear infrastructure on urban land utilization and development in AdiHaki Dejen area. To do so, the research started by evaluating and analyzing the current condition of urban land utilization using primary and secondary data sources. ArcGIS was used to analyze the proximity of linear infrastructure to parcels. Then, ArcGIS SQL was used to identify and analyze parcels close to infrastructure and those that are further away. The study shows that poor land utilization and development are caused by poor road access, drainage line, water supply line, telecommunication cable line and electric transmission line and street light. Generally, the study concludes that the main problem of the study area is inadequate linear infrastructure provision and under regulation. So, parcels further away from existing physical linear infrastructure are economically inefficient than those closest. This result was used as base line for urban planners, land use planners and managers to use the application of ArcGIS in urban land use planning and utilization for economically efficient land development and management.

018499   Debnath M;Nayak D K (Geography Dep, North-Eastern Hill Univ, Shillong, Meghalaya, Email: manojdebnathfg@gmail.com) : Mobility source regions in West Bengal. Indian Sci Cruiser 2017, 31(1), 35-41.

West Bengal has experienced outmigration in all the areas but certain areas have experienced higher intensity in rural outmigration- a fact that needs special attention. The state is thickly populated with high man land ratio resulting in rural unemployment, underemployment or disguised employment. This provides ideal condition for outmigration. The study is an attempt at identifyingmigration source regions of the state depending upon the physiographic regions.Districts in the central part of South Bengal are experiencing high rate of outmigration compared to marginal districts in West Bengal. These regions are considered as mobility source regions from where large proportion of migrants is moved. The main aim of the study is to identify mobility source regions in West Bengal with the help of migration data extracted from census data of India.

3 illus, 6 tables, 10 ref

018498   Chowdhury K M A;Mahbub-E-Kibria A S M;Akhter S;Chowdhury N M K;Marufujjaman Mithu M (Oceanography Dep, Dhaka Univ, Bangladesh) : Variation of water column density in the bay of bengal aquatic ecosystem. Int J Fish aqua Stud 2017, 5(6), 34-40.

Water column stratification is very important to investigate the ocean dynamics. For this study, the Bay of Bengal was divided into some sub-regions and division wise temperature and salinity data were taken to study the distribution of water column density comprehensively from Argo profiling floats for the period January 2009 to December 2013. To understand the processes affecting the sigma-t variability, we also examined static stability parameters for the same region. In winter, temperature profiles of regions 1, 2 and 3 were showed a distinct thermal inversion. It may occur due to maximum net heat loss. In spring, the basin averaged temperature profile were showed no thermal inversion. Salinity was increased sharply from 25m to 85m. During spring temperature remained same, but a decrease was observed in salinity (0.5 psu) and sigma-t (0.2 kg m-3). Considering all regions, salinity was increased sharply from 15m to 65m whereas salinity at 5m was 33.1 psu, during summer. During fall season, Along the southern bay from west (Region-7) to east (Region 9) a decrease in temperature (0.3 °C), salinity (0.3 psu) and sigma-t (0.1 kg m-3) occurred. In winter and spring, southern bay stability was stronger than northern. In summer and fall, northern bay stability was stronger than southern and also highest compared to other season. Ship cruise CTD data can be collected for further study.

6 illus, 1 table, 9 ref

018497   Chauhan P;Singh N;Chauniyal D D;Ahluwalia R S;Singhal M (NO, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun-248 001, Email: pchauhan1008@gmail.com) : Differential behaviour of a lesser himalayan watershed in extreme rainfall regimes. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-13.

