Genesis of langrial iron ore of hazara area, khyber pakhtunkhaw, parkistan

The Iron Ore of Hazara area has been studied at seven locations for detail mineralogical and genesis investigations. Thick bedded iron ore have been observed between Kawagarh Formation and Hangu Formation i.e Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary. At the base of Hangu Formation variable thickness of these lateritic beds spread throughout the Hazara and Kohat-Potwar plateau. This hematite ore exists in the form of unconformity. X-Ray Diffraction technique (XRD), X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF), detailed petroghraphic study and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) techniques indicated that iron bearing minerals are hematite, chamosite and quartz, albite, clinochlore, illite-montmorillonite, kaolinite, calcite, dolomite and ankerite are the impurities present in these beds. The X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) results show that the total Fe2O3 ranges from 39 to 56% and it has high silica and alumina ratio is less than one. Beneficiation requires for significant increase in ore grade. The petroghraphic study revealed the presence of ooids fragments as nuclei of other ooids with limited clastic supply which indicate high energy shallow marine depositional setting under warm and humid climate. The overall results show that Langrial Iron ore is a low-grade iron ore and can be upgraded up to 62% by applying modern mining techniques to fulfill steel requirements of the country.

Research progress and prospect of coastal flood disaster risk assessment against global climate change

The sea level rise under global climate change and coastal floods caused by extreme sea levels due to the high tide levels and storm surges have huge impacts on coastal society, economy, and natural environment. It has drawn great attention from global scientific researchers. This study examines the definitions and elements of coastal flooding in the general and narrow senses, and mainly focuses on the components of coastal flooding in the narrow sense. Based on the natural disaster system theory, the review systematically summarizes the progress of coastal flood research in China, and then discusses existing problems in present studies and provide future research directions with regard to this issue. It is proposed that future studies need to strengthen research on adapting to climate change in coastal areas, including studies on the risk of multi- hazards and uncertainties of hazard impacts under climate change, risk assessment of key exposure (critical infrastructure) in coastal hotspots, and cost-benefit analysis of adaptation and mitigation measures in coastal areas. Efforts to improve the resilience of coastal areas under climate change should be given more attention. The research community also should establish the mechanism of data sharing among disciplines to meet the needs of future risk assessments, so that coastal issues can be more comprehensively, systematically, and dynamically studied.

Evaluating Models and Effective Factors Obtained from Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) in the Prediction of Forest Fire Risk, Structured Review

Fire is a phenomenon occurs in most parts of the world and causes severe financial losses and sometimes, irreparable damages. Many parameters are involved in the occurrence of a fire; some of which are constant over time (at least in a fire cycle), but the others are dynamic and vary over time. Unlike the earthquake, the disturbance of fire depends on a set of physical, chemical, and biological relations. Monitoring the changes to predict the occurrence of fire is efficient in forest management.Method: In this research, the Persian and English databases were structurally searched using the keywords of fire risk modeling, fire risk, fire risk prediction, and remote sensing and the reviewed papers that reviewed predicted the fire risk in the field of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System were retrieved. Then, the modeling and zoning data of fire risk prediction were extracted and analyzed in a descriptive manner. Accordingly, the study was conducted in 1995-2017. Findings: Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP) zoning method was more practical among the applied methods and the plant moisture stress measurement was the most efficient among the remote sensing indices.Discussion and Conclusion: The findings of the study indicate that RS and GIS are an effective tool in the study of fire risk prediction.

Research progress and prospects of green development from the perspective of geography

Influenced by global financial crisis in 2008, many countries around the world have realized the significance of sustainable development. And green development, as the most important pathway to sustainability, has been implemented by various countries. In this context, green development has drawn great attention from academic researchers both at home and abroad in recent years and has become an interdisciplinary-oriented research direction. As an applied basic research field for exploring the structural change of resources and environment as well as regional sustainable development, geography plays an essential role in the research of green development. Based on an intensive literature review, this article firstly summarized the connotation and analytical framework of green development. Secondly, it systematically outlined the progress of green development research from the perspective of geography and thus extracted seven themes, that is, the influencing factors of green development, assessment methods, spatial and temporal characteristics of green development, green development and industrial transformation, green transformation of resource-based cities, the effect of green development, and green development institutions and recommendations. Comments were made on the existing studies including their shortcomings. Finally, future research emphases were discussed, aiming to provide references for further study on green development from the perspective of geography in China.

