Geographical Information System Approach for Regional Biogas Potential Assessment

The economic prosperity and quality of life in a region are closely linked to the level of its per capita energy consumption. In India more than 70% of the total population inhabits rural areas and 85-90% of energy requirement is being met by bioresources. With dwindling resources, attention of planners is diverted to viable energy alternatives to meet the rural energy demand. Biogas as fuel is one such alternative, which can be obtained by anaerobic digestion of animal residues and domestic and farm wastes, abundantly available in the countryside. Study presents the techniques to assess biogas potential spatially using GIS in Kolar district, Karnataka State, India. This would help decision makers in selecting villages for implementing biogas programmes based on resource availability. Analyses reveal that the domestic energy requirement of more than 60% population can be met by biogas option. This is based on the estimation of the per capita requirement of gas for domestic purposes and availability of livestock residues.

A GIS (geographical information system)-based spatial data mining approach for optimal location and capacity planning of distributed biomass power generation facilities: A case study of Tumkur district, India

This paper primarily intends to develop a GIS (geographical information system)-based data mining approach for optimally selecting the locations and determining installed capacities for setting up distributed biomass power generation systems in the context of decentralized energy planning for rural regions. The optimal locations within a cluster of villages are obtained by matching the installed capacity needed with the demand for power, minimizing the cost of transportation of biomass from dispersed sources to power generation system, and cost of distribution of electricity from the power generation system to demand centers or villages. The methodology was validated by using it for developing an optimal plan for implementing distributed biomass-based power systems for meeting the rural electricity needs of Tumkur district in India consisting of 2700 villages. The approach uses a k-medoid clustering algorithm to divide the total region into clusters of villages and locate biomass power generation systems at the medoids. The optimal value of k is determined iteratively by running the algorithm for the entire search space for different values of k along with demand-supply matching constraints. The optimal value of the k is chosen such that it minimizes the total cost of system installation, costs of transportation of biomass, and transmission and distribution. A smaller region, consisting of 293 villages was selected to study the sensitivity of the results to varying demand and supply parameters. The results of clustering are represented on a GIS map for the region.

Seismic Hazard and Microzonation Studies using Geographic Information System - A Case Study of Bangalore city

Seismic hazard and microzonation of cities enable to characterize the potential seismic areas that need to be taken into account when designing new structures or retrofitting the existing ones. Study of seismic hazard and preparation of geotechnical microzonation maps has been attempted using Geographical Information System (GIS). GIS will provide an effective solution for integrating different layers of information thus providing a useful input for city planning and in particular input to earthquake resistant design of structures in an area. Seismic hazard is the study of expected earthquake ground motions at any point on the earth. Microzonation is the process of sub division of region in to number of zones based on the earthquake effects in the local scale. Seismic microzonation is the process of estimating response of soil layers under earthquake excitation and thus the variation of ground motion characteristic on the ground surface. For the seismic microzonation, geotechnical site characterization need to be assessed at local scale (micro level), which is further used to assess of the site response and liquefaction susceptibility of the sites. Seismotectonic atlas of the area having a radius of 350km around Bangalore has been prepared with all the seismogenic sources and historic earthquake events (a catalogue of about 1400 events since 1906). We have attempted to carryout the site characterization of Bangalore by collating conventional geotechnical boreholes data (about 900 borehole data with depth) and integrated in GIS. 3-D subsurface model of Bangalore prepared using GIS is shown in Figure 1.Further, Shear wave velocity survey based on geophysical method at about 60 locations in the city has been carried out in 220 square Kms area. Site response and local site effects have been evaluated using 1-dimensional ground response analysis. Spatial variability of soil overburden depths, ground surface Peak Ground Acceleration’s(PGA), spectral acceleration for different frequencies, liquefaction susceptibility have been mapped in the 220 sq km area using GIS.ArcInfo software has been used for this purpose. These maps can be used for the city planning and risk & vulnerability studies. Figure 2 shows a map of peak ground acceleration at rock level for Bangalore city. Microtremor experiments were jointly carried out with NGRI scientists at about 55 locations in the city and the predominant frequency of the overburden soil columns were evaluated.

