Publications
GIS and AHP Techniques Based Delineation of Groundwater Potential Zones: a case study from Southern Western Ghats, India
Approximately 59% of the studied river basin in the Southern Western Ghats, India, is identified as having moderate groundwater potential, with high and low potential zones covering 11% and 29%, respectively. The study employed a combination of Geographic Information System (GIS) and Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) techniques to delineate these zones using 12 thematic layers such as geology, geomorphology, rainfall, soil, and topography. This approach, validated with local groundwater data, achieved an overall accuracy of around 85%. The findings highlight the effectiveness of GIS-based methods in rapidly assessing groundwater potential, offering crucial insights for sustainable water resource management in tropical river basins.
Assessment of soil erosion in a tropical mountain river basin of the southern Western Ghats, India using RUSLE and GIS
Researchers found that while the Muthirapuzha River Basin (MRB) in the southern Western Ghats, India, experiences significant gross soil erosion at 14.36 tons per hectare per year, net erosion is substantially lower at 3.60 tons due to deposition processes. About 86% of the basin undergoes slight erosion, while nearly 3% acts as a depositional environment for sediments. Human activities in agricultural areas and tea plantations significantly accelerate soil erosion compared to natural vegetation belts. The study used the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) combined with transport-limited sediment delivery (TLSD) modeling to quantify soil erosion and deposition, providing critical data for land management strategies to mitigate soil degradation in tropical mountain river basins.
Flowering plants of the Western Ghats, India
The Western Ghats, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and global biodiversity hotspot, host a remarkably diverse angiosperm flora. A comprehensive two-volume checklist identifies 7,402 species (5,588 indigenous) across 164,280 km², including 376 naturalized and 1,438 cultivated taxa. The study organizes entries by accepted names, synonyms, habit, nativity, distribution, phenology, conservation status, economic importance, and local names, drawing significantly from earlier regional works like the Flowering plants of Kerala. While the checklist follows an outdated family classification (BD Sharma et al., 1993), it serves as a critical resource for understanding the region's flora, despite minor nomenclatural oversights. The Western Ghats' undisturbed vegetation has dwindled to one-third of its original extent, underscoring urgent conservation needs.
Microphysics of clouds and rain over the Western Ghat
Shallow clouds over the Western Ghats produce heavy rainfall due to rapid condensational growth of cloud droplets, driven by orographic updrafts. Research reveals that collision-coalescence processes dominate rain formation, with distinct raindrop size distribution (DSD) patterns observed on both windward and leeward sides of the mountains. At Pune (lee side), DSD shapes transition from concave upward to downward during stratiform rain, indicating breakup processes at lower altitudes. Conversely, Mahabaleshwar (windward side) shows bimodal and monomodal DSDs for light and heavy rainfall, respectively, with small drops contributing significantly. Aircraft measurements confirm that ambient updraft speeds foster rapid droplet growth, leading to precipitation within a few hundred meters of cloud depth. These findings highlight the dynamic interplay between cloud microphysics and orographic forcing in shaping rainfall over this UNESCO-listed region.
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