Environmental impact assessment of wetland ecosystem in India

The World Wetlands Day is celebrated on February 2 every year. It marks the date of the signing of the convention on wetlands in 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. This day was celebrated for the first time in 1997 and made an encouraging beginning. Subsequent World Wetlands Days have been organized around such suggested themes such as the importance of water to life and of wetlands to the supply of water and, in 1999, on "people and Wetlands: the Vital Link". Each year, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of this opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular. The suggested theme for World Wetlands Day 2002 was 'Wetlands: Water, Life, and Culture'. Wetlands are a storehouse of cultural heritage which takes many forms, from human-made physical structures and artifacts, paleontological records in sediments and peat, and mythological significance and the intangible 'sense of place' felt by many for these wild and often mysterious sites and their wildlife (SACON,2002). Wetlands as defined by the Ramsar Convention (1971) are areas of marsh, fen, peat land or water whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt including areas of marine waters, the depth of which does not exceed six meters at low tide. Other equally relevant definitions of wetlands are as follows: Wetlands must therefore have one or more of the following attributes: • At least periodically the land predominantly supports hydrophytes • The substrate is predominantly untrained hydric soil • The/substrate is non-soil and saturated with water or covered by shallow water at some time during the growing season of each year. The present study will look in to the following objectives. 1. To map the full extent of the wetland, the available habitat, water Zonation/depth, and identify a manageable unit for conservation as core Zone. 2. To List out the plants and animals that are present in the marsh and prioritise for conservation evaluation (example: details of threat status, rarity and endemism)

A web GIS based study for managing mangroves of Krishna Delta, Andhra Pradesh, India

Mangroves are one among the most productive ecosystem which provide a wide range of services to the coastal people, which includes the provision of food and timber products and coastal defense services by reducing risk from coastal hazards. Several research found that mangrove forests have been degraded throughout the world since 80s onwards due to anthropogenic factors and India is no exception for the same. The current study was conducted in the Krishna’s wetland, which is located in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh (AP), South India, India. The Mangroves of Krishna is second largest mangrove ecosystem in AP, fifth in East coast, eighth in India and it is rich in biodiversity but highly vulnerable because of anthropogenic and natural factors which makes this study area very scared. Information on Krishna mangroves and their geospatial information are owned by different institutions to build this geospatial dataset as open to access everyone. The WebGIS is a latest advancement and hybrid of GIS and Internet technologies for the dissemination of the geospatial datasets and its variations through the web. The main objective of the current study is to develop and demonstrate a WebGIS using open source software and integrate geospatial datasets of the mangroves of Krishna into WebGIS platform and to analyse and assess areas that are degraded by influenced parameters and in need of sustainable management.The result revealed that the area of mangroves in Krishna was decreased from 2,454 ha in 1990 to 1,363 ha in 2000 to 1,339 ha in 2011. On the other hand the areas of mangroves in the Krishna delta were increased to about 678 ha from 1990 to 2000 and 2,230 ha from 2000 to 2011. It may be pointed out that the variation in mangrove covers in the study area due to land use conversion for different purposes and mangroves provides coastal defense services by reduce risk of coastal hazards. It is may be concluded that this WebGIS study is very useful and unique because it is sharing data through internet to everyone as it save money, time and data duplication, which are needed to different stakeholders such as researchers, decision makers, planners for the sustainable management of mangrove ecosystem

Water resource analysis of Minjur Block Thiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu using GIS and remotesensing

The study attempts to analyses the water resource availability and its condition in Minjur block. It studies about the water level and its quality of the study area, and examine the condition of water resource and its impact on local community. The region is facing problems related to water level and quality due to industrial pollution, Water scarcity in part of the district due to unfavorable hydro geological set up (Minjur Block). The area faces an alarming situation related to ground water and its level of availability. The study attempts to explore the need of water resources for agriculture and industrial of the region. The base map of Minjur block prepared from survey of India Toposheet on 1:250,000 scale. Temporal variation of water quality analysis will be using SPSS software. Rainfall data will be converted to spatially for annual rainfall using GIS Tool. Satellite imagery has been used for land use and land cover using remote sensing

