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There has been concern about rising rates of caesarean section worldwide. This Article reports the third phase of the WHO global survey, which aimed to estimate the rate of different methods of delivery and to examine the relation between method of delivery and maternal and perinatal outcomes in selected facilities in Africa and Latin America in 2004–05, and in Asia in 2007–08. Nine countries participated in the Asia global survey: Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. In each country, the capital city and two other regions or provinces were randomly selected. We studied all women admitted for delivery during 3 months in institutions with 6000 or fewer expected deliveries per year and during 2 months in those with more than 6000 deliveries. We gathered data for institutions to obtain a detailed description of the health facility and its resources for obstetric care. We obtained data from women's medical records to summarise obstetric and perinatal events. We obtained data for 109 101 of 112 152 deliveries reported in 122 recruited facilities (97% coverage), and analysed 107 950 deliveries. The overall rate of caesarean section was 27·3% (n=29 428) and of operative vaginal delivery was 3·2% (n=3465). Risk of maternal mortality and morbidity index (at least one of: maternal mortality, admission to intensive care unit [ICU], blood transfusion, hysterectomy, or internal iliac artery ligation) was increased for operative vaginal delivery (adjusted odds ratio 2·1, 95% CI 1·7–2·6) and all types of caesarean section (antepartum without indication 2·7, 1·4–5·5; antepartum with indication 10·6, 9·3–12·0; intrapartum without indication 14·2, 9·8–20·7; intrapartum with indication 14·5, 13·2–16·0). For breech presentation, caesarean section, either antepartum (0·2, 0·1–0·3) or intrapartum (0·3, 0·2–0·4), was associated with improved perinatal outcomes, but also with increased risk of stay in neonatal ICU (2·0, 1·1–3·6; and 2·1, 1·2–3·7, respectively). To improve maternal and perinatal outcomes, caesarean section should be done only when there is a medical indication. US Agency for International Development (USAID); UNDP/UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), WHO, Switzerland; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan; Ministry of Public Health, China; and Indian Council of Medical Research.

Soil erosion induced by physical and anthropogenic activities needs serious concern to deal with. In recent days, watersheds have been facing acute soil loss because of deforestation, poor land use management and unscientific agricultural practices. The present paper highlights the goal to decipher soil erosion-susceptible zones in a rain-fed river basin of India having a complex topography comprising the extension of Chotonagpur plateau and parts of Bengal basin. Fuzzy logic algorithm-based analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) with remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) were used to execute the objective. The soil erosion-susceptible zone (SESZ) was identified assimilating the 14 geo-environmental, hydro-meteorological and anthropogenic conditioning factors such as slope, drainage density, relative relief, stream power index, topographic wetness index, runoff, soil texture, land use and land cover, rainfall erosivity factor, distance from road, distance from settlement, distance from river, geomorphology and soil bareness index based on which sub-basin prioritization for sustainable soil conservation was made. The soil erosion-susceptible zone was classified into five classes, namely very low soil erosion zone (13.20%), low soil erosion zone (25.75%), moderate soil erosion zone (27.62%), high soil erosion zone (21.90%) and very high soil erosion zone (11.53%). Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve was generated where area under the curve (AUC) came as 0.82 and a correspondence analysis between the SESZ and the first three ranked factors was also made which together proves the accuracy of the model.

Wetland acts as a biological supermarket and helps to determine people’s lives, livelihoods and needs. In third world countries like India, wetlands are suppressed by over populated surroundings. Although the size, volume and depth of wetlands change due to the whims of the weather, and water pollution and sedimentation are caused by various human activities, people still use wetlands as a means of rice and fish production. This article discusses the continuous decaying of wetlands in the floodplain region of the Bhagirathi–Hooghly river and its impact on human dependency on wetlands. The location of the continuous siltation of the wetlands is known with the help of bathymetry which proves that the wetlands are getting more and more decayed. Agricultural runoff and sewerage from adjacent farmland also continue to pollute the wetlands' environment, with high levels of TDS (total dissolved solids) and Cl 2+ (chloride). The result shows that rice and fish production in these decayed wetlands is continuously increasing with seasonal water budget scenario. Comparing economic production with water budgets through SK (seasonal Kendall) test and ARMA (autoregressive moving average process), trend analysis shows the growing demand of the people has made the position of the wetlands miserable, but the economic aspect of the people has benefited. Dredging, public awareness, water pollution prevention and sustainable use of wetlands can be considered as the only way to restore the decayed wetlands to their glory.

