The chemical property of groundwater depends largely on the mineralogical composition of the rocks through which the water has moved and the rate of movement and these characteristics of surface water depend on organic and inorganic reactions, industrial effluents, rainfall and temperature etc. The underground water tends to contain more dissolved materials than those in surface water because of their more intimate and longer contact with organic materials of soil and rock particles.

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Surface and borehole sampling along a ∼80 km section of the lower Tista river, northwestern Bangladesh, indicated that the river sands offer significant potential as a heavy mineral (HM) resource. Characterisation of sediments from the surface to 15 m depth showed that the sand-sized component was dominated by quartz, feldspar, mica, lithic fragments, amphibole and pyroxene group minerals. The most common particle size was between +125–500 μm with 84 wt-% of all material reporting to this size range. Laterally spaced sampling indicated slight grain size coarsening upstream. Heavy liquid separation studies revealed that HMs such as amphiboles, micas, garnets, aluminosilicate (Al2SiO5) phases, ilmenite and zircon made up ∼10.99% (on average). The percentage of valuable HMs (ilmenite, rutile, zircon, monazite, garnet) was 2.47% (average). Detailed borehole sampling and resource mapping of a large, mid-channel sand bar showed that placer-style HM accumulations occur upstream and along the margins of the bar.

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The study assessed the integrated gender issues of family poultry production in developing countries with evidence in Bangladesh. The result draws attention to the widespread acknowledgment of the critical roles of gender in family poultry production system. The results show that women hold the maximum of the ownership (90.58%, p=0.0001) and responsible for the caring of (93.94%, p=0.0001) family poultry in Bangladesh, likewise other developing countries. The result reveals that women control over the decision-making for the selling of eggs and birds in Bangladesh. Women mostly (94.58%) hold the knowledge useful in the prevention and treatment of poultry illness; however, their role was found low (3.46%) in buying medicine and vaccines for poultry as compared to men (96.54%) in Bangladesh. The findings show that women were nearly two times more willing than men to adopt improved rearing technologies related to family poultry production. Both women and men are impacted indifferently by lower adoption of scientific poultry-keeping technologies. Women are independently facing more problems in access to knowledge, training, services, marketing systems, and financial services related to family poultry production. Despite having many limitations, it is clear that family poultry empowers women through asset accumulation and increasing their decision-making ability in the families and the broader community. The study also highlights the necessity of considering an engendered approach in policy and operational level for the family poultry development.