Estimation of glacier-stored freshwater volume present in major tributaries of the Brahmaputra basin.

Estimation of the glacier-stored freshwater is important to understand the water security in the Himalayan region. While previous work has studied the western and central Himalayan glaciers, the eastern counterpart received less and more scattered attention. In this study, an attempt is made to quantify the total glacier-stored freshwater in the Brahmaputra basin and later compared with previous global models.

Optimizing crop planning in the winter fallow season using residual soil nutrients and irrigation water allocation in India.

Effective management of water resources is essential for crop diversification and food security. This study proposes an Irrigation-Food-Environment-Chance-constrained Programming (IFEC) model for simultaneously optimizing crop planting area, irrigation water, and residual fertilizer considering inflow uncertainty along with farmer preference crop. Eight irrigation water allocation optimal models were constructed, fixing the preference crop cultivation area, while deviations in downstream release, and vegetable crop area cultivation were executed for sensitivity analysis.

Assessment of land use change in riverine ecosystem and utilizing it for socioeconomic benefit.

Increasing urbanization has led to diminished agricultural mainland for food production worldwide. Riverine sandbars could be viewed as prospective landmasses which could act as additional agricultural lands. The present study emphasizes sandbar area availability and the scope of utilizing these landmasses through geospatial techniques, modelling studies and questionnaire surveys.

Integrating optimization and damage estimation to increase economic benefit and ensure food security under seasonal land variability.

Rapidly increasing population and rising food demand necessitates expansion of agricultural mainland. However, with accelerated urbanization, agricultural land resources are difficult to expand. The riverine sandbars offer a vast fertile terrain that is conducive to agricultural food production and could support the global food demands despite urbanization.

The potential global distribution of the papaya mealybug, Paracoccus marginatus, a polyphagous pest.

Background: The papaya mealybug, Paracoccus marginatus, is a highly polyphagous invasive pest that affects more than 200 plants, many of which are of economic importance. We modelled the potential distribution of P. marginatus using CLIMEX, a process-oriented, climate-based niche model.