Reply by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in compliance to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order dated January 21, 2024 in the matter of ‘News item titled “Feeling anxious? Toxic air could be to blame” appearing in Times of India dated 10.10.2023’. NGT had directed CPCB to file a …
Wetlands are among the most productive and economically valuable ecosystems in the world. However, because of human activities, over half of the wetland ecosystems existing in North America, Europe, Australia, and China in the early 20th century have been lost. Ecological restoration to recover critical ecosystem services has been widely …
We show in climate model experiments that large-scale afforestation in northern mid-latitudes warms the Northern Hemisphere and alters global circulation patterns. An expansion of dark forests increases the absorption of solar energy and increases surface temperature, particularly in regions where the land surface is unable to compensate with latent heat …
Experiments suggest that biodiversity enhances the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple functions, such as carbon storage, productivity, and the buildup of nutrient pools (multifunctionality). However, the relationship between biodiversity and multifunctionality has never been assessed globally in natural ecosystems. We report here on a global empirical study relating plant …
How is the biodiversity within an ecosystem related to the ecosystem's function? Quantifying and understanding this relationship—the biodiversity-ecosystem function (BEF) —is important because socio-economic development is almost always accompanied by the loss of natural habitat and species. Short-term economic gains may thus trump longer-term benefits for human society, creating vulnerabilities …
Global food demand is increasing rapidly, as are the environmental impacts of agricultural expansion. Here, we project global demand for crop production in 2050 and evaluate the environmental impacts of alternative ways that this demand might be met. We find that per capita demand for crops, when measured as caloric …
China possesses large areas of plantation forests which take up great quantities of carbon. However, studies on soil respiration in these plantation forests are rather scarce and their soil carbon flux remains an uncertainty. In this study, we used an automatic chamber system to measure soil surface flux of a …
A study was carried out in village Mohamadabad, Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh to demonstrate the potential of high-resolution remote sensing data in generating soil resource database at village level that would facilitate natural resource developmental planning. For this study, detail soil resource database was generated by interpreting IRS Resourcesat-1 LISS-IV …
The amount and intensity of runoff at catchment scale are largely determined by the presence of impervious land cover types, which are predominant in an urbanized area. This paper examines the impact of different methods for estimating impervious surface cover on the prediction of peak discharges as determined by a …
Investigations and experience on truth of natural plant life surrounding us revealed that 1) soil is living, 2) health of cattle influences biodiversity as well as recycling of biomass and 3) quality of water. It is "soul" content of alternate farming.
The growth and plant water relations of Eucalyptus tereticornis Sm. and E. camaldulensis Dehnh. in relation to soil salinity were studied by transplanting one and half month old seedlings in the pots filled with eight levels of artificially created soil salinity levels.
An experiment was conducted to study the phosphate adsorption-desorption behaviour of some paddy growing soils of Anantnag district of Kashmir. Representative soil samples (0-15 cm) were collected from thirteen locations of district under paddy.
The field investigations were carried out on sandy loam soil at the research farm, Department of Agricultural Meteorology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana during rabi 2006-07 and 2007-08. Wheat is the premier cereal crop during rabi season in Punjab. In 2008-09, it was grown on 35.26 lac tonnes and per hectare …
Both climate warming and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition are predicted to affect soil N cycling in terrestrial biomes over the next century. However, the interactive effects of warming and N deposition on soil N mineralization in temperate grasslands are poorly understood. A field manipulation experiment was conducted to examine the …
Glyphosate is a herbicide that is liable to be used in the extensive cultivation of glyphosate-tolerant cultivars. The potential accumulation of the relative effect of glyphosate on the rhizobacterial communities of glyphosate-tolerant maize has been monitored over a period of three years. Original Source
An understanding of the factors controlling plant community composition will allow improved prediction of the responses of plant communities to natural and anthropogenic environmental change. Using monitoring data from 1980 to 2009, we quantified the changes in community composition in Leymus chinensis and Stipa grandis dominated grasslands in Inner Mongolia …
It is well demonstrated that the responses of plants to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration are species-specific and dependent on environmental conditions. We investigated the responses of a subshrub legume species, Caragana microphylla Lam., to elevated CO2 and nitrogen (N) addition using open-top chambers in a semiarid temperate grassland in northern …
Globally, soil organic matter (SOM) contains more than three times as much carbon as either the atmosphere or terrestrial vegetation. Yet it remains largely unknown why some SOM persists for millennia whereas other SOM decomposes readily—and this limits our ability to predict how soils will respond to climate change. Recent …
PMO Reminder Likely To Sour Ties With DMK New Delhi: A terse reminder from the PMO urging the fertilizer ministry to expedite ‘urea decontrol’ is set to test DMK’s reduced heft in UPA after the telecom scam and election rout, while raising prospects of the party clashing with Congress over …
The geo-technical investigation for the Chandigarh Metro is currently underway with a Chandigarh Metro Rail Corporation hiring a Jaipur-based company collecting soil samples from various areas which fall on the proposed route. The work is being done with the help of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) which will soon be …
