Asansol-Durgapur Industrial Region serves as nerve-knot of the economy of West Bengal as well as the entire economic region of Eastern India because of its enormous reservoir of excellent quality of coal of Raniganj Coalfield, outstanding network of transport by rail and road, skillful and cheap labour in close proximity of states. With the establishment of a number of large industrial units like Iron & Steel Plant, Durgapur Steel Plant, Chittaranjan Locomotive works, Durgapur Alloy Steel Plant, Durgapur Thermal Power Station, and hundreds of medium and small-scale industries have made the region great industrial belt after Hooghly industrial belt in West Bengal. Though there was rapid industrialization after independence period but the growth of industries has not taken place uniformly throughout the study area. This is because, high manufacturing intensity found in Durgapur, Asansol, Raniganj and Kulti areas whereas the Salanpur, Jamuria, Fraidpur, Barabani areas witnesses low manufacturing intensity. The decadal growth of industries also noteworthy, in 1951 there were 46 industrial units and it increased to 430 in 2019. The number of basic metal and engineering units was 2 and 18 respectively in the year 1951 whereas in 2019 the basic metal and engineering unit increased to 122 and 66 respectively. This paper primarily focuses on the estimation of spatial and temporal distribution of manufacturing industrial units, growth and structural changes, manufacturing intensity and concentration of the manufacturing sector during the period of 1951 to 2019 in Asansol-Durgapur Industrial Region.
Every environment is surrounded by traditional people who have lived in the geographic location for a long time and use their particular knowledge to cohabit with the natural ecosystem. This study assessed challenges encountered towards tree conservation by the Rendille pastoral community in Kenya. Selected tree species; Olea europaea, Terminalia sp. and Hyphaene compressa, that are commonly used by the community were identified and the probable threats towards their conservation. Some of these tree conservation challenges by the indigenous Rendille were: charcoal burning and fuel wood consumption, demand of traditional tree medicinal value, climate variability extremes and demand for land for settlement by the community. The results indicate that, charcoal burning (84.4%) and demand for traditional tree medicine (77.3%) were leading causes frustrating tree conservation among the Rendille. To mitigate these challenges, the respondents indicated that, creation of awareness (89.1%) and promotion of other sources of fuel (78.9%) could be vital factors. The study recommends Integration of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) with formal education to enhance conservation of the mentioned tree species.
Shoreward migration process of longshore bar is an important aspect of shoreline changes in the Mahanadi delta front. It involves coalescence of individual bars to form large complex bars just before welding on to the shoreline. Such welding sometimes results in the formation of large hook spits. Bar welding mechanism can be an extremely important form of natural beach nourishment. This study aims to detect stages of evolution of longshore bars and consequent welding with mainland. Multi-dated Landsat images have been used to detect evolution of longshore bar and welding processes. QGIS platform has been used to process images and compose required maps.
Geo-spatial assessment of land use/cover dynamics in Akoko South West Local Government was instigated to bridge the knowledge gap created by data deficiency on the nature, scope and magnitude of land use/cover change in the area. This was done through the analysis of Landsat images of three epochs from 2000 through 2010 to 2020. The processing of the satellite images was done in ArcGIS 10.8 while the analysis and 2030 projection was done in Microsoft office excel using the result from the analysis. QGIS was used to remove the scan lines error on the 2010 image. The result showed increasing built-up area, reducing vegetation and farmlands and diminishing rock outcrops. The changes vary among the different classification characteristics. The increasing change in the second epoch was higher in built up areas while rock outcrops increased in the first epoch. Farmland and vegetation were on reducing trend throughout the study period. However, the moderate change observed in the second epoch for the two land cover classes were not as significant as the first epoch. Government policies on forest reserve should strictly be adhered to in order to preserve the vegetation in the area. People of the area should be advised to diversify their economy in order to avoid total dependence on the forest reserve.
Regardless of the doubt caused by some rounds on the impossibility of earthquake forecast, more and more countries, even at the highest governmental levels, realize that doing nothing is the ostrich position of dread before the real difficulties associated with the creation of a real forecasting system. Nigeria in times past was believed to be aseismic. However, the seismic record of Nigeria from 1933-2021 have demonstrated in contrast to the idea, numerous quakes have been recorded in Nigeria throughout the years. With the development of observation techniques and theoretical knowledge of geochemistry, geochemical observation of faults gas has become a hotspot once more in recent years. Rn, Hg, H2, etc., are used for geochemical observations. 222Rn has a half-life of 3.825 days, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake will be detected through precursory phenomena at a distance not greater than 142 km. Mercury and other elements are used as important detectors for earthquake prediction and they play an important role in revealing the relationship between fluid in the fault zone and the occurrence of earthquakes, the range for a magnitude 5.0 earthquake is limited to 200 km. Hydrogen concentrations have been monitored for precursory variations in many fault systems, using either discrete sampling and laboratory analysis or continuous monitoring of ground gas, using hydrogen-sensitive fuel cells. Precursory changes in groundwater chemistry are often attributed to the mixing of fluids from two or more chemically distinct aquifers, the physical mechanism responsible for the mixing of fluids is, however, not well established.
