Impact of Climate Change on Natural Resource Management

As climate change takes hold, there is an ever-growing need to develop and apply strategies that optimize the use of natural resources, both on land and in water. This book covers a huge range of strategies that can be applied to various sectors, from forests to flood control. Its aim, as with resource management itself, is to combine economics, policy and science to help rehabilitate and preserve our natural resources.

Beginning with papers on carbon sequestration, including the practice of artificial desertification, the topics move on to cover the use of distributed modeling and neural networks in estimating water availability and distribution. Further chapters look at uncertainty analysis applied to the spatial variation of hydrologic resources, and finally the book covers attempts at estimating meteorological parameters in the context of hydrological variables such as evapo-transpiration from stream flow.

Within the next decade, the effects of climate change will be severe, and felt by ordinary human beings. This book proposes a raft of measures that can mitigate, if not reverse, the impact of global warming on the resources we have all come to depend on.

The following authors contributed with their articles: Prof. Dr. Asis Mazumdar (BME, MME, PhD (Jadavpur University (JU)) who is the Director of School of Water Resources Engineering and Co-ordinator of Regional Center, National Afforestation and Eco-development Board; Dr. Debasri Roy (PhD (Calcutta University)) is a Reader of the School of Water Resources Engineering; Dr. Pankaj Kr. Roy (BCE (National Institute of Technology, Silchar), ME, PhD(JU)), Dr. Rajib Das (BE (Utkal University), ME (JU), PhD (Pisa)) are the Lecturers and Mr. Sanjib Das (BE (JU) is the Technical Assistant of the School of Water Resources Engineering; Mr. Arnab Barua (BEE (West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT)), ME(JU), Mr. Biswajit Majumder (BE (National Institute of Technology, Agartala (NITA), ME(JU)), Miss Debapriya Basu (BEE (WBUT), ME (JU) and Mr. Sabyasachi Pramanik (BChE (WBUT), ME (JU)) are the former Master of Engineering students of School of Water Resources Engineering; Mr. Rabindra Nath Barman (BME, ME, PhD (submitted) (JU)) is the Assistant Professor of NITA; Mr.Sashi Sonkar and Miss Suchita Dutta are the Junior Research fellow and Research Assistant of Regional Center, National Afforestation and Eco-development Board whereas Mr. Chinmoy Boral is presently doing his PhD at the School of Water Resources Engineering, Jadavpur University.

The book was compiled by Mr. Bipal K. Jana (MSc (CU), PhD (submitted) (JU)) and Dr. Mrinmoy Majumder (BEE (Biju Patnaik University of Technology), ME, PhD (JU)).

Bipal Jana is Senior Research Fellow in the School of Water Resources Engineering. He has more than 17 years of experience in the fields of environmental engineering and management. He has completed his bachelor and master degrees in Science at Calcutta University and MBA (P G D Environmental Management) at the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management(IISWBM). He has authored over 10 papers in national and internationalpublications.

Mrinmoy Majumder was Senior Research Fellow in the School of Water Resources Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He has obtained his bachelor in Electrical Engineering from Utkal University and his master degree in Water Resources from Jadavpur University. He is the author of 2 books and more than 10 publications in national and international journals.