Search results for: agricultural ecosystems

Authors: Zahow Muoftah

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Traditional manual visual grading of fruits has been one of the agricultural industry’s major challenges due to its laborious nature as well as inconsistency in the inspection and classification process. The main requirements for computer vision and visual processing are some effective techniques for identifying defects and estimating defect areas. Automated defect detection using computer vision and machine learning has emerged as a promising area of research with a high and direct impact on the visual inspection domain. Grading, sorting, and disease detection are important factors in determining the quality of fruits after harvest. Many studies have used computer vision to evaluate the quality level of fruits during post-harvest. Many studies have used computer vision to evaluate the quality level of fruits during post-harvest. Many studies have been conducted to identify diseases and pests that affect the fruits of agricultural crops. However, most previous studies concentrated solely on the diagnosis of a lesion or disease. This study focused on a comprehensive study to identify pests and diseases of apple and banana fruits using detection and classification defects on Banana and Apples by Computer Vision. As a result, the current article includes research from these domains as well. Finally, various pattern recognition techniques for detecting apple and banana defects are discussed.

Keywords: computer vision, banana, apple, detection, classification

Procedia PDF Downloads 106

Authors: Shwu-Ling Peng, Chiung-Man Tsai, Chia-Jui Weng

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Chronic micro-inflammation is a hallmark of many aging-related neurodegenerative and metabolic syndrome-driven diseases. In high glucose (HG) environment, reactive oxygen species (ROS) is generated and the ROS induced inflammation, cytokines secretion, DNA damage, and cell cycle arrest to lead to cellular senescence. Water chestnut shell (WCS) is a plant hull which containing polyphenolic compounds and showed antioxidant and anticancer activities. Orchid, which containing a natural polysaccharide compound, possesses many physiological activities including anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects. These agricultural plants might be able to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation. This study was used HG-induced human normal dermal fibroblasts (HG-HNDFs) as an in vitro model to disclose the effects of water extract of Phalaenopsis orchid flower (WEPF) and ethanol extract of water chestnut shell (EEWCS) on the anti-aging and their underlying molecular mechanisms. The toxicity of extracts on human normal dermal fibroblasts (HNDFs) was determined by MTT method. The senescence of cells was assayed by β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) kit. ROS and nitrate production was analyzed by Intracellular ROS contents and ELISA, respectively. Western blotting was used to detect the proteins in cells. The results showed that the exposure of HNDFs to HG (30 mM) for 72 h were caused cellular senescence and arrested cells at G0/G1 phase. Indeed, the treatment of HG-HNDFs with WEPF (200 μg/ml) and EEWCS (10 μg/ml) significantly released cell cycle arrest and promoted cell proliferation. The G1/S phase transition regulatory proteins such as protein retinoblastoma (pRb), p53, and p16ᴵᴺᴷ⁴ᵃ depressed by WEPF and EEWCS were also observed. Additionally, the treatment of WEPF and EEWCS increased the activity of HO-1 through upregulating Nrf2 as well as decreased the ROS and NO of HG-HNDFs. Therefore, the senescence marker protein-30 (SMP30) in cells was diminished. In conclusion, the WEPF and EEWCS might inhibit HG-induced aging of HNDFs by reducing oxidative stress and free radicals.

Keywords: agricultural plant extract, anti-aging, high glucose, Phalaenopsis orchid flower, water chestnut shell

Procedia PDF Downloads 154

Authors: Truong Xuan Lam, Nguyen Thị Phuong Lien, Nguyen Quang Cuong, Tran Thị Ngat

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Introduction: Corn biomass is a feed for livestock including dairy cows. The Spodoptera frugiperda, Agrotis ypsilon, Heliothis armigera, Mythimna loreyi (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) are key pests and very dangerous to Corn biomass crops. These pest species are very difficult to control in the field because of genetic resistance to insecticides. Furthermore, corn biomass is feed for livestock so the use of pesticides is always limited to the lowest level. In Vietnam, the assassin bug species Sycanus falleni and Sycanus croceouittatus (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) are the common predators on trees agricultural ecosystems. The reduviid S. falleni and S. croceouittatus have the potential for biological control of pest insects in cotton, corn and vegetable plants as this species attacks many lepidopteran larvae. Moreover, the nymphal instars and adults of S. falleni and S. croceouittatus can be easily reared in the laboratory by the rice meal moth Corcyra cephalonica (Stainton). To conserve the species S. falleni and S. croceouittatus in Corn biomass field in Northwest Vietnam. The results of this study report on the roles and relationships between S. falleni Stal and S. croceovittatus and their prey (key pests and dangerous to Corn) on Corn biomass to provide the basis for using and conserving the species S. falleni and S. croceouittatus as biological control agents on Corn biomass growing areas in Vietnam. Methods: The survey site is at the field of Corn biomass growing in Hoa Binh Province, Northwest Vietnam. The survey of the density of the assassin bugs species and their prey were conducted in 4 Corn biomass fields (each field = 10,000 m2), each point has an area of 1 m2. The survey was conducted every 10 days (3 times/month). The unit of measurement is individual/m2. The relationship between the density of assassin bug species and their prey is expressed through the correlation coefficient R Results: On Corn biomass in Northwest Vietnam, the S. falleni and S. croceouittatus species are such potential candidates for biocontrol of the fall armyworm S. frugiperda, black cutworm A. ypsilon, cotton bollworm H. armigera Hübner, maize caterpillar M. loreyi. Six species of assassin bugs belonging to the family Reduviidae were recorded on Corn biomass, of which S. falleni and S. croceovittatus were common. The relationship between the density of the group of assassin bugs and species S. fallen and S. croceovittatus had a close relationship with each other. The relationship between the density of the group of assassin bugs and the density of their prey in the Winter crops and Summer-Fall crops was a close relationship with each other. The relationship between the density of the S. falleni and S. croceovittatus species and the density of their prey on the Corn biomass were a close relationship in the Summer-Fall crops and the Winter crops. The S. falleni and S. croceouittatus species are such potential biocontrol of the pests on Corn. Possible to conserve and use them for biological control of the dangerous pests S. frugiperda, A. ypsilon, H. armigera , M. loreyi on Corn in Vietnam.

