Application of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) for flood risk assessment: a case study in Malda district of West Bengal,India

A field experiment was conducted from 2 May 2010 to 1 May 2012 in the Gurbantunggut Desert, the second largest desert in China, to investigate saltation activity and its threshold velocity, and their relations with atmospheric and soil conditions. The results showed that saltation activity occurred more frequently during 08:00–20:00 Local Standard Time in spring and summer, with air temperatures between 20.0 and 29.0 °C, water vapor pressures between 0.6 and 0.9 kPa, soil temperatures between 25.0 and 30.0 °C, and a soil moisture lower than 0.04 m³/m³. At 2 m height, the saltation threshold velocity varied between 11.1 and 13.9 m/s, with a mean of 12.5 m/s. Threshold velocity showed clear seasonal variations in the following sequence: spring (11.7 m/s) < autumn (12.7 m/s) < summer (13.6 m/s). Affected by soil conditions, aeolian sand transport was weak, with an average annual aeolian sand that transported across a section (1.0 m × 2.0 m) of less than 6.0 kg.     

Deformation behavior of migmatites: insights from microstructural analysis of a garnet–sillimanite–mullite–quartz–feldspar-bearing anatectic migmatite at Rampura–Agucha,Aravalli–Delhi Fold Belt,NW India

International Journal of Earth Sciences - In the present study we investigate the microstructural development in mullite, quartz and garnet in an anatectic migmatite hosted within a Grenvillian-age...     

Application of S-SEBI model for crop evapotranspiration using Landsat-8 data over parts of North India

Estimation and monitoring of crop evapotranspiration (ET_c) or consumptive water use over large-area holds the key to irrigation management plans and regional drought preparedness. The objective of this study was to estimate ET_c by applying the simplified-surface energy balance index (S-SEBI) model to Landsat-8 data for the 2014–2015 period in parts of North India. An average ET_c was estimated 2.72 and 2.47 in mm day^?1 with 0.22, 0.18 standard deviation and 0.11, 0.07 standard error for Kharif and Rabi crops, respectively. On validation part, a close relationship was observed between S-SEBI derived and scintillometer observed evaporative fraction with 0.85 correlation coefficient and 0.86 agreement index. The statistical analysis also endorses the results accuracy and reliability with 0.026 and 0.602, relative root-mean square errors and model efficiency for wheat crop, respectively. The study showed that normalized difference vegetation index and LST are closely related and serve as a proxy for qualitative representation of ET_c.     

Influence of magnetic effect,anisotropy, irregularity,initial stress and heterogeneity on propagation of SH-wave in an irregular pre-stressed magnetoelastic monoclinic sandwiched layer

Monoclinic materials viz. quartz, lithium niobate and lithium tantalate are among the most abundant materials, finding numerous applications throughout the technological world. Moreover, the presence of irregularity, initial stresses, anisotropy and heterogeneity in a material medium is obvious. These facts motivate the study of magnetoelastic SH-wave propagation in an irregular monoclinic sandwiched layer between a heterogeneous isotropic layer and an isotropic half space, all under initial stress. The heterogeneity in the uppermost layer is caused due to exponential variation in rigidity, density and initial stress in terms of space variable pointing vertically downward. The dispersion relation has been obtained using first-order perturbation technique. The substantial effect of wave number, anisotropy, irregularity, width ratio of the layers, horizontal compressive/tensile initial stresses, heterogeneity and monoclinic-magnetoelastic coupling parameter associated with sandwiched layer on phase velocity of SH-wave has been studied and depicted by means of graph. Comparative study made for the case when pre-stressed irregular sandwiched layer is monoclinic-magnetoelastic to the case when it is isotropic magnetoelastic layer is one of the major highlights of the current study.     

Cyclone Frame Prediction by Gaussian Mixture Modeling of the Three Penultimate Time-Lapse Frames

A fast cyclone frame prediction is proposed in this paper that fits a Gaussian Mixture model on the spatio-temporal data extracted from the three penultimate time-lapse frames, prior to fuzzy regression. Unlike the previous work in Verma and Pal (In: Applied Imagery Pattern Recognition Workshop (AIPR), pp. 1–8, 2010) that models the entire history on a per pixel basis, a single Gaussian mixture is used for fitting the spatio-temporal data within the time-span of the last three frames, making the process faster and more accurate. The increase in accuracy is attributed to the fact that cyclones evolve over time and thus the recent frames give a more meaningful insight into the predictions for the next frame. The number of components in the Gaussian mixture is determined from the occurrence of equally likely modes that correspond to high entropy peaks. Our results on satellite videos of recent cyclones that hit the Indian seas show a high accuracy of frame prediction.     