Climatic extremes including precipitation are bound to intensify in the global warming environment. The present study intends to - 44 - understand the response of the Tons sub-watershed in Lesser Himalaya, in 3 years with entirely different hydrological conditions (July 2008-June 2011) in terms of discharge, sediment flux and denudation rates. Within an uncertainty limit of ±20%, the mean interannual discharge (5.74 ± 1.44 m³s^-1) (±SE), was found highly variable (CV: 151%; 0.8-38 m³s^-1). In a normal rainfall year (2008-2009; <126>1550 mm), the discharge was 5.12 ± 1.75 m³s^-1, whereas in a drought year (2009-2010), it reduced by 30% with the reduction in <126>23% rainfall (CV: 85%). In an excessive rainfall year (once-in-a-century event) (2010-2011; <126>3050 mm), discharge as well as total solid load was <126>200% higher. Monsoon months (July-September) accounted for more than 90% of the annual solid load transport. The ratio of dissolved to suspended solid (C/P ratio) was consistently low (<60>1) during monsoon months and higher (1-7) during the rest of the dry period. C/P ratio was inversely (R²=0.49), but significantly (P <0.001) related to the rainfall. The average mechanical erosion rate in the three different rainfall years was 0.24, 0.19 and 1.03 mmyr^-1, whereas the chemical erosion was estimated at 0.12, 0.11 and 0.46 mmyr^-1, respectively. Thus, the average denudation rate of the Tons sub-watershed has been estimated at 0.33 mmyr^-1 (excluding extreme rainfall year: 1.5 mmyr^-1). Our results have implications to understand the hydrological behaviour of the Lesser Himalayan watersheds and will be valuable for the proposed and several upcoming small hydropower plants in the region in the context of regional ecology and natural resource management.

5 illus, 5 tables, 56 ref

018496   Bhattacharya A K (NO, MultiSpectra Consultants, 23, Biplabi Ambika Chakraborty Sarani, Kolkata-700 029, Email: dramartyakumar@gmail.com) : History of floods - perspective of West Bengal, India. Indian J Pwr River Valley Dev 2016, 66(11-12), 159-61.

018495   Bal S;Schimanke S;Spangehl T;Cubasch U (NO, Institute for Meteorology, Freie Universitat, Berlin, Germany, Email: sourabhbal@gmail.com) : Variable influence on the equatorial troposphere associated with SSW using ERA-interim. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-13.

Sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events are identified to investigate their influence on the equatorial tropospheric climate. Composite analysis of warming events from Era-Interim (1979-2013) record a cooling of the tropical lower stratosphere with corresponding changes in the mean meridional stratospheric circulation. A cooling of the upper troposphere induces enhanced convective activity near the equatorial region of the Southern Hemisphere and suppressed convective activity in the off-equatorial Northern Hemisphere. After selecting vortex splits, the see-saw pattern of convective activity in the troposphere grows prominent and robust.

6 illus, 2 tables, 33 ref

018494   Aher S;Shinde S;Guha S;Majumder M (Geography Dep, Shivaji Univ, Kolhapur-416 004, Email: saigeo23@gmail.com) : Identification of drought in Dhalai river watershed using MCMD and ANN models. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(2), 1-14.

An innovative approach for drought identification is developed using Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models from surveyed drought parameter data around the Dhalai river watershed in Tripura hinterlands, India. Total eight drought parameters, i.e., precipitation, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, vegetation canopy, cropping pattern, temperature, cultivated land, and groundwater level were obtained from expert, literature and cultivator survey. Then, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) were used for weighting of parameters and Drought Index Identification (DII). Field data of weighted parameters in the meso scale Dhalai River watershed were collected and used to train the ANN model. The developed ANN model was used in the same watershed for identification of drought. Results indicate that the Limited-Memory Quasi-Newton algorithm was better than the commonly used training method. Results obtained from the ANN model shows the drought index developed from the study area ranges from 0.32 to 0.72. Overall analysis revealed that, with appropriate training, the ANN model can be used in the areas where the model is calibrated, or other areas where the range of input parameters is similar to the calibrated region for drought identification.

8 illus, 6 tables, 32 ref

017557   Zou J (School of Earth Sciences and Resources, China Univ of Geosciences (Beijing), Beijing 100083, China, Email: zoujy1117@163.com) : Geochemical characteristics and organic carbon sources within the upper reaches of the Xi river, southwest China during high flow. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(1), 1-10.

