News and Articles

In partnership with the Columbia Water Center, researchers from Punjab Agricultural University have initiated a multi-year project to implement and field-test diverse water-saving technologies, practices and policies aimed at reducing agricultural water use in the state of Punjab, particularly among rice farmers. In last year’s trial, the most successful project involved the installation of inexpensive tensiometers in the fields of over 500 farmers, yielding water savings of 30-35 percent.

Concurrently with the tensiometer trials, the team also recruited a smaller number of farmers to adopt a different way of cultivating rice altogether: Direct seeding of rice.

In traditional rice cultivation, rice is sprouted in a nursery; sprouted seedlings are then transplanted into standing water. With direct seeding, rice seed is sown and sprouted directly into the field, eliminating the laborious process of planting seedlings by hand and greatly reducing the crop’s water requirements.

Conventional rice production requires standing water

In recent years, scientists have detected very high levels of aerosol pollution in the air over India. Some of it is the result of industrial and agricultural activity, and some of it is nature at work.

Sanitation/Wastewater

• India tops the list of nations lacking toilets
• India hunts for a Rural Toilet Design, 1000 Euros up for grabs
• 82% of rural India deprived of three basic necessities of life — tapped drinking water, electricity connection and sanitation
• There are 700 million cell phone connections in India, but only half this number of Indians have access to private toilets, says a UN study

Article and Image Courtesy: Water supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council

We are pleased to announce the new and improved, your entry point into the online world of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

Water Governance in Motion: Towards Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Water Laws focuses on the work undertaken by International Environmental Law Research Centre IELRC on water law reforms in India. It seeks to provide a broader understanding of the conceptual framework informing existing water law and ongoing reforms.

Climate Change

• India to release climate change report on Tuesday

 Environment

• India proposes a new emission check system
• Call for declaring soil as national resource: Soil Conservation Society of India

Article Courtesy: Earth Observatory

Image Courtesy: NASA

Cyclone Jal brought heavy rains to the Bay of Bengal and the southeastern coast of India in early November 2010. This color-coded map shows total rainfall over the region from November 1–7. The heaviest rainfall—more than 600 millimeters or nearly 24 inches—appears in dark blue. The lightest rainfall—less than 75 millimeters or 3 inches—appears in light green. Superimposed on the map is the storm track, with darker shades of orange corresponding with greater storm intensity.

A band of heavy rainfall ran parallel to the November 5–7 storm track. Especially heavy rain occurred south and west of where Jal made landfall on India’s southeastern coast. The Press Trust of India attributed 11 deaths in Andhra Pradesh state to heavy rains from Jal.

Hi,

D&D Ecotech a rainwater harvesting company is pleased to offer a free basic report on rainwater harvesting to all those who wish to implement the same. 

This offer is valid all over India, you just need to mail us the basic details.

The following article is a literature survey of water management interventions taken up in Indian fields to improve the water productivity which would in turn reduce the groundwater decline.

This document outlining the Environment Policy Guidelines of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of Himachal Pradesh has developed approaches compatible with mountain ecosystems and its unique aspects such as fragility, inaccessibility, marginality, diversity, climatic peculiarities, scattered population and small agricultural holdings.