Potential of renewable energy system utilisation at decentralised level in the state of Uttarakhand in India

ABSTRACT

Design and implementation of an effective dissemination programme for decentralised renewable energy system necessitate an accurate estimate of its utilisation potential. Hence, in this study, an attempt has been made to develop frameworks to estimate the utilisation potential of decentralised renewable energy systems in the state of Uttarakhand in India. Estimations imply large resource, technical and economic potentials of the domestic solar water heater, solar home system, solar lantern, family size biogas plant and improved biomass cookstove in Uttarakhand. With higher impact on the purchasing power of households, prevailing soft loan scheme has been found to be more appropriate than a capital subsidy for promoting the usage of decentralised renewable energy systems.     

Achieving meaningful public participation in the environmental assessment of hydro development: case studies from Chamoli District,Uttarakhand, India

Uttarakhand, India has great potential for hydro development because of its mountainous environment and fast flowing rivers. While growth in the hydro sector could facilitate industrial development and improve social well-being in the state, it could also have severe negative impacts on social-ecological systems. Using a qualitative methodology involving a review of documents, field observations, and over 100 interviews with government, industry officials and community members, the research investigated two large hydro projects in the Chamoli District. The results show that public participation in project planning and implementation did not exemplify characteristics of meaningful involvement. The participation processes would have been improved with greater opportunities for advanced, decentralised, and more active local involvement. The conclusion is that the central and state governments should play a more assertive role in regulating large-scale hydro development in Uttarakhand, to facilitate meaningful public participation and to protect local environmental, economic and social interests.     

Spatial Distribution of Rainfall in Indian Himalayas – A Case Study of Uttarakhand Region

Continuous rainfall data in grid format are required to run models for hydrological and agricultural research as well as water resources planning and management. The present work attempts to prepare a normal annual rainfall map in Himalayan region of India lying in Uttarakhand state at 1 km spatial resolution which currently is not available. In the region, India Meteorological Department maintains observatories/raingauge stations and data from 44 stations were used in this study. A comparative analysis of interpolation techniques like Inverse Distance Weighted, Polynomial, Splines, Ordinary Kriging and Universal Kriging shows that Universal Kriging with hole-effect model and natural logarithmic transformation with constant trend having Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 328.7 is the best choice. This is followed by Ordinary Kriging (RMSE 329.1), Splines (RMSE 392.4), Inverse Distance Weighted (RMSE 409.8) and Polynomial Interpolation (RMSE 418.5). Cross validation of the results shows the largest over prediction at Tehri rainfall station (62.5%) and largest under prediction at Nainital station (−36.5%). Physiographic zone wise, the least errors occur in the plains and the largest in the Great Himalayas. The spatial average rainfalls are 1,472 mm for Terai/Bhabar, 1,782 mm for the Shivalik ranges, 1,591 mm for the Lesser Himalayas and 1,635 mm for the Great Himalayan region. The mean areal rainfall in the region is 1,608 mm.     

A micro level study of an Indian electric utility for efficiency enhancement

In this paper DEA (Data envelopment analysis), a non-parametric approach to frontier analysis, is applied to evaluate the relative performance of 29 EDDs (Electricity Distribution Divisions) of an Indian hilly state, namely Uttarakhand. Input oriented DEA is applied to evaluate the relative overall efficiency, technical efficiency and scale efficiency of EDDs. The results indicate that numerous divisions have scope for improvement in overall efficiency. Most of the utilities are inefficient due to their scale inefficiency rather than technical inefficiency. Further Slack analysis is carried out to formulate improvement directions for relatively inefficient divisions. Particular areas are identified, which are to be improved for overall efficiency enhancement through sensitivity analysis. Different alternatives for reorganization of the EDDs are explored in order to obtain most favorable and balanced scale. The result is envisaged to be instrumental to policy makers and managers to increase the operational efficiency of the EDDs leading to higher profitability of the state electricity board.     

A comparative study of different machine learning methods for landslide susceptibility assessment: A case study of Uttarakhand area (India)

Landslide susceptibility assessment of Uttarakhand area of India has been done by applying five machine learning methods namely Support Vector Machines (SVM), Logistic Regression (LR), Fisher's Linear Discriminant Analysis (FLDA), Bayesian Network (BN), and Naïve Bayes (NB). Performance of these methods has been evaluated using the ROC curve and statistical index based methods. Analysis and comparison of the results show that all five landslide models performed well for landslide susceptibility assessment (AUC = 0.910–0.950). However, it has been observed that the SVM model (AUC = 0.950) has the best performance in comparison to other landslide models, followed by the LR model (AUC = 0.922), the FLDA model (AUC = 0.921), the BN model (AUC = 0.915), and the NB model (AUC = 0.910), respectively.     

The challenges of representing shiva image,place, and divine form in the himalayan hindu shrine of kedarnath luke whitmore

ABSTRACT

Kedarnath is a famous abode of the god Shiva. One of the distinctive features of this Himalayan Hindu pilgrimage place is the fluidity with which the connection of the rock-form of Shiva inside the temple and the broader physical environment of the shrine is represented. Analysis of printed depictions of Kedarnath helps to understand this fluidity. Yet these images tell a complicated story. In doing justice to the numerous ways in which Shiva is understood to be present in Kedarnath, print images of Kedarnath navigate a complicated set of representational challenges. They solve these challenges through particular usages of photographic and painted montage, composite composition, and overpainting (painting over a photographic image). A careful examination of popular depictions of Kedarnath shows how the everyday, historic, and symbolic realities of the site are in a certain tension with the existing technical and aesthetic parameters available for creating what Martin Gaenszle and Jörg Gengnagel have called “cultural representation of space.” In addition to the formal characteristics of the images and their contingent receptions and functions, this tension can itself be read as an important ethnographic datum that illuminates the distinctive, and distinctively contingent, nature of the site.