Landscape dynamics in Hokersar Wetland, Jammu & Kashmir—An application of geospatial approach

Geospatial presentation of habitat has become a key issue for planning conservation and management of any ecosystem. Hokersar wetland, one of the best resorts of migratory waterfowl in Kashmir, is under anthropogenic pressure and siltation due to floods. This has resulted in the degradation and change in the habitat quality of varied aquatic flora and fauna. Moreover, the seasonal changes affect the water level and land cover characteristics of the landscape. In the present study temporal mapping of the wetland has been carried out using the data sets for the autumn and spring seasons to assess the land cove/land use dynamics. The temporal change analysis, in the urban sprawl and the wetland, has been carried out to assess the rate of changes in the wetland and its environs. The wetland initially comprised of patch of marshy waterfowl habitat with some open water bodies. It has been fragmented into a large number of land uses because of anthropogenic activities. The increase in the settlement has been observed proportionate to the rate of fragmentation in the wetland. This study has created an information base, which will help to design conservation schemes for long term maintenance of the wetland.     

X-rays from cusps of compact remnants near galactic centres

Compact remnants – stellar mass black holes and neutron stars formed in the inner few parsec of galactic centres are predicted to sink into the central parsec due to dynamical friction on low-mass stars, forming a high concentration cusp. Same physical region may also contain very high-density molecular clouds and accretion discs that are needed to fuel supermassive black hole (SMBH) activity. Here we estimate gas capture rates on to the cusp of stellar remnants, and the resulting X-ray luminosity, as a function of the accretion disc mass. At low disc masses, most compact objects are too dim to be observable, whereas in the high disc case most of them are accreting at their Eddington rates. We find that for low accretion disc masses, compact remnant cusps may be more luminous than the central SMBHs. This 'diffuse' emission may be of importance for local moderately bright active galactic nuclei (AGNs), especially low-luminosity AGNs. We also briefly discuss how this expected emission can be used to put constraints on the black hole cusp near our Galactic Centre.     

Particulate matter dispersion and haze occurrence potential studies at a local palm oil mill

The emissions from palm oil industry through incineration and open burning are the major sources of air pollutions contribution in Malaysia. The consequence of increasing the particulate concentration, the particulate matter dissolves with vapour and grows into droplets when the humidity exceeds approximately 70% and causing opaque situation known as haze. This work focuses on the dispersion particulate matter from palm oil mill. Gaussian Plume Model from a point source, subject to various atmospheric conditions is used to calculate particulate matter concentration then display the distribution of plume dispersion using geographic information system. Atmospheric Stability, mixing height, wind direction, wind speed, natural and artificial features play an important role in dispersion process. Study on the dispersion of particulate matters and the haze potential are presented as a case study in this paper. The data obtained will be served as the purpose of modeling the transport of particulate matter for obtaining permits and prevention of significant deterioration to the environment.     

Potentially harmful metals,and health risk evaluation in groundwater of Mardan,Pakistan: Application of geostatistical approach and geographic information system

This study investigates the values of pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), elevation, oxidative reduction potential (ORP), temperature, and depth, while the concentrations of Br, and potentially harmful metals (PHMs) such as Cr, Ni, Cd, Mn, Cu, Pb, Co, Zn, and Fe in the groundwater samples. Moreover, geographic information system (GIS), XLSTAT, and IBM SPSS Statistics 20 software were used for spatial distribution modeling, principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA), and Quantile-Quantile (Q-Q) plotting to determine groundwater pollution sources, similarity index, and normal distribution reference line for the selected parameters. The mean values of pH, TDS, elevation, ORP, temperature, depth, and Br were 7.2, 322 mg/L, 364 m, 188 mV, 29.6 °C, 70 m, 0.20 mg/L, and PHMs like Cr, Ni, Cd, Mn, Cu, Pb, Co, Zn, and Fe were 0.38, 0.26, 0.08, 0.27, 0.36, 0.22, 0.04, 0.43 and 0.86 mg/L, respectively. PHMs including Cr (89%), Cd (43%), Mn (23%), Pb (79%), Co (20%), and Fe (91%) exceeded the guideline values set by the world health organization (WHO). The significant R² values of PCA for selected parameters were also determined (0.62, 0.67, 0.78, 0.73, 0.60, 0.87, ?0.50, 0.69, 0.70, 0.74, ?0.50, 0.70, 0.67, 0.79, 0.59, and ?0.55, respectively). PCA revealed three geochemical processes such as geogenic, anthropogenic, and reducing conditions. The mineral phases of Cd(OH)_2, Fe(OH)_3, FeOOH, Mn₃O_4, Fe₂O_3, MnOOH, Pb(OH)_2, Mn(OH)_2, MnO_2, and Zn(OH)₂ (?3.7, 3.75, 9.7, ?5.8, 8.9, ?3.6, 2.2, ?4.6, ?7.7, ?0.9, and 0.003, respectively) showed super-saturation and under-saturation conditions. Health risk assessment (HRA) values for PHMs were also calculated and the values of hazard quotient (HQ), and hazard indices (HI) for the entire study area were increased in the following order: Cd>Ni>Cu>Pb>Mn>Zn>Cr. Relatively higher HQ and HI values of Ni, Cd, Pb, and Cu were greater than one showing unsuitability of groundwater for domestic, agriculture, and drinking purposes. The long-term ingestion of groundwater could also cause severe health concerns such as kidney, brain dysfunction, liver, stomach problems, and even cancer.     