Effects of linear and exponential heterogeneity on the dynamic response of a moving load in an irregular isotropic half-space: a comparative study

Heterogeneity, being a trivial feature inside the earth or in a geostructure, makes a strong basis for its consideration in the study of geomechanics. Inclusion of the concept of heterogeneity along with irregularity in the medium brings a novelty to the existing literature related to the study of the moving load. The present study investigates the effects of linear and exponential heterogeneity on the dynamic response due to a normal load moving with constant velocity on a rough irregular heterogeneous isotropic half-space in a comparative approach. Expressions for both normal and shear stresses for either case of heterogeneity have been established in closed form. Substantial effects of the affecting parameters such as depth, irregularity factor, maximum depth of irregularity, frictional coefficient, linear heterogeneity parameter and exponential heterogeneity parameter on normal and shear stresses for both the cases of heterogeneity have been observed. Numerical computation has been carried out and the effects of said parameters have been meticulously examined by means of graphs. Moreover, different cases of heterogeneity and homogeneity along with various types of irregularity namely rectangular, parabolic and no irregularity are compared which serve as a focal theme of the study.     

Numerical simulation of fault reactivation phenomenon

Two-dimensional finite element method was used for evaluating the effect of orthogonal compression on precursor faults. The tendency of reactivation of precursor faults as thrust or normal was analyzed involving the positions and angles of precursor faults with the stresses, strains and displacements. Twelve cases were taken up with different combinations of precursor fault angles (high, >45° and low, <45°) and fault positions for analysis. Different positions and angles of precursor faults are correlated with stresses, strains, and displacements and are discussed in detail. It is hoped that this would help in understanding the past and the present geodynamics of the earth’s crust.     

A spatially and temporally adaptive solution of Richards’ equation

Efficient, robust simulation of groundwater flow in the unsaturated zone remains computationally expensive, especially for problems characterized by sharp fronts in both space and time. Standard approaches that employ uniform spatial and temporal discretizations for the numerical solution of these problems lead to inefficient and expensive simulations. In this work, we solve Richards’ equation using adaptive methods in both space and time. Spatial adaption is based upon a coarse grid solve and a gradient error indicator using a fixed-order approximation. Temporal adaption is accomplished using variable order, variable step size approximations based upon the backward difference formulas up to fifth order. Since the advantages of similar adaptive methods in time are now established, we evaluate our method by comparison with a uniform spatial discretization that is adaptive in time for four different one-dimensional test problems. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method provides a robust and efficient alternative to standard approaches for simulating variably saturated flow in one spatial dimension.     

Complete preservation of ophiolite suite from south Andaman,India: A mineral-chemical perspective

Field studies supplemented by petrographic analyses clearly reveal complete preservation of ophiolite suite from Port Blair (11°39′N: 92°45′E) to Chiriyatapu (11°30′24″N: 92°42′30″E) stretch of South Andaman. The ophiolite suite reveals serpentinite at the base which is overlain unconformably by cumulate ultramafic-mafic members with discernible cumulus texture and igneous layering. Basaltic dykes are found to cut across the cumulate ultramafic-mafic members. The succession is capped by well exposed pillow basalts interlayered with arkosic sediments. Olivine from the basal serpentinite unit are highly magnesian (Fo_80.1–86.2). All clinopyroxene analyses from cumulate pyroxenite, cumulate gabbro and basaltic dyke are discriminated to be ‘Quad’ and are uniformly restricted to the diopside field. Composition of plagioclase in different lithomembers is systematically varying from calcic to sodic endmembers progressively from cumulate pyroxenite to pillow basalt through cumulate gabbro and basaltic dyke. Plagioclase phenocrysts from basaltic dyke are found to be distinctly zoned (An_60.7-An_35.3) whereas groundmass plagioclase are relatively sodic (An₃₃-An_23.5). Deduced thermobarometric data from different lithomembers clearly correspond to the observed preservation of complete ophiolite suite.     

Magnetoelastic shear wave propagation in pre-stressed anisotropic media under gravity

The present study investigates the propagation of shear wave (horizontally polarized) in two initially stressed heterogeneous anisotropic (magnetoelastic transversely isotropic) layers in the crust overlying a transversely isotropic gravitating semi-infinite medium. Heterogeneities in both the anisotropic layers are caused due to exponential variation (case-I) and linear variation (case-II) in the elastic constants with respect to the space variable pointing positively downwards. The dispersion relations have been established in closed form using Whittaker’s asymptotic expansion and were found to be in the well-agreement to the classical Love wave equations. The substantial effects of magnetoelastic coupling parameters, heterogeneity parameters, horizontal compressive initial stresses, Biot’s gravity parameter, and wave number on the phase velocity of shear waves have been computed and depicted by means of a graph. As a special case, dispersion equations have been deduced when the two layers and half-space are isotropic and homogeneous. The comparative study for both cases of heterogeneity of the layers has been performed and also depicted by means of graphical illustrations.