Cities and towns are growing rapidly because of increasing population, which is not always contributing to the growth and prosperity of cities and towns, but also contribute to their associated problems, like waste generation and its management. This is directly questioning the sustainability of urbanization. On the other, the quantity of waste is increasing with increasing population, is a serious issue which requires proper planning. A number of processes are involved for management of solid waste, like siting, monitoring, collection, transportation, processing and disposing. However, foremost after collection of solid waste, a site is required for disposing and processing. The present study attempts to use Remote Sensing and GIS coupled with AHP method for analyzing and identifying a dumping Site for solid waste disposal in Nagercoil Municipality in Tamil Nadu. The different physical criteria: LU/LC, geomorphology, soil texture, settlement, road, surface water bodies, lineaments, groundwater depth, NDVI and slope are considered and are examined in relation to land fill site selection. Each criterion was identified and weighted by AHP score and mapped using GIS technique and suitable map is prepared by overlay analysis. The result indicates that a barren land of 57.8891 sq. km which is also proximity to Nagercoil city is the best site for disposal of solid waste.

Geophysical natural hazards, such as earthquakes and volcano eruptions, can have catastrophic effects on the population depending on the location and quality of construction. From the geophysical point of view, several aspects are still debated in the preparation phase of such events. In particular, several theories proposed that prior to the earthquake and volcano eruption, the releases of gas, fluids or charged particle from the lithosphere (e.g., the fault for the earthquake) could create some effects on the atmosphere and ionosphere. In this work, several single examples will be shown of possible candidates of pre-earthquake ionospheric disturbances recorded by the China National Space Administration (in partnership with the Italian Space Agency) China Seismo Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) or European Space Agency Swarm constellation. The examples will show anomalous ionospheric status in terms of magnetic disturbances or increase of electron density before earthquakes like Mw=7.1 Ridgecrest (US) 2019 or during the large recent volcano eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’Apai of last 15 January 2022. In these cases, some couplings between the lithosphere and ionosphere are proposed. Finally, verifying if such ionospheric disturbances proceeded for “chance” or are really linked to the incoming event is a crucial point. For this purpose, we performed worldwide statistical studies, not only supporting the recurrence of such phenomena for about 15% of M5.5+ shallow earthquakes but also showing a link between the magnitude of the upcoming seismic events and the pre-earthquake anticipation time. Furthermore, we also show the influence of the location ( sea or land) on the frequency of the ionospheric electromagnetic disturbance.

The Ouzoud syncline, in central Morocco, is one of the wealthiest areas of natural and cultural heritage in the kingdom. The diversity of its landscapes and geological sites is interesting to explain the evolution of geological history of the central High Atlas (CHA) of Morocco and paleoclimate changes. This syncline also has great potential for geotourism development, it contains the Ouzoud waterfalls, one of the most coveted tourist attractions, which are part of the geosites listed in the Unesco M'Goun Geopark. The abundance of resurgences, waterfalls, travertine, caves, magmatic rocks, exceptional geomorphological forms and fascinating panoramic views make this territory a suitable tourist destination for excursions, hiking and climbing, and a good support for understanding the post-Hercynian sedimentary evolution of CHA. The dense and diversified vegetation cover offers a habitat for various animals (magot monkeys, bats, birds...) which attracts more nature-loving tourists. This exceptional biodiversity and the cultural wealth (traditional mills and the Zaouïa of Tanaghmelt) contribute to accentuate the importance of this syncline. Despite all these opportunities, this heritage remains unknown to the general public and not well exploited by managers, although it constitutes a lever for local socioeconomic development. To overcome this gap, an inventory and assessment of sites of interest was carried out in order to provide a database that would support decision makers in any geoheritage promotion projects. Thus, about twenty highly attractive geosites were inventoried, eight of which (the most important ones) were selected for evaluation using the Reynard (2016) methodology. This approach takes into account the scientific value, the additional values and the use and management values of sites. Also, a geoitinarery has been proposed to promote this heritage wealth. Such promotion can popularise the geosciences and create income-generating activities, which will improve the economic situation of the local population.

Flood is one of the most damaging natural hazards, and timely detection of it is very important to save human lives and assess the level of damage. Floods usually occur in certain weather conditions such as excessive rainfall, which makes the presence of clouds in the sky of the region very likely. For this reason, radar-based sensors are the most suitable choice for real-time flood mapping. In the present study, the ETCI 2021 flood event detection competition dataset, organized by the NASA Advanced Concepts and Implementation Team in collaboration with the IEEE GRSS Geoscience Informatics Technical Committee, has been used. Moreover, we have utilized the U-Net architecture as a segmentation model to map flooded regions. This study aims to identify flooded areas from radar images of the study area in two different polarizations. By examining and comparing the obtained results, it was observed that the network designed to identify flooded areas in VV polarization has made better predictions and the Intersection Over Union (IOU) score has improved from 64.46 to 67.35 compared to VH polarization.

Droughts during the growing season are projected to increase in frequency and severity in Iran. Thus, area-wide monitoring of agricultural drought in this region is becoming more and more important. Precipitation patterns changing is caused by extreme weather events such as drought which strongly affect agricultural production. In this study, two data sources are used in drought assessment. First, by calculating the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) in the periods of 1, 3, 6 months, and one year in the western agricultural areas of Isfahan province in the time series from 2016 to 2019, precipitation data were used to analyze and evaluate meteorological drought's spatial and temporal dynamics. Furthermore, the average loss of rainfall was calculated using TRMM satellite monthly rainfall data and the average Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) monthly with Landsat 8 satellite images using remote sensing data. Then, the Composite Drought Index (CDI) is produced to assess agricultural drought in the 2017-2018-2019 time series. The correlation between the CDI and SPI varies between 0.19 and 0.81 in different months in the time series. The correlation between temperature and CDI in different months varies from 0.22 to 0.75 and between evaporation (E) and CDI from 0.25 to 0.70 in time series.