Climate action for food security in South Asia? Analyzing the role of agriculture in nationally determined contributions to the Paris agreement

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement propose a country’s contribution to global mitigation efforts and domestic adaptation initiatives. This paper provides a systematic analysis of NDCs submitted by South Asian nations, in order to assess how far their commitments might deliver meaningful contributions to the global 2°C target and to sustainable broad-based adaptation benefits. Though agriculture-related emissions are prominent in emission profiles of South Asian countries, their emission reduction commitments are less likely to include agriculture, partly because of a concern over food security. We find that income-enhancing mitigation technologies that do not jeopardize food security may significantly augment the region’s mitigation potential. In the case of adaptation, analysis shows that the greatest effort will be directed towards protecting the cornerstones of the ‘green revolution’ for ensuring food security. Development of efficient and climate-resilient agricultural value chains and integrated farming bodies will be important to ensuring adaptation investment. Potentially useful models of landscape level climate resilience actions and ecosystem-based adaptation are also presented, along with estimates of the aggregate costs of agricultural adaptation. Countries in the region propose different mixes of domestic and foreign, and public and private, adaptation finance to meet the substantial gaps.

Key policy insights

• Though substantial potential for mitigation of agricultural emissions exists in South Asia, governments in the region do not commit to agricultural emissions reductions in their NDCs.

• Large-scale adoption of income-enhancing technologies is the key to realizing agricultural mitigation potential in South Asia, whilst maintaining food security.

• Increasing resilience and profitability through structural changes, value chain interventions, and landscape-level actions may provide strong options to build adaptive capacity and enhance food security.

• Both private finance (autonomous adaptation) and international financial transfers will be required to close the substantial adaptation finance gap

     

Geochemical implications of minerals and environmentally sensitive elements of Giral lignite,Barmer Basin,Rajasthan (India)

The Barmer Basin of Rajasthan is significant for its Paleogene lignite sequences. The lignite seam occurs in Akli Formation of Barmer Basin at the depth of 06–241 m. A total of 57 lignite samples were collected from the working faces of lignite mine and were subjected to proximate analysis (moisture, ash yield, volatile matter, and fixed carbon), ultimate analysis (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur), elemental analysis (Fe, Ca, Mg, Cd, Mn, K, Na, Cu, Co, Ni, Cr, Zn, and Pb) and rock-eval pyrolysis for mineral carbon (MINC). Some elements like Cu, Cd, Co, Ni, Zn, Pb, Na, and K occur in high concentration, while Mg and Ca have their concentrations lower than World Clarke average. In addition, various minerals and functional groups present in the lignite samples were analyzed through X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The mineral (weight and atomic) percentage has also been analyzed through scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM–EDS).     

Simulation of peri-urban growth dynamics using weights of evidence approach

The study aims to simulate the peri-urban growth dynamics in a growing region of India using Weights of Evidence (WOE) based cellular automata model. The growth process was expressed as a function of four causative variables corresponding to which seven data layers were generated in a Geographic Information Systems environment. The model was calibrated for the period 2000–2005 using Kappa indices and fuzzy set theory based two way comparison method. The Kappa value was 0.7, while the value of K_location and K_histo were 0.81 and 0.93, respectively. The fuzzy similarity values increased for small to large neighbourhood sizes which showed that the model was able to simulate the contiguous and dense growth. However, for dispersed and isolated growth the model showed less accuracy. The model was validated for period 2005–2010 and revealed a Kappa value of 0.88, while value of K_location and K_histo were 0.91 and 0.96, respectively.     

Assessment of temporal dynamics of snow cover and its validation with hydro-meteorological data in parts of Chenab Basin,western Himalayas

The present investigation was conducted to analyze the temporal patterns of snow cover area%(SCA%), air temperature, snowfall and river discharge in parts of Chenab basin, western Himalayas. The relationship of mean SCA% with mean air temperature and river discharge was also tested using Pearson's product-moment correlation at 95% confidence limit and further sensitivity analysis of river discharge to SCA and SCA to air temperature was performed. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS) 8-day surface reflectance product MOD09A1 was used to delineate SCA during the period 2000–2013. Moreover, variation in the lowest elevation from where snow cover area starts(LESCA) was also analyzed and its relationship with mean air temperature was also studied. Non-parametric method, Mann-Kendall test was employed to determine the trend in the SCA%, air temperature, snowfall and river discharge. The investigation carried out for three meteorological stations i.e. Batote, Reasi and Tandi revealed significant findings. At Batote and Reasi, statistically significant decreasing trends were observed over the period 2000 to 2012, for maximum, minimum and mean air temperature. Mean minimum SCA% exhibited a significant upward trend during 2000–2013 which is corroborated by the significantly increasing trend of mean annual snowfall(Tandi station) from 2000 to 2010. Further, significant decreasing trend of river discharge for the winter season at Batote station from 2000 to 2011 and decreasing trends in the maximum, minimum and mean air temperature at Batote and Reasi stations are also consistent with the increasing trend of SCA%. At both Batote and Reasi stations, mean SCA% exhibited significant negative relationship with the mean air temperature. On the other hand, LESCA exhibited positive correlation with the mean air temperature except in a few months, where negative relationship was seen. Sensitivity analysis of river discharge to SCA exhibited very low values of sensitivity coefficient in most of the months, indicating less sensitivity of river discharge to SCA. On the other hand, sensitivity coefficient of SCA to air temperature exhibited comparatively higher values which indicate SCA is more sensitive to air temperature.     

