Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 1.5
Spatio-temporal
variations of surface water
salinity (in psu) in Indian
Sundarbans. Source
Sengupta et al. (
2013
)
cant spatio-
temporal variation of surface water salinity in the
study region. In the western sector, the salinity
decrease ranged from 0.58 psu/year (at Jambu
Island) to 1.46 psu/year (at Harinbari). Although
station 2 (Saptamukhi) is situated in the western
sector, but the salinity has increased by 0.51 psu/
year (Fig.
1.7
). Considering all the six stations in
the western sector, the decrease of salinity is
0.63 psu/year, which represents a decrease of
7.50 psu per decade. The salinity has decreased
from 17.30 % (in Jambu Island) to 43.76 % (in
Harinbari) over a period of 30 years (Fig.
1.7
).
It is interesting to note the signi
The exponential smoothing method that pro-
duces maximum-likelihood estimate of the vari-
able predicts a salinity value of 13.05 psu in 2043
(Fig.
1.8
), which is a decrease of 38.4 % since
1984 (over a span of 60 years).
The central sector presents a completely
reverse picture in terms of aquatic salinity. Irre-
spective of stations, salinity has increased
(Fig.
1.9
) between the range 1.05 psu/year (in
Chulkathi) and 1.12 psu/year (in Matla and Pirk-
hali). Considering the salinity values of selected
six stations, the increase is 1.09 psu/year, which is
equivalent to 13.05 psu/decade. The percentage of
Fig. 1.6
Location of sector-wise sampling stations in Indian Sundarbans; the
red colour
indicates the mangrove
vegetation
