Petrological evolution of the Paleogene coal deposits of Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India

A detailed macro- and micro-petrological investigation of 8 coal seam profiles of Eocene age from the sub-Himalayan zone of Jammu was undertaken in order to characterize them petrographically and to focus on their evolution. The quantitative data suggest that these coals are vitrinite rich, with low concentrations of inertinite and rare occurrences of liptinite. According to microlithotype concentration these coals may be characterized as vitrinite rich, with minor amounts of clarite, vitrinertite and trimacerite. The dominant minerals are clays, siderite and pyrite (occurring mostly as disseminations, cavity filling and in framboidal state). These coals are vitric in type, low volatile bituminous in rank and ashy in grade.The petrographic character and the presence of teleutospores suggest that, similar to other Tertiary coal deposits in the world, the angiosperm flora contributed chiefly to the development of coal facies in the area. The maceral and microlithotype composition shows that these coals originated from the low forest and undisturbed (in situ) peat in foreland basins under limno-telmatic depositional conditions. The water was brackish with regular influxes of fresh water.     

Changing land use/land cover patterns and growing human population in Wular catchment of Kashmir Valley,India

GeoJournal - The profound increase in human activities and the degrading scenario in fragile ecosystems of the western Himalayas like that of Wular Lake have highlighted the need to analyze the...     

Reservoir induced landslide at Assar,Jammu and Kashmir: A case study

In February 2009, a huge landslide occurred at Assar in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir state. The slide triggered after the reservoir level of the Baglihar dam increased from initial water level of 850 m to 870 m. The impounding of reservoir water created high angle scarps at number of fossil slide sites on either side of the river within the reservoir area. One such scarp (about 250 m long) at Assar caused a huge landslide washing out about 150 m road stretch. The sliding material is dominated by finer fraction (71.5 %) of micaceous silty sand and coarser fraction of gravel to boulder size. Over saturation of the slope forming material, weak rocks and high absorption and swelling nature of the soil, high slope angle and toe cutting by the water are the main reasons that triggered this slide.     

Lead isotope signatures of Pb-Zn sulfide mineralization in the Reshian-Lamnian area of Azad Jammu and Kashmir,Pakistan

The Reshian-Lamnian area within the Hazara-Kashmir syntaxis in Pakistan is composed mainly of the rocks of the Salkhala, Panjal and Murree formations. Base metal sulfide mineralization in the form of sphalerite and galena with lesser amounts of chalcopyrite and pyrite is present within the Salkhala Formation of the study area. Chemically all these ore phases are homogeneous in composition. The Pb isotopic composition of galena from the area suggests that there is very little or negligible variation in the ratios of ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb, ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁴Pb and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁴Pb. Modal ages ranging from 509 to 562 Ma and the μ values of 10.71 to 10.93 have been calculated for the studied Pb-Zn mineralization. On the basis of field features, mineralogy and Pb-isotope signatures, it is concluded that the Pb-Zn sulfide mineralization in the Reshian-Lamnia area is pre-Himalayan in age and can be correlated with the Cambro-Ordovician (Pan-African) orogenic event.     

Assessing the geoindicators of land degradation in the Kashmir Himalayan region, India

The geoindicators of land degradation such as erosion, vegetation change and wetland loss were identified in the Kashmir Himalayan region using a geospatial model. Geomatics techniques were used to generate information on landuse/landcover, NDVI, slope and the lithological formations that form inputs to map the erosion risk. The results of erosion analysis revealed that 48.27?% of the area is under very high erosion risk. The Middle Himalayan watersheds were found to be under high erosion risk compared to the Greater Himalayan watersheds. Pohru and Doodhganga watersheds of the Middle Himalayas were found to be under very high erosion risk. These two watersheds were studied in detail from 1992 to 2001 for vegetation change and wetland loss. In Pohru watershed, significant change was found in the dense forest with 10?% decrease. Wular lake, an important wetland in the Pohru watershed, has shrunk by 2.7?km² during the last decade. The vegetation change analysis of the Doodhganga watershed revealed that there has been 9.13?% decrease in the forest, 7?% increase in built up and the largest wetland in the Doodhganga, Hokarsar, has reduced by 1.98?km² from 1992 to 2001. Field studies showed that anthropogenic activities and chemically deficit soil (Karewa) along Pir Panjal ranges are the main factors responsible for high land degradation in the area. The assessment of these geoindicators provided valuable information for identifying causes and consequences of the land degradation and thus outlining potential hazard areas and designing remedial measures.     