Keywords: corn biomass, prey, biocontrol, relationship

Procedia PDF Downloads 36

Authors: D. Courault, L. Hossard, V. Demarez, E. Ndikumana, D. Ho Tong Minh, N. Baghdadi, F. Ruget

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In the global change context, efficient management of the available resources has become one of the most important topics, particularly for sustainable crop development. Timely assessment with high precision is crucial for water resource and pest management. Rice cultivated in Southern France in the Camargue region must face a challenge, reduction of the soil salinity by flooding and at the same time reduce the number of herbicides impacting negatively the environment. This context has lead farmers to diversify crop rotation and their agricultural practices. The objective of this study was to evaluate this crop diversity both in crop systems and in agricultural practices applied to rice paddy in order to quantify the impact on the environment and on the crop production. The proposed method is based on the combined use of crop models and multispectral data acquired from the recent Sentinel 2 satellite sensors launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) within the homework of the Copernicus program. More than 40 images at fine spatial resolution (10m in the optical range) were processed for 2016 and 2017 (with a revisit time of 5 days) to map crop types using random forest method and to estimate biophysical variables (LAI) retrieved by inversion of the PROSAIL canopy radiative transfer model. Thanks to the high revisit time of Sentinel 2 data, it was possible to monitor the soil labor before flooding and the second sowing made by some farmers to better control weeds. The temporal trajectories of remote sensing data were analyzed for various rice cultivars for defining the main parameters describing the phenological stages useful to calibrate two crop models (STICS and SAFY). Results were compared to surveys conducted with 10 farms. A large variability of LAI has been observed at farm scale (up to 2-3m²/m²) which induced a significant variability in the yields simulated (up to 2 ton/ha). Observations on more than 300 fields have also been collected on land use. Various maps were elaborated, land use, LAI, flooding and sowing, and harvest dates. All these maps allow proposing a new typology to classify these paddy crop systems. Key phenological dates can be estimated from inverse procedures and were validated against ground surveys. The proposed approach allowed to compare the years and to detect anomalies. The methods proposed here can be applied at different crops in various contexts and confirm the potential of remote sensing acquired at fine resolution such as the Sentinel2 system for agriculture applications and environment monitoring. This study was supported by the French national center of spatial studies (CNES, funded by the TOSCA).

Keywords: agricultural practices, remote sensing, rice, yield

Procedia PDF Downloads 274

Authors: Nutcha Taneepanichskul, Helen C. Hailes, Mark Miodownik

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Plastic waste has emerged as a critical global environmental challenge, primarily driven by the prevalent use of conventional plastics derived from petrochemical refining and manufacturing processes in modern packaging. While these plastics serve vital functions, their persistence in the environment post-disposal poses significant threats to ecosystems. Addressing this issue necessitates approaches, one of which involves the development of biodegradable plastics designed to degrade under controlled conditions, such as industrial composting facilities. It is imperative to note that compostable plastics are engineered for degradation within specific environments and are not suited for uncontrolled settings, including natural landscapes and aquatic ecosystems. The full benefits of compostable packaging are realized when subjected to industrial composting, preventing environmental contamination and waste stream pollution. Therefore, effective sorting technologies are essential to enhance composting rates for these materials and diminish the risk of contaminating recycling streams. In this study, it leverage hyperspectral imaging technology (HSI) coupled with advanced machine learning algorithms to accurately identify various types of plastics, encompassing conventional variants like Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Polypropylene (PP), Low density polyethylene (LDPE), High density polyethylene (HDPE) and biodegradable alternatives such as Polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT), Polylactic acid (PLA), and Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). The dataset is partitioned into three subsets: a training dataset comprising uncontaminated conventional and biodegradable plastics, a validation dataset encompassing contaminated plastics of both types, and a testing dataset featuring real-world packaging items in both pristine and contaminated states. Five distinct machine learning algorithms, namely Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Logistic Regression, and Decision Tree Algorithm, were developed and evaluated for their classification performance. Remarkably, the Logistic Regression and CNN model exhibited the most promising outcomes, achieving a perfect accuracy rate of 100% for the training and validation datasets. Notably, the testing dataset yielded an accuracy exceeding 80%. The successful implementation of this sorting technology within recycling and composting facilities holds the potential to significantly elevate recycling and composting rates. As a result, the envisioned circular economy for plastics can be established, thereby offering a viable solution to mitigate plastic pollution.

Keywords: biodegradable plastics, sorting technology, hyperspectral imaging technology, machine learning algorithms

Procedia PDF Downloads 80

Authors: Elham Koohi, Silvio Jose Gumiere, Hossein Bonakdari, Saeid Homayouni

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Water used in agricultural crops can be managed by irrigation scheduling based on soil moisture levels and plant water stress thresholds. Automated irrigation scheduling limits crop physiological damage and yield reduction. Knowledge of crop water stress monitoring approaches can be effective in optimizing the use of agricultural water. Understanding the physiological mechanisms of crop responding and adapting to water deficit ensures sustainable agricultural management and food supply. This aim could be achieved by analyzing and diagnosing crop characteristics and their interlinkage with the surrounding environment. Assessments of plant functional types (e.g., leaf area and structure, tree height, rate of evapotranspiration, rate of photosynthesis), controlling changes, and irrigated areas mapping. Calculating thresholds of soil water content parameters, crop water use efficiency, and Nitrogen status make irrigation scheduling decisions more accurate by preventing water limitations between irrigations. Combining Remote Sensing (RS), the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning Algorithms (MLAs) can improve measurement accuracies and automate irrigation scheduling. This paper is a review structured by surveying about 100 recent research studies to analyze varied approaches in terms of providing high spatial and temporal resolution mapping, sensor-based Variable Rate Application (VRA) mapping, the relation between spectral and thermal reflectance and different features of crop and soil. The other objective is to assess RS indices formed by choosing specific reflectance bands and identifying the correct spectral band to optimize classification techniques and analyze Proximal Optical Sensors (POSs) to control changes. The innovation of this paper can be defined as categorizing evaluation methodologies of precision irrigation (applying the right practice, at the right place, at the right time, with the right quantity) controlled by soil moisture levels and sensitiveness of crops to water stress, into pre-processing, processing (retrieval algorithms), and post-processing parts. Then, the main idea of this research is to analyze the error reasons and/or values in employing different approaches in three proposed parts reported by recent studies. Additionally, as an overview conclusion tried to decompose different approaches to optimizing indices, calibration methods for the sensors, thresholding and prediction models prone to errors, and improvements in classification accuracy for mapping changes.

Keywords: agricultural crops, crop water stress detection, irrigation scheduling, precision agriculture, remote sensing

