Guidelines

Guidelines

Journal of Himalayan Ecology & Sustainable Development

 

Guidelines for Contributors

 

 

Journal Title               Journal of Himalayan Ecology & Sustainable Development

 

Print ISSN                0973-7502

  

Publisher                  Department of Environmental Science, University of Kashmir Srinagar.

 

 Aims and Scope

 

The Journal of Himalayan Ecology and Sustainable Development invites research and review articles on all aspects of Ecology with emphasis on Himalayan Ecology, interactions between humans, ecosystems, pollution, wildlife, Forests, policy papers regarding sustainable development, environmental problems, natural resource management,  biodiversity, agriculture, climate change, environmental management, environmental chemistry, toxicological, health, GIS, remote sensing, Geoinformatics, Glaciers, Geography, and use change, socioeconomic, and environmental impact assessment etc.

 

Peer Review Policy

  

The practice of peer review is to ensure that good science gets published. Our referees/Reviewers therefore play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of research work being published in our journal. .

 

Manuscript evaluation

  

It is the responsibility of the Editor first to evaluate all manuscripts and in extreme cases will be referred to another editor matching his field of specialization. In majority of the cases, the submissions are sent to for referees and it is rarest of the rare that any submission of high quality and standard is accepted at this stage without being sent for review. Those rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, does not add much to field of science, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or are outside the scope of this journal. Those that meet the minimum criteria are passed on to at least 2 experts for review. Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage are usually communicated within 3 weeks of receipt.

 

Type of Peer Review

 

This journal employs double blind reviewing, where both the referee and author remain anonymous throughout the process. Referees are matched to the paper according to their expertise. Referees are both from national and international institutes which are normally working in the field for which this journal invites the manuscripts.

 

Referee reports

 

Referees are asked to evaluate manuscript as per the format provided to them with respect to following points:

 

- Is original

 

- Is methodologically sound

 

- Follows appropriate ethical guidelines

 

- Has results which are clearly presented and support the conclusions

  

- Correctly references previous relevant work

 

- Quality of manuscript

 

- Title is appropriate to the content

  

- Contribution and significance

 

- Clarity and expression

 

Referees are not expected to correct or copyedit manuscripts. Language correction is not part of the peer review process.

 

 

 

Review process

 

Typically the manuscript will be reviewed within 4 months. Should the referees’ reports contradict one another or a report is unnecessarily delayed a further expert opinion will be sought. All our referees sign a conflict of interest statement. Revised manuscripts are usually returned to the initial referees within 2-3 week. Referees may request more than one revision of a manuscript either minor or a major revision.

 

A final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees, and may include at times  verbatim comments by the referees. Referees are also asked to send the confidential comments to the Editor if any.

 

Editor’s Decision is final

 

Referees advise the editor, who is responsible for the final decision to accept or reject the manuscript.

 

Publication frequency

 

The Journal of Himalayan Ecology and Sustainable Development is published annually.

 

Submission

 

Manuscripts complete in all respects (MS word, 2007 or higher) should be sent to the editor in Chief through email only to mail address journalhesd@rediffmail.com  

The manuscript should not exceed twenty A-4 size pages (having all round margins of 1.5” and 1.5 lines space in between the lines) including abstract, tables, figures and references.

 

Manuscript may generally be organized in the following order:

 

Title Page

 

The title page should include: The name(s) of the author(s)

A concise and informative title 

The affiliation(s) and address (es) of the author(s)

The e-mail address and telephone number of the corresponding author

 

Abstract

 

Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references. It should contain a very brief description of the study, methods, results and conclusions.

 

Keywords

 

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

 

Text

 

The text of original research articles should be divided into the following sections:

 

Introduction

 

The Introduction should state the purpose of the investigation and identify clearly the gap of knowledge that will be filled in this study.

 

Materials and methods

  

The Materials and Methods section should provide enough information to permit repetition of the experimental work. It should include clear descriptions and explanations of sampling procedures, experimental design, essential sample characteristics and descriptive statistics, hypothesis tested, exact references to literature describing the tests used in the manuscript, number of data involved in statistical tests, etc.

 

Results and Discussion

 

The Results section should describe the outcome of the study. Data should be presented as concisely as possible - if appropriate in the form of tables or figures, although very large tables should be avoided. The Discussion should be an interpretation of the results and their significance with reference to work by other authors.

 

Conclusions

 

This section should highlight the major, firm discoveries, and state what the added value of the main finding is, without literature references.

 

Acknowledgments

 

Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

 

References

 

The journal uses APA reference style. See References for more details.

 

Appendices

 

If there is more than one appendix, they should be numbered consecutively.

 

Publication Charges

 

There are no publication charges for publishing the research work in "Journal of Himalayan

 

Ecology and Sustainable Development”

 

Text Formatting

 

Manuscripts should be submitted in Word (2007). Text should be in English, well written, precise and to the point. The following points should be considered while submitting the manuscript;

 

  • Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 12-point Times Roman) for text.

 

  • Use italics where applicable.
  • Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
  • Do not use field functions.
  • Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
  • Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.
  • Use the equation editor for equations.
  • Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher)
  • Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
  • Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.
  • All tables and figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Tables and figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
  • For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
  • Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
  • Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.
  • Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
  • Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
  • No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
  • When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
  • Units and Symbols should follow the metric system.