Carbon (POC, DOC) and carbon isotopes (δ¹³C) within two headwater tributaries to the Xi River Basin, southwest China were analyzed to document the geochemical characteristics and sources of organic carbon (C) within basins characterized by a monsoonal climate and karst landforms. δ¹³ C_POC value and C/N ratio data indicate that suspended soil organic carbon (SOC) was an important source of POC in both the Nanpan and Beipan rivers (i.e., the studied tributaries). However, differences in C sources exist between the Nanpan and Beipan River Basins. Higher terrestrial plants supplied a portion of the POC within the Beipan River. In contrast, the Nanpan River was characterized by an inverse correlation between POC and DOC, and a positive relationship between the δ¹³C values. These trends indicate that DOC within the Nanpan River was partly derived from the degradation of soil C within the water column. In addition, the interception of C by hydrological projects (e.g., dams) positioned along the Nanpan River led to higher DOC/POC ratios. In contrast, within the Beipan River δ¹³C_DOC values range from -20 to -25.2 % and are consistent with ratios associated with soil C, suggesting that leaching of C from catchment soil was the dominant source of DOC. Organic C in tributaries to the Beipan River may also - 78 - have been derived from intense upland soil erosion, a process that resulted in the lowest DOC/POC ratios. The collected data indicate that land-use changes have potentially influenced regional- to local-scale organic C budgets within subtropical basins subjected to karstification.

6 illus, 2 tables, 48 ref

017556   Yang Z;Long N;Wang Y;Zhou X;Liu Y;Sun L (Institute of Polar Environment, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Univ of Science and Technology of, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China, Email: slg@ustc.edu.cn) : Great volcanic eruption around AD 1300 recorded in lacustrine sediment from dongdao island, South China sea. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(1), 1-6.

The contents of Ti, Al and Fe₂O₃ in a lacustrine sediment core (DY6) collected from Dongdao Island, South China Sea (SCS), were determined to be much higher than those in the three major sediment end-members (coral sand, guano and plants), and their likely sources include terrigenous dust and volcanic ash. At 61 cm (<126>AD 1300), the contents of Ti, Al and Fe₂O₃ have an abnormally high spike, which cannot be explained by terrigenous dust. The Sr and Nd isotope compositions at 61 cm are in excellent agreement with those in volcanic materials, but they are significantly different from those in terrigenous dust, implying a possible material input from historical volcanic eruptions in the lacustrine sediment DY6. The documented great Samalas volcanic eruption at AD 1257 in Indonesia is likely the candidate for this volcanic eruption.

4 illus, 2 tables, 24 ref

017555   Teimouri R;Vand L S (NO, Tabriz Municipality Scientific Applied Educational Center, Tabriz, Iran, Email: raziehteimouri@yahoo.com) : GIS techniques for suitable locations for urban green space in district2 of Tabriz, city, Iran. Ambient Sci 2017, 4(2), 27-30.

GIS technique also used to determine whether the land resource is suitable for some specific uses and to determine the suitability level. The case study area occupies an area of about 3148 hectares in Tabriz city. This paper uses GIS and tools in assessing the suitability of local parks of the city of Tabriz in East Azerbaijan in Iran. The first objective of this paper is a study of neighboring, compatibility, accessibility and other physical factors effective in the suitability of local parks of the study area; the second objective is evaluating the spaces suitable for parks distribution in - 77 - the study area and the third is a study of social factors that effective in the suitability of local parks. The result suggests that 36.4% of local parks of study area are completely compatible with adjacent land uses, also study of suitability of local parks suggest that 46.6% of these parks are in high suitability status, 27.3% are in moderate and 9.1% are in low suitability situation.

4 illus, 3 tables, 16 ref

017554   Sudhakar Reddy C;Singh S;Dadhwal V K;Jha C S; Rama Rao N;Diwakar P G (National Remote Sensing Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Balanagar, Hyderabad-500 037, Email: drsudhakarreddy@gmail.com) : Predictive modelling of the spatial pattern of past and future forest cover changes in India. J Earth Syst Sci 2017, 126(1), 1-16.