Population distribution characteristics and its relationship with natural factors in karst mountainous areas of Northwest Guangxi

The smallest administrative unit of the sixth national census-township (town) is selected as the basic unit, the population spatial distribution characteristics at the township (town) level in karst mountainous areas of northwest Guangxi are analyzed by using Lorenz curve and spatial correlation analysis method, and the influence intensity of natural factors on regional population spatial distribution is detected by using geographic detector method. The results show that: 1. the spatial distribution of population at the township (town) level has the characteristics of imbalance, showing generally significant positive correlation and certain aggregation; 2. there are significant differences in the impact of the spatial distribution of various natural factors on the population distribution. For the towns without karst distribution in the northwest and central south of the study area, the population density increases with the increase of factors conducive to human residence, but the average population density is only 79 people / km2. In the towns with karst distribution in the East and south, the spatial distribution of population density and natural factors is not a simple increase or decrease relationship, but fluctuates with the change of karst distribution area. 3. The factor detection results of the geographic detector show that the altitude has the greatest impact on the spatial distribution of population. The interactive detection results show that the impact intensity of any two natural factors after superposition and interaction presents nonlinear enhancement and two factor enhancement. It can be seen that the karst mountain area in northwest Guangxi is similar to other areas. Altitude is one of the main factors affecting the spatial distribution of population, but the river network density and unique geological landform of karst mountain area have a strong catalytic effect on the spatial distribution of population. The superposition and interaction with other factors can further strengthen the impact on population distribution.

Analysis of ecological security pattern of rare earth mining areas in South China based on MCR model

The rare earth mining area in South China is the main production base of ionic rare earth in the world, which has brought inestimable economic value to the local area and even the whole nation. However, due to the lack of mining technology and excessive pursuit for economic profits, a series of environmental problems have arisen, which is a great threat to the ecosystem of the mining area. Taking Lingbei rare earth mining area in Ganzhou as an example, this paper discriminated and analyzed such aspects as the ecological source, ecological corridor and ecological nodes of the mining area based on the landscape ecological security pattern theory and the minimum cumulative resistance model (MCR) method, and constructed a landscape ecological security pattern of the mining area during the 2009, 2013 and 2018. The results show that: i) The patch area of the ecological source of rare earth mining area is small, mainly concentrated in the east and west sides of the mining area. ii) During the selected year, the ecological source area, ecological corridors, radiation channels and the number of ecological nodes in the rare earth mining area are increasing, indicating that the landscape ecological security of the rare earth mining area has been improved to some extent, but it remains necessary for relevant departments to make a optimized planning to further reconstruct the ecological security pattern of the rare earth mining area.

Geologic and geomorphologic study of the Terra Murata and Centane-Panoramica sites (Island of Procida, Naples Bay, Southern Tyrrhenian sea) aimed at solving some applied geological and geotechnical problems

A geologic and geomorphologic study aimed at solving some geological and geotechnical problems, regarding the massive seepage of meteoric waters in the coastal cliffs of the Island of Procida (Naples Bay, southern Italy), composed of both tuffs and loose pyroclastic deposits, has been carried out in the geosites of Terra Murata (Middle Ages village and coastal cliff towards the Corricella Bay) and Centane-Panoramica (coastal cliff facing on the Tyrrhenian sea). A detailed geologic and geomorphologic survey has allowed to suggest solutions to the applied geological and geotechnical problems related to the occurrence of massive seepages of waters at the physical interface between pyroclastic rocks and loose pyroclastic deposits, characterized by different density, permeability and porosity and also controlled by a dense network of fractures, involving the pyroclastic deposits cropping out in the selected areas. Field sampling and geotechnical laboratory analyses have been carried out to calculate the values of main geotechnical parameters of the yellow tuffs cropping out at the Terra Murata promontory. At the same time, a detailed monitoring of the seepages of waters has been carried out through a detailed geological survey of the tuff outcrops of the promontory. The obtained results have suggested a strong control from both the geomorphologic instability of the coastal cliff and tectonic setting. At the Centane-Panoramica geosite the geological survey, coupled with geotechnical analyses and standard penetrometric tests, has accordingly evidenced that the geomorphologic instability was mainly concentrated in the sectors of the tuff coastal cliffs facing seawards towards the Tyrrhenian sea.

