eChapters

Introduction

Increasing evidence over the past few decades indicate that significant changes in climate are taking place worldwide and its effects are surreal. Major cause to climate change has been ascribed to the increased levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxides (N₂O), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) beyond their natural levels due to the uncontrolled human activities such as burning of fossil fuels, increased use of refrigerants, and enhanced agricultural activities. Global average sea level has risen since 1961 at an average rate of 1.8 (1.3 to 2.3) mm/yr and since 1993 at 3.1 (2.4 to 3.8) mm/yr, with contributions from thermal expansion, melting glaciers and ice caps, and polar ice sheets. The climatic changes are resulting in erratic weather patterns and the impacts are already being manifested in many parts of the world and coastal agricultural systems are nearing crisis point. The IPCC has projected that during the 21st century the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further by 1.1 to 2.9 °C as per their lowest estimation model and by 2.4 to 6.4 °C as per their higher estimation model.

Introduction

Soil is considered one of the world’s limited, non-renewable resources. Under cropland conditions, it takes between 200 and 1000 years for 2.5cm of topsoil to form (Piementel et al., 1995). The continued maintenance of fertile soil is essential in order to meet basic human needs. It strengthens the provision of ecosystem services such as food production and climate regulation, and provides the basis of livelihoods for millions of people across the world (Ma, 2005). The multi-functionality of soils is key to the sustainable use of land and soils. A healthy soil performs six essential functions (Andrews et al., 2004) namely: i) Physical Stability and Support, ii) Water Relations, iii) Resistance and resilience- iv) Nutrient Cycling, v) Biodiversity and Habitat and vi) Filtering and Buffering. These soil functions are controlled by various soil properties. Among them soil structure is one of the most important properties of soil, which describes soil condition and has a great influence on crop production.

The arid and semi-arid regions of India are drought prone and the availability vegetation of these regions is more acute during summer when the quality of the pastures becomes vulnerable. Small ruminants in the semi-arid regions need to adopt special physiological function to maintain thermal equilibrium. The reproductive efficiency of different breeds of sheep inhabiting in the semi-arid regions of India is relatively low (Arora and Garg, 1998).The nature of nutritional resources and management problems differs with climate, soil and vegetation, the physical process which governs the animals reproductive performance are the same; the female must reach puberty, show behavioral estrus and shed one or more ova which have then to be fertilized. Dietary nutrition promotes the programming and expression of the metabolic pathways that enable animals to achieve their genetic potential for reproduction. Nutrition has an important impact on the reproductive performance in sheep, but the magnitude of the effect on reproduction may vary with the season (White et al., 1983). Sheep are more prone to neglect compared to cattle and often suffer from lack of feed and fodder. The animals during the grazing are exposed to combined stress (Sejian et al., 2010 ab, and 2011) .This leads to decrease in body weight and loss of reproductive functions. Concurrently, Rhind and Mc Neilly (1986) showed that ewes with low body fat reserves had fewer large ovarian follicles and therefore the potential for subsequent maturation and ovulation declined. 

Introduction  

Developing effective strategies for improving and stabilizing rainfed crop production continues to be a prime concern in the semi-arid region of western India. Rain water management is most crucial aspect in rainfed production systems. Growing uncertainties associated with rainfall pattern (Ali et al., 2007) add to the complexity of the challenge. The medium deep black soil region of Rajasthan is spread predominantly in Jhalawar, Kota, Baran, Bundi, and Sawai Madhopur districts of South-eastern Rajasthan (Fig. 1). This region is characterized by almost flat alluvial plains interspersed with hills of Arawali and Vindhyan ranges and rock outcrops. 

Increasing evidence over the past few decades indicate that significant changes in climate are taking place worldwide as a result of enhanced human activities. The inventions that were discovered during last few centuries, more so in the last century has altered the concentration of atmospheric constituents that lead to global warming. The major cause to climate change has been ascribed to the increased levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxides (NO₂), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) beyond their natural levels due to the uncontrolled activities such as burning of fossil fuels, increased use of refrigerants, and enhanced agricultural related practices. The temperature increase is widespread over the globe and is greater at higher northern latitudes. Land regions have warmed faster than the oceans. January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on recordreported by NASA. These activities accelerated the processes of climate change and increased the average global temperatures by about 0.8°C (1.5°F) since 1880 (NASA,2010). Global average sea level has risen since 1961 at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm/yr and since 1993 at 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8] mm/yr, with contributions from thermal expansion, melting glaciers and ice caps, and the polar ice sheets. Satellite data since 1978 show that annual average Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7 % [2.1 to 3.3%] per decade, with larger decreases in summer of 7.4% [5.0 to 9.8%] per decade. Mountain glaciers and snow cover on average have declined in both hemispheres. It has also induced increased climatic variability and occurrence of extreme weather events in many parts of the world.

