Indian Journal of Waste Management

Agriculture-based industrial wastes are the rich in bioactive compounds. These wastes can be of use as an alternative source for the production of different products like bio-fuels, bio-gas, mushroom and tempeh as the raw material in different farming, industries and researches. The use of agro-industrial wastes as the raw materials can be helpful to lessen the cost of production and moreover reduces the environmental pollution load. The agroindustrial wastes are these days used for manufacturing of antibiotics, antioxidants, biofuels, enzymes, vitamins, animal feed and other chemicals through solid state fermentation (SSF) technique. The effects of agro-industrial wastes on soil bio-chemical properties and yield of various crops are reviewed and discussed.

Keywords: Agro-industrial wastes; Crop; Soil properties; Nutrient; Yields.

Jatropha Oil Cake (JOC) based Flexible Balloon Stirring Digester (FBSD) of 6 cum capacity was designed and installed at Gopal Pura (Bhindar) near Udaipur under Public – Private – Project mode. The present investigation showed that Jatropha Oil Cake had biogas generation potential of 101.65 litre per kg of dry matter. A stirring device was used to agitate the slurry inside the digester. The methane content of biogas derived from JOC was found to be in the range of 63–68%.

Keywords: Balloon digester; Jatropha Oil Cake; Anaerobic digestion; Biogas.

In the present study, an attempt has been made to investigate the seasonal and temporal change in the quality of water and to find out better utilisation of present lentic system. Water Quality Index (WQI) and productivity of a pond ecosystem have been determined. The Water quality Index (WQI) facilitates to evaluate surface water quality for protection of aquatic life with specific guidelines. Water quality was investigated for four months (from January, February, March and April of 2015). The index calculated in this work is composed of nine parameters which are significant for aquatic life. Water quality index were observed to be 483, 478, 469, and 487 during January, February, March, and April respectively. Water quality was found as poor for the aquatic life based on the water quality index. Total phosphate (TP) was observed to be 9.3 mg/l, 13.7 mg/l, 9.5 mg/l and 14.3 mg/l, during the month of January, February, March, and April, respectively classifying the water as high-strength w.r.t. phosphate. Chlorophyll a was found to be 17.9 µg/ml, 20.9 µg/ml, 13.3 µg/ and 32.8 µg/ml during the four samplings. The productivity (as gross primary productivity) was observed as 245 mgO2/l/hr. High value of the TP, Chla, and GPP indicate that water body was hypereutrophic. Despite being hypereutrophic water body, no algal bloom was observed. Apart from it, temporal variation for Chlorophyll a was observed. During spring (March) the concentration was minimum because of the high growth of Ceriodaphnia Spp. and maximum in summer due to high intra-species competition, and stress due to high temperature. High concentration of total suspended solid (TSS) was also one of the reason leading to supress the growth of phytoplanktons/algae. During the study period, thermal stratification was also observed which restricted the mixing of the water body, therefore pollutant entering as domestic waste water discharge from the surroundings of the pond get trapped in the epilimnion due to less or no mixing. Recapitulating the above, despite of the poor water quality, presence of active biological food chain can result in no significant adverse effects over the aquatic life.

Keywords: Water quality index; Eutrophication; Thermal stratification; Epiliminion; Gross primary productivity; Ceriodaphnia spp.

Climate change has been recognized globally and it has a number of straight and long-term impacts. In this paper, the main purpose was to assess the perception of local people towards climate change and its impact on food production. The statistical populace for this study consists of 400 persons selected at random from Jammu region of J&K state to acquire local perception at small scale. A well-designed validated questionnaire was utilized to collect the data from the respondents who were willing to participate in our study. The data collected was analyzed and tabulated using standard statistical tools. The results from our research revealed that majority of the respondents under study were of the opinion that rise in temperature, irregular rainfall, frequent disaster and decrease in food production has direct impact of food security. Respondents in majority were aware of the climate change and its impacts on food production but they were not aware how to adopt climate changes. It is obvious that there is a significant relation between climate change and food production. It is concluded from our study that in order to cope with climate change impact socio-economic profile and people awareness concerning food production have to be modified. Finally, we recommended policy instruments to enhance food security amidst changing climate.

Keywords: Jammu; Perception; Climate Change; Food Production; Food Security; Statistics.