Characterization of heavy rain and subsequent dry periods during the North-East monsoon in the dry zone of Sri Lanka

AbstractPseudogilquinia pillersi (Southwell, 1929), a poorly known species of trypanorhynch, is redescribed from plerocerci collected from Epinephelus coioides (Hamilton, 1922), Epinephelus malabaricus (Bloch et Schneider, 1801) (Serranidae) and Plectropomus laevis (Lacépède, 1801) (Serranidae) off New Caledonia. These were compared with specimens from Lethrinus atkinsoni Seale, 1910 and Lethrinus miniatus (Forster, 1801) (Lethrinidae) off the north-east coast of Australia as well as syntypes from Protonibea diacantha (Lacépède, 1802) from Sri Lanka. Although size differences were found in parts of the scolex as well as in the sizes of the tentacular hooks, the hook arrangements were identical in all specimens. The differences observed were attributed provisionally to intra-specific variation across a wide geographic and host range.

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Synrift evaporite deposition and structural characterization of the onshore Alagoas subbasin

Interpretation ◽

10.1190/int-2018-0207.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. SH19-SH31

Author(s):

Gabriela Salomão Martins ◽

Webster Ueipass Mohriak ◽

Nivaldo Destro

Keyword(s):

Structural Characterization ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Hanging Wall ◽

Structural Evolution ◽

Gas Production ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

Half Graben ◽

Well Data

The Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, situated in the north-east Brazilian margin, has a long tradition of oil and gas production and the presence and distribution of evaporites play an important role in petroleum systems in the basin. However, little research has focused on the structural evolution of the older, synrift evaporitic sections of the basin. We have focused explicitly in the detailed subsurface structural characterization of the rift in the Alagoas subbasin and the distribution of the Early Aptian evaporites. To accomplish this objective, we interpreted selected 2D and 3D seismic and well data located in two areas known as the Varela Low (VL) and Fazenda Guindaste Low (FGL). We identified diverse deformation styles in those two basin depocenters. Our interpretation indicates that VL consists of a half-graben with a significant rollover structure, controlled by two listric northeast–southwest border faults. The deformation in the hanging wall is also accommodated by release faults and minor antithetic faults. In this depocenter, we mapped in the seismic and the well data an older evaporitic sequence within the Coqueiro Seco Fm., known as Horizonte Salt. This evaporitic section occurs in the internal part of the VL half graben, where it is limited by release and antithetic faults. Significant salt strata growing toward the antithetic fault is observed. Whereas, the FGL represents a graben elongated along the north-east direction and is controlled by several types of structures. We recognized normal synthetic and antithetic faults, transfer zones, release faults, and rollover anticlines in the seismic throughout this depocenter. We mapped an evaporitic section within the Maceió Fm., known as Paripueira Salt, which consists of disconnected salt bodies, restricted to the hanging walls of synrift faults.

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Some of the Wild Life Problems of Ceylon

Oryx ◽

10.1017/s0030605300000466 ◽

1959 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 125-137

Author(s):

R. M. Bere

Keyword(s):

The South ◽

Indian Peninsula ◽

Climatic Regions ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

South Indian ◽

Life Problems ◽

Dry Zone ◽

Wild Life ◽

Wet Zone

Topographically Ceylon is a detached portion of the South Indian peninsula. It divides into two climatic regions, known as the Dry and Wet Zones; the latter occupies approximately the south-western quarter of the island. By African standards, dry and wet are relative terms and there may be over 80 inches of rain in the Dry Zone. Even so, rainfall tends to be concentrated and long periods without rain occur. The Wet Zone receives rain during both monsoons, the Dry Zone during the north-east monsoon only. Monsoons sometimes fail and serious droughts are not uncommon.