Procedia PDF Downloads 71

Authors: Pantana Tor-Ngern

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In the global water cycle, tree water use (Tr) largely contributes to evapotranspiration which is the total amount of water evaporated from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere, regulating climates. Tree water use responds to environmental factors, including atmospheric humidity and sunlight (represented by vapor pressure deficit or VPD and photosynthetically active radiation or PAR, respectively) and soil moisture. In forests, Tr responses to such factors depend on species and their spatial and temporal variations. Tropical forests in Southeast Asia (SEA) have experienced land-use conversion from abandoned agricultural practices, resulting in patches of forests at different stages including old-growth and secondary forests. Because the inherent structures, such as canopy height and tree density, significantly vary among forests at different stages and can strongly affect their respective microclimate, Tr and its responses to changing environmental conditions in successional forests may differ. Daily and seasonal variations in the environmental factors may exert significant impacts on the respective Tr patterns. Extrapolating Tr data from short periods of days to longer periods of seasons or years can be complex and is important for estimating long-term ecosystem water use which often includes normal and abnormal climatic conditions. Thus, this study aims to investigate the diurnal variation of Tr, using measured sap flux density (JS) data, with changes in VPD in eight evergreen tree species in an old-growth forest (hereafter OF; >200 years old) and a young forest (hereafter YF, <10 years old) in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. The studied species included Sysygium syzygoides, Aquilaria crassna, Cinnamomum subavenium, Nephelium melliferum, Altingia excelsa in OF, and Syzygium nervosum and Adinandra integerrima in YF. Only Sysygium antisepticum was found in both forest stages. Specifically, hysteresis, which indicates the asymmetrical changes of JS in response to changing VPD across daily timescale, was examined in these species. Results showed no hysteresis in all species in OF, except Altingia excelsa which exhibited a 3-hour delayed JS response to VPD. In contrast, JS of all species in YF displayed one-hour delayed responses to VPD. The OF species that showed no hysteresis indicated their well-coupling of their canopies with the atmosphere, facilitating the gas exchange which is essential for tree growth. The delayed responses in Altingia excelsa in OF and all species in YF were associated with higher JS in the morning than that in the afternoon. This implies that these species were sensitive to drying air, closing stomata relatively rapidly compared to the decreasing atmospheric humidity (VPD). Such behavior is often observed in trees growing in dry environments. This study suggests that detailed investigation of JS at sub-daily timescales is imperative for better understanding of mechanistic responses of trees to the changing climate, which will benefit the improvement of earth system models.

Keywords: sap flow, tropical forest, forest succession, thermal dissipcation probe

Procedia PDF Downloads 60

Authors: Naruemon Phongaksorn

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The biofuel consumption has increased significantly over the decade resulting in the increasing request on agricultural land for biofuel feedstocks. However, the biofuel feedstocks are already stressed of having low productivity owing to inappropriate agricultural practices without considering suitability of crop land. This research evaluates the land suitability using GIS-integrated Analytic Hierarchy Processing (AHP) of biofuel crops: cassava, at Chachoengsao province, in Thailand. AHP method that has been widely accepted for land use planning. The objective of this study is compared between AHP method and the most limiting group of land characteristics method (classical approach). The reliable results of the land evaluation were tested against the crop performance assessed by the field investigation in 2015. In addition to the socio-economic land suitability, the expected availability of raw materials for biofuel production to meet the local biofuel demand, are also estimated. The results showed that the AHP could classify and map the physical land suitability with 10% higher overall accuracy than the classical approach. The Chachoengsao province showed high and moderate socio-economic land suitability for cassava. Conditions in the Chachoengsao province were also favorable for cassava plantation, as the expected raw material needed to support ethanol production matched that of ethanol plant capacity of this province. The GIS integrated AHP for biofuel crops land suitability evaluation appears to be a practical way of sustainably meeting biofuel production demand.

Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Processing (AHP), Cassava, Geographic Information Systems, Land suitability

Procedia PDF Downloads 201

Authors: Kenneth Harper

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Blockchain technology presents solutions for managing healthcare data, addressing critical challenges in privacy, integrity, and access. This paper explores how privacy-preserving technologies, such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and homomorphic encryption (HE), enhance decentralized healthcare platforms by enabling secure computations and patient data protection. An examination of the mathematical foundations of these methods, their practical applications, and how they meet the evolving demands of healthcare data security is unveiled. Using real-world examples, this research highlights industry-leading implementations and offers a roadmap for future applications in secure, decentralized healthcare ecosystems.

Keywords: blockchain, cryptography, data privacy, decentralized data management, differential privacy, healthcare, healthcare data security, homomorphic encryption, privacy-preserving technologies, secure computations, zero-knowledge proofs

Procedia PDF Downloads 19

Authors: Mohammed Ibrahim Girei

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Adamawa state is one the major producers of both crop and animals in Nigeria. Agricultural production serves as the major means livelihood of the people in the state. However, the agricultural activities of the farmers in the state are at subsistence level. However integration of these small scale farmers in local, national and international market is paramount importance. The paper was designed to categorize farmers based on market participation among the cattle farmers in Adamawa state, Nigeria. The multistage sampling procedure was employed. To achieve this procedure, structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 400 respondents. The data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics. The result revealed that the majority of market participants were net sellers (78.51 %) (Sales greater than purchase), net buyers were (purchase greater than sales) 12.95 % and only 9% were autarkic (sales equal purchase). The study recommends that Government should provide more effective security services in cattle farming communities, which is very important as the market participants in the study area were net sellers (producers), it will help in addressing the problem of cattle rustling and promote more investment in cattle industry. There is a need to establish a standard cattle market, veterinary services and grazing reserves in the area so that to facilitate the cattle production and marketing system in the area and to meet up with the challenging of livestock development as a result of rapid human population growth in developing countries like Nigeria.

Keywords: categories, cattle, farmers, market, participation

Procedia PDF Downloads 131

Authors: Ali Reza Vaezi, Ouldouz Bakhshi Rad

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Gully erosion is a widespread and often dramatic form of soil erosion caused by water during and immediately after heavy rainfall. It occurs when flowing surface water is channelled across unprotected land and washes away the soil along the drainage lines. The formation of gully is influenced by various factors, including climate, drainage surface area, slope gradient, vegetation cover, land use, and soil properties. It is a very important problem in semi-arid regions, where soils have lower organic matter and are weakly aggregated. Intensive agriculture and tillage along the slope can accelerate soil erosion by water in the region. There is little information on the development of gully erosion in agricultural rainfed areas. Therefore, this study was carried out to investigate the relationship between gully erosion and morphometric characteristics of the drainage area and the effects of soil properties and soil management factors (land use and tillage method) on gully development. A field study was done in a 900 km2 agricultural area in Hshtroud township located in the south of East Azarbijan province, NW Iran. Toward this, two hundred twenty-two gullies created in rainfed lands were found in the area. Some properties of gullies, consisting of length, width, depth, height difference, cross section area, and volume, were determined. Drainage areas for each or some gullies were determined, and their boundaries were drawn. Additionally, the surface area of each drainage, land use, tillage direction, and soil properties that may affect gully formation were determined. The soil erodibility factor (K) defined in the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was estimated based on five soil properties (silt and very fine sand, coarse sand, organic matter, soil structure code, and soil permeability). Gully development in each drainage area was quantified using its volume and soil loss. The dependency of gully development on drainage area characteristics (surface area, land use, tillage direction, and soil properties) was determined using correlation matrix analysis. Based on the results, gully length was the most important morphometric characteristic indicating the development of gully erosion in the lands. Gully development in the area was related to slope gradient (r= -0.26), surface area (r= 0.71), the area of rainfed lands (r= 0.23), and the area of rainfed tilled along the slope (r= 0.24). Nevertheless, its correlation with the area of pasture and soil erodibility factor (K) was not significant. Among the characteristics of drainage area, surface area is the major factor controlling gully volume in the agricultural land. No significant correlation was found between gully erosion and soil erodibility factor (K) estimated by the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). It seems the estimated soil erodibility can’t describe the susceptibility of the study soils to the gully erosion process. In these soils, aggregate stability and soil permeability are the two soil physical properties that affect the actual soil erodibility and in consequence, these soil properties can control gully erosion in the rainfed lands.