Trace elements in groundwater of Hindon-Yamuna interfluve region, Baghpat district, Western Uttar Pradesh

The present study was carried out in parts of Hindon-Yamuna interfluve region to evaluate the concentration of trace elements (Al, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Co, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Cd, B and Pb) in groundwater. Pre-monsoon groundwater samples were collected in 2007 from 22 locations distributed throughout the study area, and were analyzed using Inductive Coupled Plasma Mass-Spectrophotometer (ICPMS). Trace element analyses show high concentration levels for Al and Cr in almost all groundwater samples. Relatively high values are also reported for Pb, Se, Fe and Mn (as per B.I.S (1991) standard for drinking water) in few samples. These high concentrations of metal ions in groundwater were probably due to discharge of untreated effluents from Textile, dyeing and other industries. As far as Al is concerned, its source is rather enigmatic.     

Is shrinking groundwater resources leading to socioeconomic and environmental degradation in Central Ganga Plain,India?

In India, agriculture is a source of livelihood for over 64 % of the country's population. Indo-Gangetic Plains of North India support good cultivation and provides livelihood to several hundred million people. The climatic change studies have documented changes in precipitation pattern which can alter the flow pattern discharge to the reservoirs and availability of water for agriculture. The reduction in groundwater recharge through reduced rainfall and irregularity in surface water availability has increased dependence on groundwater resources causing its overexploitation. Consequently, pumping from deeper groundwater conditions need more energy and pump efficiency for abstraction which ultimately requires huge capital investment. Moreover, volatile fuel prices make the agricultural society vulnerable to economic losses. The repercussions of water level decline are likely to disseminate an additional economic burden to the groundwater user community. To cope with higher energy demands, increase in fuel consumption has led to environmental degradation through higher carbon emission. Thus, the groundwater depletion is likely to have far-reaching socioeconomic and environmental impacts which are not confined to the Central Gangetic Plain. In the present study, attempts have been made to analyze the effect of groundwater depletion as a commodity in the social framework of the region.     

Noether gauge symmetry approach in quintom cosmology

In literature usual point like symmetries of the Lagrangian have been introduced to study the symmetries and the structure of the fields. This kind of Noether symmetry is a subclass of a more general family of symmetries, called Noether gauge symmetries (NGS). Motivated by this mathematical tool, in this paper, we study the generalized Noether symmetry of quintom model of dark energy, which is a two component fluid model with quintessence and phantom scalar fields. Our model is a generalization of the Noether symmetries of a single and multiple components which have been investigated in detail before. We found the general form of the quintom potential in which the whole dynamical system has a point like symmetry. We investigated different possible solutions of the system for diverse family of gauge function. Specially, we discovered two family of potentials, one corresponds to a free quintessence (phantom) and the second is in the form of quadratic interaction between two components. These two families of potential functions are proposed from the symmetry point of view, but in the quintom models they are used as phenomenological models without clear mathematical justification. From integrability point of view, we found two forms of the scale factor: one is power law and second is de-Sitter. Some cosmological implications of the solutions have been investigated.     

Climate links and recent extremes in antarctic sea ice, high-latitude cyclones, Southern Annular Mode and ENSO

In this article, we study the climate link between the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and the southern sea-ice extent (SIE), and discuss the possible role of stationary waves and synoptic eddies in establishing this link. In doing so, we have used a combination of techniques involving spatial correlations of SIE, eddy streamfunction and wind anomalies, and statistics of high-latitude cyclone strength. It is suggested that stationary waves may be amplified by eddy anomalies associated with high latitude cyclones, resulting in more sea ice when the SAM is in its positive phase for most, but not all, longitudes. A similar association is observed during ENSO (La Ni?a years). Although this synergy in the SAM/ENSO response may partially reflect preferential areas for wave amplification around Antarctica, the short extent of the climate records does not allow for a definite causality connection to be established with SIE. Stronger polar cyclones are observed over the areas where the stationary waves are amplified. These deeper cyclones will break up and export ice equatorward more efficiently, but the near-coastal regions are cold enough to allow for a rapid re-freeze of the resulting ice break-up. We speculate that if global warming continues this same effect could help reverse the current (positive) Antarctic SIE trends once the ice gets thinner, similarly to what has been observed in the Northern Hemisphere.