eChapters

4.1 Introduction

Precipitation is a major component of hydrological cycle. It occurs because of condensation of water vapour molecules in the atmosphere. When the precipitation falls on the grounds, it undergoes several phases before it appears as runoff in the streams. Certain amount of precipitations is intercepted by the foliage of plants and roofs and other parts of the building and other hydraulic structures. This intercepted water is called as interception loss which is evaporated to the atmosphere. Sometimes the dried surface of the buildings and other structures soak certain amount of precipitation while falling on them which also adds to interception loss. After striking the land masses, certain amount of the precipitated water gets infiltrated into the soil surface which then moves both in lateral as well as in vertical direction. This loss is called as infiltration loss. For the study of groundwater, infiltration loss is not a loss but rather it is a gain in terms of groundwater recharge. However for a surface water hydrologist, it is a loss since it decreases the amount of runoff contributing to the stream or any other water bodies.

The Mineral Kingdom presents a dazzling floral-display in the form of natural crystals. This is what makes mineralogy a very fascinating subject both for an amateur as well as an expert. Unless one visits the celebrated Lechuguilla cave in New Mexcio, USA it will be difficult to visualize the breathtaking beauty that crystals present. This, over 160 km cave is lined with gigantic as well as delicate gypsum crystals- as thin as human hair to several centimetres across and 6 m long . Crystals come in all shapes, sizes and colours. Their beauty and regular shape has not only attracted the scientists but made them objects of magical and mythical powers in many cultures of the world.

The study of crystals - including their growth, structure, classification by form and their physical properties forms the subject of crystallography. As of today one can’t think of this subject without x-ray crystallography, however, this being not in your syllabus only an introduction will be presented in the last chapter, while the entire section will be devoted to fundamental aspects of crystal morphology.

The section comprises four chapters. Chapter I describes and introduces the theme, presents a brief historical background of the development of the subject and gives some fundamental definitions. Chapter II presents the morphological elements including symmetry elements( plane, axes and centre of symmetry), parameters, indices, notation of crystal faces and other related aspects which are the basis for dividing crystals of all shapes and sorts into six or seven systems and several sub-types. This chapter will help you understand as to why mineral galena belongs to cubic system, while gypsum is monoclinic, or as to why an octahedron is represented by a symbol (111) but a cube with (100). Chapter III describes the seven systems and their sub-types and ends with an account of twinning- a curious feature quite often encountered among crystals. The section ends with a preliminary idea about stereographic projection and x-ray crystallography.

1.    Introduction    3
2.    History and Scope of Microbiology    4
    2.1.    Controversy over the origin of microorganisms, 5
    2.2.    Germ theory of fermentation, 6
    2.3.    Germ theory of disease, 6
    2.4.    Development of laboratory techniques and pure cultures, 7
    2.5.    Discovery of immunization, 7
    2.6.    Discovery of protection against infection, 8
    2.7.    Discovery of chemotherapeutic agents, 8
    2.8.    Microorganisms as geochemical agents, 9

1. Introduction
 
The bryophytes are found everywhere in the world except in the sea. They grow on wet soil or rock, the trunk of trees, in lake, river and even in Antarctic island. The bryophytes are placed taxonomically between algae (Fig. 1) and pteridophytes (Fig. 2); there are about 24,000 species in the world. They are further divided into three phyla, Bryophyta (mosses 14,000 species, Fig. 3), Marchantiophyta (liverworts 6,000 species, Fig.4a,b) and Anthocerotophyta (hornworts 300 species, Fig. 5). They are considered to be the oldest terrestrial plants, although no strong scientific evidence for this has appeared in the literature. This hypothesis was mainly based on the resemblance of the present-day liverworts to the first land plant fossils, the spores of which date back to almost 500 million years. Among the bryophytes almost all liverworts possess beautiful cellular oil bodies (Fig. 6) which are peculiar, membrane-bound cell organelles which consist of ethereal terpenoids and aromatic oils suspended in carbohydrates- or protein-rich matrix, while the other two phyla do not. These oil bodies are very important biological markers for the taxonomy in the Marchantiophyta (Asakawa, 1982, 1995; Asakawa et al., 1979b, 2008c, 2012b, 2013a,b; Asakawa and Ludwiczuk, 2008a,b; Ludwiczuk and Asakawa, 2010).

