Soil information system: use and potentials in humid and semi-arid tropics

The articles presented in this special section emanated from the researches of consortium members of the National Agricultural Innovative Project (NAIP, Component 4) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi. These researches have helped develop a soil information system (SIS). In view of the changing scenario all over the world, the need of the hour is to get assistance from a host of researchers specialized in soils, crops, geology, geography and information technology to make proper use of the datasets. Equipped with the essential knowledge of data storage and retrieval for management recommendations, these experts should be able to address the issues of land degradation, biodiversity, food security, climate change and ultimately arrive at an appropriate agricultural land-use planning. Moreover, as the natural resource information is an essential prerequisite for monitoring and predicting global environmental change with special reference to climate and land use options, the SIS needs to be a dynamic exercise to accommodate temporal datasets, so that subsequently it should result in the evolution of the soil information technology. The database developed through this NAIP would serve as an example of the usefulness of the Consortium and the research initiative of ICAR involving experts from different fields to find out the potentials of the soils of humid and semi-arid bioclimatic systems of the country

Georeferenced soil information system: assessment of database

Land-use planning is a decision-making process that facilitates the allocation of land to different uses that provide optimal and sustainable benefit. As land-use is shaped by society–nature interaction, in land-use planning different components/facets play a significant role involving soil, water, climate, animal (ruminant/ non-ruminant) and others, including forestry and the environment needed for survival of mankind. At times these components are moderated by human interference. Thus land-use planning being a dynamic phenomenon is not guided by a single factor, but by a complex system working simultaneously,which largely affects the sustainability. To address such issues a National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) on ‘Georeferenced soil information system for land-use planning and monitoring soil and land quality for agriculture’ was undertaken to develop threshold values of land quality parameters for land-use planning through quantitative land evaluation and crop modelling for dominant cropping systems in major agro-ecological sub-regions (AESRs) representing rice–wheat cropping system in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) and deep-rooted crops in the black soil regions (BSR). To assess the impact of landuse change, threshold land quality indicator values are used. A modified AESR map for agricultural landuse planning is generated for effective land-use planning

Improvement and Comparison of Mean Shift Tracker using Convex Kernel Function and Motion Information

Any tracking algorithm must be able to detect interested moving objects in its field of view and then track it from frame to frame. The tracking algorithms based on mean shift are robust and efficient. But they have limitations like inaccuracy of target localization, object being tracked must not pass by another object with similar features i.e. occlusion and fast object motion. This paper proposes and compares an improved adaptive mean shift algorithm and adaptive mean shift using a convex kernel function through motion information. Experimental results show that both methods track the object without tracking errors. Adaptive method gives less computation cost and proper target localization and Mean shift using convex kernel function shows good results for the tracking challenges like partial occlusion and fast object motion faced by basic Mean shift algorithm

End-To-End Delay Optimization in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)

In this paper, we are interested in optimizing the delay of event-driven wireless sensor networks, for which events does not occur frequently. In such systems, most of the energy is consumed when the radios are on, waiting for an arrival to occur. Sleep-wake scheduling is an effective mechanism to prolong the lifetime of this energy constrained wireless sensor networks by optimization of the delay in the network but this scheme could result in substantial delays because a transmitting node needs to wait for its next-hop relay node to wake up. An attempt has been made to reduce these delays by developing new method of packet forwarding schemes, where each nod opportunistically forwards a packet to the its neighboring node that wakes up among multiple candidate nodes. In this paper, the focus is to study how to optimize the packet forwarding schemes by optimization of the expected packet-delivery delays from the sensor nodes to the sink. Based on optimized delay scheme result, we then provide a solution to the central system about how to optimally control the system parameters of the sleep-wake scheduling protocol and the packet forwarding protocol to maximize the network lifetime, subject to a constraint on the expected end-to-end packet- delivery delay. Our numerical results indicate that the proposed solution can outperform prior heuristic solutions in the literature, especially under the practical scenarios where there are obstructions, e.g., a lake or a mountain, in the area of wireless sensor networks

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Natural resources of the Indo-Gangetic Plains: a land-use planning perspective

Not AvailableCurrent status of land/soil resources of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) is analysed to highlight the issuesthat need to be tackled in near future for sustained agricultural productivity. There are intraregional variations in soil properties, cropping systems; status of land usage, groundwater utilization and irrigation development which vary across the subregions besides demographies. Framework for land use policy is suggested that includes acquisition of farm-level data, detailing capability of each unit to support a chosen land use, assess infrastructural support required to meet the projected challenges and finally develop skilled manpower to effectively monitor the dynamics of land use changes.Not Availabl

Soil physical quality of the Indo-Gangetic Plains and black soil region Soil and land quality indicators of the Indo-Gangetic Plains of India

Not AvailableUnderstanding the physical quality of soil that influences its hydraulic behaviour helps in formulating appropriate water management strategies for sustainable crop production. Saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) is a key factor governing the hydraulic properties of soils. Ks can be estimated through various techniques. In the present article we have developed and validated the regression models to predict Ks of the soils of the Indo- Gangetic Plains (IGP) and the black soil regions (BSR) under different bioclimatic systems. While particle size distribution was found to be a key factor to predict Ks of the BSR soils, organic carbon was found useful for the IGP soils. Moreover, the models for Ks of both soils were strengthened by putting in CaCO3 and exchangeable sodium percentage content. It seems there is ample scope to study the interaction process for revising Ks to desired levels through management practices in these two important food-growing zones. An index of soil physical quality, derived from the inflection points of the soil moisture characteristic curves could well explain the impact of management practices on soil physical quality.Not Availabl

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