Friday 21 December 2012

Christmas and Geographic Information System (GIS)


According to the Biblical tales, three wise men travelled from the East to visit infant Jesus at Bethlehem. They were guided by stars.

It is common wisdom that the angle between the horizon and North Star (Polaris) defines the latitude. They would have certainly relied upon the Polaris to a great extent to reach their destination.

Will this journey qualify as one of the early examples of spaced based navigation?

Perhaps coordinate based navigation systems were well developed and widely used during those times. However, it was only during the middle of previous century that these got formally christened as Geographic Information System.   

Wednesday 19 December 2012

What Ails Open Access Initiative


Professor Leslie Chan, an acknowledged champion of Open Access Initiative (OAI) was at IIITM-K on 18 December 2012.


The authors’ views:

OAI is perfectly fine concept. But it is inherently counter-evolutionary in nature. This, I believe is perhaps the biggest dampener for its sluggish acceptability.

If we take a look at evolution (including social), it is evident that all things regarded as resource at any point of time; gets hoarded for the benefit and development of the clan/society

Today, knowledge is a resource. It transforms itself to power, money and what not. Hence it is only logical that today the forces for collective, voluntary tendency to hoard knowledge are very strong.

Viewed from this perspective, OAI seems somewhat like asking people to hoard rocks instead of gold!

Friday 14 December 2012

We 4 Us: Towards a cleaner, healthier Thiruvananthapuram


Dear Friend,

We are certain, you will agree that we the people of this once beautiful city, Thiruvananthapuram, are cutting the very branch on which, we are nested.

Two photos are sufficient to convey what we are indicating.

 Courtesy: sreepadmanabhan.blogspot.com/ 


One of the founding believes on which the ecological informatics initiative at the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management – Kerala [IIITM-K] is built is that environmental problems are not environmental Per se . They are social.

Activity at IIITM-K is academic in nature. However, over time, we have realized that academics encompasses much more than class room constructs. Hence we are reaching out.

We 4 Us is a platform that attempts to make Thiruvananthapuram an enviably clean and pleasantly cool city. We welcome you to this non-partisan, apolitical platform.

Let us pool our ideas, resources and energy to explore, if we can use the coming months to contribute to the betterment of our beloved city. With a critical mass, we shall act.

Remember the lines   We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day ………….  .”
  

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Mobile facilitated real-time harvesting of bio-physical data


Biophysical parameters drive global environmental processes. Although it is now established that human actions, have affected the rate of global processes to invariably bring-in state transitions, sooner than what would have unfolded naturally; we are uncertain about the very nature and consequences thereof. 

Our endeavors towards modeling to anticipate the nature of change, is limited by paucity of primary representative data. Today smart phone provides an exciting opportunity to plug this data gap.

We are striving to develop a system to address this primal issue. 

If you have an interest in mobile apps for environmental research, please drop a word to  ei[at]iiitmk.ac.in 


Thursday 29 November 2012

Global Warming and its impacts


Global Warming is the increase of Earth's average surface temperature due to effect of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels or from deforestation, which trap heat that would otherwise escape from Earth.

Global Warming Impacts

Many of the following "harbingers" and "fingerprints" are now well under way:
1.     Rising Seas--- inundation of fresh water marshlands (the everglades), low-lying cities, and islands with seawater.
2.     Changes in rainfall patterns --- droughts and fires in some areas, flooding in other areas.
3.     Increased likelihood of extreme events--- such as flooding, hurricanes, etc.
4.     Melting of the ice caps --- loss of habitat near the poles. Polar bears are now thought to be greatly endangered by the shortening of their feeding season due to dwindling ice packs. 
5.     Melting glaciers - significant melting of old glaciers is already observed.
6.     Widespread vanishing of animal populations --- following widespread habitat loss.
7.     Spread of disease --- migration of diseases such as malaria to new, now warmer, regions.
8.     Bleaching of Coral Reefs due to warming seas and acidification due to carbonic acid formation --- One third of coral reefs now appear to have been severely damaged by warming seas.
9.     Loss of Plankton due to warming seas --- The enormous (900 mile long) Aleution island ecosystems of orcas (killer whales), sea lions, sea otters, sea urchins, kelp beds, and fish populations, appears to have collapsed due to loss of plankton, leading to loss of sea lions, leading orcas to eat too many sea otters, leading to urchin explosions, leading to loss of kelp beds and their associated fish populations. 

Alternatives to Fossil Fuels

Bioenergy or Biofuels:
Bioenergy can be produced from a variety of biomass feedstocks, including forest agricultural and livestock residues; short-rotation forest plantations; energy crops; the organic component of municipal solid waste; and other organic waste streams.
Direct solar energy:
These technologies harness the energy of solar irradiance to produce electricity using photovoltics.
Geo thermal energy
Utilizes the acceptable thermal energy from the earth interiors, where the heat is extracted from a  reservoirs that are naturally sufficient hot and permeable(Hydrothermal Reservoirs)used to generate electricity, analogue to fuel source
Hydropower:
Uses the potential energy stored in the water(at rest) by making the water to flow from higher to lower elevation. used to produce hydro electricity, encompasses the large centralized urban needs of energy.


