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Physico-chemical parameters play a major role in determining the density, diversity and occurrence of phytoplankton in a headwater stream
. The present study was conducted to assess the relationship between physico-chemical parameters and phytoplankton assemblages of Baldi stream of Garhwal Himalayas, India. Results showed an increased concentration in physico-chemical parameters (turbidity, total dissolved solids, nitrates and phosphates) has an adverse impact on the density of phytoplankton during monsoon season at the sampling site S2, where maximum disturbances were recorded. Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient calculated between physico-chemical parameters and density of phytoplankton revealed that as sediment load increases in the stream, the growth of phytoplankton decreases. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) between environmental variables and dominant taxa of phytoplankton indicated the influence of physico-chemical parameters on phytoplankton distribution in freshwater ecosystem of Baldi stream of Garhwal Himalayas, India
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Of all the natural hazards, drought affects the maximum number of people globally causing devastating impacts
. It is a reality that drought results in sets of socio-economic impacts starting with crop-yield failure, unemployment, erosion of assets, income decrease, poor nutrition and decreasing risk absorptive capacity, thereby increasing the vulnerability of the community. This paper gives a brief of the existing approaches that focus on vulnerability and impact assessment aid to characterize and identify regions, sectors and communities which are at risk for drought currently and in the future. It also discusses the limitation, constraints and pre-requisites in these approaches and highlights the importance of micro-level information to have a more realistic understanding of impact and vulnerability through illustration, with reference to the recent study conducted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). This exercise will provide a guiding framework for devising action plans to improve adaptive capacity among vulnerable populations
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Of all the natural hazards, drought affects the maximum number of people globally causing devastating impacts
. It is a reality that drought results in sets of socio-economic impacts starting with crop-yield failure, unemployment, erosion of assets, income decrease, poor nutrition and decreasing risk absorptive capacity, thereby increasing the vulnerability of the community. This paper gives a brief of the existing approaches that focus on vulnerability and impact assessment aid to characterize and identify regions, sectors and communities which are at risk for drought currently and in the future. It also discusses the limitation, constraints and pre-requisites in these approaches and highlights the importance of micro-level information to have a more realistic understanding of impact and vulnerability through illustration, with reference to the recent study conducted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). This exercise will provide a guiding framework for devising action plans to improve adaptive capacity among vulnerable populations
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The great Himalayan rivers of South Asia, particularly the Ganges and Brahmaputra, have been the subject of five decades of discussion between governments of the region
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Rural common property resources represent the historically evolved institutional arrangements made by communities in dry regions (in the present case) to guard against the vulnerabilities and risks created by the biophysical and environmental circumstances characteristic of these areas
. Despite their valuable contributions, CPRS are faced with decline in terms of both extent as well as contribution to the people, and therefore consequent neglect by the communities. This paper looks into the process of this negative change, and attributes the same to public policies, market forces and population growth (accentuating land hunger) along with the disintegration of traditional collective approaches of communities to maintain CPRS as community assets
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This paper examines bridging the digital divide through organisational innovations that provide low cost Internet access in developing countries, within the existing conditions of income levels
. We use survey data from three South Asian countries, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, to examine factors influencing patterns of computer and Internet use. We find that education plays a key role, in terms of its acquisition as a reason for computer and Internet use, and as an enabling variable (especially in the case of English language knowledge)
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Characteristics of wet spells (WSs) and intervening dry spells (DSs) are extremely useful for water-related sectors
. The information takes on greater significance in the wake of global climate change and climate-change scenario projections. The features of 40 parameters of the rainfall time distribution as well as their extremes have been studied for two wet and dry spells for 19 subregions across India using gridded daily rainfall available on 1° latitude × 1° longitude spatial resolution for the period 1951–2007. In a low-frequency-mode, intra-annual rainfall variation, WS (DS) is identified as a “continuous period with daily rainfall equal to or greater than (less than) daily mean rainfall (DMR) of climatological monsoon period over the area of interest.” The DMR shows significant spatial variation from 2.6 mm day−1 over the extreme southeast peninsula (ESEP) to 20.2 mm day−1 over the southern-central west coast (SCWC). Climatologically, the number of WSs (DSs) decreases from 11 (10) over the extreme south peninsula to 4 (3) over northwestern India as a result of a decrease in tropical and oceanic influences. The total duration of WSs (DSs) decreases from 101 (173) to 45 (29) days, and the duration of individual WS (DS) from 12 (18) to 7 (11) days following similar spatial patterns. Broadly, the total rainfall of wet and dry spells, and rainfall amount and rainfall intensity of actual and extreme wet and dry spells, are high over orographic regions and low over the peninsula, Indo-Gangetic plains, and northwest dry province. The rainfall due to WSs (DSs) contributes 68% (17%) to the respective annual total. The start of the first wet spell is earlier (19 March) over ESEP and later (22 June) over northwestern India, and the end of the last wet spell occurs in reverse, that is, earlier (12 September) from northwestern India and later (16 December) from ESEP. In recent years/decades, actual and extreme WSs are slightly shorter and their rainfall intensity higher over a majority of the subregions, whereas actual and extreme DSs are slightly (not significantly) longer and their rainfall intensity weaker. There is a tendency for the first WS to start approximately six days earlier across the country and the last WS to end approximately two days earlier, giving rise to longer duration of rainfall activities by approximately four days. However, a spatially coherent, robust, long-term trend (1951–2007) is not seen in any of the 40 WS/DS parameters examined in the present study
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