Political

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 subsurface aquifer systems in Mahanadi delta region in Orissa (India) is largely characterized by two groups of freshwater aquifer systems, both of which are prone to saline water mixing/migration with time and development:

• The south western Mahanadi delta region is represented by unconfined to semi-confined freshwater aquifers underlained by brackish/saline aquifer systems with a diffusion boundary.
• The north eastern parts of Mahanadi delta is represented by deep freshwater confined aquifers overlained by brackish/saline water aquifers with aquitard/ aquiclude boundary.

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 study attempts to develop a relationship between glacier melt runoff and meteorological parameters for the Dokriani glacier in Garhwal Himalayas. The discharge auto-correlation, correlation between discharge & temperature and between discharge & rainfall has been computed for each month of the summer season and for the melt season as a whole for different years.

The study provides an analysis of groundwater quality to identify probable pollution or contamination in coastal aquifers of Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. Sampling surveys have been conducted in the months of May 99, August 99 and November 99 and about 186 water samples were collected from shallow wells, filter points, canal water and rainwater. The spatial and temporal variations of water quality parameters are presented in the report. 

The report presents a sedimentation study in which sedimentation rate and volume have been determined using remote sensing data in the Ukai reservoir constructed across the Tapti River in Gujarat.

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.

Desilting is becoming a major component of any Lake Conservation Project now a days. The basic reasons given for necessity of desilting are - increasing the storage capacity and checking eutrophic conditions.

As it is not practicable to reverse the slow process of silting in the bed of lakes through which only silt can be removed, there is no word like 'desilting' in any standard English dictionary. What we are doing in the name of 'desilting' is practically 'digging' or 'excavation' of lake bed. By so called desilting, the original lake bed is disturbed which has far reaching adverse effects on the performance of the lake. Most visible effect is the increase in percolation rate resulting in heavy seepage losses through the lake bed as observed after massive desilting at Pushkar lake in 2009.

We have adopted the metric system long back (1957) and there was a grace period of 10 years for transition from British units to metric units.