Diatoms,spatial distribution and physicochemical characteristics of the Wular lake sediments,Kashmir valley,Jammu and Kashmir

Lakes and wetlands are dynamic geomorphic units of a landscape that hold geochemical signatures of sediment provenance and paleo-environmental shifts and are major sinks for organic matter accumulation. The source of organic matter is diverse in lake sediments and varies widely with the type and size of the lake and hence it is important to understand the source of organic carbon (terrestrial or in situ) in lake systems in order to monitor the health of the lake. Wular lake, located in north Kashmir, is one of the largest fresh water lake in India, situated at an average elevation of 1580m ASL. The lake is fed by a number of watersheds that bring a diverse type of sediments and organic matter and thus deposit them into the Wular lake basin. In order to understand sediment distribution pattern, content and source of organic matter, sediment provenance and the persisting environment in the Wular lake, 32 lake floor sediment samples covering the entire lake were collected and analyzed for organic element analysis, CaCO3, organic matter, sediment texture and diatom analysis. The results indicated that sediments in the lake are dominated by silt and silty clay. The organic carbon in the lake ranged from 0.83%-4.52% and nitrogen varied from 0.06%-0.5%. The Carbon to Nitrogen (C/N) ratios (9.04 to 22.03) indicate a mixed source of organic carbon but dominated by in situ lake sources from the vascular and lake biota accumulation. The diatom analysis revealed the occurrence of a diverse type of species along the sampling sites present within the lake. The wide distribution of the diatom species such as Cymbella, Cyclotella and Tabularia etc. in the lake indicate high organic pollution and alkaline fresh water environment prevailing in the lake.     

Geospatial tools for assessing land degradation in Budgam district,Kashmir Himalaya,India

Land degradation reduces the ability of the land to perform many biophysical and chemical functions. The main aim of this study was to determine the status of land degradation in the Budgam area of Kashmir Himalaya using remote sensing and geographic information system. The satellite data together with other geospatial datasets were used to quantify different categories of land degradation. The results were validated in the field and an accuracy of 85% was observed. Land use/land cover of the study area was determined in order to know the effect of land use on the rate of land degradation. Normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) and slope of the area were determined using LANDSAT-enhanced thematic mapper plus (ETM+) data, advanced space borne thermal emission and reflection radiometer, and digital elevation model along with other secondary data were analysed to create various thematic maps, viz., land use/land cover, geology, NDVI and slopes used in modelling land degradation in the Kashmir Himalayan region. The vegetation condition, elevation and land use/land cover information of the area were integrated to assess the land degradation scenario in the area using the ArcGIS ‘Spatial Analyst Module’. The results reveal that about 13.19% of the study area has undergone moderate to high degradation, whereas about 44.12% of the area has undergone slight degradation.     

Landslide susceptibility assessment of national highway 1D from Sonamarg to Kargil,Jammu and Kashmir,India using frequency ratio method

GeoJournal - This study is an attempt to carry landslide susceptibility assessment along national highway 1D a lifeline to the Ladakh region using Frequency Ratio Method in GIS environment. The...     

Urban land use transformation and determinants of urban land use size in China

Astract Recent economic reforms and shifts in land use planning in China have greatly changed the size and structure of urban land use. In this paper, an overview of the problems in urban land use and the impacts of economic reforms and planning policies on rapid urban land expansion and structural transformation is outlined. This is followed by statistical analyses to reveal determinants of urban land size. The study shows that urban land use in China has been improved, and urban land use size is related to urban reforms, urban land use adjustment, as well as to population growth and economic development.     

