Recent trends in precipitation regime of Kashmir valley, India

Mifta Ul Shafiq, Zahoor Ul Islam, Abida, Wani Suhail Ahmad, Mohd Shafi Bhat and Pervez Ahmed

Page No. 1-11

The warming of planet earth is an undeniable fact and is the major challenge confronted by our planet. Mountains ecosystems which are mostly inhabited by economically and scientifically backward communities are considered as early indicators of climate change. Precipitation is one of the most important variables of the climate and is used as an indicator of climate change. This study analyses the nature and behavior in annual and seasonal precipitation in Kashmir Valley from 1980 to 2016. The trends slope and abrupt shifts in precipitation patterns of six meteorological stations were investigated using Mann Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimator respectively. The recent change in precipitation pattern of Kashmir Himalayas was also investigated against some global climatic teleconnections.

The trend analysis showed a consistent decrease in annual precipitation at the rate of -5.1 mm/year which was statistically significant at 90% confidence interval. The abrupt change in the precipitation was found to be in 1996. Seasonally the study area has recorded a decrease in winter, spring and summer precipitation while a slight increase has been recorded in autumn season. The analysis of teleconnection patterns revealed that although the precipitation in Kashmir Himalayas is dictated by the incoming western disturbances (NAO), the recent changes in the precipitation indicate influence of ENSO as well which further need to be investigated.

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Preliminary seismic assessment on building based on architectural effects: A case study example

Palaniappan Meyyappan, Dhiravidamani Shalini and Anthonyrraj Joyce Arockia

Page No. 12-15

The fundamental factors contributing to the proper seismic behavior of a building in a rational intangible design of the structural system are simplicity, symmetry of the building, ductility and transmit of the lateral loads to the ground without disproportionate rotation.

Since most of the existing buildings do not satisfy the updated seismic requirements, it is mandatory to assess the seismic capacity of those buildings. Various methods are available to assess the detailed seismic assessment of the structure with a prolonged procedure. But prior to proceeding to that, a simplified preliminary assessment is required in a basic level on the various architectural effects. The behavior of the structure largely depends on the form of the super structure and how the lateral forces are safely carried to the ground. In this work, a case study of six-storey building is taken for the preliminary seismic assessment on the various architectural effects. It is found that the case study is safe in terms of behavior under zone II category.

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Analysis and estimation of temporal change of precipitation for the Barak River basin

Subhrajyoti Deb and Briti Sundar Sil

Page No. 16-28

Characterization of trend of various meteorological variables is gaining a lot of interest in climate change studies nowadays which may be used for future weather prediction. In this study, trend analysis is done for precipitation (P) on annual and seasonal basis. Here, the study area considered is in and around of the Barak River Basin which is located in the north-eastern part of India. A total of twenty number of meteorological stations with nearly hundred years of observed data are considered for trend analysis. The non-parametric, Mann-Kendall test, is applied to detect the direction of data trend and Sen's slope estimator is used to determine trend magnitude. It is found that most of the stations in the river basin are showing insignificant decreasing trends on the annual time series. Only at six stations, namely Badarpur, Hailakhandi, Ngopa, Rengbil, Serchip and Tamenglong, significant decreasing trends were found with a confidence interval of 95%.

On the seasonal scale, majority of the stations during the pre-monsoon, monsoon and post monsoon are also experiencing insignificant negative trends. To the contrary, most of the stations in the winter precipitation series, are showing no trends. Increasing trend is also found at the station Halflong, Kohima, Tamenglong and Tulihal during the pre-monsoon, monsoon and post monsoon as well as annual series. Change point analysis is also done by cumulative sum charts and bootstrapping to know the shift of trend of meteorological variables. This study gives a fair idea about the variation of meteorological parameters which may be used for climate change analysis as well as sustainable watershed management.

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Impact of geological and environmental complexities over infrastructure development in Kashmir Himalaya

Maqbool Yousuf and Syed Kaiser Bukhari

Page No. 29-40

This study provides an overview of present geological and environmental complexities and major engineering issues associated with them in Kashmir Himalaya and their impact on infrastructure development. Many projects in the region have faced various problems during survey, design, construction and maintenance phases. A better understanding of the geological nature of the region and the impact of various physical processes, which might cause problems during and after project completion, will greatly help in the development of safer infrastructures.

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Characterizing Spatiotemporal of Temperature and Precipitation in the Lam River Basin using High Resolution Climatology data and Spatial Regression Approach

Tran Thuong V., Tran Duy X., Phan Phu V., Bui Nhat T.V., Tran Phuong H. and Lai Manh V.

Page No. 41-47

Climate research community is always enchanted by the availability of high spatial resolution climate data in the sense that these-dataset enable researchers to conduct valuable and innovative studies. This study examined the spatiotemporal variations of two primary factors in climate (temperature and precipitation) using monthly Climatologies at High Resolution for the Earth’s Land Surface Areas (CHELSA) data in the Lam River Basin. The Ordinary Least Square was applied to investigate trend in the factors during the period of 1979 – 2013.

Results show that there was significant relationship (r > 0.8, p < 0.05) between the parameters derived from the CHELSA and ground observations. The upward trend of the annual mean temperature and yearly precipitation was observed across the study area. Besides, these trends were different from seasonal variations, providing the manifestation of global warming impacts in the study area. This study highlights the high efficiency of the CHELSA in spatial modelling climate change on broad scale.

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Open Space for Disaster Preparedness and the Bangladesh Perspective

Biswas Sudipti and Saha Dibbendu

Page No. 48-58

Open space in urban areas is considered as breathing space for compact urban structure and primarily designed for recreational and social use. Besides this usage, recent experiences and studies have recognized a very essential role of urban open space in disaster events like earthquake. This study emphasizes the significance of open space in disaster management with particular reference to earthquake. If well prepared, open spaces can significantly contribute to improve the resilience of the community and the city against disaster. This brings a new challenge to the concerned communities, authorities and obviously to urban planners and designers.

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