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The Influence of Habitat Changes on Elephant Mortality Associated with Human–Elephant Conflict: Identifying Areas of Concern in the North Central Dry Zone of Sri Lanka

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132413707 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (24) ◽

pp. 13707

Author(s):

Chase A. LaDue ◽

Sarah M. Farinelli ◽

Imira Eranda ◽

Chandana Jayasinghe ◽

Rajnish P. G. Vandercone

Keyword(s):

Sri Lanka ◽

Habitat Quality ◽

Human Activity ◽

Human Population ◽

Forest Cover ◽

North Central ◽

The North ◽

Dry Zone ◽

The Impact ◽

Forest Cover Loss

Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) is becoming increasingly prevalent as human activity expands, and monitoring the impact of habitat quality on wildlife mortality related to HWC is critical for the well-being of wildlife and people. Using ten years of necropsies from free-ranging Asian elephants in the Northwestern Wildlife Region (NWR) of Sri Lanka, we quantified the effect of habitat quality on human–elephant conflict (HEC) (i.e., human-caused elephant mortality), hypothesizing that both artificial (e.g., forest cover loss) and natural (e.g., water availability, temperature) changes would be associated with elephant mortality. We collated necropsies from 348 elephants that died due to human activity from 2009 to 2018, comparing the results with data on forest cover loss, perennial water, rainfall, temperature, and human population sizes. Over the study period, we found that forest cover loss was significantly correlated with human-caused mortality in a district-specific manner. Similarly, access to perennial water and precipitation levels appeared to influence mortality, but not temperature, human population density, or percent land cover used for agriculture. We conducted emerging hot spot analyses to identify areas within the NWR that should be prioritized for protection, which included landscapes that are not currently protected (approximately 43% of the hot spots we identified). Similarly, areas that we identified as cold spots included many areas with minimal forest cover loss. Together, our results emphasize the impact that human activity can have on the measurable outcomes of HEC. We suggest that adaptive HWC management strategies that use retrospective analyses should inform any potential changes to the protection of vital wildlife habitats, such as the north central dry zone of Sri Lanka.

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Checklist of Indian Lebiinae Bonelli, 1810 (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

Journal of Insect Biodiversity ◽

10.12976/jib/2019.10.1.1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 1-63

Author(s):

RAJ T. SHIJU ◽

THOMAS K. SABU

Keyword(s):

Sri Lanka ◽

Geographic Distribution ◽

Western Ghats ◽

Indian Subcontinent ◽

Distribution Patterns ◽

Indian Species ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

Gondwana Land ◽

The Western Ghats

Distribution patterns and literature details of 263 Lebiinae species reported from India are provided. List includes 14 species missed out by Andrewes (1930a) and the 98 species described thereafter. Distribution patterns revealed among the 263 species, 104 species are exclusively Oriental species and 35 species are exclusively Palaearctic species. Among the 263 Indian speceis, 130 species are exclusively Indian species with reports only from the Indian subcontinent and one species with report only from Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Of the 130 Indian species, 89 species are recorded from the Oriental, 27 species from the Palaearctic and 14 species recorded from both Oriental and Palaearctic regions in India. Among the 129 Indian subcontinent species, 45 species are endemics to the three global hotspots of the biodiversity in India with 31 species endemic to the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka hotspot of biodiversity; six species endemic to the Eastern Himalayas hotspot of biodiversity; eight species endemic to the Indo-Burma hotspot of biodiversity; four species recorded only from Chota Nagpur plateu and 27 species recorded only from Indian Himalayas. Four species (Microlestes parvati, Singilis indicus, S. squalidus and Lebia cardoni) recorded only from Chota Nagpur plateu and the 31 endemic species from the Western Gahts and Sri Lanka are of special interest for their Gondwana relationships. 133 species have wider geographic distribution pattern with 15 species having distribution in Oriental and Indian regions; 8 species having distribution in Palaeractic and Indian regions; 10 species having distribution in Oriental and Indo-Australian regions; 48 species with distribution in Oriental and Palaearctic regions; 29 species with distribution in Oriental, Indo-Australian and Palaearctic regions; 2 species with distribution in Oriental, Australian and Palaearctic regions; 6 species with distribution in Oriental, Palaearctic and Afrotropical regions; 9 species with distribution in Oriental, Indo-Australian, Australian and Palaearctic regions; and 6 species with random distributions in different regions. Distribution records indicate that the arrival/origin of 228 species- 137 species with wider geographic distribution outside India and the 91 species with Indian distribution and not endemics to the Western Ghats and the Chotanagpur Plateau- is likely to have occurred after the joining of Indian subcontinent with Asian continent and during the subsequent faunal exchange between the newly formed Indian subcontinent and the surrounding regions (Indo-Burma and Indo-China on the north east front; Mediterranean and Ethiopian regions on the north-western front; Central Asian elements on the northern front). These 228 species represent the younger Indian Lebiinae species compared to the 35 species representing the older/ancient species with Gondwana land origin. Key words: Carabidae, Lebiinae, Perigonini, Pentagonicini, Odacanthini, Cyclosomini, Lebiini, India

