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Green tourism is an emerging sustainable approach that needs to be implemented to manage environmental pollution in a particular region. Although the Gangetic West Bengal (GWB) is full of green tourism potential, the green tourism potentiality in this region has not been revealed yet. Therefore, the present research is focused on the delineation of the green tourism potential zone of the GWB using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and weighted sum techniques. The whole methodology has been implemented here through a straightforward, concise, and multistep (5-steps) process, which removes the entanglement and intricacy of the traditional AHP technique. At the first step, nine thematic layers are prepared. In the second step, pair-wise comparison matrices are formed following the principle of eigenvector. All thematic layers are reclassified at the third stage, and priorities are assigned to each class. The weighted sum procedure is utilized in the fourth stage to get the green tourism potential map, and the consistency ratio is also checked. Finally, the green tourism potential map is classified into high, moderate, and low categories using natural breaks. About 23.753% area of the GWB is identified as the high green tourism potential zone. The 12.691% area is identified as the low green tourism potential zone, and the rest (63.555% area) are recognized as the moderate green tourism potential zone. Further, the green tourism potential map is validated using the correlation coefficient (R2) determined by the district-wise availability (percentage share) of green tourist spots and the concomitant pixel count (percentage share) of the green tourism potential zone. A high R2 value (R2 ~ 84.5%) is obtained here, and therefore, the green tourism potential map portrayed in this research can be utilized further without hesitation. The methodology used here is generous, logical, unique, and easy to implement in any region.

Water scarcity and drought management is the burning issue in India and hence needs serious attention of researchers to develop rigorous plan and management. Areas that belong to various plateaus, e.g., Chotanagpur plateau, Deccan plateau, etc., are mostly affected by drought in India. In the past decade, Bankura District of West Bengal, which belongs to northeast part of Chotanagpur plateau, faced severe drought several times. However, the assessment of drought scenario in this area is far from conclusive statement till date. In this paper, we simulate standardized precipitation index (SPI) using double exponential (DE) and Holt–Winter exponential smoothing model (HW) for several time steps (e.g., 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 24 months and 48 months) in the time period of 1979–2014. The comparative analysis between two models indicates that DE is more accurate one. DE is observed with relatively low root mean squared error (RMSE) and high R 2 value. Furthermore, drought-prone zones are demarcated using combined scores of principal component analysis (PCA) and those combined scores are estimated using actual, HW and DE simulated SPI in several time steps. At the shorter (3 and 6 months) and longer time step (12, 24 and 48 months), the PCA demonstrates almost same results. The western and northwestern blocks of the district are severely affected by drought, and the southern portions are at mild condition. Spatially distributed RMSE in every time steps is also high in northwestern portions of the study region. Our result may be useful to understand the pattern of drought to take necessary action in management of water resources in Bankura District, West Bengal. Moreover, the study uses an unique methodology to simulate and assess meteorological drought, which is applicable in any region of the world.

Drought is a burning issue in India and hence needs serious attention of researchers to develop rigorous plan and management. Areas that belong to various plateaus, e.g., Chottanagpur plateau, Deccan plateau, etc., are mostly affected by drought in India. In the past decade, Purulia District of West Bengal, which belongs to northeast part of Chottanagpur plateau, faced severe drought several times. But the assessment of drought in this area was far from a decesive proclamation till date. In this research, an attempt was made to compare the Holt-Winter additive and Holt-Winter multiplicative model in simulation (at 1 month lead time) of meteorological drought (using Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) of Purulia District, West Bengal, India. The additive model showed better performance than the multiplicative model with minimized Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and higher correlation coefficient value (R2). The spatial assessment drought at pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon phase indicated that severe drought had occurred in post monsoon and premonsoon phase at the eastern portions of the study area.      

Since the drought is a significant issue in India, therefore, the scientists should pay close attention in order to manage it. Purulia District experienced the drought on numerous occasions in the past ten years, but the accurate and definite conclusions have not arrived yet. Hence, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) for the 34 years (1979–2014) was utilised in this research together with the change point to evaluate the annual and seasonal drought in the Purulia District. Theil Sen's slope and the Mann-Kendal (MK) test were both employed to determine the trend and its’ magnitude. A trend-free pre-whitening technique was used to remove the influence of lag-1 correlation data from the series. The 1988-89 was marked as the best probable single change (shift) point in the time series of SPI. By calculating the percentage deviation from the SPI's mean trend, the magnitude of the change was calculated. The percentage change of Sen's slope and MK test was high (+ve) at the eastern parts of Purulia, whereas it was observed as the smallest at the southern parts of the region. Thus, it could be concluded that the drought had begun to spread to the study region's eastern sections after the change point. As Purulia is dependent on agricultural crop production, this research would significantly contribute to agricultural planning following the local level management of crop water and rain-water harvesting. Therefore, this research is extremely important for the drought risk management on a regional scale.