Tea acreage estimation and condition assessment using satellite data in nilgiri district,tamilnadu

In the present study an attempt has been made to estimate acreage and condition of tea plantations by using satellite based digital remotely sensed data in visible, near infra-red and middle infra-red spectral regions, in the Nilgiri district of Tamilnadu state. Landsat MSS and TM data, acquired on Dec. 26, 1990 were used in the analysis, Different spectral band combinations, Landsat MSS (1234), TM (1234), TM (2345) and TM (123457) were used for identification of tea plantations. District-boundary-overlaying approach with complete enumeration of digital data was used for estimation of tea acreages. Condition assessment of tea plantations is based on the Greenness Index. Use of Landsat MSS data resulted in an underestimation of area under tea whereas the acreages estimated by using TM spectral band combinations 1234 and 2345 compared closely with the estimates of Department of Horticulture (DOH). The distribution pattern of various condition classes of tea plantations compared well with the prevailing ground conditions as observed during post-classification field survey in September 1992 in the district.     

Characteristics of cloud drop spectra in tropical warm clouds

Characteristics of cloud drop spectra were studied using 400 samples obtained from 120 warm cumulus clouds formed during the summer monsoon season.The total concentration of cloud drops (N _T) varied from 384 to 884 cm^–3 and the maximum concentration was observed in the layer below the cloud-top. The width of the drop spectrum was broader in the cloud-base region and in the region below the cloud-top. The spectrum was multimodal at all levels except in the cloud-top region where it was unimodal. The concentration of drops with diameter greater than 50 m (N _L) varied from 0.0 to 0.674 cm^–3.N _L was larger in the cloud-base region.N _L decreased with height up to the middle level and thereafter showed an increase. In the cloud-top region no large drops were present. The computed values of the liquid water varied between 0.132 and 0.536 g m^–3 and the mean volume diameter (MVD) varied between 8.1 and 12.0 m. The LWC and MVD showed a decrease with height except in the middle region of the cloud where the values were higher than the adjacent levels. The dispersion of the cloud drops was lower (0.65) in the cloud-top region and higher (1.01) in the cloud-base region.The observed cloud microphysical characteristics were attributed to vertical mixing in clouds induced by the cloud-top gravity oscillations (buoyancy oscillations) generated by the intensification of turbulent eddies due to the buoyant production of energy by the microscale-fractional-condensation (MFC) in turbulent eddies.     

Early Triassic palynomorphs from Kuraloi Block,Belphar area,Ib-River coalfield,Mahanadi basin,Odisha

A rich assemblage of palynomorphs including miospores and megaspores has been recorded from the bore core no. IBKAN-2 drilled at a depth of 17.80m in Kuraloi Block-A, south-west part of the Ib-River Coalfield, Jharsuguda district, Odisha. The miofloral assemblage recovered shows prominence of cingulate, zonate, taeniate, non-striate and non saccate palynotaxa which indicate an early Triassic age and is comparable with the palynoassemblages of the same age known from the Damodar basin, India. The megaspore assemblage includes eight genera and fifteen species namely, Banksisporites karanpuraensis, B. indicus, B. utkalensis, Banksisporites sp., Barakarella pantii, Barakarella sp., Biharisporites spinosus, Biharisporites sp., Erlansonisporites triassicus, Erlansonisporites cf. erlansonii, Erlansonisporites sp. Jhariatriletes sp., Singhisporites sp., Ramispinatispora sp. and Talchirella trivedii. Records of megaspores are sparse in the early Triassic of Gondwana basins of India. The present study records the first occurrence of miospores and megaspores from the early Triassic of Mahanadi basin besides substantiating the earlier data.     

Fatigue reliability analysis in time domain for inspection strategy of fixed offshore structures

The paper describes a methodology for estimation of reliability of fixed offshore structures with respect to fatigue and extreme stress. The failure criteria for fatigue are formulated using fracture mechanics principle and that for extreme stress using API Code. Advanced Second Moment method is used to find the reliability index. The total life of the structure is divided into a set of stationary sea-states, occurring during storms and described by directional power spectrum. The method has been illustrated through application to a typical jacket platform. Usefulness of the methodology for planning in-service inspections has been highlighted.     

Biology, fishery, conservation and management of Indian Ocean tuna fisheries

The focus of the study is to explore the recent trend of the world tuna fishery with special reference to the Indian Ocean tuna fisheries and its conservation and sustainable management. In the Indian Ocean, tuna catches have increased rapidly from about 179959 t in 1980 to about 832246 t in 1995. They have continued to increase up to 2005; the catch that year was 1201465 t, forming about 26% of the world catch. Since 2006 onwards there has been a decline in the volume of catches and in 2008 the catch was only 913625 t. The Principal species caught in the Indian Ocean are skipjack and yellowfin. Western Indian Ocean contributed 78.2% and eastern Indian Ocean 21.8% of the total tuna production from the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean stock is currently overfished and IOTC has made some recommendations for management regulations aimed at sustaining the tuna stock. Fishing operations can cause ecological impacts of different types: by catches, damage of the habitat, mortalities caused by lost or discarded gear, pollution, generation of marine debris, etc. Periodic reassessment of the tuna potential is also required with adequate inputs from exploratory surveys as well as commercial landings and this may prevent any unsustainable trends in the development of the tuna fishing industry in the Indian Ocean.     