Liquefaction Hazard Mapping of Bangalore, South India

his paper presents identification and mapping of vulnerable and safe zones for liquefaction hazard. About 850 bore logs data collected from geotechnical investigation reports have been used to estimate the liquefaction factor of safety for Bangalore Mahanagara palike (BMP) area of about 220 km(2). Liquefaction factor of safety is arrived based on surface level peak ground acceleration presented by Anbazhagan and Sitharam(5) and liquefaction resistance, using corrected standard penetration test (SPT) N values. The estimated factor of safety against liquefaction is used to estimate liquefaction potential index and liquefaction severity index. These values are mapped using Geographical information system (GIS) to identify the vulnerable and safe zones in Bangalore. This study shows that more than 95% of the BMP area is safe against liquefaction potential. However the western part of the BMP is not safe against liquefaction, as it may be subjected to liquefaction with probability of 35 to 65%. Three approaches used in this study show that 1) mapping least factor of safety irrespective of depth may be used to find liquefiable area for worst case. 2) mapping liquefaction potential index can be used to assess the liquefaction severity of the area by considering layer thickness and factor of safety and 3) mapping of liquefaction severity index can be used to access the probability of liquefaction of area.

RS and GIS in mapping of geomorphic records and understanding the local controls of glacial retreat from the Baspa Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India

We report here the role of remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) in the identification of geomorphic records and understanding of the local controls on the retreat of glaciers of the Baspa Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India. The geomorphic records mapped are accumulation zone, exposed ablation zone, moraine-covered ablation zone, snout, deglaciated valley, lateral moraine, medial moraine, terminal moraine and hanging glacier. Details of these features and stages of deglaciation have been extracted from RS data and mapped in a GIS environment. Glacial geomorphic data have been generated for 22 glaciers of the Baspa Valley. The retreat of glaciers has been estimated using the glacial maxima observed on satellite images. On the basis of percentage of retreat and the critical analysis of glacial geomorphic data for 22 glaciers of the Baspa Valley, they are classified into seven categories of very low to very very high retreat. From the analysis of the above 22 glaciers, it has been found that other than global warming, the retreat of glaciers of the Baspa Valley is inversely proportional to the size of the accumulation zone and the ratio of the moraine covered ablation/exposed ablation zone.

Seismic Microzonation: Principles,Practices and Experiments

This paper presents an overview of the seismic microzonation and the grade/level based study along with methods used for estimating hazard. The principles of seismic microzonation along with some current practices are discussed. Summary of seismic microzonation experiments carried out in India is presented. A detailed work of seismic microzonation of Bangalore has been presented as a case study. In this case study, a seismotectonic map for microzonation area has been developed covering 350 km radius around Bangalore, India using seismicity and seismotectonic parameters of the region. For seismic microzonation Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BMP) area of 220 km2 has been selected as the study area. Seismic hazard analysis has been carried out using deterministic as well as probabilistic approaches. Synthetic ground motion at 653 locations, recurrence relation and peak ground acceleration maps at rock level have been generated. A detailed site characterization has been carried out using borehole with standard penetration test (SPT) ―N‖ values and geophysical data. The base map and 3-dimensional sub surface borehole model has been generated for study area using geographical information system (GIS). Multichannel analysis of surface wave (MASW)method has been used to generate one-dimensional shear wave velocity profile at 58 locations and two- dimensional profile at 20 locations. These shear wave velocities are used to estimate equivalent shear wave velocity in the study area at every 5m intervals up to a depth of 30m. Because of wider variation in the rock depth, equivalent shear for the soil overburden thickness alone has been estimated and mapped using ArcGIS 9.2. Based on equivalent shear wave velocity of soil overburden thickness, the study area is classified as ―site class D‖. Site response study has been carried out using geotechnical properties and synthetic ground motions with program SHAKE2000.The soil in the study area is classified as soil with moderate amplification potential. Site response results obtained using standard penetration test (SPT) ―N‖ values and shear wave velocity are compared, it is found that the results based on shear wave velocity is lower than the results based on SPT ―N‖ values. Further, predominant frequency of soil column has been estimated based on ambient noise survey measurements using instruments of L4-3D short period sensors equipped with Reftek 24 bit digital acquisition systems. Predominant frequency obtained from site response study is compared with ambient noise survey. In general, predominant frequencies in the study area vary from 3Hz to 12Hz. Due to flat terrain in the study area, the induced effect of land slide possibility is considered to be remote. However, induced effect of liquefaction hazard has been estimated and mapped. Finally, by integrating the above hazard parameters two hazard index maps have been developed using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) on GIS platform. One map is based on deterministic hazard analysis and other map is based on probabilistic hazard analysis. Finally, a general guideline is proposed by bringing out the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches.

