Ecological consideration of trace element contamination in sediment cores from Sundarban wetland,India

This article reports on the concentration of selected trace elements (Mn, Zn, Cr, Cu, Ba, As, B, V, and Hg) and major elements (Fe and Al) from the intertidal sediment cores from Sundarban wetland, India. This is a typical meso-macrotidal estuarine area affected by domestic and industrial activities located upstream. The overall concentrations range is low to moderate, indicating the environmental conditions in the outfall zone (grain size, hydrodynamic regime, and confinement), which favors the in situ accumulation of pollutants. The extent of contamination from trace elements in Sundarban core sediments is evaluated through a two-pronged approach: (i) by determining the metal enrichment in the sediments through the calculation of Pollution Load Index (PLI), Enrichment Factor (EF) and Index of Geoaccumulation (I _geo), and (ii) by defining a potential level of biological risk by the use of quality criteria such as Threshold Effect Level (TEL) and Effects Range-Low (ERL) benchmarks. On the basis of the calculated indices, sediments are particularly enriched with Cr, Cu, B, V, and As. Those enrichments seem to be due to the fine granulometry of the regions with Fe and Mn oxi-hydroxides being the main metal carriers. Trace Elements input to the Sundarban wetland need to be kept under strict control in future specially with reference to As since, according to TEL and ERL benchmarks, it already appears to be associated with a potential biological risk.     

An investigation on the relationship between solar irradiance signal from ERBS and 8B solar neutrino flux signals from SNO

In the present work an attempt has been made to investigate statistical association between solar neutrino flux data (both D₂O and Salt data) collected from Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and solar irradiance data detected by Earth Radiation Budget Satellite. To serve the present purpose we have used the Multifractal Detrended Cross Correlation Analysis (MF-DCCA) based on Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (MF-X-DFA) method and the Detrending Moving Average Analysis (MF-X-DMA) which explores the long term power-law cross correlations between above two pairs of data sets. Investigation also has been made to find the frequency and time dependent local phase relationship in each pair of data sets using continuous wavelet transform (CWT) based Semblance Analysis. The Semblance Analysis reveals that there exists positive phase correlation as well as negative phase correlation between solar irradiance and D₂O data at different time sub-intervals. This type of mixed phase correlation is also experienced between solar irradiance and Salt data at different time sub-intervals. The causal relationship between the D₂O and the solar irradiance time series and that between Salt and solar irradiance time series have been revealed using Singular Spectral Analysis (SSA). Calculations indicate that possibly the present solar neutrino flux data (both D₂O and Salt data) is supportive to predict the solar irradiance data but may not the vice versa which in turn suggests that the variability of nuclear energy generation process inside the Sun may influence the solar activity.     

Usefulness of adaptive filtering for improved Digital Elevation Model generation

The Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), which represent the variation of elevation in a terrain at spatial level, are an important source of input to a variety of applications for deriving a number of terrain parameters such as relative relief, slope, aspect direction etc. In recent years, Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry has been viewed as a powerful approach to derive quality DEMs from a pair of SAR images. Despite the interferometric technique is often limited by several de-correlations several researchers demonstrate its effectiveness in topographic mapping. The DEM accuracy is strongly influenced by the effectiveness of the phase unwrapping technique. In this study an effective adaptive filtering approach has been used to reduce the phase noise due to de-correlation and in improving the accuracy of phase unwrapping. Two well known phase unwrapping approaches such as branch cut and minimum cost flow network have been used. Interferometric data from ASAR sensor onboard ENVISAT satellite have been used. A highly undulated terrain condition near Dehradun city situated in Uttarakhand state of India was selected to investigate the performance of this adaptive filtering approach. The RMS error between the InSAR derived elevations and the map derived elevations was obtained as 7.2 m using adaptive filter. However, elevation map of the study area could not be generated due to high de-correlation effect without the use of adaptive filter. This result clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of adaptive filtering approach for generation of DEM at meter level accuracy, which is sufficient for many engineering applications.     

