Integrated approach for identification of potential groundwater zones in Seethanagaram Mandal of Vizianagaram District,Andhra Pradesh,India

Identifying a good site for groundwater exploration in hard rock terrain is a challenging task. In hard rocks, groundwater occurs in secondary porosity developed due to weathering, fracturing, faulting, etc., which is highly variable within short distance and contributing to near-surface inhomogeneity. In such situations topographic, hydrogeological and geomorphological features provide useful clues for the selection of suitable sites. Initially, based on satellite imagery, topographical, geomorphological and hydrogeological features, an area of about 149 km² was demarcated as a promising zone for groundwater exploration in the hard rock tract of Seethanagaram Mandal, Vizianagaram District, Andhra Pradesh, India. A total of 50 Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) were carried out using Wenner electrode configuration. An interactive interpretation of the VES data sharpened the information inferred from geomorphological and hydrogeological reconnaissance. Ten sites were recommended for drilling. Drilling with Down-The-Hole Hammer (DTH) was carried out at the recommended sites down to 50 to 70 m depths. The interpreted VES results matched well with the drilled bore well lithologs. The yields of bore wells vary from 900 to 9000 liters per hour (lph).     

Deciphering potential groundwater zone in hard rock through the application of GIS

Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System has become one of the leading tools in the field of hydrogeological science, which helps in assessing, monitoring and conserving groundwater resources. It allows manipulation and analysis of individual layer of spatial data. It is used for analysing and modelling the interrelationship between the layers. This paper mainly deals with the integrated approach of Remote Sensing and geographical information system (GIS) to delineate groundwater potential zones in hard rock terrain. The remotely sensed data at the scale of 1:50,000 and topographical information from available maps, have been used for the preparation of ground water prospective map by integrating geology, geomorphology, slope, drainage-density and lineaments map of the study area. Further, the data on yield of aquifer, as observed from existing bore wells in the area, has been used to validate the groundwater potential map. The final result depicts the favourable prospective zones in the study area and can be helpful in better planning and management of groundwater resources especially in hard rock terrains.     

Rice is a major exposure route for arsenic in Chakdaha block,Nadia district,West Bengal,India: A probabilistic risk assessment

The importance or otherwise of rice as an exposure pathway for As ingestion by people living in Bengal and other areas impacted by hazardous As-bearing groundwaters is currently a matter of some debate. Here this issue is addressed by determining the overall increased cancer risk due to ingestion of rice in an As-impacted district of West Bengal. Human target cancer health risks have been estimated through the intake of As-bearing rice by using combined field, laboratory and computational methods. Monte Carlo simulations were run following fitting of model probability curves to measured distributions of (i) As concentration in rice and drinking water and (ii) inorganic As content of rice and fitting distributions to published data on (i) ingestion rates and (ii) body weight and point estimates on bioconcentration factors, exposure duration and other input variables. The distribution of As in drinking water was found to be substantially lower than that reported by previous authors for As in tube wells in the same area, indicating that the use of tube well water as a proxy for drinking water is likely to result in human health risks being somewhat overestimated. The calculated median increased lifetime cancer risk due to cooked rice intake was 7.62 × 10⁻⁴, higher than the 10⁻⁴–10⁻⁶ range typically used by the USEPA as a threshold to guide determination of regulatory values and similar to the equivalent risk from water intake. The median total risk from combined rice and water intake was 1.48 × 10⁻³. The contributions to this median risk from drinking water, rice and cooking of rice were found to be 48%, 44% and 8%, respectively. Thus, rice is a major potential source of As exposure in the As-affected study areas in West Bengal and the most important exposure pathway for groups exposed to low or no As in drinking water.     

Electrical analogy for modelling thermal regime and moisture distribution in sandy soils

The soil mass is subjected to temperature variation due to several human activities (viz. tanks storing heated fluids, buried cables and pipelines, air-conditioning ducts, disposal of nuclear and thermal power plant wastes etc.), which result in heat-induced migration of the moisture in it. Though several studies have been conducted in the past to investigate the mechanism of heat migration through the soil mass, a methodology for ‘real-time measurement of the variations in temperature, flux and moving moisture front, in tandem, with respect to space' has rarely been attempted. In this context, extensive laboratory investigations were conducted to measure real-time flux and temperature variations in the sandy soils, and the validation of results has been done by employing an equivalent electrical circuit programme, LTspice. Subsequently, a mathematical model PHITMDS (i.e. Prediction of Heat-Induced Temperature and Moisture Distribution in Soil) has been developed and its utility and efficacy, for predicting the depth-wise temperature and heat-induced moisture migration, due to evaporation, in terms of position of moving moisture front in the sandy soil has been critically discussed and demonstrated.     