Summary

Biodiversity (the variety of living things) is fundamental to ecosystem structures and functions, and provide the broad spectrum of goods and services that humans derive from natural systems such as food (e.g. fish), protection from disasters such as cyclones, storms, floods (e.g. mangroves) or maintenance of water quality. Species (biodiversity) respond to climate change either staying or moving out or dying out. For example, the rise of temperature as a consequence of climate change may cause some species to (a) stay in the same environment since they can tolerate to adapt to changes; or (b) may cause some species to move out in a suitable environment (e.g. some species to move pole ward, some up in elevation) or (c) some species (fish) to go deep to increased depths in the oceans to escape heat or warming or (d) may cause some species to die out or get extinct (species with restricted distribution, longer generation time will not be able to migrate or adapt to climate change). A pattern of range shifts such as pole wards and upwards has been documented in hundreds of species of plants and animals and is one of the strongest signals of biotic changes from global warming. These shifts result from two processes: cold-edge expansion and warm-edge contraction. There is now abundant evidence for local extinctions from contractions at the warm edges of species’ ranges or warm edge contraction because the species may have already reached the limits of their climatic tolerance. Investigations conducted reveals that many terrestrial and aquatic species are shifting their geographic ranges in response to rapid changes in temperature and precipitation regimes. For example, many terrestrial organisms are currently shifting in latitude or elevation in response to changing climate. It has been estimated that plants and animals have recently shifted to higher elevations at a median rate of 11.0 m per decade, and to higher latitudes at a median rate of 16.9 km per decade.

Table 1: Descriptive statistics of the socio-economic and communication characteristics of the respondents in terms of Range (Minimum and Maximum), Mean, Standard Deviation (SD) and Coefficient of Variation (CV) of Alluvial Zone in West Bengal

Table 1 Represents the distribution of variables in terms of range i.e. maximum and minimum values, mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation for alluvial zone of West Bengal.

It has been found that for the independent variable age (x₁), the range lies between 82 and 27 years, where the oldest respondent is of 82 years and the youngest respondent being 27years old. The mean value of the age of the respondents in this study was found to be 51.49 years with a standard deviation of 12.42 in the dataset. Coefficient of variation for this variable was found to be 24.14 per cent, which indicates a high level of consistency in the distribution.

Appendix-'C'    :    Damage Prevention and Rehabilitation by Retrofitting
    
Appendix-'D'    :    Dos and Don'ts While Constructing Buildings
    
Case Study    :    Bhuj Earthquake 26th January, 2001
            Eyjafjallajoekull (Iceland) Volcano - 2010

6.1 Introduction

When rainfall strikes a ground surface, some losses like initial and infiltration will occur. After these losses are fulfilled, runoff will begin. The runoff will ultimately reach a stream. The main routes through which runoff flows are (i) overland flow, (ii) interflow and (iii) groundwater flow. Overland flow which is also called as surface flow flows over the land mass and reaches a stream. Overland flow soon reaches a stream and if it occurs in sufficient quantity, it forms an important element in the formation of flood peaks. In small and moderate storms, there may have predominant initial and infiltration losses resulting minimum amount of surface runoff and this is especially true in case of permeable soils. If the soil is impermeable, then there may have reasonable runoff. However, surface runoff is an important factor in streamflow only for heavy or high intensity rainfall.

There is widespread belief now that forests can be used to reduce the costs of slowing climate change. While the role of forests in the global carbon cycle has long been acknowledged, recent discussions within the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as efforts to write climate change legislation in the United States, have emphasized the role forests might play. The most recent policy efforts have focused on near-term actions to reduce deforestation in tropical countries. The rationale for considering forests at all in the policy mix stems partly from the physical components of the issue. The world’s forest estate is exceedingly large:

Key Facts
        
Agricultural food
    
·    There are multiple pathways through which climate-related factors may impact food contamination and food safety, food quality, foodborne diseases including changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, ocean warming and acidification and changes in the transport pathways of complex contaminants.
    
·    All or most foodborne pathogens and their associated diseases are linked to changing environmental conditions, the notable of which are campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis and vibriosis.
    
