Informatics Publishing Limited

M. Ashok Kumar , R. Nagarajan , R. Ilayaraja , S. Swaminathan , Ajay A. Desai

Abstract

Invasive species are regarded as one of the largest threats to biodiversity but little is known about the invasion of exotic plants into the tropical forest. The per cent grass availability in gaur (Bos gaurus H. Smith, 1827) foraging areas in three different habitats namely dry deciduous forest, moist deciduous forest and thorn forest in relation to weed category areas viz., Lantana camara invasion areas, Chromolaena odorata invasion areas, 'both weeds invasion' and 'weed-free' areas were investigated in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve between November 2003 and April 2004. The overall mean per cent grass availability was 28.52±26.81/m² (n=7343). The overall mean density of L. camara and C. odorata were 2.2±5.75/50m² (n=8090) and 10.7±14.6/50m² (n=8090) respectively. Among the habitats, the dry deciduous forest had maximum availability of grass (%) followed by thorn forest and moist deciduous forest. The per cent availability of grass was highest in the weed free areas of dry deciduous forest (54.0227.28%) and lowest in L. camara areas of thorn forest (14.52±14.45%). In all the habitats there was a significant variation among the weed category areas with reference to the per cent availability of grass. The densities of L. camara and C. odorata negatively influenced the per cent grass availability. The Standardized Partial Regression Coefficients of multiple regression equation model indicated that the C. odorata had the primary influence on the grass growth followed by L. camara.

Keywords

Gaur, Lantana camara, Chromolaena odorata, grass availability

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Ajay A. Desai ¹, Shreenivas Londhe ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology, Survey No. 2/3/4, Kondhwa (BK), Pune-411048, IN

Abstract

Green roofs are vegetation installed on top of buildings to provide flow control by attenuation, storage and losses due to evapotranspiration. A green roof consists of several-layered materials to achieve the desired vegetative cover and drainage characteristics. An attempt has been made to use the different runoff and infiltration models available in the widely used hydraulic modeling software-InfoWorks CS to model runoff from green roofs during storm events and over a longer continuous simulation period. The most suitable model was then applied to test the benefits across 03 catchments in InfoWorks CS considering a range of percentage uptake of green roofs within the catchments. The benefits of green roofs implemented on a catchment level are assessed in terms of Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO) performances.

Keywords

Green Roofs, Infoworks CS, Hydraulic Modeling, Runoff, Infiltration.

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