Groundwater arsenic contamination in Ganga–Meghna–Brahmaputra plain, its health effects and an approach for mitigation

The authors’ survey of the Ganga–Meghna–Brahmaputra (GMB) plain (area 569,749 km²; population >500 million) over the past 20 years and analysis of more than 220,000 hand tube-well water samples revealed groundwater arsenic contamination in the floodplains of the Ganga–Brahmaputra river (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Assam) in India and the Padma–Meghna–Brahmaputra river in Bangladesh. On average, 50 % of the water samples contain arsenic above the World Health Organization guideline value of 10 μg/L in India and Bangladesh. More than 100 million people in the GMB plain are potentially at risk. The authors’ medical team screened around 155,000 people from the affected villages and registered 16,000 patients with different types of arsenical skin lesions. Arsenic neuropathy and adverse pregnancy outcomes have been recorded. Infants and children drinking arsenic-contaminated water are believed to be at high risk. About 45,000 biological samples analyzed from arsenic-affected villages of the GMB plain revealed an elevated level of arsenic present in patients as well as non-patients, indicating that many are sub-clinically affected. In West Bengal and Bangladesh, there are huge surface water in rivers, wetlands, and flooded river basins. In the arsenic-affected GMB plain, the crisis is not over water scarcity but about managing the available water resources.     

Distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in recent sediments of Sundarban mangrove wetland of India and Bangladesh: a comparative approach

The present work is the first attempt to compare the data of a comprehensive study of the origin and distribution of 16 priority pollutant polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in surface sediments (<63 μm) from 18 sampling stations, 9 from Sundarban of Bangladesh and 9 from Indian counterpart. Σ19PAHs concentration in sediments showed wide variations from 208.3 to 12,993.1 ng g^?1 dry weight in Indian Sundarban, whereas 208.4 to 4,687.9 ng g^?1 in the case of Bangladesh. Fluoranthene, pyrene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, benzo(a)pyrene and dibenzo(a,h)anthracene were predominant species for both the countries. The PAH diagnostic ratios indicated that the PAHs in sediments from both the countries were of mixed source of hydrocarbons of both petrogenic and pyrolytic origin. According to the numerical effect-based sediment quality guidelines, the levels of PAHs in the Sundarban wetland of Bangladesh and India should not exert adverse biological effects. The TEQ values calculated for samples from the Bangladesh and Indian Sundarban varied from 13.68 to 1,014.75 and 1.31 to 2,451 ng g^?1 d.w. with an average of 221.02 and 358.63 ng g^?1, respectively. The overall contamination status of PAH was higher in India than Bangladesh.     

Generation of emissivity and land surface temperature maps using MODIS TIR data for lithological mapping over the Singhbhum-Orissa Craton

The present study was undertaken with four fold objectives, namely, (i) to estimate land surface temperature using MODIS TIR data; (ii) to calculate relative emissivities from MODIS TIR data; (iii) to identify various lithologies based on relative emissivity and land surface temperature estimation; and finally, (iv) to carry out comparative assessment analysis between the prepared lithological map and the published lithological map. The land surface temperatures for different pixels were estimated using two methods, viz., Reference Channel and Emissivity Normalization; whereas, relative emissivities were calculated by applying three methods, viz., Reference Channel, Emissivity Normalization and Alpha Residual. Lithological maps were subsequently prepared based on the estimated land surface temperatures and relative emissivity values. The present study shows that the Emissivity Normalization method gives the best results for land surface temperature estimation and also for lithological discrimination based on emissivity estimation. Twenty-four lithounits demarcated by the present study match with those of the published map, while four lithounits of the published map could not be identified in the present study. On the other hand, six additional unclassified lithounits could be demarcated in the present study, which need to be crosschecked by field study.     

Site-specific earthquake response study for hazard assessment in Kolkata city,India