·    An estimated 30% of reported cases of salmonellosis across much of continental Europe have been attributed to warm temperatures, especially when they exceed a threshold of 6°C above average. Likewise both in Australia and Canada a positive correlation was found between increasing temperature and incidence of salmonellosis.
    
·    Zoonosis such as Rift Valley Fever (RVF), West Nile Fever, tick-borne diseases and non-zoonotic animal diseases such as Blue tongue, African horse sickness, African swine fever are examples of animal diseases whose distribution is expected to be strongly influenced by climate change and variability.
    
·    Mycotoxin is a toxic secondary metabolite produced by filamentous fungi, commonly known as moulds and may contaminate agricultural commodities (food) by growing on them both before and after harvest, whenever the humidity and temperature are permissive. The most prominent mycotoxins are aflatoxins, deoxynivalenol, zearalenone, ochratoxin-A, fumonisin, and patulin.
    
·    The humans ingestion of mycotoxins occur through consumption of the mycotoxin contaminated plant-based foods, such as grains, maize, barley, rice, coffee, nuts and their residues, and metabolites in animal-derived foods, for example aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in milk and meat products. In addition, mycotoxins may occur in beer and wine.

Introduction 
Weather forecasting stands as a testament to humanity’s enduring quest to understand and anticipate the natural world. Far from being a mere casual prediction, it is a highly sophisticated scientific and technological discipline dedicated to projecting the future state of the Earth’s atmosphere for specific locations and times. This complex endeavor begins with the meticulous collection of vast quantities of real-time data, encompassing everything from surface observations of temperature, pressure, wind, and humidity to upperair measurements gathered by weather balloons, aircraft, radar, and advanced satellite systems. The core of modern weather forecasting lies in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. These are intricate computer programs that embody the fundamental laws of physics governing atmospheric processes, such as fluid dynamics and thermodynamics. By feeding the enormous datasets of current atmospheric conditions into these models, supercomputers solve complex equations to simulate how the atmosphere will evolve over minutes, hours, and days. The raw output from these models is then further refined by human meteorologists who apply their expertise, integrating local geographical influences, historical patterns (climatology), and statistical techniques to produce the most accurate and actionable forecasts. The importance of accurate weather forecasting cannot be overstated. It serves as a vital tool across countless sectors, guiding daily personal decisions, from what to wear to whether to carry an umbrella. Crucially, for agriculture, precise weather forecasts are indispensable. Farmers rely heavily on these predictions to make informed decisions that directly impact crop yield and livestock health. Knowing when to plant seeds, schedule irrigation, apply fertilizers and pesticides, or harvest crops is directly influenced by anticipated rainfall, temperature extremes, and wind conditions. Timely warnings of frost, hailstorms, or prolonged droughts can enable farmers to take protective measures, minimizing losses and ensuring food security. For example, in regions like Telangana, where agriculture is a dominant sector, understanding

Key facts

Freshwater biotoxins

    
•    Biotoxins are naturally occurring toxic compounds produced by some freshwater cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) and marine algal species (dinoflagellates, diatoms).
    
•    Cyanobacteria are now recognised as a serious water quality problem with regard to drinking water supply and recreational use.
    
•    Environmental conditions that can promote cyanobacterial/blue-green algal blooms are: excessive nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen); warm water temperatures (15-30OC); sunlight for photosynthesis; and quiescent or stagnant water.
    
•    Outbreak of human poisoning attributed to cyanobacteria are neurotoxins (e.g. anatoxin-a, anatoxin-a(s), saxitoxins) and hepatotoxins (e.g. microcystins, nodularin) produced by some strains of the cyanobacteria including Microcystis, Anabaena, Aphanizomenon spp.

