The Top three software that you must learn to apply GIS

Recently the Water Resources and hydro power portal published a list of software that you must learn if you want to apply the advantage of GIS and Remote Sensing in your project.

The list was not extensive but selective.

While preparing the list the following factors were given weightage of importance where the first factor was given the highest importance and last one the opposite:

1.Ease of Use
2.Price in INR
3.Support
4.Features
5.Frequency of use in related problems
6.Number of Updates per Year
7.Probability of Bugs

The list can be seen in Baipatra home page.

Research Ideas on Water Reuse

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The "Impact of Urbanization on Water Reuse Potential" and "Water Reuse Potential of Hydro-Power plant" can be two of the most important topic of research  related to water reuse.

In the first topic the urbanization impact on Water Reuse Potential(WRP) is estimated.As world wide rapid urbanization is going on, the stress on "available water" of any region is immense.Due to the uneven distribution of water resources the problem is more acute where concentration of population is high but availability of water is low.According to Falkenmark's Water Stress Indicator,a region is said to be water scarce if per capita water availability is less than 5000cubicm.

Again availability of water will imply not only the quantity but also the quality of water available.The water must be qualitatively suitable for consumption.Otherwise, it will not be added to water resources potential of a region.

Due to urbanization there is an immense stress on this "available water".That is why mitigation measures like recycling water is given a lot of importance so that this increased population can be sustained and their demand for water can be somewhat satisfied.

But amount of water available for consumption is constant.Thus the supplied water must be recycled or reused.Hence,the interrelationship between rate of urbanization and WRP will be an interesting aspect to determine.The potential of urban population in degrading the quality of water is also another potential area of research which can enlighten us to determine the amount of water we have and can reclaim for reuse,

The second topic,the potential of water reuse in a hydro power plant will help to install a zero discharge hydro power plant which will be beneficial for both water as well as energy conservation of a region.In the study one objective will be to find the amount of water available for reuse.

Another aspect will be to determine the types of use that can be carried out with the reused water.Actual potential of water reuse can be given by a weighted index of all the purposes of water reuse.Each of the purposes can be weighted with respect to each other following some Multi-Criteria Decision Making approaches.

Once the amount of the water that can be reused for specific purposes are known,it can be multiplied by the weightage of the same purpose and total of the product of weights of all the purposes and available water for that purposes can be used to determine the WRP Index of the hydropower plant.

The index can represent the exact WRP of the plant in terms of the potential of the reused water to mitigate the demand of the plant intself.

New Research Idea : Selection of Conceptual Hydrologic Models for Estimating Runoff from Arid Watersheds

Abstract : 

The selection of ideal conceptual hydrologic model for prediction of surface runoff from any type of watershed is useful for the estimation of future hydrologic conditions of the basin.The predicted runoff is also important for design of hydraulic structure,preparation of watershed management plans ,disaster management etc. related activities.The future runoff will give an idea of future uncertainties that may trouble the watershed and its inhabitants.The hydrologic models which follows the basic physical laws of water balance to estimate the desired output cannot exactly estimate the runoff.There will be some differences with the actual situation and the predicted one.The deviations between the two is allowable but to a certain extent.There are many factors for this deviation.Some models are suitable for some specific types of watersheds.The availability of required dataset is also another important issue.The equalizing constants that are used to linearize interrelationships are also a factor for the error produced by the hydrologic model.That is why  selection of a suitable hydrologic model which can estimate at a desired accuracy under the restrictions imposed by the study watershed  and dataset availability is important for successful execution of projects involving runoff predictions.The present study tries to select a suitable hydrologic model based on the related factors and decision making algorithms for predicting surface runoff from an arid watershed.The decision making algorithms are popular for their impartial and scientific decision making based on historical,social and expert inputs.The advancements of such algorithms can be utilized to select an ideal hydrologic model which can minimize the error between the predicted and actual output.

Tools Utilized : AHP and Fuzzy,various hydrologic models

Keywords : hydrologic models,decision making algorithms,arid watershed.

Baipatra: Fractal Analysis

Baipatra: Fractal Analysis: Fractal Analysis is a relatively new concept for spatial analysis of a data pattern. Mainly used in detection of set of features in an im...

Calculator of Design Factors of Pump Storage Plant

Different design factors of Pump Storage Plant can be calculated with the following software.

The software can help students,researchers,engineers to calculate the specific speed,submergence,Potential of Cavitation in the flow and efficiency of pumped storage plants along with the L/h ratio to find the economic requirements of the plant if Normal Speed,Generation and Pump Efficiency,frequency factor,gross head are known.

The Software can calculate :

Specific Speed from Normal Speed,Discharge and Gross Head
Submergence from Specific Speed and head
Overall Efficiency of Pumped Storage Plant from Generator and Pump Efficiency,k value,Gross Head and Discharge.
Potential of Cavitation is estimated from Critical Cavitation,Effective,Suction and Barometric head of water.
The economic requirements of the pumped storage plant can be estimated from dividing Length of Tail Race by Effective Head.Lesser is the ration more economical will be the Pump Storage Plant.