 

The reference list should be arranged alphabetically according to the surname of the first author. More than one reference of the same author(s) for different years should be arranged chronologically. Only the references cited in the text need to be given in the list of References. Abbreviations of journal titles in reference list should follow the forms used in World List of Scientific Periodicals. References should follow the pattern as exemplified below:- .

 

Journal article:

 

i)                    Hora, S.L. 1951. Fish culture in rice field. Curr. Sci., 29(7): 171-173.

ii)                  Price, T. and Jamdar, N. 1990. The breeding birds of Overa Wildlife sanctuary, Kashmir. J. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc. 87(1): 1-15.

 

Chapter in a book:

 

i)                   Narayan, N.S. and Madhyastha, M.N., 1985. Heavy, metal pollution in India-A review. p. 272-294. In: Current Pollution Researches in India (R.K Trivedi & P.K. Goel, eds.). Environmental Publications, Karad, India.

 

 

Technical Report:

 

i)                   Anon. 1980. Annual Report for the year 1979. National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur, India.300 pp.

Book:

 

i)                    Jhingran, V.G., 1975. Fish and Fisheries of India. Hindustan Publication Corpn., New Delhi, India.

 

Web references

As a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

 

Ethics Policy

  

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the research work. The authors are expected to ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, which need to be appropriately cited or quoted. An author should not publish the same work in more than one journal except abstract, lecture note and dissertation. Authors should be ready to provide the raw data when asked and demanded by the Editor. Authors must give the proper acknowledgement and should disclose explicitly the conflict of interest if any in the submission. Authors are also required to bring into the notice of Editor of any major error   or inaccuracy of their published work to retract or correct the paper. The journal uses software to screen for plagiarism.

 

Editorial Board

 

Chief Editor

 

Prof. Fayaz Ahmad, Head, Department of Environmental Science, University of Kashmir Srinagar-190001. Email: rajafayazali@gmail.com 

 

Editors

  1. Dr. Rajan Kotru, Former Senior Natural Resource Governance and Policy Specialist, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development GPO Box 3226, Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Kathmandu, Nepal. Email: rajan.kotru@icimod.org
  2. Prof. A.R. Yousuf, Formerly Expert Member National Green Tribunal New Delhi. Res. Jabari Manzil, Osman Abad, Malla Bagh, Hazratbal, Srinagar -190006. Email: aryousuf1951@gmail.com.
  3. Dr. P.P. Dhyani, Former Director G.B. Pant National Institute of G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment & Sustainable Development Kosi-Katarmal, Almora, 263 643, India E. mail: ppdhyani@gbpihed.nic.in.
  4. Prof. Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, HVC, IUST and Professor Department of Earth Sciences, University of Kashmir Srinagar-190001. Email: shakilrom@gmail.com.
  5. Prof. F.A. Lone, Division of Environmental Sciences SKUAST-K Srinagar-190006. Email: rfarooqlone@yahoo.co.in.
  6. Prof. Mohd Sultan Bhat, Department of Geography and Disaster Management, University of Kashmir Srinagar- 190001. Email: m   sbhatgeog@yahoo.com.
  7. Prof.  Anil   Raina,   Head   Department   of   Environmental   Science,   University   of   Jammu-   180006   Email: anilkraina@yahoo.com.
  8. Prof. A.K. Mahajan, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Central University Himachal Pradesh TAB: Shahpur, Distt. Kangra- H.P.-176206. Email: a  kmahajan@rediffmail.com.
  9. Prof. Asha Rajavanshi, Former Head EIA cell, Wild Life Institute of India, Chandrabani, Mehu Wala Mafi, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248007.Email: ar@wii.gov.in.
  10.  Prof.   R.C.   Sharma,   HNB   Gharwal   University-   Srinagar   (Garhwal)   Uttarakhand-246174.   Email:  drrameshcsharma@gmail.com.
  11. Dr. Amit Kumar, Associate Professor,  Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology  School of Hydrology and Water Resources Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, 210044, China. Email: amit.agl09@gmail.com.
  12. Prof. Syed Mohammad Samsul Huda, Department of Environment and Forestry, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Email:  hudaifescu@yahoo.com.
  13. Prof. P.K. Joshi,   School of Environmental Sciences (SES) Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. Email: pkjoshi@mail.jnu.ac.in.
  14. Prof. Basant Maheshwari Western Sydney University Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia. Email: b.maheshwari@westernsydney.edu.au.
  15. Prof.  Arun Kansal,   Coca Cola Department of Regional Water Studies, TERI School of Advanced Studies,  New Delhi. Email: akansal@terisas.ac.in
  16. Dr. Muhammad Zaffar Hashmi, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, COMSATS University Islamabad, zaffar.hashmi@comsats.edu.pk.
  17. Dr. Roohollah Noori, Assistant Professor of Environmental-Water Engineering, School of Civil  Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, noor@ut.ac.ir.
  18. Dr. Anas Abdulaziz, Principal Scientist, CSIR-NIO RC, Kochi Kerala, anas@nio.org.
  19. Dr. J. C. Kuniyal, Scientist G. G. B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment and Sustainable Development, jckuniyal@rediffmail.com.
  20. Dr. Sajad Hussain Parey, Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, Baba Gulam Shah Badshah University Rajouri, Jammu & Kashmir, sajadzoo@gmail.com.