India

The performance audit report of the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) for the period April 2002 to March 2007, conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), reveals numerous deficiencies in execution and implementation of works such as cases of time and cost-overrun, non-completion & delayed completion of works, non-functional & defunct works, delayed completion & non-completion of water quality mission projects, incorrect prioritization of works, wasteful and unfruitful expenditure, and expenditure on unapproved items.

The report presents guidelines for hydrological investigations in a small watershed. A watershed is an individual entity, and is a naturally occurring unit of the landscape, which contains a complex array of interlinked and interdependent resources and activities irrespective of political boundaries. In addition, it is logical unit having readily identifiable boundaries and characteristics of water movement, which helps in coordinated planning and management.

The report deals with expert systems for unit hydrograph analysis, an emerging technology, which may in years to come, revolutionize professional activities in the field of surface water analysis and modeling. The literature review on the topic revealed the potential of application of expert system for unit hydrograph analysis. A prototype expert system has been developed for the selection of the most appropriate model for unit hydrograph derivation of a given catchment.

The History of Water Filters website, has interesting and useful information on water filters, water treatment alternatives and water quality.

Earth Policy Institute, is a non-profit environmental research organization dedicated to providing a vision of an eco-economy and a roadmap on how to get there. The Institute was founded in 2001 with the following goals: 

• to provide a global plan (Plan B) for moving the world onto an environmentally and economically sustainable path
• to provide examples demonstrating how the plan would work, and
• to keep the media, policymakers, academics, environmentalists, and other decision-makers focused on the process of building a Plan B economy.

The basic research of the Institute has been published in the form of seven books:

The report presents development of a sensor system capable of automated measurement of soil-water status, using the four-electrode resistivity (VES) method, in a soil profile. In this method, by changing the separation between two electrodes (metallic rods) placed at the ground surface without digging any holes, the variation in moisture content in the sub-surface soil profile can be monitored.

The report deals with software developed by the National Institute of Hydrology with the purpose of preparation of hydrological data book in a form most valuable to the users. A menu driven, user friendly software has been developed to handle all types of hydrological and meteorological data.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests released a draft of the regulatory framework for wetland conservation - Wetlands Conservation and Management Rules (2009) for feedback from all stakeholders. The draft framework was prepared by a multi-disciplinary expert group, and final round of comments were invited till June 21st 2010.

The Wetland Conservation Team of Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) did a detailed analysis of the draft regulation and submitted several pertinent concerns to the Ministry. The most significant observation is that the new framework (as do much of India's policies and laws) continues to propose unjustifiable State control and interventions over the country's wetlands and livelihoods of people dependent on them. The regulation does not make any constructive suggestions or recommendations for the conservation that the country's wetlands demand, and instead brings all wetlands into complete official control by installing Central, State and District-level wetland regulatory authorities, wherein the majority of the members will be senior government officials.

The report presents a systematic procedure for the computation of evaporation from lakes. Water balance of a lake depends upon the relative importance of various inputs and outputs to and from the lake. In Indian conditions, evaporation loss constitutes one of the major outputs from a lake and as such, the water regime of a lake and yield are influenced by it. In order to conserve and use the water, there is an urgent need for a first hand reasonable accurate estimate of its water balance.

The report presents the effect of non hydrostatic pressure distribution on dam break flood wave movement. Dam break flood moves with non-hydrostatic pressure distribution in the vertical direction. However, almost all the mathematical models for dam break flows use Saint-Venant equation, which presume hydrostatic pressure in the vertical direction. In this report, an attempt has been made to use Boussinesq equations in the mathematical model.