GIS AND CONSERVATION


GIS AND CONSERVATION

 Conservation biologists have come to recognize the importance of GIS in their domain. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has become a most effective tool in the field of landscape ecology.  With the increase in available landscape data from satellite imagery and public agencies (like NRSC), GIS has established a niche in the field of biodiversity conservation for spatial analyses. Some important topics where the tool finds application are below:
Gap Analysis
An area where GIS found early application is gap analysis.  Gap Analysis is the process of mapping out sensitive species habitats and overlaying the protected and undisturbed areas of habitat. This allows conservation biologists to visualize areas of sensitive species that are currently unprotected.
GIS and Corridor Mapping
Over the recent years, GIS has found great use in mapping of corridors. These corridors when identified are restored for the effective migration of different terrestrial species. Corridors connect habitats cut off due to anthropogenic factors (like agriculture, construction of roads etc.). Corridor restoration is important for species having large home range in order to reduce human-wildlife conflict.

Land cover- Land use Mapping
Another key area where GIS is gaining wide application is the mapping of land use-land cover changes. Due to various human induced factors landscape structure has been constantly changing for the worse so far as wildlife conservation is concerned. The availability of satellite images for a landscape enables one to monitor the spatio-temporal changes and thus future projection is made. Bassed on these future projections, steps are taken by decision makers.



Biomimicry







Biomimicry – Inspired by Nature



Biomimicry refers to the imitation of the nature’s systems, processes, phenomena and deriving ideas to develop man made systems, models and processes so as to analyze and solve human problems.Although it is a newly developed scientific field, the idea of biomimicry was applied in earlier centuries itself. The depiction of flying machine by DaVinci and later the first airplane by the Wright brothers were inspired by birds.


Biomimicry can be done in both micro (even in nano) and macro scales and can be followed in two ways to seek answers to some problems


  • ·         A process can be analyzed within nature and can be applied to an existing problem , or
Image Source: Blemya.com


  • ·         Check the biological world for the most suitable process that is in analogy to the existing problem so as to obtain a solution.



Some of the best examples of biomimicry are


  • ·         The Velcro, that was inspired by burs


  • ·         Sonar inspired by bats, dolphins


  • ·         Biologically inspired engineering (e.g. Eastgate centre, Harare)












Save our Vembanad lake...... at least for tourism...... Its condition is really hurting.....


DEGRADATION OF WETLAND VEMBANAD LAKE

IMPORTANCE OF SENSOR WEBS IN ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH


IMPORTANCE OF SENSOR WEBS IN ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
Sensors are basic instruments have the capacity to transform various types of environmental stimuli (physical, biological, chemical) in to transmissible and interpretable signals. Sensor web consists of three layers sensor layer, communication layer and information layer.
For environmental research numerous sensors aggregated and use. Sensor web is a web of sensors, sensor system, its networks, data and metadata capabilities to act as a coordinated macro instrument. Sensor web used for sensing system such as weather and air pollution monitoring stations and earth observation satellites. Sensor web provide valuable tool for earth system science used as real time and open ended (Open standards, models, service and Meta data definition) tool. Sensor web also used for social ecological system sustainability by using qualitative and quantitative model.

REFERENCE:Holling,c.s.(2001):Understanding complexity of Economic,Ecological and Social systems.
Sensor web for environmental research-Nishadh,K.A-AZZEZ,P.A.
Image from:http://www.eeweb.com/websites/sensors-web-portal

IMPACTS OF HABITAT FRAGMENTATION


Habitat fragmentation is a serious issue that today our entire world is facing. It is the disintegration of the environment of the organism into patches due to natural or anthropogenic activities. These fragmented patches cannot fully accommodate the entire organism this ultimately support only small population which leads to species extinction. In the process of fragmentation there forms discontinuity in the spatial distribution of resources which affects occupancy, reproduction and survival in a particular species. But this it can also provide new environment for new species to evolve. Thus earth shows the resiliency on the earth.

1. The most important part which is affected is the biodiversity that is the ecological niche of the organisms.
2. The organisms in these areas directed to the patches left which leads to crowding and increased competition.
3.  The destruction of the habitat causes climatic changes due to deforestation.
4.  Formation of new species leads to inbreeding.
5.  Inbreeding effects causes reduced heterogeneity and vigor among the organism.
6. Due to these effects species are prone to disease and predation.
7.   This all finally results in species extinction.
                            
                      So it’s our responsibility of each and every individual to conserve our nature…
<image courtesy :Photo taken by Priyanka Babu, Ponnmudi, 10.11.2012>