Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering

Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.

Shiv Nadar University

Environmental protection and encroachments have turned out to be a cause for heritage and cultural conservation. Heritage and cultural assets should be given special importance than the public and private places. Heritage assets, cultural life and its history are the main elements of a city’s identity (Borer, 2006). City is considered to be peculiar with its historical heritage, cultural concept and society. The identity of the heritage should be treated as regional term and not at local term for conservation strategies. Due to heritage conservation at regional label, there is development of the concept of identity, cultural attractiveness and sense of location (Lieber, 2002). Heritage conservation means to prioritise large geographical eco-regions and developing targeted outcomes at global level. Development of crisis-driven and opportunistic approaches for conservation was broadly explored in particular reference to World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) (Hails, 2007).The development of conservation strategies for protection of heritage and cultural buildings at global level brings the attention of the World Heritage Convention rules (UNESCO Report, 2010). At global level, UNESCO has declared many sites as world heritage and efforts have been made to protect them from destruction. According to the World Heritage Convention rule, each country shall provide precise information indicating the boundary of the site as well as the boundary of the ‘buffer zone’ surrounding the site of the heritage and cultural buildings. The Convention also requests that both of these areas (site-boundary and site-buffer zone) should be protected by an appropriate legislation.

World University root node

On-floor area based approach for heritage conservation and management Published in:(September 2011)

The present work explores relations between stream power, braiding intensities and bank erosion in certain stretches of the Brahmaputra River. In this paper, an objective approach is presented to enable quantitative assessment of spatio-temporal behaviour of channel braiding process of the Brahmaputra River by using the Plan Form Index and corresponding estimation of stream power to establish a behavioural pattern of variability of potential energy expenditure. The braiding index is compared for discrete years to understand the morphological behaviour. Subsequently, a real time estimation of stream power for certain stretches of Brahmaputra River is done in order to analyse its variability in braiding intensity and bank erosion. The paper presents the dynamic behaviour of the channel pattern of the Brahmaputra River System in Assam valley of India over a time span of 18 years. The procedure addresses the selection of input parameters from digital satellite images, comprising scenes for the years 1990, 1997 and 2007 with specific dates, from Dhubri near Indo-Bangladesh Border to Upper Assam. Deployment of GIS technique has been made to extract the required parameters to derive Plan Form Indices for the entire study reach. Stream power estimation is done for corresponding latest floods and for corresponding dates of image scenes. The study indicated that due to consistent aggradation of riverbed inducing temporal declination of stream power, there is an occurrence of wide spread braiding. This in turn incurs substantial yearly land loss due to bank erosion, caused by flow concentrations due to temporal evolution of multiple channels in the Brahmaputra River. © 2011 International Research and Training Centre on Erosion and Sedimentation and the World Association for Sedimentation and Erosion Research.

International Journal of Sediment Research

Braiding process and bank erosion in the Brahmaputra River

Indian Forester

Variation in nutrient contents in foliage of Terminalia arjuna Bedd.-potential fodder species of low hills of Himachal Pradesh.

The change of the Brahmaputra basin characteristics has been studied covering around 620km of the River reach in Assam flood plain within Indian Territory. The changes in land use and land cover pattern in the Brahmaputra catchment instigate a significant increase in sediment inflow to the Brahmaputra River System. Land use change may influence many natural phenomena including ecological processes, soil erosion, sedimentation and variations in runoff and soil moisture conditions. Hence, understanding the morpho-dynamic behavior of the river with an extra emphasis on land cover and plan form changes is substantially crucial, so far as impact on the sediment inflow to the river system is concerned. More recently, Sharma and Akhtar (2010) studied the braiding behavior of River Brahmaputra for the discrete years 1990, 1997 and 2007- 08 using remote sensing data based analysis. Their study emphatically suggests a sharp increase in braiding intensities during the aforesaid study period. With above strategy, an objective is set in mind to study in regard to assessment and impact of the land cover changes. Which has been urgently needed for better understanding of the causative factors those influence the braiding pattern, sediment inflow as well as bank erosion phenomena. Hence, for the same discrete years, it is endeavored to study and analyze thebasin characteristics using Landsat (TM) images for the discrete years between 1989 to 2010; covering the catchment area of the River in the three riparian countries (China, India and Bangladesh). NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) maps of the study area have been created by considering seasonal vegetation cover changes. Supervised classification was done using MLC (Maximum Likelihood Classifier) to help distinguish between various land cover classes. Change detection algorithm was implemented to determine the changes in vegetation cover in the watershed, floodplain vegetation, vegetated islands, extent and pattern of low flow channels, and exposed sand bars at selected points along the reach. For the same discrete years, a significant change in NDVI values have been registered out of the study, resulting in substantial decrease in vegetation cover and inducing severe channel migration in recent years. Another outcome of the study is that the land cover change in the watershed is not fairly uniform. The landcover change especially, change in vegetation cover surmised to be the vital contributor to the increase in sediment inflow into the Brahmaputra River and its tributaries. © 2011 ASCE.