Calculate

Potential of KVL,KCL and Graph Theory for Finding loss in Pipe Networks

To find the loss of pressure or flow within a pipeline we can use the concept of graph theory and Mason Gain Formula where gain can be equivalent to flow resistance.

Kirchoff's Current and Voltage Law can also be used to solve pipe line problems where Voltage can be replaced by Tanks/Reservoirs,resistance by friction loss and current with flow of water.

The circuit losses like capacitance can be compared to surge tanks and inductance may be replaced by the eddy flows which often causes the hammering in the pipeline.

Such methods can easily determine the value of losses within a pipeline if flow and potential is known or vice-versa and necessary scale corrections are applied without the requirements of data and knowledge of computations.

Importance of Coordinate Systems in GIS

The first step in developing an interactive map linked to relevant data that you want to represent is to select the coordinate system with which you want to work.The tip is if you are working in a global scale use the global coordinate systems.

If you are working within a country use the local coordinate systems.If the scale of you work is within the district/state then use cadastral maps.

A single point can be represented by x and y axis of your paper,height and width of your room or even the global coordinate systems.Each of the representation will be correct but the resolution will be effected.In x and y axis of your paper the resolution will be best,in the height and width of your room resolution will be medium and in the global axis it will be poor.

That is why there are various types of coordinate systems and they are utilized based on the spatial scale at which you are working.

Classification of Neural Networks Part 1

The ANN networks can be classified based on direction of signal flow,training algorithms,activation functions,network topology etc.

All the neural networks can be classified into Supervised,Unsupervised and Reinforcement Class based on the learning method i.e.,training procedures it has adopted.With respect to direction of signal flow such kind of models can be grouped into feed-forward and feedback sub-groups.

Based on number of layers neural networks can be subdivided into Single,Multi-layer and Recurrent Neural Networks.

Reusing waste water from residential houses

Waste water from residential homes can be transferred to industries after natural purification.

In industry, quality of water is not important issue except degree of hardness which can corrode their instruments.This type of water may be supplied without following any treatment procedures.

This waste water can be used for washing purpose and may also as a raw material and thus reducing the demand for fresh water.

Necessity of Continuous monitoring in WTPs

The continuous monitoring of water quality in surface water channels can save a lot of money and prevent degradation of public health.If any large scale change in water quality due to contamination by biological or chemical waste in the channel remains undetected, then the same level of dozing may not purify the water as desired.Again,when impurity is far less than expected, continuous monitoring can prevent over-dozing of chemicals and prevent wastage of same in the WTPs.

Utility of Backyard Ponds

A small area of water body in your backyard can earn you income from three ways : 'selling fish','selling water floras' and 'pond wastes'(which are a good source of fertilizers). Besides these economic benefits,environmental benefits of backyard ponds are immense(rainwater conservation,erosion prevention etc.).

Link between recycling of plastics and carbon credit

Take the plastic cups.Put some seeds of pea plants and place it near the window.Paint the cup according to your wish.Nurture it with water.If you can create ten such cups in your home you will achieve two of the major objectives that the city planners are encouraging the citizens to make a habit of :

1.Recycling of Plastics;2.Earning Carbon Credits.

Call for Paper(Journal & Conferences)

Date of Conference : October 22-25, 2013 in Paris,

The 7th IWA Specialist Conference on efficient use and management of water is jointly organized by Association Scientifique et Technique Pour l'Eau et l'Environnement (ASTEE) and International Water Association. 

Themes include : Policies & Legislation,Planning & implementation,Best management practices,Non revenue water, leakage and pressure management,Alternative Water Supply and Waste water Treatment/Disposal, Climate change and drought adaptation,Water and energy nexus,Efficiency in the waste water sector, Efficiency in the agriculture sector and Public involvement.

The most-cited paper in the Environment & Ecology field

According to Science Watch(Reuters) the most-cited paper in the Environment & Ecology field over the past decade(1998-2008) is

"Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities" (Myers N, et al., Nature 403[6772]: 853-8, 24 February 2000), with 1,810 total cites.

The paper help to identify 25 areas of specific interest for conservation of a variety of endangered species.

Click here for More details about this news.

Some words about modeling with Neural Network

In ANN modeling a graph having input nodes connected to one single output node is developed. Each connections to the output node will have its own weight assigned to it randomly.

At the output node all the weighted input nodes are summed up and activated or magnified with the help of Activation Functions.

The Activation Functions can be of many types like Step,Ramp,Hypertan,Sinusoidal,Sigmoidal etc.

After being activated the output is compared with the desired output(Supervised NN) or the median/mean or any other measures of a set of attributes(for making clusters;Unsupervised NN).

If the output from the model is satisfactory with the objective of the model, then the model is said to be learning and if not, the weightage of the connections are changed and the entire process is repeated.

This changing of the weightage is known as Training of the network and is conducted by various methods but mainly by Conjugate Gradient Descent, Back Propagation and/or Quick Propagation and/or by some special algorithms like Levenberg Marquadart.