The major lightning regions and associated casualties over India

Natural Hazards - Lightning, a climate-related highly localized natural phenomenon, claims lives and damage properties. These losses could only be reduced by the identification of active seasons...     

Early Miocene shell concentration in the mixed carbonate-siliciclastic system of Kutch and their distribution in sequence stratigraphic framework

The Early Miocene succession of Kutch represents a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic depositional system. The carbonate part of the succession, characterized by high abundance of shallow marine benthic fauna, hosts typical shell concentrations (also referred as shell beds). The thickness of shell concentrations vary in scale from 5 cm to 100 cm and are separated by poorly fossiliferous to barren silty shales/siltstones. Based on taphonomic and sedimentological observations, shell concentrations are classified as lag, event, composite/multi-event and hiatal types. The occurrence of different types of shell concentrations in the background of sequence stratigraphic framework is the main theme for the present study. Overall, the shell concentrations occupy the middle part of the sequence i.e. upper part of the transgressive systems tract and lower part of the highstand systems tract. Lag concentrations are found in the lower part of the sequence while composite concentrations, the major contributors in the sequence, occur in upper part of the transgressive systems tract and in the lower part of the highstand systems tract. The hiatal concentrations are associated with maximum flooding surface while the position of event concentrations is independent of sequence stratigraphic framework. The shell concentrations occupy marine flooding surface or marine ravinement surface, thus mark parasequence boundaries.     

Deriving Crop Phenology Metrics and Their Trends Using Times Series NOAA-AVHRR NDVI Data

In this study, an attempt has been made to derive the spatial patterns of temporal trends in phenology metrics and productivity of crops grown, at disaggregated level in Indo-Gangetic Plains of India (IGP), which are helpful in understanding the impact of climatic, ecological and socio-economic drivers. The NOAA-AVHRR NDVI PAL dataset from 1981 to 2001 was stacked as per the crop year and subjected to Savitzky-Golay filtering. For crop pixels, maximum and minimum values of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), their time of occurrence and total duration of kharif (June-October) and rabi (November–April) crop seasons were derived for each crop year and later subjected to pixel-wise regression with time to derive the rate and direction of change. The maximum NDVI value showed increasing trends across IGP during both kharif and rabi seasons indicating a general increase in productivity of crops. The trends in time of occurrence of peak NDVI during kharif dominated with rice showed that the maximum vegetative growth stage was happening early with time during study period across most of Punjab, North Haryana, Parts of Central and East Uttar Pradesh and some parts of Bihar and West Bengal. Only central parts of Haryana showed a delay in occurrence of maximum vegetative stage with time. During rabi, no significant trends in occurrence of peak NDVI were observed in most of Punjab and Haryana except in South Punjab and North Haryana where early occurrence of peak NDVI with time was observed. Most parts of Central and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, North Bihar and West Bengal showed a delay in occurrence of peak NDVI with time. In general, the rice dominating system was showing an increase in duration with time in Punjab, Haryana, Western Uttar Pradesh, Central Uttar Pradesh and South Bihar whereas in some parts of North Bihar and West Bengal a decrease in the duration with time was also observed. During rabi season, except Punjab, the wheat dominating system was showing a decreasing trend in crop duration with time.     

Palaeochannel controlled Cretaceous sandstone-type uranium deposit of Lostoin area,Mahadek basin,Meghalaya

Sandstone–type uranium deposit hosted by reduced feldspathic sandstone sequence of lower part of Cretaceous Mahadek Formation occurs at Lostoin area of Mahadek basin and is confined within a prominent palaeochannel of NNE-SSW trend with flow towards SSW. The channel-fill comprises of about 10 m to 55 m grey to dark grey coloured, reduced, coarse to medium grained feldspathic sandstone along with abundant carbonaceous matter (5 to 15% by visual estimation) and is overlain by 5 m to 80 m of oxidized sub-feldspathic sandstone. Correlatable medium grade (～ 0.1% U₃O₈) uranium mineralization is intercepted in the boreholes aligned along the palaeochannel. Uraniferous solutions generated from the fertile provenance of south Khasi batholith flow through the channel and precipitated uranium at suitable reduction traps. Gentle slope of 2° to 3° of the basement channel facilitated prolonged interaction of uraniferous solution with reductants causing ore grade concentration. It has been envisaged that the control of palaeochannel and palaeobasement topography of the ore body would continue towards the SSW beyond Wahblei river.     

Effect of irregularity on torsional surface waves in an initially stressed anisotropic porous layer sandwiched between homogeneous and non-homogeneous half-space

The present paper is concerned with the propagation of torsional surface waves in an initially stressed anisotropic porous layer sandwiched between homogeneous and non-homogeneous half-space. We assume the quadratic inhomogeneity in rigidity and density in the lower half-space and irregularity is taken in the form of rectangle at the interface separating the layer from the lower half-space. The dispersion equation for torsional waves has been obtained in a closed form. Velocity equation is also obtained in the absence of irregularity. The study reveals that the presence of irregularity, initial stress, porosity, inhomogeneity and anisotropy factor in the dispersion equation approves the significant effect of these parameters in the propagation of torsional waves in porous medium. It has also been observed that for a uniform media, the velocity equation reduces to the classical result of Love wave.     

Rapid flash flood calamity in Chamoli,Uttarakhand region during Feb 2021: an analysis based on satellite data

Natural Hazards - The present study investigates the accelerating factors for extreme flash flood at Chamoli district of Uttarakhand on 7 February 2021. The Sentinel-2A and 2B satellite data have...