Rural land use and agricultural production in Dinokana Village,Bophuthatswana

In recent years geographers have researched the problems of many rural areas of the third world. However, analysis of rural and agricultural development in the Bantustans of South Africa has been conspicuously absent. Although mythically independent, the Bantustans have their own Departments of Agriculture, as well as parastatal bodies, which develop and implement agricultural policies. This paper examines agricultural policy in the Bophuthatswana Bantustans, which is largely based on increasing food production for national self-sufficiency through the establishment of agricultural development projects. The effects of the implementation of this programme on a specific rural community, the village of Dinokana, are discussed. Two irrigation based projects were implemented in Dinokana in the early 1980's. The project planners did not seem to be concerned about the existence of an indigenous irrigation system which had been the foundation for agricultural development at Dinokana for several decades, and which could have been revived and upgraded. This suggests that there is a need for agricultural planners to have a detailed historial knowledge of local African agriculture. Geographers could play a valuable role here, by uncovering the dynamics of past systems of African agricultural production, in particular focusing on patterns of rural resource management.     

SAR polarimetric decomposition with ALOS PALSAR-1 for agricultural land and other land use/cover classification: case study in Rajasthan,India

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has operational applications in crop mapping and monitoring in many countries due to the distinct backscatter signature at various stages of crop growth. Polarimetric analysis of SAR data from different satellites was used for information extraction from different types of scatters in imaged terrain. The scattering processes were analyzed through the received scatter matrix derived from the target decomposition of SAR data. Three decomposition techniques, namely Freeman–Durden, Cloude–Pottier and Touzi decomposition of the ALOS PALSAR-1 data, were used in this study to extract land use/cover information with a specific emphasis on agriculture. The decomposed output parameters from these techniques were classified with supervised classifier of support vector machine (SVM) using region of interest (ROI) selected land use/cover classes. An accuracy assessment for the classified output was carried out using the ROI. The Ramgarh village in Jaisalmer district of Rajasthan with the predominance of agricultural land, sand dunes and settlements was chosen as the study area. Freeman–Durden decomposition resulted in the highest overall accuracy of about 85% in the land use/cover classification among the three decomposition techniques adopted in the study. It was also observed that the accuracy of land use/cover mapping derived from Cloude–Pottier and Touzi decompositions improved with the use of eigenvalues in the SVM classification. Higher accuracies in the classification of agriculture land were noted with all the three decomposition techniques. The four parameters of Cloude–Pottier (H, A, α, β) and Touzi (α _s, Φ _s, ψ, τ) decompositions improved the classification accuracy for all the classes due to eigenvalues. The overall classification accuracy was above 88% for both the decomposition techniques with four parameters. The soil moisture values for agriculture land and sand dunes were validated through soil moisture maps generated using Oh 1992 and 2004 models.     

Effects of land use changes on soil erosion in a fast developing area

Land use changes extensively affect soil erosion, which is a great environmental concern. To evaluate the effect of land use change on soil erosion in fast economic developing areas, we studied land use changes of Guangdong, China, from 2002 to 2009 using remote sensing and estimated soil erosion using the Universal Soil Loss Equation. We calculated the areas and percentage of each land use type under different erosion intensity and analyzed soil erosion changes caused by transitions of land use types. In addition, the impact of land use change on soil erosion in different river catchments was studied. Our results show that forest and wasteland land conversions induce substantial soil erosion, while transition from wasteland to forest retards soil loss. This suggests that vegetation cover changes significantly influence soil erosion. Any conversion to wasteland causes soil erosion, whereas expansion of forests and orchards mitigates it. The most significant increase in soil erosion from 2002 to 2009 was found in the Beijiang catchment corresponding to the transition from forest/orchard to built-up and wasteland. Soil erosion in the Xijiang catchment accelerated in this period due to the enormous reduction in orchard land. In Hanjiang catchment, erosion was alleviated and vegetation coverage greatly expanded owing to considerable transitions from wasteland and cropland to orchards. Field investigations validated our estimations and proved the applicability of this method. Measures including protecting vegetation, strict control of mining as well as reasonable urban planning should be taken to prevent successive soil erosion.     

