http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/15067 2025-07-01T09:03:38Z http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/15496 Title: EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING SYSTEM: SITE CLASSIFICATION, INTENSITY MAP AND ATTRIBUTES Authors: Kumar, Pankaj Abstract: The Himalaya is one of the most seismically active regions of the world. Many Indian states are in the Himalayan region, and Uttarakhand is one of them. This region lies in seismic zones IV and V of the seismic zone map of India (IS 1893 (Part1), 2016) and is prone to seismic hazards. Seismic gap studies carried out of the Indian Himalayan region (Srivastava et al., 2015) identify a central seismic gap, namely Uttarakhand-Dharchula between Kaurik fault in Himachal-Pradesh and Main Central Thrust (MCT) near Dharchula, Nepal. The major part of the Uttarakhand falls in this seismic gap region. Many researchers have envisaged that a large earthquake is impending in this region. Therefore, an Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) System for this region can serve as a foremost tool to reduce losses due to future earthquakes. An EEW System for Uttarakhand has been developed by EEW System Laboratory, Centre of Excellence in Disaster Mitigation & Management (CoEDMM), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee. Now, this system is full-fledged operational. A further research study that needs to be addressed is required to be carried out. In the present thesis, an attempt has been made to fill the identified gaps. In this study, all the prevalent EEW attributes and their formulation are presented in tabular form. The empirical relationships to estimate magnitude using EEW parameters developed by different authors are also presented in a tabular form. Several authors have formulated GMPEs for the Indian Himalayan region, which are described in the literature review. Various site classification schemes used by different authors are described in the tabular form. Studies carried out by different authors in the preparation of PGA and intensity maps are explained. The developed regression relationships between Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) and PGA by various authors are presented in a tabular form. Finally, the research gaps are identified to address the objective to enhance the potential of existing EEW System and carried out unwinding of complexities of the earthquakes in general. 2020-05-01T00:00:00Z http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/15495 Title: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT OF SOCIAL MEDIA DATA FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT Authors: Singla, Annie Abstract: Disasters affect the lives, and infrastructure in a negative manner. With the internet fad, social media has become inevitable in our lives, generating tsunami of data. An individual cannot retrieve the same message on social media within a blink of eye. During disastrous times, data is even more critical. People use social media at catastrophic times. Data, being raw, and unstructured, needs to be in a knowledgable format, so that effective decisions can be taken at right time. The overarching aim of this dissertation is to advance the management of knowledge for disaster management using social media data. Conventional knowledge management systems are not optimal enough to support disaster management processes. The dynamic nature of disasters offer different situations. With the evolving times, the knowledge management systems needs to be evolved to handle complex environments. In the first objective of our research work, we explore the challenges and enablers of social media usage for disaster management by understanding views and perspectives of people working in disaster management domain. This was done with the help of literature review and data collected through focus group discussion. The participants chosen for focus group discussion are homogeneously working in disaster management domain but are from heterogeneous backgrounds like civil, architecture, mechanical, management and computer science. The number of participants are 10, ranging from 21 to 42 years of age. 8 male participants and 2 female participants are there. Half of the participants are Master students pursuing disaster management. The remaining four participants are doctoral students and one professor of Centre of Excellence in Disaster Management is amongst the 10 participants. The methodology developed is in concoction of existing literature and the efficacy of qualitative data obtained from focus group discussion, using Atlas.ti software following inductive thematic approach. The transcripts are transcribed manually by the moderator. After acquiring validation from the participants, raw data is categorized using inductive thematic approach in Atlas.ti software. The results are finalized after expert validation. The themes are developed using the panoply of coding functions - Open coding, Quick coding, List coding and In-vivo coding - available in Atlas.ti 8. The identified challenges are physical, software, cultural, demographic, authenticity, and regulatory. 2022-06-01T00:00:00Z http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/15494 Title: ANALYSING THE STATUS AND FUTURE CHANGES OF THE CRYOSPHERE AND ITS RELATION WITH CLIMATE CHANGE FOR THE HIMALAYAN REGION Authors: Dharpure, Jaydeo Kumar Abstract: The Karakoram and Himalayan (KH) cryosphere (in terms of snow and glaciers) plays a significant role in managing the ecosystem and supporting livelihood and economic development. The KH region experiences large variations in snow cover and glaciers in a warming environment. The potential adverse effect of changing cryosphere causes a cascading implication on water availability and generates a condition of water stress in the future. Other than this, the change in water storage with increasing temperature can create drought-like conditions and affect people living in the region. Therefore, monitoring cryospheric changes and their interaction with climate are essential to understanding present climate sensitivity and future water availability. The melting of the cryosphere provides water for the region where the livelihood of millions of people depends upon meltwater of snow and glacier during the summer season. However, the continuous monitoring of snow cover at a large spatial extent is challenging due to harsh climatic conditions and rugged topography. For this, the use of remote sensing presented a great advantage in snow cover monitoring. This thesis uses satellite observations for spatio-temporal snow cover monitoring at basinal and regional scales. The cloud blocks are the major limitation of optical remote sensing data that hinders the original snow cover information in the high-mountain terrains. To overcome this limitation, a spatially distributed cloud removal methodology is developed to ensure that all the necessary physical-based considerations and topographical variations are correctly incorporated in the method. This non-spectral sequential methodology includes a combination of multi-sensor data, temporal filter, nearest neighborhood filter, zonal snowline filter, and multiday-backward replacement filter. The cloud-gap-filled snow cover outcomes are validated with a direct and indirect approach to assess the accuracy of the methodology over the Chenab River basin. The results suggested that the spatially distributed cloud removal methodology can bridge the gap between regional observation-based snow cover and cloud blocks. After analyzing the methodology performance, the snow cover distribution is assessed at spatio-temporal scale along with topographical parameters. Further, we have established a relationship between snow cover and essential climatic drivers. 