Land use patterns and urbanization in the holy city of Varanasi, India: a scenario

Rapid urbanization and increasing land use changes due to population and economic growth in selected landscapes is being witnessed of late in India and other developing countries. The cities are expanding in all directions resulting in large-scale urban sprawl and changes in urban land use. The spatial pattern of such changes is clearly noticed on the urban fringes or city peripheral rural areas than in the city center. In fact, this is reflected in changing urban land use patterns. There is an urgent need to accurately describe land use changes for planning and sustainable management. In the recent times, remote sensing is gaining importance as vital tool in the analysis and integration of spatial data. This study intends to estimate land use pattern in a planned and unplanned urban setup and also to analyze the impact of change in land use pattern in the Varanasi urban environment. The results indicate that the planned urban setup had a higher tree cover to that of unplanned area in the Varanasi City, although a considerable disparity existed within the planned urban setups. The results emphasize the need to critically review concepts of urban planning and give more consideration to the preservation and management of urban tree cover/greenspace.     

Biodiversity and Conservation of Plants in Brazil

Abstract:  With more than 56,000 species (excluding fungi), Brazil has one of the richest floras in the world—nearly 19% of the world flora. Our knowledge of the diversity and status of nonvascular plants in Brazil is still fragmentary, although localized studies on algae have revealed loss of species resulting from environmental pollution. Emphasis on local floral surveys, rather than wider taxonomic studies, has obscured estimates of national totals for most taxonomic groups. Knowledge of angiosperms, especially monocotyledons (of which 45% of the species are endemic), is more complete than most. For this group figures are more reliable, with some distribution patterns, endemism levels, and centers of diversity identified. Much, however, still awaits discovery. Coordinated efforts to catalog Brazil's flora are in progress and include projects such as the conservation priority-setting workshops of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, which have identified key conservation areas in the major biomes; development of threatened species lists for plants; and the assembly of type data on species of northeastern Brazil through the Darwin Initiative—all of which greatly assist in increasing our knowledge. These initiatives also underline the urgent need to expand the numbers and geographic spread of projects on plant systematics and taxonomy in Brazil, a measure that demands adequate provision of funding and training programs for plant specialists. Finally, Brazil's environmental agency (IBAMA) could play a proactive role in opening protected areas under its jurisdiction, thereby facilitating botanical research by university departments and research institutes.     

ASSAULT PREVENTION AS SOCIAL CONTROL: WOMEN AND SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION ON URBAN COLLEGE CAMPUSES

Sexual assault on U.S.A. college campuses is increasingly recognized as an urgent and pervasive national problem. To prevent assault, school administrators and individual women promote and adopt safety strategies that often compromise women's free and independent use of the campus environment. Such strategies may fail to correspond to the actual nature of sexual assault on campus. Based on open-ended interviews with college personnel and women students, this study examines sexual assault and personal crime prevention strategies at two midwestern, urban universities. School and individual strategies are characterized according to type, goals, and orientation. Findings explore the relationship of strategies to sexual assault on campus, and implications of strategies for women's use of public space. Conclusions suggest means to increase real safety while enhancing women's freedom and mobility on and near campus.     

Carbon density and accumulation in agroecosystem of Indo-Gangetic Plains and Vindhyan highlands,India

In agroecosystems, the annual carbon (C) inputs to soil are one of the most promising greenhouse gas mitigation options. Net primary productivity (NPP) provides the inputs of C in ecosystems that can potentially be sequestered in soil organic matter. In this study, we estimates the C density and accumulation rate in rice–wheat agroecosystem at four sites of Indo-Gangetic Plains and Vindhyan highlands through amalgamation of ground truth (GT) and remote sensing (RS) approach. In addition to this, we validated field-measured aboveground net production (ANP) with remotely sensed SPOT-Vegetation data. ANP of the sites ranged from 6.8 to 11.1 and 3.3 to 8.8 t-C ha^?1 year^?1 for GT and RS, respectively. Both estimates (GT and RS) were linearly and significantly related with each other (y?=?1.33x???5.82, R ²?=?0.93, P?=?0.04; where x?=?GT ANP and y?=?RS ANP). For the whole region, total NPP (rice?+?wheat) was ranged from 7.9 to 12.5 t-C ha^?1 year^?1. The C accumulation potential of the present agroecosystems was 9.1 and 1.9 t-C ha^?1 year^?1 in the form of ANP and belowground NPP (BNP), respectively. The aboveground C stock of agroecosystem allocated in foliage (7.8 %), stem (57.6 %), and grain (35.1 %). Survey about the fate of post-harvested materials indicated that aboveground portion of the crop is almost used completely within the year for different purposes including human consumption and cattle feeding. Therefore, only BNP and litter contribute to long-term C sequestration. Since agroecosystem has enormous potential to sequester C, better management of aboveground portion NPP of the crop may enhance C sequestration potential of agroecosystem.     