Keywords: agricultural area, gully properties, soil structure, USLE

Procedia PDF Downloads 77

Authors: Gurjeet Singh, Rabindra K. Panda

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Soil moisture is a key hydrologic state variable and is intrinsically linked to the Earth's water, climate and carbon cycles. On ecological point of view, the soil moisture is a fundamental natural resource providing the transpirable water for plants. Soil moisture varies both temporally and spatially due to spatiotemporal variation in rainfall, vegetation cover, soil properties and topography. Satellite derived soil moisture provides spatio-temporal extensive data. However, the spatial resolution of a typical satellite (L-band radiometry) is of the order of tens of kilometers, which is not good enough for developing efficient agricultural water management schemes at the field scale. In the present study, the soil moisture from radiometer data has been disaggregated using blending approach to achieve higher resolution soil moisture data. The radiometer estimates of soil moisture at a 40 km resolution have been disaggregated to 10 km, 5 km and 1 km resolutions. The disaggregated soil moisture was compared with the observed data, consisting of continuous sensor based soil moisture profile measurements, at three monitoring sites and extensive spatial near-surface soil moisture measurements, concurrent with satellite monitoring in the 500 km2 study watershed in the Eastern India. The estimated soil moisture status at different spatial scales can help in developing efficient agricultural water management schemes to increase the crop production and water use efficiency.

Keywords: disaggregation, eastern India, radiometers, soil moisture, water use efficiency

Procedia PDF Downloads 276

Authors: Magdalena Blachnio, Viktor Bogatyrov, Mariia Galaburda, Anna Derylo-Marczewska

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Agricultural waste materials from traditional oil mill and after extraction of natural raw materials in supercritical conditions were used for the preparation of carbon nanomaterials (activated carbons) by two various methods. Chemical activation using acetic acid and physical activation with a gaseous agent (carbon dioxide) were chosen as mild and environmentally friendly ones. The effect of influential factors: type of raw material, temperature and activation agent on the porous structure characteristics of the materials was discussed by using N₂ adsorption/desorption isotherms at 77 K. Furthermore scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to examine the physicochemical properties of the obtained sorbents. Selection of a raw material and an optimization of the conditions of the synthesis process, allowed to obtain the cheap sorbents with a targeted distribution of pores enabling effective adsorption of the model organic pollutants carried out in the multicomponent systems. Adsorption behavior (capacity and rate) of the chosen activated carbons was estimated by utilizing Crystal violet (CV), 4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid (4-CPA), 2.4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2.4-D) as the adsorbates. Both rate and adsorption capacity of the organics on the sorbents evidenced that the activated carbons could be effectively used in sewage treatment plants. The mechanisms of organics adsorption were studied and correlated with activated carbons properties.

Keywords: activated carbon, adsorption equilibrium, adsorption kinetics, organics adsorption

Procedia PDF Downloads 177

Authors: Lopita Pal, Suresh V. Madha

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Wetlands are areas of marsh, fen, peat land or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres. The rapidly expanding human population, large scale changes in land use/land cover, burgeoning development projects and improper use of watersheds all has caused a substantial decline of wetland resources in the world. Major degradations have been impacted from agricultural, industrial and urban developments leading to various types of pollutions and hydrological perturbations. Regular fishing activities and unsustainable grazing of animals are degrading the wetlands in a slow pace. The paper focuses on the spatio-temporal change detection of the area of the water body and the main cause of this depletion. The total area under study (22°19’87’’ N, 88°20’23’’ E) is a wetland region in West Bengal of 213 sq.km. The procedure used is the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) from multi-spectral imagery and Landsat to detect the presence of surface water, and the datasets have been compared of the years 2016, 2006 and 1996. The result shows a sharp decline in the area of water body due to a rapid increase in the agricultural practices and the growing urbanization.

Keywords: spatio-temporal change, NDWI, urbanization, wetland

Procedia PDF Downloads 283

Authors: Carine Enow-Ayor Tarkang, Victorine Neh Akenji, Dmitri Rouwet, Jodephine Njdma, Andrew Ako Ako, Franco Tassi, Jules Remy Ngoupayou Ndam

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Groundwater is the major water resource in the whole of Bafia used for drinking, domestic, poultry and agricultural purposes, and being an area of intense agriculture, there is a great necessity to do a quality assessment. Bafia is one of the main food suppliers in the Centre region of Cameroon, and so to meet their demands, the farmers make use of fertilizers and other agrochemicals to increase their yield. Less than 20% of the population in Bafia has access to piped-borne water due to the national shortage, according to the authors best knowledge very limited studies have been carried out in the area to increase awareness of the groundwater resources. The aim of this study was to assess heavy metal contamination levels in ground and surface waters and to evaluate the effects of agricultural inputs on water quality in the Bafia area. 57 water samples (including 31 wells, 20 boreholes, 4 rivers and 2 springs) were analyzed for their physicochemical parameters, while collected samples were filtered, acidified with HNO3 and analyzed by ICP-MS for their heavy metal content (Fe, Ti, Sr, Al, Mn). Results showed that most of the water samples are acidic to slightly neutral and moderately mineralized. Ti concentration was significantly high in the area (mean value 130µg/L), suggesting another Ti source besides the natural input from Titanium oxides. The high amounts of Mn and Al in some cases also pointed to additional input, probably from fertilizers that are used in the farmlands. Most of the water samples were found to be significantly contaminated with heavy metals exceeding the WHO allowable limits (Ti-94.7%, Al-19.3%, Mn-14%, Fe-5.2% and Sr-3.5% above limits), especially around farmlands and topographic low areas. The heavy metal concentration was evaluated using the heavy metal pollution index (HPI), heavy metal evaluation index (HEI) and degree of contamination (Cd), while the Ficklin diagram was used for the water based on changes in metal content and pH. The high mean values of HPI and Cd (741 and 5, respectively), which exceeded the critical limit, indicate that the water samples are highly contaminated, with intense pollution from Ti, Al and Mn. Based on the HPI and Cd, 93% and 35% of the samples, respectively, are unacceptable for drinking purposes. The lowest HPI value point also had the lowest EC (50 µS/cm), indicating lower mineralization and less anthropogenic influence. According to the Ficklin diagram, 89% of the samples fell within the near-neutral low-metal domain, while 9% fell in the near-neutral extreme-metal domain. Two significant factors were extracted from the PCA, explaining 70.6% of the total variance. The first factor revealed intense anthropogenic activity (especially from fertilizers), while the second factor revealed water-rock interactions. Agricultural activities thus have an impact on the heavy metal content of groundwater in the area; hence, much attention should be given to the affected areas in order to protect human health/life and thus sustainably manage this precious resource.