Seismic Microzonation of Bangalore - Preliminary Maps

This paper presents an overview of the seismic microzonation and the grade/level based study along with methods used for estimating hazard. The principles of seismic microzonation along with some current practices are discussed. Summary of seismic microzonation experiments carried out in India is presented. A detailed work of seismic microzonation of Bangalore has been presented as a case study. In this case study, a seismotectonic map for microzonation area has been developed covering 350 km radius around Bangalore, India using seismicity and seismotectonic parameters of the region. For seismic microzonation Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BMP) area of 220 km2 has been selected as the study area. Seismic hazard analysis has been carried out using deterministic as well as probabilistic approaches. Synthetic ground motion at 653 locations, recurrence relation and peak ground acceleration maps at rock level have been generated. A detailed site characterization has been carried out using borehole with standard penetration test (SPT) ―N‖ values and geophysical data. The base map and 3-dimensional sub surface borehole model has been generated for study area using geographical information system (GIS). Multichannel analysis of surface wave (MASW)method has been used to generate one-dimensional shear wave velocity profile at 58 locations and two- dimensional profile at 20 locations. These shear wave velocities are used to estimate equivalent shear wave velocity in the study area at every 5m intervals up to a depth of 30m. Because of wider variation in the rock depth, equivalent shear for the soil overburden thickness alone has been estimated and mapped using ArcGIS 9.2. Based on equivalent shear wave velocity of soil overburden thickness, the study area is classified as ―site class D‖. Site response study has been carried out using geotechnical properties and synthetic ground motions with program SHAKE2000.The soil in the study area is classified as soil with moderate amplification potential. Site response results obtained using standard penetration test (SPT) ―N‖ values and shear wave velocity are compared, it is found that the results based on shear wave velocity is lower than the results based on SPT ―N‖ values. Further, predominant frequency of soil column has been estimated based on ambient noise survey measurements using instruments of L4-3D short period sensors equipped with Reftek 24 bit digital acquisition systems. Predominant frequency obtained from site response study is compared with ambient noise survey. In general, predominant frequencies in the study area vary from 3Hz to 12Hz. Due to flat terrain in the study area, the induced effect of land slide possibility is considered to be remote. However, induced effect of liquefaction hazard has been estimated and mapped. Finally, by integrating the above hazard parameters two hazard index maps have been developed using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) on GIS platform. One map is based on deterministic hazard analysis and other map is based on probabilistic hazard analysis. Finally, a general guideline is proposed by bringing out the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches.

