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Food and fodder shortage in arid and semi-arid regions force farmers to use marginal quality water for meeting the water requirement of crops which result in low quality, reduced production and an adverse impact on soil properties. A field study on loamy-sand (Hyperthermic Typic Ustipsamments) saline soil was conducted during 1999-2001 at Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes, Hisar. This involved assessment of effects of conjunctive use of saline water,½ with good quality water on five fodder crop rotations: oat-sorghum (Avena sativa--Sorghum bicolor), rye grass-sorghum (Loleum rigidum-Sorghum bicolor), Egyptian clover-sorghum (Trifoleum alexandrinum-Sorghum bicolor), Persian clover-sorghum (Trifoleum resupinatum-Sorghum bicolor) and Indian clover-sorghum (Melilotus indicaSorghum bicolor) and certain soil properties associated with it. Leguminous winter fodder crops were more sensitive to poor quality water use. Reductions in fodder yield with use of saline water alone throughout season were 85, 68, 54, 42, 36 and 26 per cent in Indian clover, Egyptian clover, Persian clover, oat, rye grass and sorghum respectively as compared to good quality water. Leguminous fodder crops produced protein rich (12-14 per cent) and low fibre (18-20 per cent) fodder as compared to poor quality grassy fodder under good quality water irrigation but their quality deteriorated when saline water was used. These leguminous crops accumulated proportionately higher Na þ (1Á58 per cent) resulting in adverse impact on their growth as compared to grassy fodder crops. Higher soil salinity (12Á2 dSm À1 ), SAR ¼ 20 (mmol À1 ) ½ was recorded with saline water irrigation; and slight adverse impact was noticed on infiltration rate and contents of water dispersible clay. Alternate cyclic use of canal and saline water could be an option for fodder production under such conditions.

This study presents a geospatial approach in conjunction with a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tool for mapping forest fire risk zones in the district of Ri-Bhoi, Meghalaya, India which is very rich in biodiversity. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-based pair-wise comparison matrix was constructed to compare the selected parameters against each other based on their impact/influence (equal, moderate, strong, very strong, and extremely strong) on a forest fire. The final output delineated fire risk zones in the study area in four categories that include very high-risk, high-risk, moderate-risk, and low-risk zones. The delineated fire risk zones were found to be in close agreement with actual fire points obtained from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) fire data for the study area. Results indicated that Ri-Bhoi’s 804.31 sq. km. (32.86%) the area was under ‘very high’ fire susceptibility. This was followed by 583.10 sq. km. (23.82%), 670.47 sq. km. (27.39%), and 390.12 sq. km. (15.93%) the area under high, moderate, and low fire risk categories, respectively. These results can be used effectively to plan fire control measures in advance and the methodology suggested in this study can be adopted in other areas too for delineating potential fire risk zones.

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