Integrating optical and microwave satellite observations for high res-olution soil moisture estimate and applications in CONUS drought analyses

In this study, optical and microwave satellite observations are integrated to estimate soil moisture at the same spatial resolution as the optical sensors (5km here) and applied for drought analysis in the continental United States. A new refined model is proposed to include auxiliary data like soil texture, topography, surface types, accumulated precipitation, in addition to Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) used in the traditional universal triangle method. It is found the new proposed soil moisture model using accumulated precipitation demonstrated close agreements with the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) spatial patterns. Currently, the USDM is providing a weekly map. Recently, “flash” drought concept appears. To obtain drought map on daily basis, LST is derived from microwave observations and downscaled to the same resolution as the thermal infrared LST product and used to fill the gaps due to clouds in optical LST data. With the integrated daily LST available under nearly all weather conditions, daily soil moisture can be estimated at relatively higher spatial resolution than those traditionally derived from passive microwave sensors, thus drought maps based on soil moisture anomalies can be obtained on daily basis and made the flash drought analysis and monitoring become possible.

STUDY THE BIOPOTENTIAL PARAMETER FOR DETECTION OF SEISMIC AND ENVIORNMENTAL CHANGES IN INDIAN REGION

The changes in the magnetic flux generated (electric, magnetic and electromagnetic waves) on the surface of earth due to sudden changes is a matter of discussion. These emissions occur along the fault line generated due to geological and tectonic processes. When sudden changes occur in the environment due to seismic and atmospheric variations, these sensing was observed by creatures and human bodies because the animals and trees adopt the abnormal signals and change the behavior. We have analyzed the changing behavior of recorded signal by live sensors (i.e. banyan tree). So we use the deep rooted and long age’s banyan tree. Banyan tree (long ages) in which root has been working as a live sensor and record the geological and environmental changes. We record the low frequency signals which propagated through solar-terrestrial environment affect directly the root system of the banyan tree and changes has been observed by live sensors. Then, VLF signal ma(y propagate to the earth-ionosphere waveguide. We have also analyzed the different parameters of live cells which is inbuilt in latex of the tree, so we record the dielectric parameters of green stem latex and found some parameters i.e., dielectric constant (ε) and dielectric loss (ε’) of various trees to verify these natural hazards and found good correlation. Therefore, we can say by regularly monitoring the bio-potential signal and dielectric properties of banyan tree we can able to find the precursory signature of seismic hazards and environmental changes.

Application of remote sensing and GIS in land resource management

Land use Land cover (LU/LC) mapping serve as a basic information for land resource study. Detecting and analysing the quantitative changes along the earth’s surface has become necessary and advantageous because it can result in proper planning which would ultimately result in improvement in infrastructure development, economic and industrial growth. The LU/LC pattern of Madurai city, Tamil Nadu, has undergone a significant change over past two decades due to accelerated urbanization. In this study, LU/LC change dynamics were investigated by the combined use of satellite remote sensing and geographical information system. To understand the LU/LC change in Madurai city, the different land use categories and their spatial as well as temporal variability has been studied over a period of seven years (1999-2006), from the analysis of LANDSAT images for the years 1999 and 2006 respectively, using ArcGIS 9.3 and ERDAS Imagine 9.1 software. This result shows that Geospatial technology is able to effectively capture the spatio-temporal trend in the landscape pattern associated with urbanization for this region.