Keywords: Bafia, contamination, degree of contamination, groundwater, heavy metal pollution index

Procedia PDF Downloads 87

Authors: Marek Gancarz, Agnieszka Nawrocka, Robert Rusinek, Marcin Tadla

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Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are the fungi metabolites in the gaseous form produced during improper storage of agricultural commodities (e.g. grain, food). The spoilt commodities produce a wide range of VOCs including alcohols, esters, aldehydes, ketones, alkanes, alkenes, furans, phenols etc. The characteristic VOCs and odours can be determined by using electronic nose (e-Nose) which contains a matrix of different kinds of sensors e.g. resistive sensors. The aim of the present studies was to determine relationship between response of the resistive sensors on the chosen volatiles and their concentration. According to the literature, it was chosen volatiles characteristic for the cereals: ethanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol and hexanal. Analysis of the sensor signals shows that a signal shape is different for the different substances. Moreover, each VOC signal gives information about a maximum of the normalized sensor response (R/Rmax), an impregnation time (tIM) and a cleaning time at half maximum of R/Rmax (tCL). These three parameters can be regarded as a ‘VOC fingerprint’. Seven resistive sensors (TGS2600-B00, TGS2602-B00, TGS2610-C00, TGS2611-C00, TGS2611-E00, TGS2612-D00, TGS2620-C00) produced by Figaro USA Inc., and one (AS-MLV-P2) produced by AMS AG, Austria were used. Two out of seven sensors (TGS2611-E00, TGS2612-D00) did not react to the chosen VOCs. The most responsive sensor was AS-MLV-P2. The research was supported by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), Grant No. PBS2/A8/22/2013.

Keywords: agricultural commodities, organic compounds, resistive sensors, volatile

Procedia PDF Downloads 369

Authors: Michael Tunde Ajayi, Oluwakemi Enitan Fapojuwo

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The study assessed employees’ perception of organizational communication in Oyo State Agricultural Development Programme and its effect on their job performance. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 120 employees using a structured questionnaire for data collection. Findings showed that 66.7% of the respondents were males and 60.4% were between the ages of 31-40 years. Most (87.5%) of the respondents had tertiary education and majority of the respondents (73.9%) had working experience of 5 years or less. Major perceived leadership styles used in communicating to the employees were that employees were not allowed to send feedbacks (X=3.23), information was usually inadequately passed across to the employees (X=2.52), information are given with explanation (X=2.04), leaders rarely gave information on innovation (X=1.91) and information are usually passed in form of order (X=1.89). However, majority (61.5%) of the respondents perceived that the common communication flow used is downward communication system. Respondents perceived that the effects of organizational communication on their job performance were that they were able to know the constraints within the organization (X= 4.89), solve the problem occurring in the organization (X=4.70) and achieve organization objectives (X= 4.40). However, major constraints affecting organizational communication were that there were no cordial relationship among workers (X=3.33), receivers had poor listening skills (X=3.32) and information were not in simple forms (X=3.29). There was a significant relationship between organizational communication (r= 0.984, p<0.05) and employees’ job performance. The study suggested that managers should encourage cordial relationship among workers in other to ease communication flow in organizations and also use adequate medium of communication in other to make information common within organizations.

Keywords: employees’ perception, organizational communication, effects, job performance

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Authors: Jonny Beirne

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Hydropower developments have come to assume an important role within the Ethiopian government's overall development strategy for the country during the last ten years. The Gilgel Gibe III on the Omo river, due to become operational in September 2014, represents the most ambitious, and controversial, of these projects to date. Further aspects of the government's national development strategy include leasing vast areas of designated 'unused' land for large-scale commercial agricultural projects and 'voluntarily' villagizing scattered, semi-nomadic agro-pastoralist groups to centralized settlements so as to use land and water more efficiently and to better provide essential social services such as education and healthcare. The Lower Omo valley, along the Omo River, is one of the sites of this villagization programme as well as of these large-scale commercial agricultural projects which are made possible owing to the regulation of the river's flow by Gibe III. Though the Ethiopian government cite many positive aspects of these agricultural and hydropower developments there are still expected to be serious regional and transnational effects, including on migration flows, in an area already characterized by increasing climatic vulnerability with attendant population movements and conflicts over scarce resources. The following paper is an attempt to track actual and anticipated migration flows resulting from the construction of Gibe III in the immediate vicinity of the dam, downstream in the Lower Omo Valley and across the border in Kenya around Lake Turkana. In the case of those displaced in the Lower Omo Valley, this will be considered in view of the distinction between voluntary villagization and forced resettlement. The research presented is not primary-source material. Instead, it is drawn from the reports and assessments of the Ethiopian government, rights-based groups, and academic researchers as well as media articles. It is hoped that this will serve to draw greater attention to the issue and encourage further methodological research on the dynamics of dam constructions (and associated large-scale irrigation schemes) on migration flows and on the ultimate experience of displacement and resettlement for environmental migrants in the region.

Keywords: forced displacement, voluntary resettlement, migration, human rights, human security, land grabs, dams, commercial agriculture, pastoralism, ecosystem modification, natural resource conflict, livelihoods, development

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Authors: L. Kanoksak, N. Sukanya, L. Napatsorn, T. Siriporn

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A growing population and demand for packaging are driving up the usage of natural resources as raw materials in the pulp and paper industry. Long-term effects of environmental is disrupting people's way of life all across the planet. Finding pulp sources to replace wood pulp is therefore necessary. To produce wood pulp, various other potential plants or plant parts can be employed as substitute raw materials. For example, pulp and paper were made from agricultural residue that mainly included pulp can be used in place of wood. In this study, cocoa pod husks were an agricultural residue of the cocoa and chocolate industries. To develop composite materials to replace wood pulp in packaging materials. The paper was coated with polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate (PBAT). By selecting and cleaning fresh cocoa pod husks, the size was reduced. And the cocoa pod husks were dried. The morphology and elemental composition of cocoa pod husks were studied. To evaluate the mechanical and physical properties, dried cocoa husks were extracted using the soda-pulping process. After selecting the best formulations, paper with a PBAT bioplastic coating was produced on a paper-forming machine Physical and mechanical properties were studied. By using the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope/Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometer (FESEM/EDS) technique, the structure of dried cocoa pod husks showed the main components of cocoa pod husks. The appearance of porous has not been found. The fibers were firmly bound for use as a raw material for pulp manufacturing. Dry cocoa pod husks contain the major elements carbon (C) and oxygen (O). Magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), and calcium (Ca) were minor elements that were found in very small levels. After that cocoa pod husks were removed from the soda-pulping process. It found that the SAQ5 formula produced pulp yield, moisture content, and water drainage. To achieve the basis weight by TAPPI T205 sp-02 standard, cocoa pod husk pulp and modified starch were mixed. The paper was coated with bioplastic PBAT. It was produced using bioplastic resin from the blown film extrusion technique. It showed the contact angle, dispersion component and polar component. It is an effective hydrophobic material for rigid packaging applications.