Summary

Climate change can affect the quantitative and qualitative status of water resources by altering hydrological cycles, systems and through changes of water quality via chemical and biological contamination. Changes in these variables lead to impacts on all the socio-economic and environmental goods and services that depend on these variables directly or indirectly including water supply, damage to ecosystems, water dependent food production. The most dominant climate drivers for water quantity or water availability are precipitation, run-off and river flows, floods, droughts, snows, glaciers, sea level rise etc. The observed climate change related impacts on world’s water resources/water quantity include increased precipitation at high latitudes and temperate areas and decreasing trends at low latitudes. The annual run-off in some regions may experience increased run-off, such as in high latitudes and large parts of the USA, whereas there has been a decrease in run-off such as parts of West Africa, southern Europe and southernmost of South America. Floods have been the most reported natural disaster events in Africa, Asia and Europe than all other natural disasters and in case of Bangladesh, six extreme floods have occurred in the last two decades. More intense droughts have been reported from Australia, semi-arid and semi-humid regions, western USA and southern Canada, the Sahel. Precipitation is projected to increase at mid- and high latitudes, in the tropics, whereas precipitation is projected to decrease over many sub-tropical areas (North Africa, northern Sahara), tropical Central American (Caribbean) and the Mediterranean. In areas where evaporation rates are expected to increase it would lead to reduced river and stream run-off. In contrast, areas receiving higher precipitation would likely have higher lake and river levels and may experience floods. The annual stream flow in the Murray-Darling basin (Australia) is projected to fall by 10-25% by 2050 and 16-48% by 2100 which would have severe consequences on irrigated agriculture in the region. Rivers depending on the Himalayan glaciers such as the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Syr Darya and Amu Darya could face water shortages or river run-off due to retreat of glaciers, and this would cause dramatic impact on drinking water supplies, biodiversity, hydropower, industry, agriculture and ecosystems on which about 2.4 billion people in Asia depends. Globally, ground water is the source of one third of all freshwater withdrawals, supplying an estimated 36%, 42% and 27% of the water used for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes, respectively. The demand for groundwater is likely to increase due to global increase of water use for irrigation and a decline in surface water quality and reduced summer flows in snow-dominated basins. It is projected that climate change (drought, floods) will affect groundwater recharge rates (e.g. floods would increase recharge, drought would decrease recharge).

Training helps people to become qualified and proficient in doing some jobs (Dahama, 1979). Usually an organization facilitates the employees’ learning through training so that their modified behaviour contributes to the attainment of the organization’s goals and objectives.
 
Training needs refer to the gaps between desired and expected levels of performance. Needs may be numerous. Besides they also need group, affection, recognition and fulfilment of their talents.

Training need may be defined as difference between existing and desired performance of person(s). In other words it is a gap between job requirement and job performance. That means it is gap between the existing and desired level of competency. Thus, the attitude, knowledge and skills of a person are lower than desired if the gap is significant there is a need for training.

In India’s National Extension Programme, professional workers constitute the link between the people and the institute created to advance economic and social change upon the character philosophy, technical knowledge and compliance of these workers largely rests for the success of the programme. Hence the quality of these workers and their training is the important element to be dealt with properly and guided wisely.

In early fifties, the Gramsevak / Village Level Workers (VLW’s) served as a key-man in Community Development Programme and therefore, the Government of India aimed at imparting him by better training and supervisory assistance. As a step in this direction, Gramsevak Training Centers were started to impart training to GramSevaks / VLW’s and Extension Officers were appointed in block for better supervisory assistance.

Genesis of Soil

World’s geography is very widely diversified in relief showing various features like mountains and hills covered with snow and trees, glaciers, higher altitudes to plain to lowest valleys, forests to barren lands, fertile fields to waste lands, plateaus, deltas, swamps, lowlands, deserts etc. Temperature varies from arctic cold to scorching hot of equator, Rainfall from aridity to per humidity. All these situations and conditions under different sets of combinations generate and develop numerous types of soil from a single type of parent material. Therefore, many types of soils may develop at a smaller area.

Physical, chemical and biological weathering processes disintegrate and decompose various rocks and minerals to make asymmetrical soil parent material. This parent material is converted in to the soil profile by soil forming processes in the presence of soil forming factors. Soil genesis is defined as mode of formation of the soil from the parent material due to the action of soil forming factors and processes. Parent material, Factors of soil formation and Processes of soil formation, are three main part of soil genesis. These are described here:

1. Parent Material,

2. Classification of parent material,

3. Factors of soil formation,

4. Processes of soil formation,

5. Types of soil forming processes.

Vulnerability of Soils

Soil vulnerability, Soil degradation, soil vulnerability index

Water and wind erosion, depletion of soil organic matter, loss of plant nutrients, salinity, alkalinity, acidity, pollution and contamination, compaction, sealing, crusting, water-logging, aridity, lowering of water table, over grazing, deforestation, landslide, loss and change in soil biodiversity, Abandoned mines etc.