Vegetation Status in Uttara Kannada District

Uttara Kannada is the only district in Karnataka, which has a forested area of about 80% and falls in the region of the Western Ghats. It is considered to be a very resourceful in terms of abundant natural resources and constitutes an important district in Karnataka. The forest resources of the district are under pressure as a large portion of the forested area has been converted to non-forestry activities since independence owing to the increased demands from human and animal population resulting in degradation of the forest ecosystem. This has led to poor productivity and regenerative capacity which is evident in the form of barren hill tops, etc in Coastal taluks of Uttara Kannada, entailing regular monitoring of the forest resources very essential. The classification of forest is a prerequisite for managing forest resources. Geographical Information System (GIS), allows the spatial and temporal analysis of the features of interest, and helps in solving the problem of deforestation and associated environmental and ecological problems. Spatial and temporal tools such as GIS and remotely sensed data helps the planners and decision makers in evolving the sustainable strategies for management and conservation of natural resources. Uttara Kannada district was classified on the basis of the land-use using supervised hard classifiers. The land use categories identified were urban area, water bodies, agricultural land, forest cover, and waste land. Further classification was carried out on the basis of forest type. The types of forest categorised were semi-evergreen, evergreen, moist deciduous, dry deciduous, plantations and scrub, thorny and non-forested area. The identified classes were correlated with the ground data collected during field visits. The observed results were compared with the historic data and the changes in the forest cover were analysed. From the assessment made it was clear that there has been a considerable degree of forest loss in certain areas of the district. It was also observed that plantations and social forests have increased drastically over the last fifteen years, and natural forests have declined.

Solar energy potential assessment using GIS

Renewable energy resources are those having a cycling time less than 100 years and are renewed by the nature and their supply exceeds the rate of consumption. Renewable energy systems use resources that are constantly replaced in nature and are usually less polluting. In order to tap the potential of renewable energy sources, there is a need to assess the availability of resources spatially as well as temporally. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) along with Remote Sensing (RS) helps in mapping on spatial and temporal scales of the resources and demand. The spatial database of resource availability and the demand would help in the regional energy planning. This paper discusses the application of geographical information system (GIS) to map the solar potential in Karnataka state, India. Regions suitable for tapping solar energy are mapped on the basis of global solar radiation data, and this analysis provides a picture of the potential. The study identifies that Coastal parts of Karnataka with the higher global solar radiation is ideally suited for harvesting solar energy. The potential analysis reveals that, maximum global solar radiation is in districts such as Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada. Global solar radiation in Uttara Kannada during summer, monsoon and winter are 6.31, 4.40 and 5.48 kWh/sq.m, respectively. Similarly, Dakshina Kannada has 6.16, 3.89 and 5.21 kWh/sq.m during summer, monsoon and winter.

Vegetation Analysis in Uttara Kannada District Using GIS and Remote Sensing Techniques

Uttara Kannada is the only district in Karnataka, which has a forested area of about 80% and falls in the region of the Western Ghats. It is considered to be a very resourceful in terms of abundant natural resources and constitutes an important district in Karnataka. The forest resources of the district are under pressure as a large portion of the forested area has been converted to non-forestry activities since independence owing to the increased demands from human and animal population resulting in degradation of the forest ecosystem. This has led to poor productivity and regenerative capacity which is evident in the form of barren hill tops, etc in Coastal taluks of Uttara Kannada, entailing regular monitoring of the forest resources very essential. The classification of forest is a prerequisite for managing forest resources. Geographical Information System (GIS), allows the spatial and temporal analysis of the features of interest, and helps in solving the problem of deforestation and associated environmental and ecological problems. Spatial and temporal tools such as GIS and remotely sensed data helps the planners and decision makers in evolving the sustainable strategies for management and conservation of natural resources. Uttara Kannada district was classified on the basis of the land-use using supervised hard classifiers. The land use categories identified were urban area, water bodies, agricultural land, forest cover, and waste land. Further classification was carried out on the basis of forest type. The types of forest categorised were semi-evergreen, evergreen, moist deciduous, dry deciduous, plantations and scrub, thorny and non-forested area. The identified classes were correlated with the ground data collected during field visits. The observed results were compared with the historic data and the changes in the forest cover were analysed. From the assessment made it was clear that there has been a considerable degree of forest loss in certain areas of the district. It was also observed that plantations and social forests have increased drastically over the last fifteen years,and natural forests have declined.

