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Checking Deforestation: Perception-Based Strategies
for Reserve Forests
-- Chandan Goswami and Pradip C Mahanta
The loss of forest coverage is a serious concern worldwide. The causes of forest loss are different in different regions of the world. Less developed countries clear forests because of population pressure and developed countries clear forests for industrial purposes. However, the loss has been recurrent with a high rate of deforestation, which may lead to a catastrophe in the near future. In India, from northern Himalayas to southern Nilgiris, eastern Himalayas to western Shivalik Hills, forests have been depleted exclusively for human activities. Now, the question is how to rebuild the nominal portion of that damage. This paper is a part of the research project which tried to highlight the willingness of the people in the study area to contribute to conservation of forests. It is also an attempt to involve in community conservation schemes like Joint Forest Management (JFM) in Nameri and Charduar ranges of Sonitpur district, Assam. The analysis reveals the perception of local people towards the importance of forest conservation and willingness to participate in conservation-related activities.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Studies on Environmental Impact Assessment of Wastewater
Pit in Izombe Flowstation, Southeastern Nigeria
-- P O Youdeowei and H O Nwankwoala
Three wells were sunk with a hand-operated light cable percussion rig to the maximum depth of 15.00 to 21.00 m. The static water levels recorded after drilling for each well were 8.00 m for borehole 1 (BH 1), 4.40 m for BH 2, and 5.00 m for BH 3. The soil stratigraphy reveals a uniform correlation in the three boreholes of medium to very coarse grained sand and gravelly sand. The lower layers are coarser, so that there appears to be a downward coarseness of the grains. There is also a downward decrease in the shade of brownish color. In BH 1, there is an upper stratum of dark brown, mediumgrained, friable sand to a depth of about 9.00 m. This is underlain by light brown, very coarse-grained, gravelly sand. BH 2 and BH 3 display similar profiles of overlying dark brown, medium-grained, friable sands of about 3.0 m in thickness. This is followed by light brown, coarse-grained sands to depths of about 15.00 m. Light brown, very coarse grained, gravelly sands extend from this depth to the maximum drilled depth of 21.00 m. The results also reveal that the soil is non-plastic and fall within the soil classification group of SP under the Unified Soil Classification System. Permeability tests of the samples are moderately high values as expected for the sandy soils and range from 7.83 x 10-1 cm/s to 8.92 x 10-1 cm/s. The hydraulic gradient between BH 1 and BH 3 is about 6% or 1 m in 16 m (1:16), while that between BH 1 and BH 2 is about 7% or 1 m in 14 m (1:14). Since the hydraulic gradient between BH 1 and BH 2 is slightly higher, more rapid effluent discharge is expected towards BH 1. This may explain the higher concentration of crude oil contamination of the groundwater, particularly within the region of the waste pit.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Climate Change and Its Impact on India
-- M Balasubramanian and V Dhulasi Birundha
Climate change is one of the main environmental challenges facing the world today. India is facing several problems. Climate change is associated with various adverse impacts on agriculture, water resources, forest and biodiversity, health, coastal management and increase in temperature. Decline in agricultural productivity is the main impact of climate change on India. A majority of population depends on agriculture directly or indirectly. Climate change would represent additional stress on the ecological and socioeconomic systems that are already facing tremendous pressure due to rapid industrialization, urbanization and economic development. This paper analyzes the impact of climate change and its various aspects in the Indian context.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Carbon Tax for Sustainability: An Indian Perspective
-- Malay K Mohanty, Jayanta K Mohapatra and Prasanna K Baral
Global warming has created havoc among the nations. Melting of Arctic at an alarming speed, rising sea level, shrinking of cryosphere and death of polar bears are serious indications of global climatic change. Millions of questions are being raised on the sustainability of ozone which saves the earth from greenhouse effect. It is high time for all of us to think of alternatives to mitigate global warming. Climate change impact can be avoided, reduced, or delayed if an effective global climate change mitigation policy is agreed upon and implemented. Basically, there are two approaches to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions: command and control approach and incentivebased approach (i.e., cap-and-trade program and carbon tax program). This paper emphasizes on carbon tax program for mitigating CO2 and other gaseous emissions. It also considers carbon tax as the best approach over other approaches to combat global warming. The paper also highlights the scope for implementation of carbon tax in the Indian subcontinent and computes reduction of emissions for different scenarios based on the projected consumption pattern, with the assumed changes in carbon tax and the present tax rate. The proportion of reduction from the current tax scenario has been computed to provide an impression of the relative change with the change in taxation.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Dry Fish Processing with Solar Dryers:
An Environment-Friendly Alternative
-- V Vasu and R Joshua
Coastal population is causing a great damage to the coastal environment because of their traditional livelihood activities. ‘Dry Fish Processing’ in the coastal area is one of the major threats to coastal environment. Naturally available solar energy is the main resource for this alternate livelihood activity of fishing folks in the coastal region. ‘Dry Fish Processing in the Open Sun’ is the traditional method which yields unhygienic final products to the user community. Moreover, this type of processing leads to environmental issues and hygienic problems to the coastal population. To overcome these issues and problems, it is important for the social scientist, environmentalist, industries and the educational institutions to introduce appropriate low-cost and acceptable models for their applications. The technology ‘Dry Fish Processing with Solar Dryers’ is not new to the society. The units which are available in the market and with the industries are very expensive and costly. As an alternative, considering the basic physical parameters like moisture content, moisture loss, amount of moisture to be removed from the specific sample, heat energy needed for drying, and heat energy collected on the collector surface, three different cost-effective models have been designed and fabricated. The performance of the models has been studied with hourly variation of collector efficiencies of the modes.
© 2011 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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