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The low operating cost and flexibility of sUAS enables repeated surveys of study sites to monitor annual coastal changes and investigate the impacts of individual storms. The majority of damage along the coast of Prince Edward Island occurs during storm events which are expected to increase in frequency and severity and presents one of the biggest challenges faced by residents due to climate change. This study completes a comparative analysis between a fixed wing and quadcopter unmanned aerial system. The impact of using ground control points during image processing resulted in an average image marker to ground control point coordinates difference of 0.1 m and 0.03 m for the fixed wing and quadcopter respectively. Coastal delineation from orthomosaics compared to a ground truth coastal trace using survey grade GPS resulted in an average difference of 0.25 m and 0.21 m for the fixed wing and quadcopter systems respectively. Elevation comparison of the resulting digital surface models to a ground truth GPS survey resulted in -0.117 m average difference for the fixed wing and 0.0224 m average difference for the quadcopter. Furthermore, consideration of cost, time, and ambient factors are addressed. Finally, sUAS technology is seen to have the potential to revolutionize the field of environmental monitoring in low capacity regions, building local knowledge capital for better planning and adapting to the impacts of climate change.

Coastal habitats in India, including estuaries, creeks and bays, have degraded to varying degrees, depending on the fluxes of pollutants and flushing characteristics of the area. Bioindicators can provide consistent evidence for degradation or recovery and have proven particularly useful in monitoring and assessment of coastal ecosystems. This paper examines and reviews recent research on modern foraminifers in coastal ecosystems of India. Most of the studies discuss methodologies employed with respect to sampling devices, sample storage, treatment, faunal analysis and documentation. A major goal of this review is to highlight the results of investigations on recent foraminifera carried out to date, and to identify minimally studied topics and geographic regions to thereby recommend areas for future study of coastal environments of the Indian Subcontinent.

The small island nations and territories of the Pacific region are low-lying with a high ratio of shoreline to land area. These characteristics intensify the susceptibility of the islands and the biodiversity that they support to environmental changes. The islands are already experiencing higher temperatures, shifts in rainfall patterns, rising sea levels and changes in frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events. This study undertook a broad-scale assessment of the impacts of climate change and sea level rise on the threatened terrestrial vertebrate biodiversity of 23 countries and territories in the region. A database of indicative susceptibility of islands to climatic and oceanographic processes was used with the distribution data of 150 threatened terrestrial vertebrate species downloaded from International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Fifty six percent of these species were endemic to the region. Thirty islands spread over five countries were identified which supported three or more threatened species but were also ranked as very highly or highly susceptible to climatic and oceanographic processes. Twelve additional species were identified, three of which are critically endangered, with distribution on islands with very high or high susceptibility. An analysis with the global protected area network dataset showed that none of the identified islands occurred in a conservation area. A more forward looking conservation strategy would involve prioritization programmes which anticipate the impacts of climate change so that future species’ ranges and “climate refugia” can be identified especially if translocation is essential for the protection of threatened biodiversity.

The complex geological setting of Iran suggests the utility of a geological heritage inventory. Field examination of the Mishan and Esmaeil-Abad sections of the Mishan Formation (Miocene) in the Zagros Fold-Thrust Belt has indicated their potential as geological heritage sites (geosites). These sections represent five types of geological heritage concerning their stratigraphical, palaeontological, sedimentary, palaeogeographical, and geomorphological aspects. The rank (importance) of each type varies from local to national, but the geosites in their entity are of global importance. Researchers, educators, and tourists there can deal with unique fossil assemblages of marine macro- and microinvertebrates, specific facies of a rimmed carbonate shelf and the pertinent palaeoecosystems, as well as with various other features. The nearby cultural/historical heritage objects increase the potential of the area. These geosites are characterized by an attractive natural scenery and are easily accessible. They deserve an official conservation status. The establishment of a geopark in the Zagros Mountains fortunately seems possible, indeed.

Jangalgali breccia unit (JBU), the oldest volcanogenic rock unit in the Himalayan foreland basin, has been studied from five different, however, stratigraphically equivalent localities of Jammu region in NW India. The field and thin section slides of JBU reveal that quartz and plagioclase are the two most common minerals and sanidine, magmatic zircon, rutile, hornblende and biotite are present as accessory phases. Petrographic signatures show that quartz and K-feldspar are set in a fine-grained cryptocrystalline glassy matrix and do not represent any preferred orientation. The euhedral hexagonal dipyramidal quartz phenocrysts, irregularly shaped inclusions having high volatile contents and no signatures of transport/reworking in phenocrysts prior to deposition are the prominent petrographic features of JBU. The mineral grains arrangement varies between tight-fitted fabric geometry to more open-chaotic packing. Overall, the field relationship, texture, mineralogy along with mineral chemistry, and presence of high gas and silica content in the host magma, support the volcanic origin of the JBU litho unit, which has wider implications towards understanding the timing of India-Asia collision as well as geodynamic evolution of the Himalayas.