A study on impact of municipal solid waste on groundwater in and around the dumping yard of Visakhapatnam, A.P, India

This study deals with physio-chemical characteristics of groundwater in the environs of dumping yard (GVMC), Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh. The dumping yard area is covering about 912 acres where study is carried out. Due to improper disposal of solid wastes, Hazard urbanization, industrialization leading to contamination of groundwater have been focused in this study. The improper and unscientific solid waste dumps in the unlined sewage drains drive pollutants into the groundwater regime which is an irrevocable loss and literally not possible to bring the quality of groundwater to its original state. The methodology of the project consists of field survey, collection of data. The primary data is compared with standard data (IS: 10500, 2012). 11 different groundwater samples were collected at kamalanagar colony, paradesipalem school premises, kothapalem village, kapuluppada MSW dumping yard ,thallavalsa (V), jayanthivani agraharam(V), Nedigattu(V), Chepalappada(V), Kannuru (V),Pedamusidivada(V), Tadi(V) which are around the dumping yard (Kapulauppada) during march 2016. The water samples are analyzed to identify the parameters of physical, chemical and trace metals on the basis of APHA standard methodology

CEPF Western Ghats Special Series Ecology, distribution and population status of <i>Elaeocarpus venustus</i> Bedd. (Oxalidales: Elaeocarpaceae), a threatened tree species from Agasthiyamalai Biosphere Reserve, southern Western Ghats, India

This paper deals with the ecology, population size, status of regeneration, habitat degradation and threat status of Elaeocarpus venustus Bedd. An endemic and threatened tree species restricted to Agasthiyamalai Biosphere Reserve, southern Western Ghats, India. The population sites of this species in the study area were recorded using Global Positioning System and mapped using Arc GIS software. The population of this species is highly fragmented due to anthropogenic activities. The total stem count in all population sites from the study area was carried out to understand the population structure. A total of 181 saplings were recorded from the entire study area of which 180 are from a single site. Nearly 64% of the stems recorded in this study are mature stems. Poor regeneration was seen in population sites that were highly disturbed. In spite of good adult population, the low number of saplings shows poor germination of seeds and establishment of seedlings

Study of urban sprawl for patna city using remote sensing &GIS

Urbanization is the movement of population from rural to urban areas and the resulting increasing proportion of a population that resides in urban rather than rural places. Urban sociology is the sociology of urban living of people in groups and social relationship in urban social circumstances and situation. Urbanization is a two way process because it involves not only movement from village to cities and change from agricultural occupation to business, trade, service and profession, but it also involves change in the migrants attitudes, beliefs, values and behavior patterns. The process of urbanization is rapid all over the world. The facilities like education, healthcare system, employment avenues, civic facilities and social welfare are reasons attracting people to urban areas. Due to the rapid course of urbanization, the haphazard growth of major cities is one of the challenging situations in front of any country. As unorganized urbanization is becoming the major problem, it requires the immediate solution for sustainable development of urban land. In the emerging scenario it is essential to have updated information on urban growth patterns and its impact on the living environment. The growth and development of cities are likely to continue and therefore there will be a need for proper planning and managing or improving the existing infrastructure facilities. In this juncture, the state of the art technologies Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) can play an imperative role. Patna metropolis is one such rapidly developing city in Bihar. This paper explores the study of Urbanization growth of Patna city using RS data and GIS. The present study focuses on the nature and pattern of urban expansion of Patna city over its surrounding region during the period from 1991 to 2008. Patna urban agglomeration area consists of eleven constituents. Subsequently, two sample towns from the respective zones were selected to study the pattern of urban expansion and there from identify the factor responsible for the urban sprawl of Patna city. The study has indicated that road and rail transport was solely responsible for the rapid urban development in the sample towns. In addition, GIS based analysis of the pattern of urban expansion over the demographic change and land use modifications has also indicated that urban growth of the Patna city has mainly taken place linearly along the major river Ganga in the study area