Contamination, Pollution and Quality

The journey of the Water Quality Management (WQM) Course into a movement with over 1500 WaterQualityChampions’ (WQC) across the country is curious and exciting. The course is enabling participants into “Water Quality champions” that even the course creators did not anticipate. Hence, it demands a closer introspection - into what went behind.

Dams can bind and gag rivers 

Structures such as locks, dams, barrages, and weirs are known to drastically reduce the longitudinal connectivity of rivers, impact downstream flow, and alter riverine ecosystems.

An estimated 620 million tons of crop residue is generated annually in India, of which 16% is burnt in field. The major contribution in stubble burning is paddy straw (43%), wheat straw (21%) followed by sugarcane (19%).

About the workshop

Crop residues are an abundantly available lignocellulosic feedstock that can provide multiple value-added products in a biorefinery (Kamm, 2007). However, approximately 24% of the generated residue is burned in the fields in India (Ravindra et al., 2019). 

Experts call India’s single use plastic ban weak, argue that it targets the most vulnerable

Floodplain zoning law: Only three states and one UT enacted the law to mitigate floods

On the occasion of the third International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology (iFOREST), hosted an event to highlight the importance of building capacity in India for air quality management.

Bengaluru rivers illustrated in a simple yet spatial way

Microplastic pollution is a growing environmental concern. Microplastics are plastic particles with sizes ranging from 1 μm to 5 mm. However, a clear consensus on the definition of microplastics is lacking and even the lower size limit varies among different studies.