Soil vulnerability, Soil Degradation, Soil Vulnerability Index

The terms vulnerable and vulnerability are now bites of every one and used for everything. Vulnerable means to the possibility of attack or harm by any mean. Human beings are vulnerable to Covid-19, computers are vulnerable to virus, softwares are vulnerable to hackers and attackers to control system, environment is vulnerable to pollution. Vulnerabilities refer to the lack of ability to resist the effects of the aggressive environment. Soils are vulnerable to numerous threats like water and wind erosion, depletion of soil organic matter, loss of plant nutrients, salinity, alkalinity, acidity, pollution and contamination, compaction, sealing, crusting, water-logging, aridity, lowering of water table, over grazing, deforestation, landslide, loss and change in soil biodiversity etc. However, this book will describe some of the most pertinent vulnerabilities for soils.

For applying spectral data models with other machine learning and regression algorithms we have to follow all steps upto Chapter 4 till the partition of whole datainto calibration and validation data set. After that different algorithms is used to develop others models so that,the best model among the different algorithms can be identified and used for better perdiction of soil properties.
5.1 Principal Component Regression (PCR)
Principal Component Regression (PCR) is a regression technique that combines Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and multiple linear regression. It is particularly useful when dealing with multicollinearity in the predictor variables, as it transforms the predictors into a set of uncorrelated components before performing the regression.
set.seed(123)
pcr.CaCO3.pc.223SGS<- train(CaCO3.pc ~., Train_Data.CaCO3.pc.223SGS,
method =”pcr”, trControl = custom,
tuneLength=25, importance = TRUE)
Explaination for code train(CaCO3.pc ~ ., data = Train_Data.CaCO3.pc.223SGS, ...)
Formula (CaCO3.pc ~ .): Specifies the model formula where CaCO3.pc is the
dependent variable and . indicates that all other columns in Train_Data.CaCO3.
pc.223SGS are independent variables.
Data (data = Train_Data.CaCO3.pc.223SGS): The dataset used for training the model.
method = “pcr”:Specifies that the model to be used is Principal Component Regression (PCR).
trControl = custom:Specifies the training control method. custom should be an object of class trainControl created earlier, defining the resampling method (e.g., cross-validation).This example sets up 10-fold cross-validation. tuneLength = 25:Specifies the number of different values for the number of principal components to consider. The package caret will try 25 different values to find the optimal number of components.

3.1    Air Pollution
    3.1.1 Classification of Air Pollutants
    3.1.2  Properties of Air Pollutants
    3.1.3  Health Effects
    3.1.4 Particulate Pollution Control Equipments
    3.1.5 Gaseous Pollution Control Equipments
    
3.2    Water Pollution
    3.2.1 Causes of Pollution
    3.2.2 Origin of Wastewater
    3.2.3 Waste Water Composition
    3.2.4 Types of Water Pollutants
    3.2.5 Basic Processes of Water Treatment
    
3.3    Land
    
3.4    Marine Pollution
    3.4.1 Sources and Effects of Marine Pollution Toxics
    3.4.2 Control Measures
    
3.5    Noise
    3.5.1 Effects of Noise
    3.5.2 Major Noise Sources
    3.5.3 Noise Control Measures
    
3.6    Thermal Pollution
    3.6.1 Effects of Thermal Pollution
    
3.7     Nuclear Hazards
    3.7.1 Nuclear Weapons
    3.7.2 Types of Nuclear Bursts
    3.7.3 Nuclear Injuries
    3.7.4 Residual Radiation
    
3.8    Nuclear Waste and their Treatment
    
3.9    Solid Waste Management
    3.9.1 Role of Human in Prevention of Pollution
    
3.10    Disaster Management
    3.10.1 Floods
    3.10.2 Earthquake
    3.10.3 Cyclone
    3.10.4 Landslides