Font and Size Independent OCR for Printed Kannada Documents using SVM Classifiers

The following topics were dealt with: document analysis and recognition; multimedia document processing; character recognition; document image processing; cheque processing; form processing; music processing; document segmentation; electronic documents; character classification; handwritten character recognition; information retrieval; postal automation; font recognition; Indian language OCR; handwriting recognition; performance evaluation; graphics recognition; oriental character recognition; and word recognition

Scalable multi-dimensional user intent identification using tree structured distributions

The problem of identifying user intent has received considerable attention in recent years, particularly in the context of improving the search experience via query contextualization. Intent can be characterized by multiple dimensions, which are often not observed from query words alone. Accurate identification of Intent from query words remains a challenging problem primarily because it is extremely difficult to discover these dimensions. The problem is often significantly compounded due to lack of representative training sample. We present a generic, extensible framework for learning the multi-dimensional representation of user intent from the query words. The approach models the latent relationships between facets using tree structured distribution which leads to an efficient and convergent algorithm, FastQ, for identifying the multi-faceted intent of users based on just the query words. We also incorporated WordNet to extend the system capabilities to queries which contain words that do not appear in the training data. Empirical results show that FastQ yields accurate identification of intent when compared to a gold standard.

Infinite push: a new support vector ranking algorithm that directly optimizes accuracy at the absolute top of the list

Ranking problems have become increasingly important in machine learning and data mining in recent years, with applications ranging from information retrieval and recommender systems to computational biology and drug discovery. In this paper, we describe a new ranking algorithm that directly maximizes the number of relevant objects retrieved at the absolute top of the list. The algorithm is a support vector style algorithm, but due to the different objective, it no longer leads to a quadratic programming problem. Instead, the dual optimization problem involves l1, ∞ constraints; we solve this dual problem using the recent l1, ∞ projection method of Quattoni et al (2009). Our algorithm can be viewed as an l∞-norm extreme of the lp-norm based algorithm of Rudin (2009) (albeit in a support vector setting rather than a boosting setting); thus we refer to the algorithm as the ‘Infinite Push’. Experiments on real-world data sets confirm the algorithm’s focus on accuracy at the absolute top of the list.

A post processing technique for improved harmonic/percussion separation in polyphonic speech

In this paper we propose a postprocessing technique for a spectrogram diffusion based harmonic/percussion decom- position algorithm. The proposed technique removes har- monic instrument leakages in the percussion enhanced out- puts of the baseline algorithm. The technique uses median filtering and an adaptive detection of percussive segments in subbands followed by piecewise signal reconstruction using envelope properties to ensure that percussion is enhanced while harmonic leakages are suppressed. A new binary mask is created for the percussion signal which upon applying on the original signal improves harmonic versus percussion separation. We compare our algorithm with two recent techniques and show that on a database of polyphonic Indian music, the postprocessing algorithm improves the harmonic versus percussion decomposition significantly.

A transient detection algorithm for audio using iterative analysis of STFT

We propose an iterative algorithm to detect transient segments in audio signals. Short time Fourier transform(STFT) is used to detect rapid local changes in the audio signal. The algorithm has two steps that iteratively - (a) calculate a function of the STFT and (b) build a transient signal. A dynamic thresholding scheme is used to locate the potential positions of transients in the signal. The iterative procedure ensures that genuine transients are built up while the localised spectral noise are suppressed by using an energy criterion. The extracted transient signal is later compared to a ground truth dataset. The algorithm performed well on two databases. On the EBU-SQAM database of monophonic sounds, the algorithm achieved an F-measure of 90% while on our database of polyphonic audio an F-measure of 91% was achieved. This technique is being used as a preprocessing step for a tempo analysis algorithm and a TSR (Transients + Sines + Residue) decomposition scheme.