Arenga wightii Griffith, an endemic palm, of Western Ghats and south and central Sahyadris having multiple uses is currently under threat due to habitat loss and over exploitation. Since seeds are the major propagules of this palm, seed study was carried out with a view to conserve this highly promising tree, in both ex-situ and in- situ conditions. The study included seed viability, germination, desiccation and dormancy breaking tests. The results of the study suggest desiccation, GA3/ acid treatment enhance germination, and dormancy observed is of both physiological and mechanical. The cost efficient means of germination induction is desiccation which could aid the farmers and common people in cultivating the species at large extent enabling reintroduction of the species.

Ecological niche modelling (ENM) aids in identifying new species populations and suitable habitats for species translocation, addressing the conservation challenge of endemic species with limited distribution. The current study aims to develop a habitat suitability map of Crinum malabaricum Lekhak & S. R. Yadav, an endemic species with a very limited geographical range, using Maxent-based ecological niche modelling to identify suitable receptor sites for conservation translocation. Out of 23 species occurrence records, 11 were used for this study. Seven predictive variables are selected based on Pearson’s correlation coefficient (r = ±0.8) and permutation importance (>3%) from a group of nineteen bioclimatic and two topographic variables. The study area encompasses the Malabar Plains of the Western Ghats. The accuracy of the model was assessed using the ROC curve method, and the contribution of variables was estimated using a Jackknife analysis. The results show that precipitation of the driest quarter and mean temperature of the driest quarter were the leading predictors of habitat suitability. The model shows high accuracy with a value of 1.6 for AUC ratios and values > 8 for AUC, partial AUC, Kappa, and TSS metrics. The model predicted a fundamental niche for this species with 2393 KM2 (3.6% of the study area) as a highly suitable area for C. malabaricum (where habitat suitability index ≥ 0.85), which is much higher than the calculated extend of occurrence (EOO = 283 KM2) of this species. The realized niche of this species was identified using field explorations, and ten suitable areas were selected for species translocation. These selected habitats are distributed across various regions of the southern Western Ghats. As a species with limited distribution and a lack of proper dispersal mechanisms, a successful species translocation to these sites will overcome the endemism in this species. For selecting appropriate sites for conservation translocations, this methodology will be reliable and effective, and it could be useful for other endemic species.

Nutrient management in shallow transitional aquatic systems is very complex due to the sediment-water exchange, especially for phosphorus. The present study tries to get an in-depth understanding of the distribution of geochemical forms of phosphorus in the surface sediments of Beypore Estuary, a tropical estuarine system in southwest India, which has been subjected to immense climate change in recent times. Total phosphorus in the sediments was found to be abysmally lower (76.8 to 889.12µg/g) than those reported for other tropical estuaries. Organic-bound phosphorus constituted the majority of the total phosphorus in the sediments, and unlike other tropical estuaries, iron-bound and calcium-bound phosphorus were minor fractions in the study region. However, the bioavailable phosphorus was consistent throughout the study period and varied from 16.5 to 51.0% of total phosphorus. This reveals the active phosphorus buffering in the Beypore Estuary even in the absence of an external source. Statistical evaluation of two contrasting seasons (low and high runoff periods) could illustrate the major biogeochemical pathways for phosphorus in the Beypore Estuary. This study highlights the significant role of hydrographical parameters in regulating phosphorus bioavailability in this estuary; therefore, any modifications to the same by climate change could make nutrient management even more challenging.

A new species of Xylaria associated with leaflets of coconut (Cocos nucifera) in Konaje, Mangalore, Karnataka is collected and examined. The species was characterized by having long stromata terminated with a globose head-like swollen fertile part, which showed a further extended thread-like appendage at its tip. Micro-morphological examination, cultural characterization and molecular sequence analysis of ITS-rDNA, LSU and TUB were carried out. The phylogenetic analysis based on combined ITS-rDNA and tub2 gene sequences showed that Xylaria sridharii is phylogenetically related to X. oxyacanthae, X. reevesiae and X. palmicola. However, X. sridharii is distinguished by the presence of the hirsute stromata, which shows multiple branching (2–4, but rarely recorded up to 6) at the apex, and each branch produces a fertile part, which in turn ends with a thin filiform appendage.

The urban stormwater drainage structures (SDSs) are conventionally designed for their failure recurrences rather than addressing the consequences of the failures. Various methods that consider the effects of flooding in SDSs design largely rely on the overflow volume and do not consider actual inundation characteristics due to computational challenges. Hence, advanced methods are required to design SDSs while incorporating flood consequences. We introduce a novel method called the 'safe-fail framework' for designing SDSs, which determines the best design solutions that minimize flood consequences with computational efficiency. The safe-fail framework involves event-based simulations of urban flood inundation properties, iteratively to evaluate the flood consequences until the design return period satisfies the safe-fail criteria with acceptable failure consequences. We demonstrate the approach in an urban catchment in Chennai, India, by estimating the optimal design return periods of the SDSs to minimize the flood consequences. A structure-variable approach that reduces the complexities of multivariate problems to univariate to identify flood-causing extreme rainfall events was explored. We show that 12 conduits (among 30) in the catchment require design return periods ranging between 3 and 6 years (vis-a-vis initial 2 years) to achieve the safe-fail condition, evaluated through a newly developed Flood Severity Index. The results reiterate the inappropriateness of using a common design return period across the catchment due to the varying sensitivity of locations to flood flows. The safe-fail framework can potentially improve the SDSs design criteria while accounting for urban flood properties and deriving improved urban water resources management decisions.

A 34-year rainfall data from 1976 to 2009 of ten sub-basins of the Vaigai River in Tamil Nadu were collected and analysed statistically using various probability distribution functions. The best-fit probability distributions for the annual, monthly and seasonal rainfall for the study area were found using two goodness-of-fit tests. The Box-Jenkins Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) methodology has been adopted for model identification, diagnostic checking and forecasting the study area's annual rainfall. The best ARIMA models were selected for each sub-basin and the average annual precipitation for 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2025 has been forecasted. The forecasted result compared well with observed dataup to 2020, which indicates the appropriateness of the model.

Owing to the high economic and environmental concerns, nowadays scientists have taken much attention to mitigate corrosion. The effectiveness of Garcinia gummi-gutta leaf extract (GGLE) at inhibiting corrosion on mild steel in 1 M HCl was examined in the current study using a weight loss strategy. The GGLE concentration was changed from 100 to 6000 ppm, and the results show that expanding the inhibitor concentration increased the efficacy of corrosion inhibition. At 6000 ppm concentration and 30°C, the maximum inhibitory efficiency was 82.2%; this efficiency decreases as temperature increases. The mechanism of sorption was deliberated by means of different adsorption isotherm and Langmuir adsorption isotherm model holds good for elucidating the adsorption mechanism. The thermodynamic and kinetic parameters were estimated to depict the corrosion process. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was also used to confirm the development of a coating of inhibitor fragments that protect the metal surface.