Long term spatial and temporal rainfall trend analysis using GIS and statistical methods in Lower Bhavani basin, Tamil Nadu, India

419-427The present study aims to identify the long term spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall, using the methods from GIS and statistical tools, in Lower Bhavani basin. For this attempt, the spatial distribution of rainfall pattern was studied, by using 33 years of rainfall data (1983 – 2015), from 22 rain gauge stations. The rainfall pattern was interpolated by Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) method using Arc GIS 10.2.1 on the monthly, seasonal and annual basis. The mean annual rainfall of the region was 666.84 mm. The increasing monthly rainfall was reported in the month of October (164 mm) and decreasing rainfall was observed in the month of January (4.99 mm). The seasonal rainfall changes were prominent during the north east Monsoon season. From 1983 to 2015, 2010 witnessed the highest rainfall pattern in the area. The statistical analysis of Mann Kendall (MK) Test was used, to detect the monotonic increasing and decreasing trend over time, on a monthly basis. A significant level (α = 0.05) was used to detect the positive and negative trend that existed over the basin. To be precise, the positive trend existed during the October over 10 rain gauge stations and it was located on the upper northern part of the basin. The negative trend was observed, over six rain gauge stations in southern part of the basin, in the month of January. The result indicated that spatial distribution of rainfall and trend pattern ensured influences in the topography, agriculture productivity and groundwater management across the basin

Robustness of Predictive Performance of Arima Models Using Birth Rate of Tamilnadu

Birth Rate is one of the important measures in Vital Statistics. In Policy decision making, Birth rate of the state plays a major role and based on that Government makes decision for people welfare. Predicting births and birth rates are fundamental factors in predicting the future population of states. Time series models are one of the best methods for forecasting future values. In time series models, ARIMA models are the class of models which are used to predict the values which can be made the stationarity. In this study, the state TamilNadu birth rates from 1950-2019 has been considered to forecasts the birth rate of the state using Box-Jenkins methods. The ARIMA (5,1,1) models were found to have lower normalised Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and Akaike information criterion (AIC) values, making them more acceptable. The ARIMA (0,1,0) model was used to predict the birth rate for the next 30 years, and the results indicated that the birth rate will decline in succeeding years. In conclusion, co-efficient of robust ARIMA model compared with the classical ARIMA model and resulted the best ARIMA models to forecasts the birth rate of the state TamilNadu

Targeting groundwater potential zones using Electrical resistivity and GIS techniques in Kadavanar Sub-basin, South India

Geographical Information System techniques are widely used to determine suitable sites for groundwater recharge through artificial recharge techniques. The present research work is to identify suitable locations for constructing artificial recharge structures in the Kadavanar Sub-basin, South India. People in the Sub-basin mainly depend on the groundwater resources for drinking and irrigation purposes. Groundwater resources are often overexploited in many parts of this Sub-basin to meet the water demand leading to groundwater consumption. A lot of surfaces and sub-surface information and criteria are required for mapping the groundwater recharge zone. This is where the geographic information system [GIS] provides the right impetus besides the groundwater prospective zone to harness multilayered spatial data so that multi-criteria analysis is possible. This analysis integrates historic rainfall data analysis, groundwater level fluctuation, stream network, aquifer thickness, land use/land cover and basin slope. Drainage map, slope map and land use/land cover maps were prepared from satellite imageries. Vertical electrical sounding (VES) geophysical survey with Schlumberger electrode configuration was also conducted in the basin at 50 locations to map the aquifer thickness. Spatial variation maps for groundwater level and aquifer thickness were generated using GIS. Weighted aggregation method was used in this study to obtain groundwater recharge maps. Finally, multi-criteria analysis has been carried out to identify and assess the potential sites for groundwater recharge according to the associated weightages. It is established that GIS is best suited for the mapping of groundwater recharge zones. A similar study can be extended to any other hard-rock region facing water crises

Complex I assembly function and fatty acid oxidation enzyme activity of ACAD9 both contribute to disease severity in ACAD9 deficiency

Acyl-CoA dehydrogenase 9 (ACAD9) is an assembly factor for mitochondrial respiratory chain Complex I (CI), and ACAD9 mutations are recognized as a frequent cause of CI deficiency. ACAD9 also retains enzyme ACAD activity for long-chain fatty acids in vitro, but the biological relevance of this function remains controversial partly because of the tissue specificity of ACAD9 expression: high in liver and neurons and minimal in skin fibroblasts. In this study, we hypothesized that this enzymatic ACAD activity is required for full fatty acid oxidation capacity in cells expressing high levels of ACAD9 and that loss of this function is important in determining phenotype in ACAD9-deficient patients. First, we confirmed that HEK293 cells express ACAD9 abundantly. Then, we showed that ACAD9 knockout in HEK293 cells affected long-chain fatty acid oxidation along with Cl, both of which were rescued by wild type ACAD9. Further, we evaluated whether the loss of ACAD9 enzymatic fatty acid oxidation affects clinical severity in patients with ACAD9 mutations. The effects on ACAD activity of 16 ACAD9 mutations identified in 24 patients were evaluated using a prokaryotic expression system. We showed that there was a significant inverse correlation between residual enzyme ACAD activity and phenotypic severity of ACAD9-deficient patients. These results provide evidence that in cells where it is strongly expressed, ACAD9 plays a physiological role in fatty acid oxidation, which contributes to the severity of the phenotype in ACAD9-deficient patients. Accordingly, treatment of ACAD9 patients should aim at counteracting both CI and fatty acid oxidation dysfunction