This study was carried out to simulate the forest cover changes in India using Land Change Modeler. Classified multi-temporal long-term forest cover data was used to generate the forest covers of 1880 and 2025. The spatial data were overlaid with variables such as the proximity to roads, settlements, water bodies, elevation and slope to determine the relationship between forest cover change and explanatory variables. The predicted forest cover in 1880 indicates an area of 10,42,008 km², which represents 31.7% of the geographical area of India. About 40% of the forest cover in India was lost during the time interval of 1880-2013. Ownership of majority of forest lands by non-governmental agencies and large scale shifting cultivation are responsible for higher deforestation rates in the Northeastern states. The six states of the Northeast (Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura) and one union territory (Andaman & Nicobar Islands) had shown an annual gross rate of deforestation of <62>0.3 from 2005 to 2013 and has been considered in the present study for the prediction of future forest cover in 2025. The modelling results predicted widespread deforestation in Northeast India and in Andaman & Nicobar Islands and hence is likely to affect the remaining forests significantly before 2025. The multi-layer perceptron neural network has predicted the forest cover for the period of 1880 and 2025 with a Kappa statistic of <62>0.70. The model predicted a further decrease of 2305 km² of forest area in the Northeast and Andaman & Nicobar Islands by 2025. The majority of the protected areas are successful in the protection of the forest cover in the Northeast due to management practices, with the exception of Manas, Sonai-Rupai, Nameri and Marat Longri. The predicted forest cover scenario for the year 2025 would provide useful inputs for effective resource management and help in biodiversity conservation and for mitigating climate change.

8 illus, 8 tables, 31 ref

017553   Singh P K;Rathore L S;Rao D V B;Singh K K; Baxla A K;Bhan S C;Gupta A;Singh S (India Meteorological Dep, Agromet Service Cell, New Delhi-110 003, Email: pksingh66@gmail.com) : Spatial analysis of rainfall variability and rainfed rice crop using GIS technique in West Bengal (India). Mausam 2017, 68(2), 287-98.

The rainfed areas receive mean annual precipitation in range of 500-1500 mm with high degree of variability and are beset with problems of mid-season drought and associated impacts on the crop productivity. In this paper, analysis of weekly, monthly, annual rainfall and weekly rainfall probabilities in relation to crop productivity has been carried out for all the stations of the study area in West Bengal where rain-fed agriculture is predominant. However, duration of dry spells and its probabilities, climatic derivatives like commencement and cessation of rainy season, length of growing period (LGP) and estimates of water balance parameters have been carried out, in respect of all blocks in the identified three districts in West Bengal. The mean productivity during kharif season indicated that, highest productivity values of 3 to 3.5 t/ha are noticed in the block of central districts of Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Hoogly districts. Perhaps, irrigation facilities in these districts might have helped in arriving at such high productivity rates. Low productivity of 1 to 1.5 t/ha have been noticed in two to three blocks of South 24-Paraganas and in Jalpaiguri districts. The productivity levels of northern districts, viz., Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar, West Dinajpur, South 24-Paranagas vary from 1.5 to 2.0 t/ha. The lowest productivity of 11.28 q /ha in Jaldha and 14.89 q /ha in Manbazar in 1996 can be due to heavy rainfall conditions in June and again in August. The mean productivity pattern of rice crop during kharif season in identified districts was analyzed with respect to occurrence of number of dry spells at different growth stages and average MAI values. The productivity was also related to monthly rainfall (July) and correlations have been mentioned for Jaldha block (0.22) and - 76 - Manbazar block (0.64). The highest productivity of 2-3 t/ha are recorded in hot sub-humid to humid regions of West Bengal where LGP vary from 150 to 200 days. From the study of the probability of dry and wet spells and MAI during different crop phenophases, the most vulnerable phases can be identified in each region.

6 illus, 7 tables, 33 ref