RS & GIS-based landslide susceptibility mapping of the Balason River basin,Darjeeling Himalaya,using logistic regression (LR) model

The present study deals with the preparation of a landslide susceptibility map of the Balason River basin, Darjeeling Himalaya, using a logistic regression model based on Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing. The landslide inventory map was prepared with a total of 295 landslide locations extracted from various satellite images and intensive field survey. Topographical maps, satellite images, geological, geomorphological, soil, rainfall and seismic data were collected, processed and constructed into a spatial database in a GIS environment. The chosen landslide-conditioning factors were altitude, slope aspect, slope angle, slope curvature, geology, geomorphology, soil, land use/land cover, normalised differential vegetation index, drainage density, lineament number density, distance from lineament, distance to drainage, stream power index, topographic wetted index, rainfall and peak ground acceleration. The produced landslide susceptibility map satisfied the decision rules and ?2 Log likelihood, Cox &; Snell R-Square and Nagelkerke R-Square values proved that all the independent variables were statistically significant. The receiver operating characteristic curve showed that the prediction accuracy of the landslide probability map was 96.10%. The proposed LR method can be used in other hazard/disaster studies and decision-making.     

A comparative study of soil erosion modelling by MMF,USLE and RUSLE

The quantitative assessment of spatial soil erosion is valuable information to control the erosion. The study area in a part of Narmada river in central India is selected. The main objective is to assess and compare the results obtained from three soil erosion models using GIS platform. Variation in the rate of erosion of the three models is compared considering varying slope, soil and land use of the area. Three models selected are Morgan–Morgan–Finney (MMF), Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). The best fit or the most reliable model for the study area is selected after validation with the observed sedimentation data. The results give –39.45%, –9.60% and 4.80% difference in the values of sedimentation by MMF, USLE and RUSLE, respectively, from the observed data. Finally, RUSLE model has been found to be most reliable for the study area.     

Long waves due to a symmetrical wind stress on the surface of a rotating ocean

Abstract

The problem of unsteady long waves generated by any horizontal and symmetrically distributed, time-periodic surface wind on a rotating ocean is analysed for large times and distances. Uniform asymptotic estimates of the surface displacement in the unsteady state are obtained. The steady-state wave and velocity fields at any distance are also determined. Some characteristics of the unsteady and steady motions are described. Also noted are the features that distinguish the motion from its one-dimensional analogue for which a non-uniform analysis in the unsteady state along with a large-distance form of the surface elevation are already known.     

Analyzing multi-year rice-fallow dynamics in Odisha using multi-temporal Landsat-8 OLI and Sentinel-1 Data

ABSTRACT

Sustainable intensification of existing cropland is one of the most viable options for meeting the escalating food demands of the ever-increasing population in the world. Accurate geospatial data about the potential single-crop (rice-fallows) areas is vital for policymakers to target the agro-technologies for enhancing crop productivity and intensification. Therefore, the study aimed to evaluate and understand the dynamics of rice-fallows in the Odisha state of India, using SAR (Sentinel-1) and Optical (Landsat OLI) datasets. This study utilized a decision-tree approach and Principal component analysis (PCA) for the segmentation and separation of different vegetation classes. The estimated overall accuracy of extracted rice-fallow maps was in the range of 84 to 85 percent. The study identified about 2.2, 2.0 and 2.1mha of Rice-Fallows in the years 2015–16, 2016–17, and 2017–18, respectively. The combined analysis (all three years) of rice-fallow maps identified about 1.34mha of permanent rice-fallows, whereas the remaining 0.6–0.8mha area was under the current-fallow category. About 50% of the total permanent rice-fallows were detected in the rainfed areas of Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, Bolangir, Sundargarh, Keonjhar, Baleswar, Nawarangpur and Bargarh districts. The study also illustrated the time-series profiles of SMAP (soil moisture) datasets for the ten agroclimatic zones of the Odisha, which can be utilized (along with rice-fallow maps) for the selection of crop and cultivars (e.g. short or medium duration pulses or oilseeds) to target the rice fallows. The approach utilized in the current study can be scaled up in similar areas of South and South-east Asia and Africa to identify single-crop areas for targeting improved technologies for enhanced crop productivity and intensification.     

Infrared Observations of Comet Hale–Bopp (C/1995 O1) from Gurushikhar Observatory

During the recent apparition of comet Hale—Bopp (1995 O1) near infrared photometric observations were carried out in the J, H, K filter bands and also in the 3.0—3.4 μm region at the 1.2 m telescope at Gurushikkar, India. The effective temperature of the comet was substantially higher than the equilibrium blackbody temperature. A mean superheat value of 1.83 was derived in the post-perihelion phase which implies that a large fraction of the grain population are made up of small and hot grains with radii <0.5 μm. High albedo values of ∼0.4 were also derived in the scattering angle range 135° to 160° which could explain the unusual brightness of comet Hale—Bopp. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.