Coral reef bleaching at Agatti Island of Lakshadweep atolls, India

A survey on coral bleaching was carried out at Agatti Island of Lakshadweep from May to June 2010.Elevated sea surface temperatures(SSTs)of the region exceeded the seasonal average and delayed the onset of monsoon,which triggered widespread bleaching of corals.The Agatti reefs showed an average of 73%bleached corals with apparent bleaching-related mortality of sea anemones(87%)and giant clams(83%).The SST increased up to 34℃with an average maximum SST of 32.5℃ during the study period between May and June 2010.Coral reefs on the southern side of the island are fully or partially exposed to sun light during low tide in contrast to the other side.This suggests that the mortality is more likely due to the low tide exposure than exclusively due to the elevated SST.Observations indicated a clear increase in coral bleaching during April 2010,at levels higher than that in normal summer.     

Spatio-temporal analysis for monitoring urban growth – a case study of Indore City

Urban sprawl is characterized by haphazard patchwork of development, which leads to an improper development in any city. To prevent this kind of sprawl in future, it is necessary to monitor the growth of the city. Hence, an attempt has been made in the present study to monitor the urban growth over a period of time by employing Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System techniques in conjunction with Shannon entropy. Shannon entropy is a measure to determine the compactness or dispersion of built-up land growth in the urban areas. The growth patterns of urban built-up land have been studied initially by dividing the area into four zones. The observations have been made with respect to each zone. Then, the study area has been divided into concentric circles of 1 km buffers and the growth patterns have been studied based on urban built-up density with respect to each circular buffer in all four zones. These observations have been integrated with road network to check the influence of infrastructure on haphazard urban growth. It has been found from the study that Shannon entropy is a good measure to determine the spatial concentration or dispersion of built-up land in the city. The study also proved the potential of RS and GIS techniques in the spatio-temporal analysis of urban growth trends and their consequences in the lands adjoining to urban areas.