Global water demand has far exceeded the total available water resources which in turn have put a serious concern on food security. Changes in the land use and land cover scenario and rapid population growth are putting unavoidable stress over the water resources of the nation. The Indian aquifer system is facing an acute crisis due to the unscientific abstraction of groundwater for agricultural, industrial and domestic sector by the 1.3 billion growing population. To investigate the groundwater degradation, 20 wells from a river basin of West Bengal have been selected to study their seasonal groundwater level trend using Mann–Kendall test statistics from 1996 to 2018 where 60% of the wells are showing a decline in water level particularly in post-monsoon season. These wells are mainly located near the agricultural land where extraction of groundwater from submersible pumping wells is extensive as observed from socio-economic survey. Agglomerated hierarchical cluster analysis has been executed to classify the wells based on their magnitude of fluctuation. The wells have been classified in four clusters where cluster I consists most of the wells about 15 numbers whose fluctuation ranged between 1.8 and 4.33 m below groundwater level (mbgl). Finally, Standard Groundwater Level Index has been applied to understand the groundwater drought years. Well locations like Simlapal, Bheduasol and Neradeul have a higher frequency of drought years. The recharge potential of the wells is now decreasing day by day. Such kind of studies is required and will help the stakeholders to focus on sustainable management of this valuable water resource.

This investigation additionally recognizes partner cooperation issue and furthermore to moderate the real issue through subjective and quantitative appraisal of riverine wetland. Considering a floodplain wetland in rustic West Bengal, the concentration was extended to perceive the type of wetland capacities as per the idea of individuals’ contribution by group examination. Be that as it may, NDVI was connected to ponder the total weeds condition into the wetland to decide the connection between Water Quality Index (WQI) with Normalized Difference Vegatation Index (NDVI) and its impact on valuation. In ANOVA, which is computed by MINITAB programming, centrality level was lower than 0.05 for each case.

The priority assessment of erosion-susceptible zone in a drainage basin is an important approach to diminish various environmental threats related to soil erosion. In a large drainage basin, management and conservation of the entire area at an optimum level are sometimes inefficient due to lack of human resources and financial strength. Therefore, it is prerequisite to establish a viable technique for prioritisation of sub-watersheds in such way that ensures sustainability and high productivity of the region. The objective of this study is to identify erosion-susceptible areas within the sub-watersheds of Mayurakshi river basin located in a transitional zone between Chotanagpur Plateau and Bengal Basin where the risk of soil erosion is very much noticeable. The whole basin has been divided into number of sub-watersheds (SW), and a set of drainage morphometric parameters have been used to identify the potentiality of erosion. Finally, Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) model has been implemented to prioritise the critical areas for better management strategy. This method specifically considered the interdependencies of all criteria for which it has been very much applicable for the assessment of erosion risk zones. The output of TOPSIS model reveals SW6 and SW11 have been fall under high- and low-erosion-susceptible zones, respectively. To validate the output of the model, rainfall erodibility index ( R factor) has been calculated which shows that the same watershed (SW6) has been fall under high rainfall erosivity zone depicting the need of prioritisation at an earliest convenience.

In this study, the functions and threats of Suraha Tal Wetland are identified by the stated preference method and weightage is given according to their rank. The objective of the study is to determine the total economic value of Suraha Tal Wetland. The direct value can be drawn from the market price and from a survey of the stakeholders. Suraha Tal Wetland is also famous for the presence of the Jai Prakash Narayan Birds Sanctuary, which makes it a biodiversity-enriched area. The indirect value has been drawn from a review of the literature on Suraha Tal Wetland and the relevance of this literature is justified through the comprehensive meta-analysis (CMA) software. The total valuation of the wetland has been calculated. The paper concludes with suggestions for a few management strategies for better wetland management.

