Implications of urban expansion on land use and land cover: towards sustainable development of Mega Manila,Philippines

GeoJournal - Planning of land use and infrastructure in advance for a population that is projected to grow rapidly is highly important for its sustainable development. A correlative approach of...     

An Analytical Solution for Predicting Transient Seepage into Partially Penetrating Ditch Drains Receiving Water from a Ponded Field

A transient analytical model is worked out for predicting seepage from a ponded field of infinite extent to a network of equally spaced ditch drains in a homogeneous and anisotropic soil underlain by an impervious barrier at a finite distance from the surface of the soil. The solution can account for finite width and finite level of water in the ditches, finite penetration of the drains in the soil, and also a variable ponding field at the surface of the soil. The study highlights the fact that the transient state duration of a partially penetrating ponded drainage scenario may be considerable should the drains be dug in a lowly conductive soil with a high storage coefficient, particularly if the underlying impervious layer lies at a large distance from the bottom of the ditches and the separation between the adjacent ditches is also large at the same time.     

Study of mechanical properties of Vindhayan shaly rocks at elevated temperature

Shale is an important rock due to its suitability for different engineering and scientific applications. Elevated temperature may cause major deformation or damage in shale rock and it may be of irreversible in nature. Such damage have adverse effect on the physicomechnical properties of shale rock. The uniaxial compressive strength and tensile strength of two shales (upper Vindhyan basin, India) have been estimated at elevated temperature using point load strength index method. The rock samples have been analyzed at various temperatures starting from room temperature to 900 °C. The effect of elevated temperature on the physicomechanical properties and their influence on the uniaxial compressive strength has been studied in detail. Damage induced, in both shale have been estimated using compressional wave velocity. The analysis of the experimental result shows that the uniaxial compressive strength decreases from 63.45 to 18.45 MPa and 60.94 to 22.22 MPa, for Jhiri and Ganurgarh shale respectively. Tensile strength of shales have been also estimated. The value of tensile strength decreases from 3.65 to 1.05 MPa and 3.46 to 1.26 MPa respectively for Jhiri and Ganurgarh shale. Multivariate regression analysis has been carried out to obtain the correlation between physicomechanical properties and uniaxial compressive strength of Jhiri and Ganurgarh shale.     

Groundwater arsenic contamination and its health effects in India

During a 28-year field survey in India (1988–2016), groundwater arsenic contamination and its health effects were registered in the states of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the Ganga River flood plain, and the states of Assam and Manipur in the flood plain of Brahamaputra and Imphal rivers. Groundwater of Rajnandgaon village in Chhattisgarh state, which is not in a flood plain, is also arsenic contaminated. More than 170,000 tubewell water samples from the affected states were analyzed and half of the samples had arsenic >10 μg/L (maximum concentration 3,700 μg/L). Chronic exposure to arsenic through drinking water causes various health problems, like dermal, neurological, reproductive and pregnancy effects, cardiovascular effects, diabetes mellitus, diseases of the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems, and cancers, typically involving the skin, lungs, liver, bladder, etc. About 4.5% of the 8,000 children from arsenic-affected villages of affected states were registered with mild to moderate arsenical skin lesions. In the preliminary survey, more than 10,000 patients were registered with different types of arsenic-related signs and symptoms, out of more than 100,000 people screened from affected states. Elevated levels of arsenic were also found in biological samples (urine, hair, nails) of the people living in affected states. The study reveals that the population who had severe arsenical skin lesions may suffer from multiple Bowens/cancers in the long term. Some unusual symptoms, such as burning sensation, skin itching and watering of eyes in the presence of sun light, were also noticed in arsenicosis patients.     

Hydraulics of a partially penetrating well with skin zone in a confined aquifer

A steady/quasi-steady model is developed for predicting flow into a partially penetrating well with skin zone in a confined aquifer overlying an impervious layer. The model takes into account flow through the bottom of the wellbore, finite skin thickness and finite horizontal and vertical extent of the aquifer. Moreover, the solution can be easily extended to include the mixed-type boundary condition at the well face, where a Dirichlet in the form of a specified hydraulic head and a Neumann in the form of zero flux coexist at the same time at different portions of the well face. The validity of the proposed solution is tested by comparing a few results obtained from the developed model with corresponding results obtained by analytical and numerical means. The study shows that, among other factors remaining constant, both the horizontal and vertical extent of an artesian aquifer, thickness of the skin zone, bottom flow and conductivity contrast of the skin and formation zones, play an important part in deciding flow to a well dug in the aquifer, and hence these factors must be considered while analyzing the problem. The model proposed here can be used to estimate skin thickness as well as hydraulic conductivities of the skin and formation zones of a well with skin zone in an artesian aquifer underlain by an impervious layer by utilizing pumping test data falling in the steady or quasi-steady state of a typical pumping test. As the proposed solution is of a general nature in the sense that it can handle, apart from partial penetration and bottom flow, the finite size skin zone and finite horizontal and vertical extent of an artesian aquifer together with the mixed-type boundary condition at the well face, it is hoped that the predictions coming out of the model will be more realistic than those obtained using solutions developed with more stringent assumptions.     

