Performance of general circulation models and their ensembles for the prediction of drought indices over India during summer monsoon

The drought during the months of June to September (JJAS) results in significant deficiency in the annual rainfall and affects the hydrological planning, disaster management, and the agriculture sector of India. Advance information on drought characteristics over the space may help in risk assessment over the country. This issue motivated the present study which deals with the prediction of drought during JJAS through standardized precipitation index (SPI) using nine general circulation models (GCM) product. Among these GCMs, three are the atmospheric and six are atmosphere–ocean coupled models. The performance of these GCM’s predicted SPI is examined against the observed SPI for the time period of 1982–2010. After a rigorous analysis, it can be concluded that the skill of prediction by GCM is not satisfactory, whereas the ability of the coupled models is better than the atmospheric models. An attempt has been made to improve the accuracy of predicted SPI using two different multi-model ensemble (MME) schemes, viz., arithmetic mean and weighted mean using singular value decomposition-based multiple linear regressions (SVD-MLR) of GCMs. It is found that among these MME techniques, SVD-MLR-based MME has more skill as compared to simple MME as well as individual GCMs.     

Groundwater flow and radionuclide decay-chain transport modelling around a proposed uranium tailings pond in India

Extensive hydrogeological investigations followed by three-dimensional groundwater flow and contaminant transport modelling were carried out around a proposed uranium tailings pond at Seripalli in Andhra Pradesh, India, to estimate its radiological impact. The hydrogeological parameters and measured groundwater level were used to model the groundwater flow and contaminant transport from the uranium tailings pond using a finite-element-based model. The simulated groundwater level compares reasonably with the observed groundwater level. Subsequently, the transport of long-lived radionuclides such as ²³⁸U, ²³⁴U, ²³⁰Th and ²²⁶Ra from the proposed tailings pond was modelled. The ingrowths of progenies were also considered in the modelling. It was observed that these radionuclides move very little from the tailings pond, even at the end of 10,000 y, due to their high distribution coefficients and low groundwater velocities. These concentrations were translated into committed effective dose rates at different distances in the vicinity of the uranium tailings pond. The results indicated that the highest effective dose rate to members of the public along the groundwater flow pathway is 2.5 times lower than the drinking water guideline of 0.1?mSv/y, even after a long time period of 10,000 y.     

Decentralization and the cultural politics of natural resource management in Kerala,India

The state of Kerala in India is known for its active civil society and the massive decentralization campaign launched in 1996. However marginalization of tribal communities hampers the state's decentralized environmental management strategies. The proposed construction of a dam along the Chalakkudy River will displace two colonies of the Kadar tribe in Chalakkudy and Athirapilly towns, destroy habitats of local wildlife and devastate unique riverine vegetation endemic to the region. This brings to light issues of social and environmental justice as well as a wider responsibility to protect and preserve unique flora and fauna. The state's decentralization strategies, as they relate to tribal communities, lack consideration of local power distribution and cultural conditioning. This raises questions about the state's role in social justice as well as biodiversity conservation. In 2010 and 2011, the author's interviews in Chalakkudy and Athirapilly towns reveal that tribal communities perceive that their place in society restricts their contribution regarding natural resource management and use. The paper suggests that unless the culture of planning and decision making in the state are changed, decentralized strategies will be ineffective, resulting in a predominately top‐down approach towards natural resource management, and will negate Kerala's goal of democratic decentralization.     

Geographic Information System and groundwater quality mapping in Panvel Basin,Maharashtra, India

Panvel Basin of Raigarh district, Maharashtra, India is the study area for groundwater quality mapping using the Geographic Information System (GIS). The study area is typically covered by Deccan basaltic rock types of Cretaceous to Eocene age. Though the basin receives heavy rainfall, it frequently faces water scarcity problems as well as water quality problems in some specific areas. Hence, a GIS based groundwater quality mapping has been carried out in the region with the help of data generated from chemical analysis of water samples collected from the basin. Groundwater samples show quality exceedence in terms of chloride, hardness, TDS and salinity. These parameters indicate the level of quality of groundwater for drinking and irrigation purposes. Idrisi 32 GIS software was used for generation of various thematic maps and for spatial analysis and integration to produce the final groundwater quality map. The groundwater quality map shows fragments pictorially representing groundwater zones that are desirable and undesirable for drinking and irrigation purposes.     

