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Trend analysis of temperature over the Meghalaya Plateau: A case study of Ri Bhoi District
63-76Views:79Climate change is a reality in the present world, and most nations are fighting this menace by bringing in mitigation measures to check our carbon footprint and developing measures to make ourselves more resilient to hazards associated with climate change and global warming. These necessities measure the nature and degree of change in the climatic elements, viz., temperature, rainfall, etc. Located on the northern slopes of the Meghalaya plateau, the Ri Bhoi district is characterized by a complex climatic condition owing to its altitudinal differences. The district is divided into two distinct zones: the Highland zone, located closer to Shillong, and the Lowland zone, lying closer to the Brahmaputra plains. The economy of Ri Bhoi district is agrarian in nature, where most of the rural populations live close to nature, following subsistence agriculture with fewer technological innovations; hence, awareness of temperature changes becomes essential for carrying out their livelihoods. In this context, the present paper attempts to analyze both the minimum and maximum average monthly, seasonal, and annual temperatures over two decades (1999–2019) in both zones. The Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test and Sen’s slope estimate were employed to find the nature of the temperature trend and its magnitude in the two zones of Ri Bhoi District. The findings suggest an erratic behavior of both the maximum and minimum temperature has been observed in the Highland and Lowland zones of Ri Bhoi district over the past two decades, impacting agriculture and agro-based livelihoods.
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Quantitative Morphometric Analysis of Streams in Extreme Humid Areas: A Case Study of the Um-Mawiong River Basin, Mawsynram, Meghalaya
59-75Views:159Quantitative morphometric analysis of the drainage system is essential to characterising a watershed, as all the hydrologic and geomorphic processes occur within the watershed. Consequently, this plays a crucial role in understanding the geo-hydrological attributes of a drainage basin to the terrain feature and its flow patterns, thus enabling the estimate of the incidence of infiltration and runoff and other related hydrological characteristics of a watershed, which strongly impacts natural resource conservation. The study area selected is the Um-Mawiong River basin in Mawsynram, Meghalaya. The basin shows a dendritic pattern that highlights the homogeneity in the texture of the basin. Results suggest that the stream frequency of the basin is 19.10 km², suggesting a faster surface runoff and less infiltration. In addition, it has an Elongation ratio of 0.75 indicating an elongated basin shape. The current study demonstrates that the implementations of GIS techniques are trustworthy, efficient, and capable of managing extensive databases for managing river basins. The present study tries to analyse the linear, areal and relief aspects of the basin using a GIS environment and manipulated for different calculations. The analysis reveals that the total number of stream segments and length are maximum in first-order streams and decrease as stream order increases. The drainage density exhibits a high degree of positive correlation, i.e., 0.87, with its frequency suggesting an increase in stream population concerning increasing drainage density and vice versa.