Search

The Kanyakumari district lies on the southern tip of Tamil Nadu, India. Nowadays, the economically wealthy coast of this district is profoundly altered in its natural existence, which can be deliberated by using Remote Sensing techniques. In this present study, shoreline change inquiry has been attempted at Vilavancode and Kalkulam taluks using the multitemporal satellite data of Landsat 7 ETM + and the Sentinel for a decade from 2009 to 2019. The shoreline has been demarcated and the End Point Rate is estimated by using the Digital Shoreline Analysis System. The shoreline changes statistics have been categorized into seven classes based on the rate of changes: high erosion, medium erosion, low erosion, stable, low accretion, medium accretion, and high accretion. This investigation helps to sense regional fluctuations and reveals that the area subjected to landward shoreline shift is higher than the seaward shoreline shift during this period. The villages of Iraviputhanthurai (10.61 m/yr), Inaiyam (4.01 m/yr), Mandacaud (8.17 m/yr), and Kodimunai (4.12 m/yr) are subjected to high erosion, whereas high accretion is perceived at the Irayumanthurai village (4.13 m/yr). The impact of coastal erosion on site-specific shorelines is considered in this research. This finding will be helpful for coastal management to reduce the loss of economy and safeguard the future coastal environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coastal region is one of the most sensitive areas on earth. This region has a diversified ecosystem. Erosion and accretion are common natural phenomena that can be seen in this region. In some circumstances, these changes become hazardous to the coastal ecosystem. Natural processes such as rainfall, flood, cyclone, longshore drift, and tectonic shifts can trigger irregular coastal changes. Similarly, anthropogenic factors such as urbanization, unscientific land usage, mining, etc., enhance coastal dynamics and make larger changes. Hence identification of such region has great importance. Geospatial technology has brought various advanced methods for shoreline change studies. It has decreased the huge effort for getting an accurate result for a larger area. Landsat satellite imageries with 30 m spatial resolution have been used for studying the changes in the shoreline of Ramanathapuram for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020. In Geographic Information System (GIS) software, the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) tool is added for shoreline change analysis. DSAS will build the baseline transects. The rate of shoreline change was calculated using the MATLAB feature runtime function for ArcGIS. Based on the DSAS output, the region of high erosion, low erosion, stable, and low accretion, high accretion zones have been identified on the shore. The results reveal that 5.1% of the shoreline, around 9.3 km is under high erosion, 11.5% of the shoreline, which is around 20.8 km, is under low erosion, 71% of the shoreline, around 128 km, is a stable region, 6.7% of shorelines, around 12 km, have low accretion, and 5.6% of shorelines, around 10.1 km, have high accretion. The coastal villages, namely, Mayakulam, Keelakakrai, Periapattinam, Mandapam, West-Pamban, and East-Rameswaram, have a high erosion with a maximum rate of change between 2.29 to 5.11 m/y. The coastal villages Ervadi, Kalimankund, Sattankonvalsai, South-Pamban and South-Rameswaram have high accretion with a maximum rate of change between 2.34 to 5.24 m/y. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A morphometric analysis of Sarabanga watershed in Salem district has been chosen for the present study. Geospatial tools, such as remote sensing and GIS, are utilized for the extraction of river basin and its drainage networks. The Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM-30 m resolution) data have been used for morphometric analysis and evaluating various morphometric parameters. The morphometric parameters of Sarabanga watershed have been analyzed and evaluated by pioneer methods, such as Horton and Strahler. The dendritic type of drainage pattern is draining the Sarabanga watershed, which indicates that lithology and gentle slope category is controlling the study area. The Sarabanga watershed is covered an area of 1208 km. The slope of the watershed is various from 10 to 40% and which is controlled by lithology of the watershed. The bifurcation ratio ranges from 3 to 4.66 indicating the influence of geological structure and suffered more structural disturbances. The form factor indicates elongated shape of the study area. The total stream length and area of watershed indicate that mean annual rainfall runoff is relatively moderate. The basin relief expressed that watershed has relatively high denudation rates. The drainage density of the watershed is low indicating that infiltration is more dominant. The ruggedness number shows the peak discharges that are likely to