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Classification of Groundwater Suitability for Irrigation in the Ulagalla Tank Cascade Landscape by GIS and the Analytic Hierarchy Process

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy9070351 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (7) ◽

pp. 351 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

M.K.N. Kumari ◽

Kazuhito Sakai ◽

Sho Kimura ◽

Kozue Yuge ◽

M.H.J.P. Gunarathna

Keyword(s):

Water Quality ◽

Sri Lanka ◽

Analytic Hierarchy Process ◽

Heavy Rain ◽

Geographical Information ◽

Analytic Hierarchy ◽

Dry Zone ◽

The Analytic Hierarchy Process ◽

Cropping Seasons ◽

Hierarchy Process

The tank cascade system (TCS) has been used for over 2000 years for water management in Sri Lanka. Since surface water is limited in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, agricultural production, especially of upland crops, relies on groundwater for irrigation. We sampled 29 wells in the Ulagalla cascade, a prominent TCS near Anuradhapura city in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, in Yala (dry) and Maha (wet) seasons, the two main cropping seasons in Sri Lanka. We evaluated the suitability of groundwater for irrigation using the analytic hierarchy process and geographical information system. Water quality did not vary notably between seasons. However, it deteriorated with the onset of high intensity heavy rain, especially during the Maha season. A water quality zoning map indicated that groundwater in 4% and 96% of the study area is suitable and moderately suitable for irrigation, respectively. Irrigation water quality in tank cascade landscapes and similar environments can be assessed using this methodology and our results.

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Vijaya and Romulus: Interpreting the Origin myths of Sri Lanka and Rome

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland ◽

10.1017/s1356186313000527 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 51-73 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

ALAN STRATHERN

Keyword(s):

Sri Lanka ◽

Final Section ◽

Fifth Century ◽

Sri Lankan ◽

Ancient Greek ◽

North East ◽

Origin Stories ◽

The North ◽

Origin Myths ◽

The Stranger

AbstractThe story of Vijaya, has long been central to the Sinhalese idea of themselves as a distinct ethnic group of Aryan origin with ancient roots in the island of Lanka. The ‘national’ chronicle of the Sinhalese, the Mahāvaṃsa (circa fifth century ce) presents Vijaya, an exiled prince from India descended from a lion, as the founder hero of Sinhala civilisation. In a companion article to this, I argued that the narrative of Vijaya and other founder-heroes in the Mahāvaṃsa revolves around the theme of transgression, and that this puzzling fact can only be explained by a consideration of the symbolic logic of the ‘stranger-king’ in origin stories and kingship rituals worldwide. In the present article, I look at other ways of explaining the narrative of Sīhabāhu, Vijaya, and Paṇḍukābhaya. First I break down the narrative into four different origin stories and consider their distribution in a range of texts from South Asia in order to reflect on possible textual inspirations for them (and even consider parallels with the Greek tale of Odysseus and Circe). Second, I consider the possibility that the narrative concerning relations with Pāṇḍu royalty reflects immediate political imperatives of the fifth century ce. Do such interpretations negate the assumption that an organic communal process of mythogenesis has been at work? In the final section this methodological dilemma is approached through comparisons with the way in which scholars have looked at the origin myths of ancient Greek and particularly Roman society. Lastly, these reflections add further weight to the global comparative model of the stranger king, for the stories of Romulus and Vijaya share an emphasis on alien and transgressive beginnings.In 2009 the Sri Lankan government finally destroyed the conventional forces of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) as the civil war that had afflicted the island since 1983 was brought to a violent denouement in the north-east of the Vanni region. From some of the subsequent celebrations by the Sinhalese majority, it seemed that the President Mahinda Rajapaksa was hailed not only for having rid Sri Lanka of a violent menace, but for having, in one sense, re-created the island. The country could now attain the kind of genuine independence and wholeness that had been lacking for much of the period following decolonisation in 1948. After the victory, Rajapaksa was hailed as a ‘great king’ and his admirers were not slow to draw historical analogies with kings and founder-heroes of the past. Such heroes typically have to wade through blood to obtain political mastery; the Lankan chronicles imply that such is the price that must be paid for the re-establishment of society or civilisation itself.

