Yavatmal is one of the drought prone districts in Maharashtra state of India and has witnessed an agricultural crisis to the extent that hundreds of its farmers have committed suicides in recent years. Satellite data based products have previously been used globally for monitoring and predicting of drought, but not for monitoring their extreme impacts that may include farmer-suicides. In this study, the performance of the Soil Water Index (SWI) derived from the surface soil moisture estimated by the European Space Agency’s Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) is assessed. Using the 2007-2015 data, it was found that the relationship of the SWI anomaly was bit stronger (coefficient. of correlation = 0.59) with the meteorological drought or precipitation than with the agricultural drought or crop yields of major crops (coefficient. of correlation = 0.50).  The farmer-suicide rate was better correlated with the SWI anomaly averaged annually than with the SWI anomaly averaged only for the monsoon months (June, July, August, and September). The correlation between the SWI averaged annually increased to 0.89 when the averages were taken for three years, with the highest correlation occurring between the suicide rate and the SWI anomaly averaged for three years. However, a positive relationship between SWI and the suicide rate indicated that drought was not a major factor responsible for suicide occurrence and other possible factors responsible for suicide occurrence need to examine in detail.

This paper proposed a model explaining variation of shallow groundwater yield and dynamic level with respect to river location in the floodplain of Hadejia, along Hadejia River Basin of Jigawa State, Northwestern Nigeria. To achieve the aim, six transects were established within one km² of floodplain and were oriented perpendicular to the river channel. Three tube wells were sampled and positioned along each transect at regular intervals making a total of 18 wells. Pumping test, which was repeated four times at 15 minutes interval in both morning and evening hours was used to measure groundwater yield. Multivariate statistical tools such as analysis of variance, Pearson product moment correlation, and cluster analysis were used, respectively, to test the research hypothesis and to classify sampling points into similar groups based on groundwater yield. Results show that the average yield of wells for evening hours recorded a higher yield of 3.3 L/s (55.93%) than the yield in the morning hours of 2.6 L/s (44.07%). Further, the 2-way ANOVA at 5% level of significance showed no significant difference in the groundwater yield related to relative location of wells in morning (p value, 0.30>0.05) and evening (p value, 0.21>0.05) hours. The results of ANOVA revealed no statistically significant difference between the points. It suggests that the adopted model can be applied in other similar sedimentary basins with a view to validating it. A decision support system is recommended among the strategies to improve groundwater resources management in the area.

To study the chemistry of major ion in groundwater from Vel (Velu) River basin, sixty (60) samples of dug wells and bore wells were collected and analyzed using standard techniques given by APHA. It shows order of dominance for cations, Na⁺ > Ca²⁺ > Mg²⁺ > K⁺ and in anionic concentration as HCO₃^- > Cl^- > SO₄^2- in groundwater. The pH of groundwater is slightly alkaline (range: pH 7.0 - 8.1), while average values of Electrical Conductivity (EC) is about 2641 µS/cm indicating high mineralization of groundwater. In general, the cationic concentration (Na⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺) of the groundwater increase in the downstream side (from Northwest to South east), suggesting geological control on the composition of groundwater while highest concentration is in lower part of the basin are generally associated with the high salinity. In the major anions, bicarbonate (HCO₃^-) is higher due to rock-water interaction. Average value of chloride is about of 235 mg/L due to discharge zones along with anthropogenic activities. The geochemical data plotted on Piper Trilinear Diagram is showing dominant hydro-chemical facies: Ca²⁺+Mg²⁺, Na⁺+ K⁺, Cl^-+ SO₄^2- -HCO₃^- found in 83.3 % samples indicating the alkaline earth exceeding the alkalis and the strong acids exceeds the weak acids. The pH, Total Hardness (TH) and Magnesium (Mg²⁺) of the samples show more proportion of samples falling above desirable limit. Otherwise the quality of groundwater is good for drinking. The irrigation indices like SAR, KR and SSP were considered to evaluate groundwater suitability for irrigation. Comparing with SAR parameter all samples are excellent to good for irrigation. In SSP, 33.3 % samples are within permissible, while 66.6% samples are doubtful for irrigation purpose. In KR almost all samples (excluding 04 samples in lower side of basin) are suitable for irrigation. So, variations in climate, geology with anthropogenic activities are modifying the groundwater geochemistry of Vel River Basin.

The African Civet (Civettictis Civetta Shreber, 1778) is one of the important natural animal resources of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the major producer of the Civet perineal gland secretion (known as “civet”) used extensively as a base in perfume industry. However, there is no improvement in civet farming processes in rural Ethiopia, and the farmers still live in a poor state. Majority of rural population in Ethiopia is depending on agriculture, and hence land-use changes during the past couple of decades are mostly linked to agricultural development. Present study was undertaken to predict the spatial distribution of land-use and land-cover and habitats of the African Civet here in after referred as civet(s) in Illu-Abbabora Zone, Southwest Ethiopia. Landsat images of three years: 1985, 2000 and 2018 were classified to generate land-use/land-cover maps, locate forests and other land classes. Results of the study revealed that forest and wetland habitats decreased by an estimated 11.12 km²/yr^-1 and 2.39 km²/yr^-1, respectively during the period of 1985-2018. In contrast, the extent of agricultural land, urban area and Gumro tea plantation increased by an estimated 13.36 km²/yr^-1, 0.59 km²/yr^-1 and 0.43 km²/yr^-1, respectively. Habitat suitability approach was found to have great potential in predicting potential habitats of the civets through complex non-linear models.