A comparative study of implicit and explicit initialization for a tropical barotropic model

The explicit nonlinear normal mode initialization (ENMI) scheme is applied to a tropical barotropic limited area shallow water model in spherical coordinates. The model is formulated by considering potential enstrophy conserving finite difference scheme. It is seen from the results of this study that the ENMI scheme is fully capable of filtering out the spurious gravity wave oscillations. The results are compared with those using an implicit nonlinear normal mode initialization (INMI). The latter scheme gives equally satisfactory results, requiring less computational time than the explicit scheme.     

Modified Weibull distribution for maximum and significant wave height simulation and prediction

Calibration coefficients incorporated in the modified Weibull distribution are more effective for maximum wave height simulation. The parametric relations are derived there from to estimate various wave height statistics including extreme wave heights. The characteristic function of the Weibull distribution is derived. The Weibull distribution is suggested for the newly defined significant wave height simulation by the method of characteristic function. The statistical tools suggested and developed here for predicting the required wave height statistics are validated against the wave data (both deep and shallow) of eastern Arabian Sea comprising rough monsoon conditions also, giving reasonable accuracy.     

Impact of freshwater influx on microzooplankton mediated food web in a tropical estuary (Cochin backwaters – India)

The diversity, abundance and biomass of microzooplankton in Cochin backwaters were studied for the first time during pre-summer monsoon to peak of summer monsoon (April–July 2003) to understand the impact of large freshwater influx. Microzooplankton abundance and biomass were highest during pre-summer monsoon (av. 3817 ind. L⁻¹ and 146 μg C L⁻¹) that declined with the onset (av. 2052 ind. L⁻¹ and 45 μg C L⁻¹) and peak (av. 409 ind. L⁻¹ and 10 μg C L⁻¹) summer monsoon. Species diversity, richness and evenness of microzooplankton also showed similar trends as that of abundance and biomass. Grazing experiment showed that microzooplankton consumes 43 ± 1% of the daily phytoplankton standing stock during the high saline condition (27.5). Low abundance of microzooplankton during summer monsoon period (1/8 of the pre-summer monsoon value) along with the concomitant occurrence of low mesozooplankton (1/8 times of pre-summer monsoon value) suggests that there could be a general lack of planktonic grazers. This would result in a weak transfer of primary and bacterial carbon to higher trophic levels, eventually leaving behind much unconsumed basic food in the estuary during summer monsoon. Thus a major portion of the primary carbon either settles down or gets transported to the coastal regions during monsoon. High flushing of Cochin backwaters also facilitates faster removal of primary producers to the coastal regions during monsoon.     

Impact of aerosols from the Asian Continent on the adjoining oceanic environments

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 630 nm wavelength over the oceanic regions adjoining the Asian Continent is examined using a seven-year long data base derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on board NOAA satellite to study the mean spatial and temporal variations as well as to understand the impact of aerosols advecting from the continent. Depending on the prevailing meteorological conditions and nature of synoptic circulation, the AOD over the oceanic region shows a systematic annual variation. This annual pattern inturn also shows an inter-annual variability because of the corresponding variations in the meteorological features over the continent as well as small-scale deviations in the nature of synoptic circulation. The annual variation over the oceanic regions also shows a pronounced spatial heterogeneity depending on the influence of continental aerosols. Making use of the wind speed dependence of sea-salt AOD at far-oceanic environments and monthly mean wind speeds at small grids of size 5° × 5°, the annual variation of sea-salt AOD at different locations is studied to understand the spatial heterogeneity of this component. The residual component obtained by subtracting this from the measured AOD is the non-oceanic component due to advection from continent. The source regions for major continental advections are delineated from the analysis of air-mass back trajectories at appropriate locations identified from the annual pattern of non-oceanic component. The long-term effect of the continental impact is examined from the mean trend of AOD over the three major oceanic regions. This study shows that the continental influence is most significant over the Arabian Sea, followed by the Bay of Bengal and is almost insignificant in most of the regions over the Southern Hemispheric Indian Ocean, except for the effect of smoke aerosols over a few locations near Indonesia and Madagascar.