Comparison of community composition and species diversity of understorey and overstorey tree species in a dry tropical forest of northern India

The study focuses on understorey-overstorey plant community dynamics in a dry tropical forest to facilitate appropriate management decisions. We compare community composition and species diversity of the understorey vegetation among five dry tropical forest sites in northern India. A total of 1500 quadrats distributed over 15 one-ha permanent plots in five sites differing in the degree of disturbance, were used to enumerate the understorey tree species and the results were compared with overstorey tree layer. The non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMS) ordination revealed that human disturbance intensity, as well as the overall disturbance regimes, and soil water holding capacity controlled the organisation of dry tropical forest understorey composition through effects on soil organic matter. The alpha-diversity and its components decreased with increasing human disturbance intensity, reflecting utilisation pressure and decreased soil fertility, as also revealed by the analysis of overstorey tree layer. There was a significant positive relationship between overstorey and understorey diversity. Results suggest that in the future, the existing understorey tree communities may replace the current dry tropical forest communities under prevailing environmental conditions. The study also asserts that the rate of species accumulation will be greater in more disturbed sites as well as at small spatial scale within each disturbance level.     

Examining the uptake and bioaccumulation of molybdenum nanoparticles and their effect on antioxidant activities in growing rice seedlings

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The synthesized α-MoO3 and MoS2 NPs had nanosheet and nanoflower-like structures with crystallite size of 21.34 nm and 4.32 nm, respectively. The...     

Tree seedling establishment in dry tropics: an urgent need of interaction studies

The current anthropogenic activities and climate change are increasingly becoming a growing global concern for dry tropical forests. Worldwide, these ecologically important forests have degraded considerably since the past few decades due to such factors. These factors have harmful consequences on the vegetation structure and diversity especially tree seedlings, which may further aggravate climate change. Generally, the vegetation recovery is very slow and unpredictable in the dry tropics due to complex interaction among tree seedling, site (particularly, soil) and climatic conditions. We inculcated that a better understanding of the behavior of individuals of different tree species at seedling stage in dry forests is of immense importance. It is increasingly being recognized for explaining and managing the future composition of plant communities under changing environmental conditions. In this regard, the multi-factorial interaction studies under various resource–disturbance combinations are needed in dry tropical ecosystems to understand the: (1) impact of relative variability in resources and disturbances on the responses of tree seedlings of native species and (2) how the later relates to distinct functional and life history traits of the individual tree species. Most importantly, such studies would improve our limited understanding of how variation (natural and man-made) in nutrient availability, under the influence of other local environmental factors (such as water, light, grass competition, herbivory, fire, allelopathy and enhanced CO₂ conditions), would affect the dynamics of dry tropical forest community. It may help in the proper management of these forests. Moreover, it may prove helpful in the current climate change scenario, as change in forest community dynamics may have consequences on soil C sequestration and CO₂ efflux at global scale.     

Plant invasions along roads: a case study from central highlands, India

Road sides provide suitable conditions for the establishment and growth of non-native species. The phenomenon of non-native species spread through roads has further increased due to rapid anthropogenic developments. Here we intend to investigate the status of native and non-native species and how the species richness and diversity change in a perpendicular road transect across the three different road use types in the central highlands of India. Presence of 55 non-native species was recorded, of the total 71 species along the road sides. Non-native species richness significantly increased with increasing road use type. Although, the species diversity significantly decreased from road verges to the forest interior in all the road use types. Indicating the role of non-native propagule spread through the roads into the interior forest landscapes. The study gives a management implication, to restrict the non-native species spread from the road sides to the forest interior, irrespective of road use types.