The assessment of local site effects on seismic ground motions is of great importance in earthquake engineering practice. Several destructive earthquakes in the past have demonstrated that the amplification of ground motion and associated damage to structures due to local site conditions is a significant consideration in earthquake hazard analysis. A recent paper published in this journal highlights the hazard posed by earthquakes in the megacity of Kolkata in India due to its seismic and geological settings. The seismic hazard assessment study speculates that the deep alluvial deposit in the city may increase the seismic hazard probably due to the amplification of the seismic energies. This paper focuses on the seismic response studies of the various soil strata (i.e. for local subsurface conditions) obtained from various construction sites in the city for predicted earthquake. It is very well recognized that site response studies (a part of seismic microhazard zonation for urban areas) are the first step towards performance-based foundation design or seismic risk analysis and mitigation strategy. One of the problems for carrying out site-specific study in Kolkata is the lack of recorded strong motion data in the city. Hence, this paper outlines a methodology to carry out site-specific study, where no strong motion data or seismic data are available. The methodology uses wavelet-based spectrum compatibility approach to generate synthetic earthquake motions and equivalent linear method for seismic site response analysis. The Mega City of Kolkata has been considered to explain the methodology. Seismic hazard zonation map by the Bureau of Indian Standards classifies the City of Kolkata as moderate seismic zone (Zone III) with a zone factor 0.16. On the other hand, GSHAP(Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program) map which is based on 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years specifies a maximum peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 1.6 m/s² (0.163 g) for this region. In the present study, the seismic response has been carried out based on GSHAP. The results of the analysis indicate the amplification of ground motion in the range of 4.46–4.82 with the fundamental period ranging from 0.81 to 1.17 s. Furthermore, the maximum spectral accelerations vary in the range of 0.78–0.95 g.     

Surface displacement estimation along Himalayan frontal fault using differential SAR interferometry

The Himalayan region has been studied extensively during the past few decades in terms of present ongoing deformations. Various models have been proposed for the evolution of the Himalaya to explain the cause of earthquake occurrences and to understand the seismotectonics of the Himalayan collision zone. However, the information on displacements from field geodetic surveys is still too scarce in time and spatial domains so as to provide convincing evidences. Moreover, classical Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Approaches also fail due to paucity of data in higher magnitude range, thus emphasizing the need of spatial level displacement measurements. It is in this context that the present study has been carried out to estimate the surface displacement in a seismically active region of the Himalaya between Ganga and Yamuna Tear using Differential SAR interferometry. Three single-look complex images, obtained from ASAR sensor onboard ENVISAT satellite, have been used. A displacement rate of 8?C10?mm per year in N15°E direction of Indian plate has been obtained in this three-pass SAR interferometry study. It has been noted that the estimated convergence rate using Differential SAR interferometry technique is relatively low in comparison with those obtained from previous classical studies. The reported low convergence rate may be due to occurrence of silent/quite earthquakes, aseismic slip, differential movement of Delhi Hardwar ridge, etc. Therefore, in view of the contemporary seismicity and conspicuous displacements, a study of long-term observations of this surface movement has been recommended in future through a time-series SAR interferometry analysis.     

Horizontal Pullout Capacity of a Group of Two Vertical Strip Anchors Plates Embedded in Sand

The horizontal pullout capacity of a group of two vertical strip anchor plates placed along the same vertical plane in sand, has been determined by using the lower bound finite element limit analysis. The effect of vertical spacing (S) between the anchor plates on the magnitude of the total group horizontal failure load (P_uT) has been determined for different combinations of H/B, δ/ϕ and ϕ. The magnitude of P_uT has been obtained in terms of a group efficiency factor, η_γ, with respect to the failure load for a single vertical plate with the same H/B. The magnitude of η_γ becomes maximum corresponding to a certain critical S/B, which has been found to lie between 0.5 and 0.8. The value of η_γ for a given S/B has been found to become larger for greater values of H/B, ϕ, and δ.     

Geochemical characteristics of the mud volcano fluids in southwestern Taiwan and their possible linkage to elevated arsenic concentration in Chianan plain groundwater

Fluid and mud samples were collected from Wushanting (WST), Hsiaokunshui (HKS), Yenshuikeng (YSK), Kuantzeling (KZL), and Kunshuiping (KSP) mud volcanoes of southwestern Taiwan. Concentrations of major ions and trace elements in mud volcanic fluids were analyzed to find the possible linkage to elevated arsenic (As) concentrations in the Chianan plain groundwater. The elevated Na⁺, K⁺, and Cl⁻ concentrations indicated possible marine origin of the fluids. The trace element concentrations in the mud volcanic fluids were generally low, but the As concentrations were up to 0.12 mg/L. High contents of As, Fe, and Mn were observed in the mud samples. Saturation index calculations indicated that both carbonate and oxide minerals acted as potential sinks for As in the mud volcanic fluids. Arsenic in the dewatering fluids and muds may be transported by the subsurface flow and surface streams as suspended solids and eventually deposited in the Chianan plain aquifers. Under reducing conditions, As may be released from the host minerals (such as Fe- and Mn-oxides/hydroxides), thereby causing widespread groundwater As pollution.