2022-05-01T00:00:00Z http://localhost:8081/jspui/handle/123456789/15493 Title: IMPACT OF CLIMATE VARIABILITY ON GLACIER MASS BALANCE IN REGIONAL, BASINAL AND LOCAL SCALE Authors: Patel, Akansha Abstract: Glacier Mass Balance (MB) is essential in order to understand the response of glaciers with changing climate system. The warming climate may lead to a shift in the hydrological regime of the glacier in terms of snow-fed runoff timing and snow-fed to rainfall-dominated hydrological regimes. Apart, the changing glacier mass can modify the hydrological cycle and river flow, which also creates concerns about the sustainability of streamflow in the summer season. Therefore, reliable estimation of MB and its interaction with climate are important to quantify the response of glacier change with future climatic variability. The mountains of the Himalayan region hold the largest ice masses outside the polar regions, even several major rivers originated from these mountains, and its downstream regions are densely populated. However, the Himalayan mountains are characterized by data scarcity due to their complex topography and varying climatic conditions, limiting the continuous monitoring of glacier changes using in-situ observation. In a changing climatic boundary condition, an appropriate model for MB estimation and glacier characterization are required that can represent the key controlling mechanism. Due to the lack of continuous glaciological and meteorological observations, the monitoring and modelling of the MB over the Himalayan glaciers are a major challenge. To overcome this limitation, the utility of remote sensing data presented a great advantage for MB estimation in time and space. In this thesis, we use Gravimetric twin satellite data for regional surface mass change measurement over the glaciers of the Karakoram and Himalayan (KH) region. The spatio-temporal mass change distribution and its trends are estimated in order to assess the hotspot/coldspot region of mass variation and their further influence on streamflow in the near future. The regional mass change estimation is important because it provides us insight into what is exactly happening in the KH region other than glacier mass loss. During the study of regional-scale mass variation, we have also established an interconnection between the mass change and climatic (former) variables as well as with the other influential (impacted/latter) variables. After analyzing the regional mass change and influence of forcing variables, we selected the Chandra basin (western Himalayas) for the basinal scale glacier MB estimation. This basin is mainly considered due to the higher mass loss (observed from the regional-based mass variation); therefore, a detailed investigation is needed. A spatially distributed mass balance model has been developed for the basinal scale to ensure that all the necessary physical variables and processes are correctly incorporated into the model. A new multi-step physical-based Energy Balance Model (EBM) has been carried out by parameterizing the energy balance components and also modelled the air temperature at the spatial extent. To test the model, a calibration/validation has been performed using the in-situ observation of the Himansh station (located within the basin) and with the published MB. The model observations suggested that the spatially distributed EBM at the catchment scale can bridge the gap between regional observation-based mass change and point-scale-based studies. The results of basinal MB demonstrated that the Batal glacier shows a significant loss in its mass than the nearby glaciers, i.e., Sutri Dhaka glacier (showing a considerable mass loss) over the observational period. These two glaciers have similar climatic conditions and orientations, despite having varying melt conditions by controlling debris thickness over the glacier surface. Therefore, we have selected the Batal and Sutri Dhaka glaciers for locale-scale glacier MB estimation. Over these two selected glaciers, the glacier feature classification and shift in isotherm have been quantified to monitor temporal glacier variation. Then, the glacier surface velocity, modelled ice thickness, and total stored volume are estimated against the remote sensing data. The associated uncertainties of the modelled ice thickness and surface velocity are measured to test the reliability of the observations. Despite this, the locale scale MB has been calculated by the difference between different Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and compared the results with the reported MB. The model finding of locale MB illustrated that the Batal glacier experienced more mass loss due to the presence of debris that contributes to a higher rate of melting than the Sutri Dhaka glacier. To derive the MB from regional to local, we have used a hierarchical methodology to connect the changes of MB with the spatial extent and also with the climatic interaction. With this methodology, we have not required in-situ observations for modelling the MB; however, it uses field observation for calibration and validation of the obtained results. The overall varying climatic variables and their relationship with water availability are presented in objective-1. The regional scale mass changes and contribution of hydro-meteorological variables are discussed in objective-2, and the model developed in objective-3. Finally, a detailed mass balance analysis and glacier characterization are mentioned in objective-4. Overall, the obtained results and developed model are likely to be important for the research community of glaciologists, hydrologists, decision-makers, water resource managers, and civil engineers (for understanding the streamflow under the summer season at the time of dam construction). This thesis can also be a benchmark for modellers in the high-altitude region and facing the problem of data scarcity to evaluate their experimental approaches. In a broader context, the results of this thesis can be used for predicting the river runoff and water stress/water availability in both upstream and downstream regions. 2022-04-01T00:00:00Z