Undrained Triaxial Behavior of Cement Treated Marine Clay

Clays treated with lower cement contents often exhibit behaviour similar to stiff clays with planar failure surface under triaxial compression. In the present work the behaviour of a marine clay treated with 5 % cement, subjected to undrained triaxial compression tests is studied. The pre-consolidation pressure of the cemented clay due to the cementation bonding is observed to be very high. It is attempted to model the behaviour of cement treated clay using a bounding surface plasticity formulation as the plastic behaviour of the cemented clays within the yield surface has to be considered. The effect of cementation is included in the model as the pre-consolidation pressure obtained from consolidation tests. The tensile strength due to cementation bonds is included in the equation of the bounding surface. Simulations of the undrained triaxial compression tests on cemented clays are carried out and the results are validated with the experimental results.     

Validation of Indian National DEM from Cartosat-1 Data

CartoDEM is an Indian National DEM generated from Cartosat-1 stereo data. Cartosat-1, launched in May, 2005, is an along track (aft ?5°, Fore +26°) stereo with 2.5 m GSD, give base-height ratio of 0.63 with 27 km swath. The operational procedure of DEM generation comprises stereo strip triangulation of 500?×?27 km segment with 10 m posting along with 2.5 m resolution ortho image and free—access posting of 30 m has been made available (bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in). A multi approach evaluation of CartoDEM comprising (a) absolute accuracy with respect to ground control points for two sites namely Jagatsinghpur -flat and Dharamshala- hilly; second site i.e. Alwar-plain and hilly with high resolution aerial DEM, (b) relative difference between SRTM and ASTERDEM (c) absolute accuracy with ICESat GLAS for two sites namely Jagatsinghpur-plain and Netravathi river, Western Ghats-hilly (d) relative comparison of drainage delineation with respect to ASTERDEM is reported here. The absolute height accuracy in flat terrain was 4.7 m with horizontal accuracy of 7.3 m, while in hilly terrain it was 7 m height with a horizontal accuracy of 14 m. While comparison with ICESat GLAS data absolute height difference of plain and hilly was 5.2 m and 7.9 m respectively. When compared to SRTM over Indian landmass, 90 % of pixels reported were within ±8 m difference. The drainage delineation shows better accuracy and clear demarcation of catchment ridgeline and more reliable flow-path prediction in comparison with ASTER. The results qualify Indian DEM for using it operationally which is equivalent and better than the other publicly available DEMs like SRTM and ASTERDEM.     

Field Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Surfactant Modified Zeolite and Iron-Oxide-Coated Sand for Removing Viruses and Bacteria from Ground Water

Field experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficiency of iron-oxide-coated sand (ICS) and surfactant modified zeolite (SMZ) to remove viruses and bacteria from ground water. The reactive media were employed as filter packs of a pumping well that withdrew sewage effluent from a constructed wetland at a rate of 0.72 L/min. The contact time of the pumped water with the filter pack (10 cm thick) was about two minutes. Upgradient of the pumping well, the sewage effluent was spiked with MS-2 bacteriophage and E. coli. While the employed ICS filter pack failed to remove viruses and bacteria to a significant degree, the SMZ filter pack removed more than 99% of the viruses and 100% of E. coli from the ground water while fresh. In an additional field experiment using the same configuration but leaving the filter pack in place for more than five months, the SMZ filter pack was still removing 100% of E. coli , but failed to reduce virus numbers to a significant degree.     

Some studies of the growth of monsoon disturbances

The structure of the monsoon depression and the observed flow features prior to and at the time of monsoon depression formation (composite of 15 depressions) are examined. The composite monsoon depression (transient eddy) has a scale of 25° longitude and extends up to 300 mb and has the greatest intensity at 700 mb. It shows north-north-east to south-south-west tilt in the lower levels indicating that it may draw upon zonal kinetic energy for its growth. The disturbance has lower temperatures to its west and tilts westwards with height indicating that eddy available potential energy is not converted from zonal available potential energy by large scale advection. There appears to be a reduction of vertical shear at the time of formation of monsoon depressions and this possibly aids cumulus convection. The profiles of potential vorticity indicate extremes (i) in the upper troposphere and (ii) at several midtropospheric levels in the region of the monsoon trough indicating the possibility of combined barotropic-baroclinic instability. Using multi-level quasi-geostrophic model and employing the eigen-value technique it is shown that the monsoon zonal current is notbaroclinically unstable. A barotropic stability analysis is also done for monsoon zonal current in the lower and middle tropospheres. It yields very slowly growing unstable modes at lower tropospheric levels with wave lengths of 2500 km and 5000 km.     

The effect of critical pH on virus fate and transport in saturated porous medium

Several viral transport experiments were conducted in a model aquifer 1 m long, using bacteriophages MS2 and phiX174 at various pH (4.6 to 8.3) conditions, to increase our understanding of virus behavior in ground water. The results indicate the existence of a critical pH at which the virus behavior changes abruptly. This is supported by data from field and batch experiments. The critical pH is determined to be 0.5 unit below the highest isoelectric point of the virus and porous medium. When water pH is below the critical pH, the virus has an opposite charge to at least one component of the porous medium, and is almost completely and irreversibly removed from the water. This suggests that electrostatic attraction at a subcritical water pH condition is an important factor controlling virus attenuation in ground water. The concept of critical pH can assist in the design of geologic barriers for preventing viral contamination in ground water.