No abstract

Rice is prime crop that contributes to food security and provides employment to a large number of populations in Nepal. More than 51% of the area of rice land in Nepal is rain-fed. Over the last few years, however, the country has been experiencing erratic rainfall, with less water available for rice cultivation, as well as temperature rise. There are both submergence (flooding) problems and drought in the main rice growing areas. Hence, there is a need to generate suitable rice technologies under such adverse conditions.The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has initiated research in collaboration with the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (IAAS) to develop suitable rice technologies for submergence and drought prone areas of Nepal. Various rice germplasm was brought from IRRI, Philippines, and research was conducted at NARC and IAAS as well as in farmers’ fields following a program of Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS). Water-saving rice technologies as well as other technologies, including indigenous practices, were identified for utilizing less water for rice cultivation. Several varieties of rice under drought prone and under submergence conditions were identified, and have been recommended for cultivation by Nepalese farmers.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hn.v11i1.7209 Hydro Nepal Special Issue: Conference Proceedings 2012 pp.69-72

On 31st December 2019, a novel virus was reported from Wuhan City of Hubei Province of China, and later it was recognized as SARS-COV-2 (COVID-19). As the virus is highly human to human contagious, it has spread worldwide within a very short time. Since 24th March 2020, after the first reported case in North East India, the total confirmed cases reached up to 4,633 on 11th June 2020. In this work, an attempt has been made to delineate risk zones of COVID-19 in North East India using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and overlay analysis in Geographical Information System (GIS). The evaluation is based on 14 criteria that were classified into promoting and controlling factors. The promoting factors include population size, population density, urban population, elderly population, population below the national poverty line, and percentage of marginal workers. In contrast, the controlling factors include available doctors, other health workers, public health facilities, available beds, governance index (composite and health), and testing laboratories. The results were classified into very high, high, moderate, low, and very low risk zones. Most densely populated states with massive pressure on health facilities are likely to have a higher risk of COVID-19. Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland show a high COVID-19 risk, which constitutes almost 76.93% of the North East India population, covering 48.80% of surface area. The states under a moderate risk zone include 6.92% of the population over 8.52% of the area. Lastly, 16.15% of the people living over 42.69% of the total area belong to the states with a lower risk zone.

No abstract

Water is crucial to human survival. Studies on surface water are well documented but precise knowledge of groundwater resources is difficult. Thus, accurate knowledge of groundwater resources could meet the necessities of water at present and in the long run. The application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographical Information System (GIS) together with multi-criteria parameters has emerged as an efficient technique for delineation of groundwater potential in recent decades. However, no efforts to delineate the groundwater potential have been attempted in the study area to date. Hence, in this study, the groundwater potential of Papumpare district of Arunachal Pradesh was delineated by combining AHP, GIS, and ten thematic layers (geomorphology, geology, slope, lineament density, drainage density, rainfall, distance from the major river, topographic wetness index, soil texture, and land use/land cover). The results show about 64% of the area under poor groundwater potential.Moderate and good groundwater potential is found in 31% and 5% of the area, respectively. Map-removal and single-parameter sensitivity analyses revealed that the groundwater potential map is most sensitive to the annual average rainfall with a mean variation index of 1.05% and a weight of 19.07%. The flood/alluvial plains, Siwalik formations with sediments, and level to gentle slopes receiving high rainfall show good potential, and the dissected hills/valleys, metamorphic rock assemblages, steep slopes with low rainfall reveals poor groundwater potential. The overall accuracy of 81.25% with a Kappa coefficient of 0.72 explains good agreement between the reference data and the map. The estimated area under good groundwater potential appears too little concerning the increasing population and urbanization. Therefore, the state government in general and the water resources and planning department in particular need to formulate suitable strategies to combat the water scarcity scenario waiting ahead.The study suggests raising the use of surface water from nearby rivers to lessen the pressure on groundwater resources.