Climate change emerges as a significant factor influencing rainfall variability, as it results in changes in annual or seasonal rainfall patterns along with precipitation intensity. The present study analyzes rainfall trends in Eastern India, covering 23 districts of West Bengal, utilizing data from 1993 to 2022. The study aims to improve our capacity to identify and forecast occurrences of floods, droughts and other extreme weather phenomena. Results from the Mann Kendall Test reveal significant trends as Jalpaiguri displayed the highest positive trend (Z value = 1.36), suggesting an upward trend, while Malda shows the most significant negative trend (Z value = -4.46). Bankura and Coochbehar exhibit no trend (Z score = 0). Whereas Modified Mann Kendall Test indicates 33.87% significant increase in post-monsoon rainfall and an overall 2.61% rise in annual rainfall. The Sen’s Slope Estimator is used to assess the strength and direction of the analyzed trend, allowing a more comprehensive understanding of the rainfall dynamics in Eastern India. Analyzing variations offers insights to develop adaptive strategies to mitigate the effects on the agricultural and water resources management sector. These findings can also be applied to hydroelectric power generation or to regions of ecosystem health restoration.

Sediment deposition is a significant feature of a dynamic floodplain river. As the river's carrying capacity decreases, it is forced to deposit sediment on the river bed. However, due to the construction of some hydraulic structures over the river bed at different times (bridges, dams), the velocity of the river in the floodplain area decreases with accelerating sedimentation process, which hinders water transport. The sub-catchment basin (Nabadwip-Kalyani stretch) of the Bhagirathi–Hooghly river in West Bengal (Ghosh et al. 2020), India is frequently used as a means of water transport by local stakeholders. Because of sedimentation, the thalweg depth of the river is constantly decreasing in Nabadwip–Kalyani stretch and the water transport is being disrupted. Therefore, it is very important to know the function of hydraulic structures over the river bathymetry and resultant sediment flow, transportation, and sediment deposition in this region. Therefore, this article mainly assesses to develop a 1D hydro-dynamic sediment transport model on river morphological change through seasonal quasi-unsteady flow accumulation and sediment budget in a given year (2018). The hydro-dynamic model is calibrated by 1D HEC-RAS v 5.0.7 software (Gibson et al. 2017) based on seasonal quasi-unsteady flow using various empirical equations and Manning's roughness coefficient and validated with R 2 , NSE, and RSR. The model also examines the role of hydrodynamic structures in scouring and sedimentation due to the location of these structures above the river. This model output will help local stakeholders to understand the amount of sediment in the river and keep river transport viable in all seasons.

The current research is focused on detecting a river basin suitable for agriculture and priority for management using a new clustering tool of groundwater quality with fuzzy logic technique in R and Geographical Information System. A new fuzzy clustering-soft computing technique has been executed to determine the different hydrochemical zones considering 13 essential parameters such as electrical conductivity, hardness, chloride, sodium adsorption ratio, residual sodium carbonate, soluble sodium percent, magnesium hazard, permeability index, potential salinity, residual sodium bicarbonate, Kelly’s ratio, synthetic harmful coefficient, and exchangeable sodium percentage. The derived fuzzy C-mean clustering (FCM) outperformed other available hard computing techniques like hierarchical clustering, K-means clustering, and agglomerative clustering. It divided the sampling sites into 2 clustering groups (FCM I and FCM II) which has been validated using fuzzy silhouette index (0.85), the partition coefficient (0.76), the partial entropy (0.68), and the modified partition coefficient (0.52). The hydrogeochemical analysis confirmed that the rock-water interaction, chemical weathering, and ion exchange process are predominant in the aquifer system of the study area. According to the correlation plots, the studied groundwater samples largely evolved from Ca 2 + - HCO 3 - , mixed Ca 2 + - Mg 2 + - Cl - types, and HCO 3 - - Ca 2 + types. The spatial distribution map and the hydrochemical analysis also gives a clear depiction of the fluoride (> 1.0 mg/l) and high iron (> 0.3 mg/l) contamination in groundwater quality, making it unsuitable for both drinking and irrigation. A fuzzy EDAS priority map has been prepared based on all the irrigation suitability parameters which concludes that the groundwater at the upstream and downstream section of the basin requires the most attention. Based on the highest priority for management, five zones have been delineated: very high (5.98%), high (22.31%), medium (16.39%), low (32.30%), and very low (23.02). The findings of this study will be beneficial to planners and policymakers as they can develop schemes to solve similar problems across the country.