Keywords: cocoa pod husks, agricultural residue, composite material, rigid packaging

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Authors: Kholik

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Nowadays, the demand of renewable energy in general is increasing due to the crisis of fossil fuels. Biohydrogen is an alternative fuel with zero emission derived from renewable resources such as banana pseudo stem of agricultural residues. Banana plant can be easily found in tropical and subtropical areas, so the resource is abundant and readily available as a biohydrogen substrate. Banana pseudo stem has not been utilised as a resource or substrate of biohydrogen production and it mainly contains 45-65% cellulose (α-cellulose), 5-15% hemicellulose and 20-30% Lignin, which indicates that banana pseudo stem will be renewable, sustainable and promising resource as lignocellulosic biomass. In this research, biohydrogen is derived from banana pseudo stem by dark fermentation. Dark fermentation is the most suitable approach for practical biohydrogen production from organic solid wastes. The process has several advantages including a fast reaction rate, no need of light, and a smaller footprint. 321 million metric tonnes banana pseudo stem of 428 million metric tonnes banana plantation residues in worldwide for 2013 and 22.5 million metric tonnes banana pseudo stem of 30 million metric tonnes banana plantation residues in Indonesia for 2015 will be able to generate 810.60 million tonne mol H2 and 56.819 million tonne mol H2, respectively. In this paper, we will show that the banana pseudo stem is the renewable, sustainable and promising resource to be utilised and to produce biohydrogen as energy generation with high yield and high contain of cellulose in comparison with the other substrates.

Keywords: banana pseudo stem, biohydrogen, dark fermentation, lignocellulosic

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Authors: Naima Umar

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Mid-1960’s has been landmark in the history of Indian agriculture. It was in 1966-67 when a New Agricultural Strategy was put into practice to tide over chronic shortages of food grains in the country. This strategy adopted was the use High-Yielding Varieties (HYV) of seeds (wheat and rice), which was popularly known as the Green Revolution. This phase of agricultural development has saved us from hunger and starvation and made the peasants more confident than ever before, but it has also created a number of socio-economic and environmental implications such as the reduction in area under forest, salinization, waterlogging, soil erosion, lowering of underground water table, soil, water and air pollution, decline in soil fertility, silting of rivers and emergence of several diseases and health hazards. The state of Uttar Pradesh in the north is bounded by the country of Nepal, the states of Uttrakhand on the northwest, Haryana on the west, Rajasthan on the southwest, Madhya Pradesh on the south and southwest, and Bihar on the east. It is situated between 23052´N and 31028´N latitudes and 7703´ and 84039´E longitudes. It is the fifth largest state of the country in terms of area, and first in terms of population. Forming the part of Ganga plain the state is crossed by a number of rivers which originate from the snowy peaks of Himalayas. The fertile plain of the Ganga has led to a high concentration of population with high density and the dominance of agriculture as an economic activity. Present paper highlights the negative impact of new agricultural technology on health of the people and environment and will attempt to find out factors which are responsible for these implications. Karl Pearson’s Correlation coefficient technique has been applied by selecting 1 dependent variable (i.e. Productivity Index) and some independent variables which may impact crop productivity in the districts of the state. These variables have categorized as: X1 (Cropping Intensity), X2 (Net irrigated area), X3 (Canal Irrigated area), X4 (Tube-well Irrigated area), X5 (Irrigated area by other sources), X6 (Consumption of chemical fertilizers (NPK) Kg. /ha.), X7 (Number of wooden plough), X8 (Number of iron plough), X9 (Number of harrows and cultivators), X10 (Number of thresher machines), X11(Number of sprayers), X12 (Number of sowing instruments), X13 (Number of tractors) and X14 (Consumption of insecticides and pesticides (in Kg. /000 ha.). The entire data during 2001-2005 and 2006- 2010 have been taken and 5 years average value is taken into consideration, based on secondary sources obtained from various government, organizations, master plan report, economic abstracts, district census handbooks and village and town directories etc,. put on a standard computer programmed SPSS and the results obtained have been properly tabulated.

Keywords: agricultural technology, environmental implications, health hazards, socio-economic problems

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Authors: Ferhati Ahmed, Fillali Ahmed, Oulhadj Younsi

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delimitation of the perimeters of protection in the catchment area of the city of Adrar, which are established around the sites for the collection of water intended for human consumption of drinking water, with the objective of ensuring the preservation and reducing the risks of point and accidental pollution of the resource (Continental Intercalar groundwater of the Northern Sahara of Algeria). This wellfield is located in the northeast of the city of Adrar, it covers an area of 132.56 km2 with 21 Drinking Water Supply wells (DWS), pumping a total flow of approximately 13 Hm3/year. The choice of this wellfield is based on the favorable hydrodynamic characteristics and their location in relation to the agglomeration. The vulnerability to pollution of this slick is very high because the slick is free and suffers from the absence of a protective layer. In recent years, several factors have been introduced around the field that can affect the quality of this precious resource, including the presence of a strong centre for domestic waste and agricultural and industrial activities. Thus, its sustainability requires the implementation of protection perimeters. The objective of this study is to set up three protection perimeters: immediate, close and remote. The application of the Wyssling method makes it possible to calculate the transfer time (t) of a drop of groundwater located at any point in the aquifer up to the abstraction and thus to define isochrones which in turn delimit each type of perimeter, 40 days for the nearer and 100 days for the farther away. Special restrictions are imposed for all activities depending on the distance of the catchment. The application of this method to the Adrar city catchment field showed that the close and remote protection perimeters successively occupy areas of 51.14 km2 and 92.9 km2. Perimeters are delimited by geolocated markers, 40 and 46 markers successively. These results show that the areas defined as "near protection perimeter" are free from activities likely to present a risk to the quality of the water used. On the other hand, on the areas defined as "remote protection perimeter," there is some agricultural and industrial activities that may present an imminent risk. A rigorous control of these activities and the restriction of the type of products applied in industrial and agricultural is imperative.

Keywords: continental intercalaire, drinking water supply, groundwater, perimeter of protection, wyssling method

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Authors: N. F. F. Ebecken, G. C. Pereira

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Ecological systems are exposed and are influenced by various natural and anthropogenic disturbances. They produce various effects and states seeking response symmetry to a state of global phase coherence or stability and balance of their food webs. This research project addresses the development of a computational methodology for modeling plankton food webs. The use of algorithms to establish connections, the generation of representative fuzzy multigraphs and application of technical analysis of complex networks provide a set of tools for defining, analyzing and evaluating community structure of coastal aquatic ecosystems, beyond the estimate of possible external impacts to the networks. Thus, this study aims to develop computational systems and data models to assess how these ecological networks are structurally and functionally organized, to analyze the types and degree of compartmentalization and synchronization between oscillatory and interconnected elements network and the influence of disturbances on the overall pattern of rhythmicity of the system.