An experimental investigation to characterise soil macroporosity under different land use and land covers of northeast India

Saturated macropore flow is the dominant hydrological process in tropical and subtropical hilly watersheds of northeast India. The process of infiltration into saturated macroporous soils is primarily controlled by size, network, density, connectivity, saturation of surrounding soil matrix, and depthwise distribution of macropores. To understand the effects of local land use, land cover and management practices on soil macroporosity, colour dye infiltration experiments were conducted with ten soil columns (25 × 25 × 50 cm) collected from different watersheds of the region under similar soil and agro-climatic zones. The sampling sites included two undisturbed forested hillslopes, two conventionally cultivated paddy fields, two forest lands abandoned after Jhum cultivation, and two paddy fields, one pineapple plot and one banana plot presently under active cultivation stage of the Jhum cycle. Digital image analyses of the obtained dye patterns showed that the infiltration patterns differed significantly for different sites with varying land use, land cover, and cultivation practices. Undisturbed forest soils showed high degree of soil macroporosity throughout the soil profile, paddy fields revealed sealing of macropores at the topsoil due to hard pan formation, and Jhum cultivated plots showed disconnected subsoil macropores. The important parameters related to soil macropores such as maximum and average size of macropores, number of active macropores, and depthwise distribution of macropores were estimated to characterise the soil macroporosity for the sites. These experimentally derived quantitative data of soil macroporosity can have wide range of applications in the region such as water quality monitoring and groundwater pollution assessment due to preferential leaching of solutes and pesticides, study of soil structural properties and infiltration behaviour of soils, investigation of flash floods in rivers, and hydrological modelling of the watersheds.     

Stratigraphy and structure of Sarda, Manil, Changpur and Naghal areas, district Kotli, Jammu & Kashmir

The Chauki, Mandi, Manil colony, Changpur, Khawas and Naghal areas are situated in between the limbs of Hazara Kashmir Syntaxis (HKS). HKS is the part of Himalayan fold and thrust belt that lies in sub-Himalayan domain. Seismically, this is an active zone. Early Miocene to Recent sedimentary rocks are exposed in the area. The stratigraphic units in Kashmir basin are the cover sequence of the Indian plate. These non-marine lithostratigraphic units are molasse deposits formed by the deposition of sediments coming from north carried by the rivers originated from higher Himalayas. Murree Formation of early Miocene age is the oldest rock unit in the studied area. Siwalik Group; Chinji, Nagri, Dhok Pathan and Soan formations of early Miocene to Pliocene and Mirpur Formation of Pleistocene age is exposed. The area is structurally deformed into folds and faults. The Sarda Sarhota syncline, Mandi syncline and Fagosh anticline are major folds in the area. These folds are isoclinal to open in nature, southwest or northeast verging and thrust direction is southwest or northeast. Major reverse faults are Riasi fault and Fagosh fault. The Changpur fault is a normal fault. Primary sedimentary structures present in the area are load cast, ripups and cross bedding. The facing of beds have been marked on the basis of these sedimentary structures.     