Appraisal of subsurface hydrogeochemical processes in a geologically heterogeneous semi-arid region of south India based on mass transfer and fuzzy comprehensive modeling

The main aim of the present study was to examine the quality of the groundwater and decipher the sources of groundwater fluoride through mass balance modeling based on fluoride exposure in a geologically heterogeneous semi-arid region of southern India. This was achieved by hydrogeochemical analysis, graphical methods, and mass transfer modeling approaches. Fuzzy comprehensive technique was applied to evaluate the quality of groundwater for groundwater management. In this regard, 61 groundwater samples were obtained from open wells and bore wells and analyzed for different physicochemical parameters. The major cation and anion abundances follow the order Na+ > Ca2+ > Mg2+ > K(+)and Cl- > HCO3- > SO42- > NO3- > PO43-. About 88.4% and 34.4% of the total water samples were dominated with Na(+)and Cl(-)ions in this region, respectively. The fluoride level in groundwater ranged from 0.10 to 3.30 mg/l with a mean value of 1.04 mg/l. Nearly 25% of the groundwater samples collected from 15 villages showed fluoride concentrations exceeding the maximum permissible limit of 1.5 mg/l as per the World Health Organization recommendations for human intake. More than 85% of the samples fell under strong acid (Cl(-)and SO42-) type. The amount of groundwater salinization in this region was 70.5% since the Revelle index (RI) was excess in the groundwater samples (RI > 0.5 meq/l). Silicate weathering, cation exchange, and gypsum dissolution were the dominant geogenic processes in the aquifer system influencing groundwater chemistry and nullified the possibility of carbonate dissolution. Saturation indices revealed the contribution of sequestration of CaCO(3)in F(-)enrichment. Total dissolved solids showed strong positive correlations with Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl-, SO(4)(2-)and NO(3-)indicating the contribution of anthropogenic inputs to groundwater chemistry in addition to geogenic sources. The results of the fuzzy comprehensive method indicated that 33% of the groundwater samples fell under fair water type, 2% and 11% of the samples fell under poor and very poor quality water types, respectively. Therefore, this work will be helpful for the decision-makers to plan for the sustainable management of groundwater resources.Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India [ECR/2017/000132]The authors are grateful to the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India (File. No: ECR/2017/000132 dated. 18.07.2017), for releasing required funds to execute this research

Estimating groundwater inputs from Sankarabarani River Basin, South India to the Bay of Bengal evaluated by Radium (226Ra) and nutrient fluxes

Sankarabarani river basin gains significance due to presence of major industrial, agricultural, urban development and tourist related activities has influenced the water quality in the estuarine environment.  Investigations about river water quality has been attempted but not more studies focus about the evaluation of groundwater discharge a significant process that connects groundwater and the coastal seawater have been attempted.  For the present study, radium (226Ra) a naturally occurring isotope was measured at three locations and used as effective tracers for estimating the groundwater discharge along with nutrient inputs to the Bay. Groundwater samples representing north east monsoon (December, 2017) has been collected during tidal variation in three locations (Location A- away from the coast towards inland, Location B-intermediate between Location A and the coast and Location C-at the estuary). 226Ra mass balance calculated groundwater fluxes irrespective of tidal variations were 2.27×108 m3/d, 2.19×108 m3/d and 5.22×107m3/d for A, B and C locations respectively. The nutrients like Dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), Dissolved inorganic Phosphate (DIP) and Dissolved Silica (DSi) were found to be influencing the coastal groundwater by contributing fluxes to the sea of about 679.33 T mol/day. The study suggests increasing radium and nutrient fluxes to the Bay altering the coastal ecosystems would result in surplus algal blooms creating hypoxia

Groundwater prospecting in a part of Tamirabarani River basin, South India using Remote Sensing and GIS

1401-1408Integrated studies of multi-spectral remote sensing data, GIS and field investigations have been used in delineating groundwater potential zones in a part of Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, India. FCC image of IRS 1D LISS III data and Survey of India toposheets have been used to prepare various thematic maps viz., topography, drainage, geology, geomorphology, lineament, slope, land use map of the study area. The regional slope of the terrain is towards northeast. Groundwater in the area is phreatic conditions in weathered horizons and in alluvial formations. A groundwater potential zonation map has been generated by assigning proper weightages and ranks to various parameters. Flood plains and lineament intersections are possessing high groundwater potential. Pediments, however, possess moderate to poor groundwater potential. The potential map has been verified by ground checks