Wheat (T. aestivum) is a staple food of the vast majority of the human population in most part of the world; Europe, West Asia, South East Asia, Americas and North Africa. It provides more nourishment than any other food crop and leads all other food crops-rice, maize and potato on a global basis. The wide varieties of food products prepared from it make the crop popular and also a reason for its expansion even to non-traditional wheat cultivated areas. As a leading cereal crop, it is cultivated widely under varied agro-ecological regions and cropping systems throughout the world. It is one of the first plants domesticated and cultivated by humans, which played a critical role in the transition from hunter–gatherer groups to stabilized societies with an agrarian foundation. Wheat is harvested every month of the year somewhere in the world, from as far south as Argentina and as far north as Finland, and it is grown over a substantial area in almost every country of North and South America, Europe, and Asia (Fig. 32.1). Even though, the normal planting period of wheat falls in the same month across different countries, the harvesting period is different (Fig. 32.2).

5.1    Global Food Production
    5.1.1    Area Under Cultivation
    5.1.2    World Food Production
    
5.2    Variability in Global and Indian Food Grain Production
    
5.3    Impact of Phenomenal Drought During 2009 on Food Grain Production in Different Countries
    
5.4    Impacts on Livestock and Fisheries
    5.4.1    Livestock
    5.4.2       Milk Production
    5.4.3    Fisheries
    
5.5    Estimation of Food Grain Production in India using Rainfall indices
    5.5.1    Trend in the annual food grain production
    5.5.2    De-trended production index
    5.5.3    Construction of rainfall indices (RI)
    5.5.4    Development of model for estimation of production index
    5.5.5    Verification of model performance
    5.5.6    Estimation of Kharif Price Production
    
5.6    Forecasting of Agricultural Output Using Space, Agrometeorology and Land based Observation (FASAL)
        
References

6.1    Hydrological Cycle
    
6.2    Global Surface Waters
    
6.3    Surface Water over India
    
6.4    Ground Water Potentials in India
    
6.5    Influence of Drought on Water Resources, its Fauna and Flora
    6.5.1    Effects on Fauna and Flora
    
6.6    Influence of Changing Climate on Droughts and Water Resources
    6.6.1    Global warming and droughts at global scale
    6.6.2    Global warming on water resources at global scale
    6.6.3    Global warming and droughts at national scale in India
    6.6.4    Global warming impacts on water resources at National scale
        
References

Yak (Poephagus grunniens)is the most remarkable and multipurpose domestic animal living at high altitudes of the Himalayas. Features common to the environment in which yak live are extreme cold, mountainous terrain, high altitudes with reduced oxygen in the air, high solar radiation and short growing seasons for herbageanda variable assortment of herbage, sparse insome areas. Generally, the yak habitat ranges from 3000-6000 m abovemean sea level (msl), where the alpine pastures are found and there is no absolutely frost-free period during any part of the year. Wilted herbage provides some sustenance for the yak at other times of year, but not insufficient quantity for their requirements (Fig. 9.1). Many of thecharacteristics of the yak can be regarded as adaptations to these conditions, in which cattle of other species have difficulty in surviving (Wiener et al., 2003).The yaks are considered as the life line of the highlanders in remote terrain because yak is the only sustainable livelihood due to non-availability of arable land for major agriculture. Yak husbandry is one of the important and indispensable aspects of the Indianstates, namely, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim and Garhwal hills of Uttarakhand where other livestock species can hardly live but yaks can survive, reproduce and produce milk, meat, wool and other by-products.

Agricultural production in India is still vulnerable to vagaries of monsoon rainfall in spite of rapid technological advancements like 1) Availability of high yielding varieties 2) Improved crop management practices and increased irrigation availability and effective control of pests and diseases and etc, over last few decades. Majority of Indian farming community which broadly comprising of small and medium farmers are often subject to climate extremes such as droughts, floods, heavy rainfall events, heat and cold waves, frost, hail storms during the crop growing season. The probabilities of occurrence of such climate extremes and associated crop damages and production losses are common in tropical countries like India. Compensation to the resource crunched farmers in the form of crop insurance seems to be the best option for speedy recovery from the losses incurred during the season. It provides security and stability to farm income by protecting the farmers’ investment in crop production and then improves their risk bearing capacities. Crop insurance scheme is based on the fundamental principle of insurance business in which risk is distributed across space and time. For successful implementation of any crop insurance scheme operating presently in the country, proper monitoring of accurate weather parameters at the identified locations throughout the crop life cycle is important.

