Political

Bioremediation is emerging as an effective innovative technology for treatment of a wide variety of contaminants and is an invaluable tool box for wider application in the realm of environmental protection.

Bioremediation approach is currently applied to contain contaminants in soil, groundwater, surface water, and sediments including air. These technologies have become attractive alternatives to conventional clean-up technologies due to relatively low capital costs and their inherently aesthetic nature. 

It includes phytoremediation (plants) and rhizoremediation (plant and microbe interaction). Rhizoremediation, which is the most evolved process of bioremediation, involves the removal of specific contaminants from contaminated sites by mutual interaction of plant roots and suitable microbial flora. 

The report documents the existing knowledge for the benefit of regulators, who evaluate the quality of environment and for practitioners, who have to implement and evaluate remediation alternatives at a given contaminated site. It is expected to provide basic understanding of the bioremediation mechanisms to the reader. The technical descriptions provided in this document concentrate on the functioning mechanisms: phytosequestration, rhizodegradation, phytohydraulics, phytoextraction, phytodegradation, and phytovolatilization. 

 Arsenic poisoning in these districts is a serious environmental problem and is affecting the health of millions of people in the State. The problem has been aggravated with increase in groundwater exploitation leading to leaching of arsenic located in upper layers of sediment down into the deep aquifers.

During my visits to these districts, I have had dreary experiences -

It covers varying groundwater scenarios in the country including the highly developed metros, the hilly region, the coastal cities, the cities tapping unconsolidated and hard rock aquifers. The report briefly describes the administrative set up, status of water supply and demand, groundwater scenario, feasibility of rainwater harvesting and groundwater development strategy.

It is an updated version of an earlier report on “Groundwater in urban environment in India” (2000). Since then, groundwater regime, urban demography and water demand have changed enormously. This report will form a scientific base for an in-depth understanding of urban groundwater system including aquifer geometry, water level behavior and groundwater quality. The possibility of artificial recharge to rejuvenate the urban aquifers has also been discussed.

The CGWB has been monitoring groundwater levels on a quarterly basis during January, April/ May, August and November through a network of about 15000 observation wells located all over the country. This data is used for assessment of groundwater resources and changes in the regime consequent to various development and management activities.

Content Courtesy: Rotary Madras South

Talk by Sekhar Raghavan, Rain Centre, at the Rotary Club of Madras South weekly meeting on 26 April 2011 on rainwater harvesting and ecological sanitation - Part 1.

Organizer: Safai Karmachari Andolan

Venue: Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, Hall No.S 1, Circular Road, Teen Murti Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi

Introduction

 SEDS approached Arghyam to seek advice on the quality of drinking water in the area. Anantpur is the second most drought-prone area in India, and a lot of work has been done to deal with the water supply situation by the Government of Andhra Pradesh as well as NGOs and charities such as SEDS and the Sai Baba Trust, to name a few. There seems to be an adequate supply of water in the district, but very little or no attention has been paid to the quality of water.

Organizer: Acara Institute on the Environment

Venue: Institute on the Environment (IonE) University of Minnesota, St. Paul Campus, 1954 Buford Ave, 325 VoTech Building. All presentations will be webcast live.

Description:

The Acara Challenge is a unique way for a university to get their students involved in entrepreneurship and sustainable design for social change. The purpose of the Acara Challenge is to: Engage students in a multi-discipline, multi-country collaboration to develop sustainable solutions and business models to challenging global social issues. Incubate and implement the winning plans into successful sustainable social businesses.

The Senior Fellows program is administered in partnership with The Synergos Institute Cananda and is made possible in part thanks to support from Kim Samuel Johnson.

The Senior Fellows Network is comprised of distinguished international civil society leaders committed to collaborative efforts that address the underlying causes of poverty and inequity.

Launched in 1999, the Senior Fellows program links extraordinary civil society leaders in a worldwide learning, service and action network. The network aims to strengthen the capacity and opportunities for these leaders to be catalysts and play a major role in partnerships that address the systemic causes of poverty and promote sustainable social change.

This report by Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty and World Bank deals with Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA) in Andhra Pradesh.  The paper also analyses the initial results of economic and environmental impact of CMSA, distills the key lessons learned from the Andhra Pradesh experience, and draws possible implications for future.

To address the adverse impacts of green revolution, the alternative approach to manage agriculture i.e., CMSA is being tested and practiced in the State. The CMSA approach replaces the use of chemical pesticides with a combination of physical and biological measures—including eco-friendly bio-pesticides—and complements it by adopting biological and agronomic soil fertility improvement measures leading to reduced use of chemical fertilizers.