be relatively higher. The present study is very useful to plan the watershed management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The water quality study of Salem district, Tamil Nadu has been carried out to assess the water quality for domestic and irrigation purposes. For this purpose, 59 groundwater samples were collected and analyzed for pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), major anions (HCO , CO , F, Cl, NO + NO , and SO ), major cations (Ca Mg, Na, and K), alkalinity (ALK), and hardness (HAR). To assess the water quality, the following chemical parameters were calculated based on the analytical results, such as Piper plot, water quality index (WQI), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), magnesium hazard (MH), Kelly index (KI), and residual sodium carbonate (RSC). Wilcox diagram represents that 23% of the samples are excellent to good, 40% of the samples are good to permissible, 10% of the samples are permissible to doubtful, 24% of the samples are doubtful unsuitable, and only 3% of the samples are unsuitable for irrigation. SAR values shows that 52% of the samples indicate high-to-very high and low-to-medium alkali water. KI values indicate good quality (30%) and not suitable (70%) for irrigation purposes. RSC values indicate that 89% of samples are suitable for irrigation purposes. MH reveals that 17% suitable and 83% samples are not suitable for irrigation purposes and for domestic purposes the excellent (8%), good (48%), and poor (44%). The agricultural waste, fertilizer used, soil leaching, urban runoff, livestock waste, and sewages are the sources of poor water quality. Some samples are not suitable for irrigation purposes due to high salinity, hardness, and magnesium concentration. In general, the groundwater of the Salem district was polluted by agricultural activities, anthropogenic activities, ion exchange, and weathering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, the chemical characteristics of groundwater with respect to drinking and Irrigation water quality in upper Thirumanimuthar sub-basin, Cauvery River, have been studied. 51 groundwater samples were collected and analysed for pH, conductance, total dissolved solids, total hardness, calcium, magnesium, carbonate, bicarbonate, total alkalinity, chloride, sodium, potassium, sulphate etc. The values analyzed were evaluated in detail and compared with WHO water quality standards. It is observed that, for most of the groundwater quality parameters, the values are not potable for drinking and irrigational use. To understand the spatial distribution of unsuitable zones, ArcGIS was employed. Attributes were linked and spatial interpolation mapping was done. Inverse distance weighted interpolation technique was followed for raster and vector mapping. Finally the overlay analyses were also carried out to locate the worst quality zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of hydrogeochemistry of the Mio-Pliocene sedimentary rock aquifer system in Veeranam catchment area produced a large geochemical dataset. Groundwater samples were collected at 52 sites over 963.86 km2 area and analyzed for major ions. The large number of data can lead to difficulties in the integration, interpretation and representation of the results. Two multivariate statistical methods, Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and Factor analysis (FA), were applied to a subgroup of the dataset to evaluate their usefulness to classify the groundwater samples, and to identify geochemical processes controlling groundwater geochemistry. Hydrochemical data for 52 groundwater samples were subjected to Q- and R- mode factor and cluster analysis. R-mode analysis reveals the inter-relations among the variables studied and the Q-mode analysis reveals the inter-relations among the samples studied. The R-mode factor analysis shows that Ca, Mg and Cl with HCO3 account for most of the electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids and total hardness of groundwater. The ‘single dominance’ nature of the majority of the factors in the R-mode analysis indicates non-mixing or partial mixing of different types of groundwater. Both Q-mode factor and Q-mode cluster analyses indicate an exchange between the river water and the groundwater in the vicinity. The rock water interaction like flood basin back swamp deposits of silty clayey formation is the major cause for the cluster II classification. Cluster classification map reveals that 58% of the study area comes under cluster II classification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, three categories of network analysis problems were solved using mostly ArcView Network Analyst extension module. They are Network Tracing; Path Analysis; and Tour Analysis. The methodology provides a means to incorporate existing data sources, integrate the data in a useful environment and visualize results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]