Petrography and geochemistry including analysis of major, trace and rare earth elements have been carried out in the late Permian and early Triassic sediments of Guryul Ravine, Jammu and Kashmir, India to examine the palaeoenvironmental conditions at the Permo-Triassic boundary. A visible change in the lithostratigraphy from argillaceous∼carbonaceous mudstone in C Member (late Permian, Zewan Formation), to fine grained argillaceous siltstone with quartz in D Member-4 m below the Late Permian Event Horizon was observed. The XRD analysis divulges more terrigenous input below the PTB which is also reinforced by the dominance of quartz whereas is the dominant clay mineral is illite followed by chlorite. The K₂O+Na₂O vs SiO₂ plot indicates that the sediments at PTB were derived from andesite type of rocks (SiO₂ 52–63%) of intermediate composition. Major oxides SiO₂, CaO, Na₂O and MnO are most abundant in the D Member, whereas E Member is enriched in the Co, Ni, Cu, V and Zn indicating reducing conditions. Dominance of incompatible elements such as Ti, K, Rb, and Sr in finer shale fraction shows increased reworking of sediments. Moderate weathering is observed at PTB, whereas, below the LPEH, physical weathering is more. Y/HO ratio varies from 24–51 indicating that REEs are derived from shale source. The C_org:P is < 10:1 in the late Permian whereas it is > 10:1 in the early Triassic Period suggesting that the conditions transformed from oxidizing to reducing (maximum values noticed in sample no.5 (80:1)) indicating suboxic-anoxic conditions, which may be one of the causes of oceanic redox at PTB.

Tropical alpine areas serve important roles in the areas of biodiversity, hydrology, and carbon storage. These unique ecosystems are threatened by climate change and fire. Mount Kenya is one such area that has been faced by numerous large fires in recent years. The extent and patterning of these fires is analyzed in this study. Fires for the last 16 years were mapped with satellite imagery to create a fire history map and determine the current fire regime for the mountain. In addition, the major moorland fires over this period were mapped for severity using a spectral index. The results show that fire is a dominant force in Mount Kenya burning over 10% of the mountain in the past 16 years, and 33% of the alpine moorland areas. The fires are concentrated in the lower moorland just above the treeline, and likely play a role in determining the position of the treeline. The severity of the fires is largely low to moderate. There is no clear trend in fire quantity over this period, but the seasonality appears to have shifted from a bimodal pattern to a unimodal pattern. Also the inter-annual variability has increased considerably in the past few years. It is not clear how the vegetation, and in particular the Ericaceous vegetation which characterizes these moorlands, will respond to changing fire patterns.

The geomorphological analysis of cliff coast stretching to the north of Otranto (southern Apulia, Italy) was integrated by penetrometer tests and geophysical survey aiming to reconstruct its late Holocene evolution. In particular, the study focuses on the inactive cliff of Torre dell'Orso inlet which hosts a 150 m - wide beach and a high dune belt. The survey detected the cliff/wave-cut platform junction at about 3.8 m below m.s.l. The platform is covered by a dune/beach sedimentary cover about 7 m thick.

The collated data along with the available local sea level curves allow to reconstruct Otranto's cliff evolution as the result of late Holocene relative sea-level change due to eustasy and land motions. Cliff development was promoted by a sea still-stand level at about 3.5 m below present mean sea level occurred between 3400 and 2400 years BP. A rapid sea level rise followed so that several tracts of cliffs were partly drowned becoming plunging cliffs. Cliff recession followed fast sea level rise only along preferential groundwater flow lines where hyperkarst process, due to fresh/salt water mixing, produced deep notches in the calcarenite bedrock inducing rock falls and cliff recession. This process is responsible for the indentation of present shoreline. Finally, during the last four centuries a wide beach and a high dune belt formed at Torre dell'Orso inlet as a result of the increased carry load of Ofanto River, so that the plunging cliff has been separated by shoreline becoming an inactive cliff.

Finally, comparing the reconstructed local sea level history during the late Holocene with the available sea level curves produced by glacio-hydro-isostastic models, a yo-yoing land motion with a period of about 4500 years and amplitude of about 2 m can be inferred for the eastern coast of Salento peninsula.

Sources of sediments have been identified through study of mineral composition of sediments in the lower reach of the Rupnarayan River, West Bengal, India by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique to understand the causes and mechanisms of sedimentation. Collected sediment samples are washed by hot and distilled water, dried and disaggregated manually with a mortar and pestle. Sediment samples are scanned at 7°–45°2θ interval by XPERT-PRO diffractometer. Diffractograms generated from XRD analysis reveals that the entire reach under study shows the dominance of minerals including quartz, illite, chlorite, chloritoid, anatase, goethite, oligoclase, sillimanite and corundum, having their origin in the upper and middle catchment with little contribution from lower catchment and river banks. Statistical test indicates that except tourmaline and anatase, all the minerals show steady trend in concentration in sediments. PCA reveals that five Eigen values account for 82.092% of the total variation of the distribution of minerals. There is no conspicuous trend in the spatial distribution of the minerals in the study area. The minerals drained from upper catchment are caught up in the estuary and again redistributed upstream by stronger flood tide. This leads to an unsystematic and irregular distribution of minerals in the study area.

Massive ground ice of Holocene age occurs in multiple boreholes near the Sabettayakha River mouth, on the coast of the Gulf of Ob (Ob Bay), Yamal Peninsula, northwest Siberia. The multistage massive-ice bodies are up to 5.7 m thick and occur in Holocene sediments of modern floodplain and the first terrace of the coastal lagoon. Massive-ice bodies and cryopegs occur at three to four depths. According to stable isotope analyses, the multistage massive ice bodies formed syngenetically during the freezing of water-saturated sediment, under intensive cryogenic fractionation. Very negative values of δ²H (up to –199.7 ‰) and δ¹⁸O (up to –26.48 ‰) for the massive ice are unique not only for Holocene ground ice of Yamal Peninsula, but also for Late Pleistocene ice of northwest Siberia. The ratio of the chloride and sulfate anions, pollen spectra and presence of algae in three different types of massive ice near the Sabettayakha River mouth suggest that (1) vertically layered brown ice formed during freezing of water-saturated sands of the Ob Gulf; (2) brown non-laminated ice formed as a result of freezing of sublake talik water; and (3) white ultra-fresh ice also formed from lake and river water.