World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2011: Bearing Knowledge for Sustainability - Proceedings of the 2011 World Environmental and Water Resources Congress

Satellite data based impact assessment of basin characteristics for brahmaputra river system of India

Piano Key Weirs are modified version of labyrinth weir with innovation to improve discharging capacity and more compatible for constructing on a existing or new spillway with lesser space requirement and structural stability. The objective of this study was to identify the Piano Key Weir in which the maximum discharge capacity at different UW with p (height of weir) could be achieved. To achieve this for different flow conditions, length magnification ratio (L/W) is taken from 3.56 to 7.40. Also, other parameters are taken in different combinations for getting optimum configuration of Piano Key Weir for better performance. With this in view, three phases of experimental campaign on eighteen Piano Key Weir models are reported in this paper. The ratio (r) of Piano Key Weir to linear weir discharge for a given head was seen to be more than one and found to increase with magnification ratio L/W upto a certain limit of h/p ratio. It was also found that performance of ratio of inlet and outlet cell width was best when two cells were of same width. The analysis of discharge coefficient variation is correlated with h/p. © 2011 Taylor &amp; Francis Group, LLC.

Civil Engineering

(SoE) School of Engineering

ISH Journal of Hydraulic Engineering

Experimental study of hydraulically efficient piano key weir configuration

J GIS Trends

Geospatial approach for allocation of potential tourism gradient sites in a part of Shimla District in Himachal Pradesh, India

Labyrinth weirs are normally built to increase the total effective crest length for a given spillway width. They can be used to increase the discharge capacity for a given head or to decrease the head for a given discharge. As their application is sometimes difficult in rehabilitation projects due to inappropriate supporting conditions, a new concept of labyrinth spillways was mooted by Lemperiere et al. with a new shape, called Piano Key Weir. This innovative alternative of labyrinth spillway provides an increase in the stability of the structure which can be placed on the top of most existing or new gravity dams, unlike traditional labyrinth weirs. This paper focuses on the experimental results and physical modelling tests of the evacuation system of Sawara Kuddu Hydro Electric Project 110 MW located in Lower Himalayan mountain ranges of India with the Piano Key Weir and the energy dissipation structure. The physical modelling has been carried out at the River Engineering Laboratory, Water Resources Development and Management, Indian Institute of technology, Roorkee, India in the framework of the rehabilitation project. © 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, London.

Labyrinth and Piano Key Weirs - Proceedings of the International Conference on Labyrinth and Piano Key Weirs, PKW 2011

Rehabilitation of Sawara Kuddu Hydroelectric Project - Model studies of Piano Key Weir in India

Submerged vanes are submerged foils of low height and larger length, constructed in a river at an angle of attack α to the flow to modify the near-bed flow pattern and redistribute flow and sediment transport within the channel cross section. At a Froude number (F) of 0.13, the local scour development around the submerged vane without a collar was not enough to dislodge the vane whereas at F=0.25, there was a significant local scour hole around the vane and the vane was dislodged. With the introduction of a collar at the leading edge of a submerged vane, the scour depth at the leading edge of the vane was reduced to zero. A collar of circular shape was found more suitable for a rectangular vane. Recommendations for sizing collars at two values of F are given. The optimal α for a rectangular vane with a collar was found close to 40°. The study clearly indicates the advantages of using collars in case of submerged vanes and provides insight into selection of appropriate collar shapes. © 2010 ASCE.

Journal of Hydraulic Engineering

Enhancing utility of submerged vanes with collar

In order to investigate the role of frankial siderophores in minimizing metal toxicity, Frankia strains were grown at different concentrations of Mg2+, Cu2+, and Zn2+. Growth was observed up to 500 mmol L-1 Mg2+, 10 μ mol L-1 Cu2+, and 10 μmolL-1 Zn2+ while the maxima were at 200 μmol L-1 Mg2+, 1 μmol L-1 Cu2+, and 1 μmol L-1 Zn2+. The siderophore production was increased up to 500 μmol L-1 Mg2+, 10 μmol L-1 Cu2+, 100 μmol L-1 (hydroxamate type), and 200 μmol L-1 (catecholate type) Zn2+ while maximum production was found at Mg2+ (200 μmol L-1), Cu2+ (10 μmol L-1), and Zn2+ (10 μ molL-1). The results suggested that the growth was protected at higher concentrations of Mg2+ (up to 500 μmol L-1), Cu2+ (10 μ molL-1), and Zn2+ (10 μ mol L-1), possibly due to enhanced siderophore production. Thus, siderophores minimize the metal-induced inhibition of growth in Frankia, likely due to regulation of nutritional imbalances and metabolic processes during adaptation towards metal stress and/or metal toxicity. © 2010 Taylor &amp; Francis.

Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry

Attenuation of metal toxicity by frankial siderophores

The submerged vanes are vortex generating device which function through generation of secondary circulation for bringing about desired sediment redistribution within the channel cross-section. Strength of vortex is important for the comparison of strengths of different vortices. Evaluation of torque is little more complicated than the evaluation of moment of momentum. Therefore, instead of evaluating torque, moment of momentum can be evaluated as the strength of vortex. All the three components of velocity can be measured using Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter. Grids across the flume in vertical plane can be considered for the measurements of components of velocity. Moment of momentum depends on wide range of variables. The dimensionless moment of momentum can be considered for the evaluation of strength of vortex. © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.