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Evaluation of Indian summer monsoon rainfall features using TRMM and KALPANA-1 satellite derived precipitation and rain gauge observation

MAUSAM ◽

10.54302/mausam.v61i3.835 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 61 (3) ◽

pp. 317-336

Author(s):

V. R. DURAI ◽

S. K. ROY BHOWMIK ◽

B. MUKHOPADHYAY

Keyword(s):

Summer Monsoon ◽

Western Ghats ◽

Heavy Rainfall ◽

Heavy Rain ◽

Rain Gauge ◽

Summer Monsoon Rainfall ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

Western Ghats Of India ◽

The Western Ghats

The study provides a concise and synthesized documentation of the current level of skill of the satellite (3B42RT, 3B42V-6, KALPANA-1) products over Indian regions based on the data gathered during the summer monsoon seasons of 2006, 2007 and 2008. The inter-comparison of satellite products with the rain gauge observations suggests that the TRMM 3B42V6 product could distinctly capture characteristic features of the summer monsoon, such as north–south oriented belt of heavy rainfall along the Western Ghats with sharp gradient of rainfall between the west coast heavy rain region and the rain shadow region to the east, pockets of heavy rainfall along the location of monsoon trough, over the east central parts of the country, over north-east India, along the foothills of Himalayas and over the north Bay of Bengal. The KALPANA-1 and 3B42RT products reproduce only the broadest features of mean monsoon seasonal rainfall. The near real-time products 3B42RT and KALPANA-1 underestimate the orographic heavy rainfall along the Western Ghats of India. The precipitation estimates from TRMM 3B42V6 product, when accumulated over the whole season, could reproduce the observed pattern. However, the TRMM 3B42RT and KALPANA-1 estimates are comparatively lower than the observed rainfall over most parts of the country during the season. Inter comparison reveals that the TRMM 3B42V6 product showed better skill in estimating the daily and seasonal mean rainfall over all India and also over four homogeneous regions of India.

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Role of Media and Government towards Sustainable Development in Assam

IRA-International Journal of Management & Social Sciences (ISSN 2455-2267) ◽

10.21013/jmss.v14.n2sp.p16 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 161

Author(s):

Mohsina Rahman

Keyword(s):

Sri Lanka ◽

Health Department ◽

Point Of View ◽

Sustainable Growth ◽

Industrial Growth ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

Welfare Department ◽

The Government

<p>The North-East of India has been a hotly debated territory of India with voices coming up from different states such as Nagaland, Manipur and Assam demanding separate nations for themselves. These separatist agitations have got further confounded with a constant influx of Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh which began to impinge on the local cultural identities and demographics. This resulted in a prolonged militancy coupled with agitations yielding space for the Pakistani/Sri Lanka/Bangladesh based militants to infiltrate into India through porous borders of the North East and engage some disgruntled ultra outfits in the North East to wage a battle against India. In fact, Naga agitation for separate country bears a lot of similarity with the LTTE’s struggle for separate Eelam in Sri Lanka. Both have a lot of diaspora support and web-based campaign movements (Maya Ranganathan, 2010: 127-149). All these developments have complicated the prospects of the economic and industrial growth in this region. This resulted in the staggering illiteracy and unemployment for over a decade. Towards addressing the problems of the region, the government of India has taken a political decision to establish as many as seven central universities under its direct funding to ensure that the region gets the best education which might contribute further for enhanced employment opportunities in the region. Also, various department under Assam Government such as the Tourism Department, Health Department, Education Department, Social welfare Department etc has been provided with e-governance facilities for the users. The study assumes significance from the point of view that how far the e-services of various departments leads to the sustainable growth of the state and what is the role of media, government and educational institutes to improve the sustainable growth of the states through e-services.</p>

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