Sustainability

This paper by Ajit Seshadri, Vigyan Vijay Foundation highlights the poor sanitation situation in India and argues that centralized approaches to wastewater treatment have had limited success and there is a need to make wastwater treatment people centric and effective through the use of decentralized systems such as DEWATS (Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems). DEWATS are locally organized and people driven systems that typically comprise a settler, anaerobic baffled tanks, filter beds of gravel and sand, and an open pond. The open pond or the polishing tank recreates a living environment for the wastewater to clean itself, naturally.

This document presents the proceedings of the annual review meeting by India Meteorological Department (IMD) on “Forecasting Agricultural Output Using Space, Agrometeorology and Land Based Observations” (FASAL) organized at YASHADA, Pune during 1-2 August 2011.

This report by the Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi presents an assessment of the Jalamani programme of the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Government of India. The centrally sponsored programme commenced in 2008-09 aimed at installing simple Stand Alone Water Purification Systems (SAWPS) in rural schools to enable school children to have access to safe and clean water. The focus was on tackling bacteriological contamination and turbidity in ongoing rural drinking water supply programme.

The assessment study used both qualitative and quantitative techniques such as focus group discussions and in-depth interviews besides structured questionnaire for a variety of stakeholders and research questions. Another important aspect of the quantitative tools was testing of the raw and treated water samples. The study was undertaken in 320 schools spread across 20 districts and six states.

This draft report by the Planning Commission, which presents an approach to the twelfth five year plan among other things outlines some of the challenges related to agriculture, natural resources management and water resources management.

For the last few decades and more particularly since 1990’s the issue of human rights-violation of rights to life and livelihood of tribal peoples’ is a central concern. Therefore, the discourse on tribal movements and issues of tribal livelihood revolved around securing their well-defined rights on land and forest resources.

 It provides an analytical framework that policy makers and water professionals can use to bring greater clarity to the issue of social equity in their local context.

This case study in National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR) by the Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR), Dhanbad and the Geo-Environment Division (Environment Management Group) deals with groundwater quality assessment of Jharia coalfield area of West Bengal. The physiochemical characteristics of groundwater of the upper catchments of the coalfield were studied to evaluate the water quality.

To what extent farmers and water resource managers already practice adaptive management and whether it is practiced in an optimal manner or could there be areas for improvement based on recent advancements in the theory of adaptive management are some of the questions that are particularly appropriate in the light of rapid changes in river basin water use and also in relation to basin closure.

This paper draws on the development and use of water resources in the Lower Bhavani Project (LBP), with the LBP reservoir and the 84,000 hectare (ha) LBP command area. The project diverts water from the Bhavani River, a tributary of the Cauvery River in Tamil Nadu.

This thesis by Christina Tang for the Center of Environmental Studies, Brown University deals with a study of water quality and attempts to ascertain the net benefits or costs from rainwater harvesting under a variety of scenarios for households in various water supply conditions.

Eighty percent of the 7,00,000 citizens of Kuttanad, a region in the coastal State of Kerala have no access to clean water. In Kuttanad, intensive untreated human sewage and agricultural activities have caused severe surface water contaminations. At the same time, other sources of freshwater are unreliable for drinking: groundwater is acidic due to the soil conditions and iron leaching; freshwater from public tap is infrequent; and water supply from private vendors is extremely expensive.