Sk. Mafizul Haque

University of Calcutta · Department of Geography

The outbreak of the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria Forskål, 1775, which originated from the Horn of Africa in 2019–2020 created an episodic plague under bio-geographical settings in the arid and semi-arid areas of South and Southwest Asia. In India, it happened after twenty-seven years due to the persistence of a few favourable conditions caus...

The concept of gully erosion susceptibility has received more focus in recent years, and the attention has been drown by researchers for the implementation of policy and practices. Soil erosion through gully development is a natural geomorphic process that controlled by human activities and highly effected environmental quality, ecosystem, natural...

The increasing soil erosion (SE) and the associated problems for society, economy, and environment sparked a lot of interest in estimating and mapping SE at different basin scales. The estimation of SE exhibits that SE ranges from 10 to 50 t ha−1 yr⁻¹, with a mean SE of 20 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹. The very steep slopes account for 54.21% of total soil loss. Th...

The impact of climate change is found to be the most significant for agricultural practices in the alpine regions of the world. Apple orchards of Kalpa, Indian Himalaya, are facing the same dilemma. The main objective of this work is to analyze the effect of climate variability on the location of apple orchards through the computation of spatio-tem...

Narrativizing water condition in hill settlements only through the optic of water scarcity hides more than it reveals. This piece has employed fragment as a trope to understand/read the different modes through which water intertwines with the quotidian, policy and governance framework in Kalimpong, India. Here fragment has acted as a critique of a...

The commentary looks at how physiography and cartography can explain the ongoing dispute between India and Nepal. These geographies, when deconstructed through critical cartography and critical hydropolitics present us with a new vantage point. In present conjuncture, the Kali River that marks the boundary between India and Nepal is primarily at th...

Effective data mining models are powerful tools for the prediction and management of sub-regional groundwater resources. In this work, an integrated attempt is employed to assess the groundwater potentiality in C. D. Block of Birbhum District, India using GIS-based novel ensemble machine learning models of Radial Basis Function neural network (RBFn...

Sub-basin prioritization is an essential aspect of watershed development initiatives as a part of the sustainable management program for natural resources. The present work aims to analyse the soil erodibility at sub-basin scale in the Pathro River Basin area of Jharkhand, India. Degradation of land resources is multifaceted, and its severity leads...

Floods are one of the most common quasi-natural hazards in costal districts of West Bengal, India and thousands of people are affected every year. From the destruction of crop lands and buildings to the disruption of balance of the environment and the spreading of disease, floods can devastate entire regions. The risk of flood depends on the flood...

Channel dynamics is an inherent characteristic of river in the floodplain region. It has some significant impacts on the ecosystem and human life. GIS-based, DSAS and CA-Markov models are efficient techniques to measure historical and predictive changes following channel shifting and LULC change. In this study, forty-eight years (1972-2020) of eart...

The present article wishes to supplement the proliferating urban competitiveness research by adding the role of urban services in providing leverage to these aspirations in smaller cities. A small city with its inability to cope with the largeness, agglomeration and proximity criteria of city competitiveness can witness growth through cultural prod...

This global study, which has been coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization Global Atmospheric Watch (WMO/GAW) programme, aims to understand the behaviour of key air pollutant species during the COVID-19 pandemic period of exceptionally low emissions across the globe. We investigated the effects of the differences in both emissions and r...

There is a global renewal of small city research. In that league, subaltern urbanisation is a long required impetus in conceptualising them in India. Having both academic and policy salience, the project brings to fore the unnoticed urban settlements in parallel to the Subaltern Studies Collective' endeavour to give credence to the agency of those...

Malnutrition is a global phenomenon in general and India is no exception. Present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of undernutrition among the Santal children of Ajodhya Gram Panchayat of Purulia district of West Bengal, India. Here, quality of life of the households of the studied research participants is also investigated to unders...

This paper reads multiple shades of dispossession in an Asian megacity. The multiple dispositions talk of dispossession as an instrument that limits the autonomy and the self-sufficiency in material and non-material dimensions. In that endeavor we emphasize taking a broader picture of dispossession while pursuing critical urban theory. Through unpa...

Channel dynamics is an inherent characteristic of the river in the floodplain region. The river bankline shifting and associate land use land cover (LULC) change is not only geomorphological but also an environmentally vital hazardous issue. It is a significant impact on the ecosystem and human life. GIS-based, DSAS and CA-Markov models are efficie...

The air quality in the cities of developing countries is deteriorating with the proliferation of anthropogenic activities that add pollutant matters in the lower part of the troposphere. Particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter lower than 10 μm (PM 10) is considered one of the direct indicators of air quality in an urban area as it brings he...

Hazards are any sort of extreme events that occurred by natural causes, human activities or sometimes both reasons are responsible. Social vulnerability exposes people’s condition in hazards. To prevent the loss and damages by hazards, it is necessary to identify vulnerable population of a region by constructing social vulnerability maps of that re...

Social vulnerability assessment is an important element for disaster risk reduction system. Social vulnerability depends on physical, social, economic, environmental factors, etc., which determine the susceptibility of community against the impact of hazards. Over the past two decades, social vulnerability has been measured by using different metho...

The global pandemic has an inherently urban character. The UN-Habitat's publication of a Response Plan for mollification of the SARS-CoV-2 based externalities in the cities of the world testifies to that. This article takes the UN-Habitat report as the premise to carry out an empirical investigation in the four major metro cities of India. The repo...

The commentary looks at how physiography and cartography can explain the ensuing tiff between India and Nepal. These geographies when deconstructed through critical cartography and critical hydropolitics present us with a new vantage point. The Kali River that marks the boundary between India and Nepal when read through critical hydropolitics provi...

The global pandemic has an inherently urban character. The UN-Habitat's awareness of it has led to the publication of a Response Plan for mollification of the disease-induced externalities in the cities of the world. This article takes the UN-Habitat report as the premise to carry out an empirical investigation in the four metro cities of India. Th...

Human-induced modification of land cover and over-exploitation of natural resources results in the fragmentation of landscape and instantiates large-scale environmental degradation. From a functional viewpoint, tropical wetlands are prototypes of natural land units that accommodate a human population by assuring different socio-economic opportuniti...

Road network systems provide the means of movement of people and goods and, therefore, constitute one of the most important infrastructures in any geographical setting. In a leading metropolis such as Kolkata, such networks can be considered as the pivot of developmental sustainability since old networks must be improved and expanded and new ones m...

The South 24 Parganas is the southernmost district of West Bengal. It is characterised by a dynamic condition involving constant adjustments between human livelihood and an extremely vulnerable natural environment. Several stages of land reclamation occurred during the pre-independence period—during successive occupations by the ‘Baroh Bhuniyas’ (t...

Generally, gully erosion and its areal extension is a natural process fully controlled by external forces and shaped by internal settings. It adversely impacts soil productivity, eco-system function, and quality of environment as it affects land and water quality. For the development of sustainable land utilization strategy, it is initially require...

Gully erosion susceptibility mapping (GESM) is a valuable tool for sustainable land use management and reducing soil erosion. Gully erosion and its formation are a natural process; it greatly threatens agriculture, environment, ecosystem disruption, and natural resources. The objective of this present study is to develop a GESM by implementation of...

The largest delta of the world, i.e. Ganga–Brahmaputra (G-B) delta has been characterized by ample evidences of regional morphogenetic variations. The westernmost fringe of this G-B delta has long been influenced by both Chottonagpur upland as well as recent alluvium plain between the Cretaceous to early Quaternary period. Successively, the undulat...