基于遥感技术的宁东煤炭基地土地利用变化及驱动力分析

研究大型矿业基地土地利用动态变化过程可间接评估矿产开发对区域生态环境的影响。采用2005年、2010年和2015年3期SPOT-5和GF-2卫星影像数据,通过人工目视解译与计算机自动提取相结合的手段,提取宁东煤炭基地土地利用信息,并收集2000年土地利用遥感解译信息,构建土地利用程度综合指数、动态度等,定量研究宁东煤炭开发引起的土地利用变化,结合经济社会发展指标,构建驱动土地利用变化的定量评价体系,分析了宁东煤炭基地土地利用格局变化的驱动因素。结果表明,2000—2015年宁东煤炭基地一直处于土地持续开发利用阶段,主要表现为草地、林地及耕地向工矿用地为主的建设用地转变,但土地利用程度综合指数的增幅有所下降,表明基地建设逐渐进入稳定期,土地利用压力趋于下降;主成分分析表明,人类活动驱动着宁东土地利用格局的变化,主要有封山禁牧政策、产业化和规模化、人口增长、城镇化等因素。该研究结果可为宁东煤炭基地未来生态环境保护提供科学依据。     

Possibilities of agricultural settlements in the northern coastal area of Kenya —an analysis of relevant climatic factors

Kenya is one of those African countries with a very high population pressure. In cultivatable areas we find up to 650 rural inhabitants per sq km. The search for new possibilities of agricultural settlement is an indispensable task. Many sciences are involved, also the geography of climates. Probably the largest potential settlement area from the climatic point of view is the Northern coastal zone. It has been settled in medieval times much more densely than today. War-like invasions of nomads have decreased the population since the 16th century. The average density of the cultivatable strip has been less than 5 inhabitants per sqkm in the last census year 1969. New settlement schemes have been developed since 1970, but they face the difficulty to choose the right varieties of crops. Careful climatic investigations are necessary for the further selection of areas and for the agricultural extension service. Here, only a first approach has been made. The main emphasis was laid on the effective rainfall in the so-called agrohumid period of the year and its probability. A new system of climatic classification was applied to give a frame for further, more specialised studies.     

Late Quaternary fine silt deposits of Jammu,NW Himalaya: Genesis and climatic significance

The fine silt deposits of Jammu (J & K State, India) stretch all along the Siwalik foothills from Jammu to the Potwar Plateau in Pakistan. The post-Siwalik deposits, first discussed by de Terra and Paterson (1939), are attributed to wind action. The deposits termed as ‘Potwar loessic silt’ comprising sandy silt are essentially of late Quaternary age (75–18 ka) and are re-looked herein from the point of view of genesis and climatic significance. The sorting, skewness and kurtosis parameters of fine silts of Jammu suggest fluvial environment of the deposits wherein the water budget fluctuated. The weak pedogenesis of fine silts at certain intervals corroborate to periods of less or no sedimentation. The bivariant plot studies further suggest fluvial environment of deposition for the fine silt at Jammu, with regular fluctuations in the budget of river water that was perhaps in consonance with oscillations in the climate of the region.     

Forecasting future changes in Manzala Lake surface area by considering variations in land use and land cover using remote sensing approach

This study assesses the changes in surface area of Manzala Lake, the largest coastal lake in Egypt, with respect to changes in land use and land cover based on a multi-temporal classification process. A regression model is provided to predict the temporal changes in the different detected classes and to assess the sustainability of the lake waterbody. Remote sensing is an effective method for detecting the impact of anthropogenic activities on the surface area of a lagoon such as Manzala Lake. The techniques used in this study include unsupervised classification, Mahalanobis distance supervised classification, minimum distance supervised classification, maximum likelihood supervised classification, and normalized difference water index. Data extracted from satellite images are used to predict the future temporal change in each class, using a statistical regression model and considering calibration, validation, and prediction phases. It was found that the maximum likelihood classification technique has the highest overall accuracy of 93.33%. This technique is selected to observe the changes in the surface area of the lake for the period from 1984 to 2015. Study results show that the waterbody surface area of the lake declined by 46% and the area of floating vegetation, islands, and land agriculture increased by 153.52, 42.86, and 42.35% respectively during the study period. Linear regression model prediction indicates that the waterbody surface area of the lake will decrease by 25.24% during the period from 2015 to 2030, which reflects the negative impact of human activities on lake sustainability represented by a severe reduction of the waterbody area.