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Mass Oxygen Transfer is a molecular diffusion of gas in a liquid depending upon its characteristics, concentration and cross-sectional area across which diffusion occurs and is accomplished in aerobic digestion of organics through different aeration equipment. Accordingly the comparative evaluation of mass transfer oxygen by different aeration equipment were conducted in existing aeration tanks of Agro Based Pulp and Paper Mill by studying the effect during pre and post injection of liquid oxygen through submerged and floating turbine systems coupled with fine bubble replacing existing coarse bubble diffuser. The dissolved oxygen levels in the second aeration tank (AT2) equipped with submerged turbine has further improved in the range of 2 to 2.5 comparison to lower values up to 1.5 mg/l observed in first aeration tank (AT1) with floating turbine systems. It was further studied that if fine bubble diffuser replacing existing pipe in both the aeration tanks are further coupled with liquid oxygen injection through submersible turbine system in both the aeration tanks shall increase dissolved oxygen levels up to 3-3.5 mg/l besides reduction in energy consumption up to 25% thus lowering overall treatment cost and further improve the treatment efficiencies for reduction a of BOD and COD at the final out let well below compliance level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research carried out reveals the annual soil erosion risk assessment and its relation in landslide vulnerability in the Shimla tehsil, Himachal Pradesh, India. The study area has a geographical area of 368 km2. Datasets such as Survey of India topographical maps, Soil maps from Soil and Landuse Survey of India (SLUSI), rainfall datasets from Shimla meteorological centre and LANDSAT 8 imageries have been used to retrieve the annual soil loss. Landslide inventories have been collected from 2000 to 2020 through LANDSAT 8 OLI, Sentinel 2A and Google Earth satellite imageries. The datasets have been processed in the GIS environment and the final results have been cross-correlated with the landslide inventories to evaluate the relationship between soil erosion and landslide vulnerability. The rate of soil erosion was differentiated into five classes ranging from 0.03 to 2.1, where 0.03 represents the least amount of soil erosion and 2.1 represents the highest amount of soil erosion. The values less than 0.1 were observed all through the places covering forest and slope areas which is least prone to soil erosion. The values between 0.12 to 0.5 indicate medium to high stage soil erosion. These areas cover agricultural fields, degraded forests and forest blanks. The areas with the highest amount of erosion were observed along with the Barren lands and Built-up lands where the rate of erosion exceeds more than 30. A total of 96 landslides were mapped from the Google earth imageries for the year 2017. Among these landslides, nearly 79.1% occur along the Very low rate of soil erosion and 20.8% occurred along the low rate of soil erosion. The landslides are clustered in the study area mainly located along populated areas such as Shimla Town, Mashbora, Dhalli etc. Some of the landslides are located along the National highway extending between Rampur to Shimla. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical masonry buildings are characterized by vulnerability corresponding to seismic action as also been highlighted by Bhuj 2001, Kashmir 2005 and Nepal 2015 earthquakes of Indian subcontinent. As per the past earthquake records Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand (India) are the most tectonically dynamic regions in the foothills of Himalayas. The two states are having several heritage structures of british regime spanning from Shimla to Dehradun and Mussoorie. One such national heritage clay brick masonry structure namely Forest Research Institute in the city of Dehradun had gone under vast damages in the form of cracks during the Uttarkashi earthquake (1991). This structure has been investigated for detailing the existing in-situ damages and compare the damages with numerically predicted overstressed regions. Numerical solution shows huge bidirectionally spanning walls, arch and vault springings to be critically overstressed in out of plane movement and in-plane shear respectively validated too by in-situ damages. Depending on the damage typologies and construction material as lime or lime:surkhi mortar, this study suggests retrofitting strategies specifically for historical clay brick masonry structures of India which can be broadly extrapolated for use elsewhere in the world for historical clay brick masonry having constituents' properties lying in the same range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental flow is the mitigation strategy proposed to overcome the environmental impact due to the construction, and operation of the hydropower project. Maintaining the environmental flow is one thing to worry but the conflict between the perception towards the maintenance of the environmental flow among the administer and locale differs at two extremes. In 2017, National Green Tribunal has passed the order to maintain 15 % of the average lean season flow as the environmental flow in the downstream side of the dam. The amount of water to be maintained also differs from project to project. Hence a proposal of device that typically assesses the environmental flow needed based on the hydrological, habitat, and hydraulic data fed into. This research work proposes an instrument that evaluates the environmental flow requirement and alerts the stakeholders in case of any failure in maintaining the environmental flow in the downstream side of the dam. A sensor is attached to it that monitors the maintenance of the environmental flow, failure in maintenance will alert the river authorities. Additionally, the environmental flow calculated will be displayed in the government offices where it is visible to the public on a daily basis. This helps in creating awareness among the locales, farmers, and other stakeholders to know the importance of the environmental flow. This also helps in creating transparency between the dam administrators and the locales about both the extreme level of impact due to the hydropower project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization, increase in population and change in lifestyle of human beings increased pressure on natural resources and accumulation of industrial waste in the environment. Dumping and landfilling of such industrial waste especially the solid waste is leading towards severe environmental degradation in the form of water pollution, air pollution and soil pollution etc. Due to increase in installation of more paper mills, there is rapid increase in quantity of solid waste from these industries. In recent years, utilization of lime mud generated from paper mill has been emerged as a potential method to reuse/recover the usable rich material and reduce the quantity of waste and its disposal cost for landfilling/dumping. In this experimental examination, an effort has been complete to examine the behavior of the bricks developed using the waste (lime mud) from paper industry waste and other paper sludge by partial replacing the clay to the extent from 10% to 50%. The bricks were developed by using varying composition. Later execution various tests, it has been detected that bricks made from partial replacement of clay with lime mud are light weight, having desirable compressive strength, corrosion resistant. The indoor air quality assessment of buildings made of these bricks indicted little to no impact on ambient air quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]