Keywords: ecological networks, plankton food webs, fuzzy multigraphs, dynamic of networks

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Authors: Saman Mostafazadeh-Fard, Zohrab Samani, Kenneth Suazo

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Agricultural ditch liners are used to prevent soil erosion and reduce seepage losses. This paper introduced an approach to validate a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) platform FLOW-3D code and its use to design a flow-regulating corrugated agricultural ditch liner system (Smart Ditch (SM)). Hydrodynamic and sediment transport analyses were performed on the proposed liner flow using the CFD platform FLOW-3D code. The code's hydrodynamic and scour and sediment transport models were calibrated and validated using lab data with an accuracy of 94 % and 95%, respectively. The code was then used to measure hydrodynamic parameters of sublayer turbulent intensity, kinetic energy, dissipation, and packed sediment mass normalized with respect to sublayer flow velocity. Sublayer turbulent intensity, kinetic energy, and dissipation in the SM flow were significantly higher than CR flow. An alternative corrugated liner was also designed, and sediment transport was measured and compared to SM and CR flows. Normalized packed sediment mass with respect to average sublayer flow velocity was 27.8 % lower in alternative flow compared to SM flow. CFD platform FLOW-3D code could effectively be used to design corrugated ditch liner systems and perform hydrodynamic and sediment transport analysis under various corrugation designs.

Keywords: CFD, hydrodynamic, sediment transport, ditch, liner design

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Authors: Devansh Desai, Rahul Nigam

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Crop water stress (W) at a given growth stage starts to set in as moisture availability (M) to roots falls below 75% of maximum. It has been found that ratio of crop evapotranspiration (ET) and reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is an indicator of moisture adequacy and is strongly correlated with ‘M’ and ‘W’. The spatial variability of ET0 is generally less over an agricultural farm of 1-5 ha than ET, which depends on both surface and atmospheric conditions, while the former depends only on atmospheric conditions. Solutions from surface energy balance (SEB) and thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing are now known to estimate latent heat flux of ET. In the present study, ET and moisture adequacy index (MAI) (=ET/ET0) have been estimated over two contrasting western India agricultural farms having rice-wheat system in semi-arid climate and arid grassland system, limited by moisture availability. High-resolution multi-band TIR sensing observations at 65m from ECOSTRESS (ECOsystemSpaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station) instrument on-board International Space Station (ISS) were used in an analytical SEB model, STIC (Surface Temperature Initiated Closure) to estimate ET and MAI. The ancillary variables used in the ET modeling and MAI estimation were land surface albedo, NDVI from close-by LANDSAT data at 30m spatial resolution, ET0 product at 4km spatial resolution from INSAT 3D, meteorological forcing variables from short-range weather forecast on air temperature and relative humidity from NWP model. Farm-scale ET estimates at 65m spatial resolution were found to show low RMSE of 16.6% to 17.5% with R2 >0.8 from 18 datasets as compared to reported errors (25 – 30%) from coarser-scale ET at 1 to 8 km spatial resolution when compared to in situ measurements from eddy covariance systems. The MAI was found to show lower (<0.25) and higher (>0.5) magnitudes in the contrasting agricultural farms. The study showed the potential need of high-resolution high-repeat spaceborne multi-band TIR payloads alongwith optical payload in estimating farm-scale ET and MAI for estimating consumptive water use and water stress. A set of future high-resolution multi-band TIR sensors are planned on-board Indo-French TRISHNA, ESA’s LSTM, NASA’s SBG space-borne missions to address sustainable irrigation water management at farm-scale to improve crop water productivity. These will provide precise and fundamental variables of surface energy balance such as LST (Land Surface Temperature), surface emissivity, albedo and NDVI. A synchronization among these missions is needed in terms of observations, algorithms, product definitions, calibration-validation experiments and downstream applications to maximize the potential benefits.

Keywords: thermal remote sensing, land surface temperature, crop water stress, evapotranspiration

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Authors: Fidan Z. Aliyeva

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In the presented article, the formation of the microbiological regime in the Takhtakorpu water complex, as well as spatial-temporal changes in the quantitative indicators of bacterioplankton, were studied. Taktakorpu water complex was built as a continuation of the reconstruction and expansion project of the Samur-Absheron irrigation system in Shabran on the northeastern slope of our republic. It should be noted that with the implementation of the project, the water supply of up to 150 thousand ha of useful land in the northern region has been improved, and the drinking, technical, and irrigation water needs of the population of Baku, Sumgayit and also the Absheron Peninsula, and industrial and agricultural areas, joining the agricultural circulation of new soil areas, Takhtakorpu reservoir with a volume of 238.4 million m³, connected with them -Valvalachay- Takhtakorpu and Takhtakorpu-Jeyranbatan canals have been created, conditions have been created to increase the resources of the Jeyranbatan reservoir. Special attention is paid to the study of saprophytic bacteria in order to determine the development dynamics and biochemical activity of the microbiological regime in the Takhtakorpu Water Complex, which is of great strategic importance for our republic, to evaluate changes under the influence of anthropogenic factors, as well as to evaluate the properties of self-cleaning, mineralization features of organic substances of allochthon and autochthonous origin. One of the main goals of our research is to determine the main structural indicators of bacterioplankton in the upper part of Takhtakorpu water complex in the first three stations and analyzing their quantitative values in a certain time aspect.

Keywords: water, irrigation, sewage, wastewater

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Authors: Sudarshan Chalise, Athula Naranpanawa

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This paper attempts to investigate the viability of cropland re-allocation as an adaptation strategy to minimise the economy-wide costs of climate change on agriculture. Nepal makes an interesting case study as it is one of the most vulnerable agricultural economies within South Asia. This paper develops a comparative static multi-household Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for Nepal with a nested set of Constant Elasticity of Transformation (CET) functional forms to model the allocation of land within different agricultural sectors. Land transformation elasticities in these CET functions are allowed to reflect the ease of switching from one crop to another based on their agronomic characteristics. The results suggest that, in the long run, farmers in Nepal tend to allocate land to crops that are comparatively less impacted by climate change, such as paddy, thereby minimizing the economy-wide impacts of climate change. Furthermore, the results reveal that land re-allocation tends to reduce the income disparity among different household groups by significantly moderating the income losses of rural marginal farmers. Therefore, it is suggested that policy makers in Nepal should prioritise schemes such as providing climate-smart paddy varieties (i.e., those that are resistant to heat, drought and floods) to farmers, subsidising fertilizers, improving agronomic practices, and educating farmers to switch from crops that are highly impacted by climate change to those that are not, such as paddy.