ABSTRACT
The ‘steel-drum type’ biogas plant installation programme in Punjab was initiated in the early seventies, whose construction works were entrusted on the Department of Agriculture. Because of their high cost and high failure rates then, only the affluent farmers could afford to install. In the meantime, a cheaper Chinese model, also known as Janta type (dome-type replacing the drum-type) plant, became popular but was still out of the reach of ordinary farmers. With dual objectives of cost reduction and efficient biogas production to make it affordable to small farmers, a coordinated research was initiated. Detailed extension surveys were carried out in Ludhiana district which inferred that the farmers did not install the gas-holding steel drum though they purchased it. A significantly low cost Katcha-Pucca plant model of 15m3/d capacity was developed and installed in Sangrur district. Similar digester was tried for Janta model in which the inlet, outlet and dome (gas holder) were masonry works but the digester was a Katcha pit, the dome of the plant being modified to a semi-circular dome. More than 80 such plants are functional in a single village, and more than 40–50% of the plants installed in Punjab and Haryana are these PAU designs. The chapter deals in greater details on the design aspects and the extensive field works carried out to achieve these successes, along with some relevant facts and figures. The write-up is written as a commentary, rather than a typical chapter, for the benefit and interest to the readers.

Introduction

Tree growing in hot arid region is basically concerned with the management of trees for conservation and for limited production objectives like wood for fuel, poles and fencing material; leaves for livestock fodder; and pod/seeds for many types use in human diet. The role of trees to conserve the fragile ecosystems of hot arid regions has been well recognized (Mann and Muthana 1984). The trees also provided so many services to mankind, which make them an intricate part of man-livestock-agriculture continuum, the lifeline of hot arid regions (Saxena 1997). 

ABSTRACT
The global energy demand is increasing day by day. Now-a-days, the supply of global energy is highly dependent on fossil fuels (viz., crude oil, lignite, hard coal, natural gas). But, on one hand the source of fossil fuel is decreasing at a rapid rate, and on the other hand the burning of fossil fuel is also degrading the environment due to huge Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission (FAO/CMS, 2011). Hence, there is an urgent need of an alternate clean energy source that can sustain the future development undeterred while still protecting the environment. Biomass is considered as a sustainable source of clean energy that is useful in steam, fuel and chemicals production. It can be digested in controlled environment to produce biogas. The biogas is a clean, non-polluting and smoke-free fuel (Weiland, 2010) which can be used for applications that include cooking, space cooling/refrigeration, heating, electricity generation and gaseous fuel (CNG) for vehicles (Weiland, 2003). This paper analyses possible alternatives to process and utilise biogas for energy at industrial scale as a petroleum fuels replacement.

1.1     Forest Resources
    
1.2     Uses of Forest
    
1.3     Deforestation and its Effects
    
1.4     Water Resources
        
    1.4.1 Water Conflicts
    1.4.2 Dams Conflicts
    
1.5    Drought
    1.5.1 Regions of Drought in the World
    1.5.2 Effects of Drought
    
1.6     Flood
    
1.7    Environmental Effects of Mineral Resources
    
1.8    Food Rseources
    1.8.1 Technological Improvements in Food Production
    1.8.2 Environmental Issues Related to Increased Production
    
1.9    Overgrazing and its Effects
    
1.10    Impacts of Intensive Farming on Soil and Water Resources
    
1.11    Effects of Agricultural Chemicals on the Environment
    
1.12    Energy Sources
    
1.13    Waterlogging
    
1.14    Land Resources
    
1.15    Land Degradation
    
1.16    Soil Erosion
    1.16.1 Types of Erosion
    
1.17     Desertification
    1.17.1 Causes of Desertification
    1.17.2 Effects of Desertification
    
1.18    Conservation of Natural Resources
    1.18.1 Conflicts
    1.18.2 Challenges and Methods

Climate Change has emerged as one of the most serious environmental concerns of recent times. The most imminent climatic change is increase in atmospheric temperature due to increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O) and hydrochlorofluoro carbons (HCFCs). Because of increasing concentrations of the greenhouse gases in atmosphere, there is much concern about future changes in the climate system viz., Atmosphere, Lithosphere, Biosphere, Hydrosphere and Cryosphere. Direct or indirect effects on the society linked sectors like water, forestry, agriculture, animal agriculture, fisheries, land and marine biodiversity and health due to climate change/variability are many-fold and economic impact of climate change is enormous. The recurrent drought and desertification threaten seriously the livelihood of over 1.2 billion people who depend on land for most of their needs.

