In this issue:

RESEARCH ARTICLES

• An Assessment of Declining Urban Greens under Patna Municipal Corporation Based on Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
  Authors: Ashraf M. and Ghose Debjani Sarkar

Abstract : Urban Greens are technically new term considering the literature related to urban areas. The definitions of urban areas are not uniform all over the world, it varies country to country. In general urban areas are locations characterized by non-agricultural human population density and large human-built features in comparison to the areas surrounding it. Urban greens are related to vegetation greenness of a particular urban area which strikes the micro climate of that area. The purpose of this paper is to make an inventory of the extent and nature of the urban greens in Patna Municipal Corporation. Time series data analysis of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is widely and commonly used for the study of spatiotemporal analysis of vegetation cover and effective greenness. The present study of the urban greens under Patna Municipal Corporation has also used the NDVI based method for the assessment of its rapid decline in last quarter century (1989 -2014). Six base years (1989, 1993, 1999, 2005, 2009, and 2014) were taken for the assessment and the results show that in last twenty one years the area under urban greens has shrunk to the one third of what it was in 1993, while the Built-up area has more than tripled in the last quarter century.

• Assessment of Ground-Level Ozone and Its Variability with Meteorological Parameters at Karaikal, India.
  Authors: Kartharinal Punithavathy, S. Vijayalakshmi, S. Johnson Jeyakumar

Abstract : Ozone (O3), an allotrope of oxygen is one of the most powerful oxidants which occur naturally in trace amounts in the Earth’s atmosphere. Availability of ground level O3, temperature and wind speed data for a period from October 2013 to September 2014 at Karaikal, Union Territory of Puducherry, a coastal region along south east India has been utilized to assess the variability of ground level O3 against the other three parameters. Temporal variation of O3 with temperature, wind speed clearly indicates the dependence of O3 on the above said two parameters. The results reveals a strong dependence of O3 on temperature (r2=0.8722) and hence in Ozone levels in ambient air. Correlation between O3 and wind speed shows not much significance (r2=0.1816). Seasonal variation of O3 reveals that Ozone levels are maximum during the summer and pre-monsoon period while minimum Ozone levels occurs during the North-east monsoon and winter seasons. It is observed from the results that not a single Ozone data exceeds the standard value and lies well within the limit of WHO recommendation (50 ppb).

• Analysis of Abiotic Stress Induced Metabolomic Changes in Vigna radiata
  Authors: Gupta Sarika and and De Indranil

Abstract : The present study involves the use of Phenol, Toluene, Xylene and Hexane as xenobiotics, to induce abiotic stress in mung seedlings under in vitro conditions and to evaluate their impact on seedling’s physiological parameters besides alteration in metabolomic profile with respect to control. The toxicity level was found to be high in case of Phenol followed by Hexane, Xylene and Toluene. Metabolomic analysis revealed that, at low concentration of these compounds, there was an elevation in the contents of the metabolomic parameters such as Total Soluble Sugar, Total Reducing Sugar, Total Phenolic Contents and Total Protein Contents, followed by a sharp decline at higher concentrations. Protein profiling revealed a band of97.4KDaproteins in all the stress induced plant which was not detected in untreated control. This protein is most probably a part of the stress machinery in the plant.

• Water Quality Analysis of River Ganga and Yamuna during Mass Bathing, Allahabad, India
  Authors: Singh Shweta and Nath Satyendra

Abstract : The present study was carried out to analyze water quality of river Ganga and Yamuna during Mass bathing at Allahabad. Water samples were collected from eight selected bathing sites of the Ganga and Yamuna. The physico-chemical parameter such as Alkalinity, Biological oxygen demand, Chloride, Calcium hardness, Electric conductivity, Magnesium hardness, pH, Temperature, Turbidity and Total hardness were increased whereas decline in the level of Dissolve oxygen was observed at selected sites of Ganga and Yamuna. All parameters were highly affected at Daraganj and Ramghat. These sites were used frequently for the pilgrims and hence found highest affected zones. At all sites water samples were observed poor and showing that the Ganga has moderately polluted as compared to the Yamuna. The present study indicated an increase in water pollution levels of the Ganga and Yamuna.

• Ecocrop Model Approach for Agro-Climatic Sugarcane Crop Suitability in Bhogawati River Basin of Kolhapur District, Maharashtra, India
  Authors: V. S. Pawar-Patil and S. P. Mali

Abstract : Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy and as the population explosion is concern, there is high demand of food to from increasing population. Hence, there is need of high agricultural production for both cash crops and food crops to from available land by using modern agricultural practices. India is one of the leading sugarcane grown nations in the world having about 4.60 million hectare of area with 289.6 million metric tons of sugarcane production. Maharashtra is one of the major sugar producing state of India. The aim of present research is to develop Ecocrop module in DIVA-GIS which is being used to predict the adjustment of a particular crop considering the temperature and rainfall thresholds over geographic region. Model computes suitability index for temperature and precipitation differently and finally with the integration of both obtain final suitability rating. In view of that to assess sugarcane cash crop site suitability in Bhogawati river basin using Ecocrop model is main objective of present research work. The Sugarcane crop site suitability index has been analyzed, in which marginal, suitable, very suitable and excellent suitability sites were obtained in Bhogawati river basin. The result stated that, the majority of the area which is about 839 Sq.km has comes under excellent type of agro-climatic suitability for sugarcane cultivation. Geo-spatial technology is playing a crucial role for giving accurate information for Eco-crop modeling and agricultural planning of the region.