Dynamic flood topographies in the Terai region of Nepal

Flood hazard maps used to inform and build resilience in remote communities in the Terai region of southern Nepal are based on outdated and static digital elevation models (DEMs), which do not reflect dynamic river configuration or hydrology. Episodic changes in river course, sediment dynamics, and the distribution of flow down large bifurcation nodes can modify the extent of flooding in this region, but these processes are rarely considered in flood hazard assessment. Here, we develop a 2D hydrodynamic flood model of the Karnali River in the Terai region of west Nepal. A number of scenarios are tested examining different DEMs, variable bed elevations to simulate bed aggradation and incision, and updating bed elevations at a large bifurcation node to reflect field observations. By changing the age of the DEM used in the model, a 9.5% increase in inundation extent was observed for a 20-year flood discharge. Reducing horizontal DEM resolution alone resulted in a <1% change. Uniformly varying the bed elevation led to a 36% change in inundation extent. Finally, changes in bed elevation at the main bifurcation to reflect observed conditions resulted in the diversion of the majority of flow into the west branch, consistent with measured discharge ratios between the two branches, and a 32% change in inundation extent. Although the total flood inundation area was reduced (−4%), there was increased inundation along the west bank. Our results suggest that regular field measurements of bed elevation and updated DEMs following large sediment-generating events, and at topographically sensitive areas such as large river bifurcations, could help improve model inputs in future flood prediction models. This is particularly important following flood events carrying large sediment loads out of mountainous regions that could promote bed aggradation and channel switching across densely populated alluvial river systems and floodplains further downstream. © 2020 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd     

Image quality characterization of fine resolution RISAT-1 data using impulse response function

This study presents the results obtained from image quality assessment of Radar Imaging SATellite (RISAT-1). Image quality parameters such as spatial resolution, peak to sidelobe ratio (PSLR) and integrated sidelobe ratio (ISLR) are calculated by the analysis of impulse response function (IRF) of the point target. The study is carried out to assess temporal stability and consistency of image quality parameters obtained from analysis of IRF of 44 point targets. The results obtained from this study show that the mean values of the range and azimuth resolution are 2.048 ± 0.081 m and 3.383 ± 0.097 m for RH and 1.981 ± 0.081 m and 3.348 ± 0.076 m for RV, respectively. PSLR/ISLR values for RH channel are obtained as ?26.492 dB/?26.823 dB for azimuth and ?19.209 dB/?19.921 dB for the range. For RV channel, PSLR/ISLR values are ?26.300 dB/?27.572 dB for azimuth and ?19.146 dB/?19.827 dB for range.     

A global analysis of cities’ geosocial temporal signatures for points of interest hours of operation

ABSTRACT

The temporal nature of humans interaction with Points of Interest (POIs) in cities can differ depending on place type and regional location. Times when many people are likely to visit restaurants (place type) in Italy, may differ from times when many people are likely to visit restaurants in Lebanon (i.e. regional differences). Geosocial data are a powerful resource to model these temporal differences in cities, as traditional methods used to study cross-cultural differences do not scale to a global level. As cities continue to grow in population and economic development, research identifying the social and geophysical (e.g., climate) factors that influence city function remains important and incomplete. In this work, we take a quantitative approach, applying dynamic time warping and hierarchical clustering on temporal signatures to model geosocial temporal patterns for Retail and Restaurant Facebook POIs hours of operation for more than 100 cities in 90 countries around the world. Results show cities’ temporal patterns cluster to reflect the cultural region they represent. Furthermore, temporal patterns are influenced by a mix of social and geophysical factors. Trends in the data suggest social factors influence unique drops in temporal signatures, and geophysical factors influence when daily temporal patterns start and finish.     

Hyperspectral Satellite Data in Mapping Salt-Affected Soils Using Linear Spectral Unmixing Analysis

Development of salt-affected soils in the irrigated lands of arid and semi-arid region is major cause of land degradation. Hyperion hyperspectral remote sensing data (EO-1) was used in the present study for characterization and mapping of salt-affected soils in a part of irrigation command area of Indo-Gangetic alluvial plains. Linear spectral mixture analysis approach was used to map various categories of salt affected soils represented by spectral endmembers of slightly, moderately and highly salt-affected soils. These endmembers were related to surface expression of various categories of salt-affected soils in the area. The endmembers were selected by performing minimum noise fraction (MNF) transformation and pixel purity index (PPI) on Hyperion (EO-1) data with reference to high resolution LISS IV data and field data. The results showed that various severity classes of salt-affected soils could be reliably mapped using linear spectral unmixing analysis. A low RMSE value (0.0193) over the image was obtained that revealed a good fit of the model in identification and classification of endmembers of various severities of salt affected soils. The overall classification accuracies for slight, moderate and highly salt-affected soils were estimated of 78.57, 79.81 and 84.43% respectively.