The term soil organic matter (SOM) includes any material that is produced originally by soil organisms (plant or animal) that is returned to the soil and undergoes decomposition process. At any point in time, it consists of an array of materials, ranging from the intact original tissues of plants and animals to the substantially decomposed mixture of materials known as humus (Fig.1.1). Most soil organic matter originates from plant tissues. Plant residues contain 60 - 90 per cent of moisture and the remaining dry matter consists mostly of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, with smaller amounts of sulphur, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Though present in small amounts, these nutrients are of great significance from the standpoint of soil fertility.

1.1    General Circulation of the Atmosphere
    
1.2    World Climates
    
1.3    World Climate Classification by Köppen’s method
    
1.4    Climatic Classification over India
    
1.5    Asian Summer Monsoon and Rainfall Distribution
    
1.6    The Indian Monsoon
    Features of monsoon
    Monsoon circulation
    Onset of monsoon
    Withdrawal of monsoon
    Southwest monsoon rainfall
    Active phase of monsoon
    Break monsoon conditions
    Winter monsoon

1.7    Causes for Failure of Monsoon
    
    Prediction of onset of monsoon rainfall

1.8    Spatial Distribution of Weather Parameters over India
    Rainfall
    Temperature
    Humidity
    Sunshine and Radiation
    Wind speed

1.9    Famines in India
    
1.10    Historical Evidences of Droughts
    
1.11    Distribution of Drought Prone Regions over the Globe
    1.11.1    Occurance of drought in different countries
    
1.12    Distribution of Drought Prone Regions in India
    
1.13    Weather Phenomena Associated with Droughts
    
1.14    Effect of Droughts on Natural Resources
    1.14.1    Surface water resources
    1.14.2    Groundwater sources
    
1.15    Impact of Latest Droughts on Crop Production in India
    
1.16    Economic Impacts of Droughts in India
    
1.17    Economic Impacts of Droughts in other Nations
        
References

The aim of this book is to further strengthen the knowledge of readers on management of disasters so that they are better prepared to cope with more frequently occurring natural and manmade disasters.

The process that helps us to face disasters effectively is commonly known as disaster preparedness.  When a disaster strikes, it affects us directly and immediately. While as the government, international agencies such as United Nations, Red Cross Society, non government organizations, like Ramakrishna Mission, OXFAM, CARE, resident welfare associations in urban areas and panchayats in rural areas assist us when faced with disasters the community, invariably remains the first responders. Hence, the individuals as a part of community should prepare adequately to prevent, face and respond to disasters effectively. History has  shown that where communities have prepared adequately to confront disasters, losses to life and property have been less and environment could be protected. People living in an area may be prone to more than one type of disaster. For example Kutch District of Gujarat is vulnerable to floods, drought, cyclones and to earthquakes. Such an area is called ‘multiple hazard’ zone.

Introduction

Landslides are simply defined as mass movement of rock, debris or earth down a slope and have come to include broad range of motions whereby falling, sliding and flowing under the influence of gravity dislodges earth material. They often take place in conjunction with earthquakes, floods and volcanoes. At times, prolonged rainfall cause heavy landslides, that block the flow of river for quite sometime.

Introduction

Human civilization used to undergo several form of disasters throughout its life history. Most of such events are unpredictable, sudden and short in duration, and such events can easily classifiable as either natural (e.g. cyclones, earth quake, natural forest fires and tsunami) or manmade such as spread of toxic chemicals (e.g. Bhopal disaster 1984), nuclear explosions, civil war, diseases (Minamata, itaiitai, etc.). However, climate change is a real time prolonged disaster which is caused by both natural (caused by variation in solar irradiance, variations in orbital parameters of earth, volcanic activities, natural forest fire, methane release from thawing of permafrost from ocean floor, natural wetlands and cattle) and anthropogenic means (by greenhouse gases resulted from human activities-all kinds of combustion, industrial production of greenhouse gases and agricultural water lodging activities such as paddy cultivation and artificial wet lands, and deforestation).