Keywords: climate change, general equilibrium, land re-allocation, nepalese agriculture

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Authors: Rajkumar Ghosh, Bhabani Prasad Mukhopadhay

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Rice milling is an important activity in agricultural economy of India, particularly the Burdwan district. However, the environmental impact of rice mills is frequently underestimated. The environmental impact of rice mills in the Burdwan district is a major source of concern, given the importance of rice milling in the local economy and food supply. In the Burdwan district, more than fifty (50) rice mills are in operation. The goal of this study is to investigate the effects of rice mills on several environmental components, with a particular emphasis on groundwater, surface water, soil, and vegetation. The research comprises a thorough review of numerous rice mills located around the district, utilising both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Water samples taken from wells near rice mills will be tested for groundwater quality, with an emphasis on factors such as heavy metal pollution and pollutant concentrations. Monitoring rice mill discharge into neighbouring bodies of water and studying the potential impact on aquatic ecosystems will be part of surface water evaluations. Furthermore, soil samples from the surrounding areas will be taken to examine changes in soil characteristics, nutrient content, and potential contamination from milling waste disposal. Vegetation studies will be conducted to investigate the effects of emissions and effluents on plant health and biodiversity in the region. The findings will provide light on the extent of environmental degradation caused by rice mills in the Burdwan district, as well as valuable insight into the effects of such operations on water, soil, and vegetation. The findings will aid in the development of appropriate legislation and regulations to reduce negative environmental repercussions and promote sustainable practises in the rice milling business. In some cases, heavy metals have been related to health problems. Heavy metals (As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Cr, Hg) are linked to skin, lung, brain, kidney, liver, metabolic, spleen, cardiovascular, haematological, immunological, gastrointestinal, testes, pancreatic, metabolic, and bone problems. As a result, this study contributes to a better knowledge of industrial environmental impacts and establishes the framework for future studies aimed at developing a more ecologically balanced and resilient Burdwan district. The following recommendations are offered for reducing the rice mill's environmental impact: To keep untreated effluents out of bodies of water, adequate waste management systems must be established. Use environmentally friendly rice milling processes to reduce pollution. To avoid soil pollution, rice mill by-products should be used as fertiliser in a controlled and appropriate manner. Groundwater, surface water, soil, and vegetation are all regularly monitored in order to study and adapt to environmental changes. By adhering to these principles, the rice milling industry of Burdwan district may achieve long-term growth while lowering its environmental effect and safeguarding the environment for future generations.

Keywords: groundwater, environmental analysis, biodiversity, rice mill, waste management, diseases, industrial impact

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Authors: Md. Samim Hossain Molla, Md. Mazharul Anwar, Md. Akkas Ali, Mian Sayeed Hassan

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Being detached about 68 years from the mainland, the previous enclaves’ (Chhitmohal) farmers were engaged only in subsistence farming with low agricultural productivity and restricted access to inputs technology. To increase crop productivity for attaining food security by addressing soil status, the experiments were undertaken in 2017 and 2018 in three previous enclaves of Northern Bangladesh i.e. Dasiarchhara of Kurigram district; Dahalakhagrabari of Panchagarh district and Banskata of Lalmonirhat district under On-Farm Research Division, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Rangpur. The Mustard (var. BARI Sarisha-14)-Boro rice (var. BRRI dhan58)-T. Aman rice (var. BRRI dhan49) cropping pattern using soil test based (STB) fertilizer with cowdung (T1) or recommended fertilizer dose (T2) were tested against existing cropping pattern Fallow-Boro rice (var. BRRI dhan28)-T. Aman rice (var. Swarna) using farmers’ practices fertilizer dose (T3) in six disperse replications at each location maintaining Randomized Complete Block design. Almost all crops yields were relatively higher in T1 followed by T2. Farmers existing pattern with local varieties and imbalance fertilizer (T3) use may be decreased the crop yield. The rice equivalent yield of T1 was 109, 103 and 95% higher than T3 and the gross margin was 164, 153 and 133% higher in T1 than T3 at Dasiarchhara, Dahalakhagrabari and Banskata, respectively. The Benefit Cost Ratio for T1, T2 and T3 were 1.99, 1.78 and 1.28 in Dasiarchhara; 1.93, 1.81 and 1.27 in Dahalakhagrabari and 1.78, 1.71 and 1.25 in Banskata, respectively. There was a remarkable decrease in mineral N, P and K in the topsoil (0–15 cm) of T3 and T2 treatments at Dasiarchhara and Dahalakhagrabari, and a generally less marked decline under the same treatments at Banskata. The same practices (T1) exhibited the greatest nutrients uptake by the test crops. The apparent balance of N, P and K was negative in most cases, where it was less negative in T1 treatment. However, from the experimentation, it is revealed that balanced fertilization (STB) and inclusion of National Agricultural Research Institutes developed improved crops varieties in cropping pattern may increase the crop productivity, farm efficiency and farmer’s income in a remarkable level.

Keywords: cropping pattern, fertilizer management, nutrient balance, previous enclaves

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Authors: Wei Ting Han, Shiann-Far Kung

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In the early time, most of the arable land is dry farming and using rainfall as water sources for irrigation in Tainan county. After the Chia-nan Irrigation System (CIS) was completed in 1930, Chia-nan Plain was more efficient allocation of limited water sources or irrigation, because of the benefit from irrigation systems, drainage systems, and land improvement projects. The problem of long-term drought, flood and salt damage in the past were also improved by CIS. The canal greatly improved the paddy field area and agricultural output, Tainan county has become one of the important agricultural producing areas in Taiwan. With the development of water conservancy facilities, affected by national policies and other factors, many agricultural communities and settlements are formed indirectly, also promoted the change of settlement patterns and internal structures. With the development of historical geographic information system (HGIS), Academia Sinica developed the WebGIS theme with the century old maps of Taiwan which is the most complete historical map of database in Taiwan. It can be used to overlay historical figures of different periods, present the timeline of the settlement change, also grasp the changes in the natural environment or social sciences and humanities, and the changes in the settlements presented by the visualized areas. This study will explore the historical development and spatial characteristics of the settlements in various areas of Tainan County. Using of large-scale areas to explore the settlement changes and spatial patterns of the entire county, through the dynamic time and space evolution from Japanese rule to the present day. Then, digitizing the settlement of different periods to perform overlay analysis by using Taiwan historical topographic maps in 1904, 1921, 1956 and 1989. Moreover, using document analysis to analyze the temporal and spatial changes of regional environment and settlement structure. In addition, the comparison analysis method is used to classify the spatial characteristics and differences between the settlements. Exploring the influence of external environments in different time and space backgrounds, such as government policies, major construction, and industrial development. This paper helps to understand the evolution of the settlement space and the internal structural changes in Tainan County.

Keywords: historical geographic information system, overlay analysis, settlement change, Tainan County

Procedia PDF Downloads 128