Sustainability

This paper published by the Sehgal Foundation presents a case

This paper describes the current groundwater situation and warns that the unsustainable use of groundwater stands to significantly impact a host of hydrological, ecological and other natural resources and services, including freshwater bodies, and aquatic, riparian, transitional, and terrestrial ecosystems. Baseflow will decrease and wetlands will disappear, streams and rivers will degrade, channel erosion will increase, and wildlife habitat will be reduced. Other impacts include drying up of wells, salt-water intrusion in coastal areas, and land subsidence.

Forwarded to the Portal by: Birke Otto

Image and Content Courtesy: Water Integrity Network 

The Water Integrity Network is seeking information on initiatives addressing corruption related to water and climate change for the Water Integrity Case Information Sheet series.

Case studies should address questions such as 

What obstacles are rendering water-related climate change adaptation strategies inadequate or inequitable?; What types of initiatives have been put in place to avoid or address climate-related water integrity issues (regulation, policy, monitoring, advocacy, project design, etc.)?; How do local, national, and international groups and organisations tackle such problems?; and What other special problems is climate change implicating for water integrity?

The deadline is 1 June 2009.

The Andhra Pradesh Farmer Managed Groundwater System (APFAMGS) project is an enabling intervention for managing groundwater depletion through voluntary self regulation. The project has demonstrated its impact in 7 districts of Andhra Pradesh spread over 650 villages, on a significant scale. Read more

The report on “Watershed Development in Maharashtra” by Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM) ), on behalf of the Forum for Watershed Research and Policy Dialogue (ForWaRD), deals with the present scenario and issues for restructuring the programme. The concept of integrated and participatory watershed development and management has emerged as the cornerstone of rural development in the dry and semi-arid regions of India. Over the years the country has been making increasing investments in this area with the objective of enhancing the production potential of rainfed agriculture.

The Sustainet project of the German Council for Sustainable Development produced the book "Sustainable Agriculture: A pathway out of poverty for India's rural poor" with examples of sustainable agricultural approaches. This book attempts to bring back sustainable agriculture into the development agenda.

Image and Content Courtesy: IISWBM

The Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management (IISWBM) Kolkata - is organising an International Conference during 14-15 December 2009, focusing on the critical relationship between Management and Social welfare especially, in the context of worldwide economic recession since late 2008.

Thrust Area: Decisions in Management and Social Sciences for Sustainable Development

Sub themes include: Human resource management & development, financial engineering, behavioral dynamics in organizations and More.

1. Last Date for Abstract Submission: Jun 15, 2009. 2. Last Date for Submission of Full Paper: Sep 15, 2009. 3. Last Date for Author Registration: Nov 15, 2009.

Water Initiatives Orissa(WIO) and the Indian River Network (IRN) organsied the Odisha River Conference during 18 - 20 April 2009 at Sambalpur, Odisha. Attended by about 75 participants which included activists, environmentalists, journalists, academicians, researchers and civil society representatives from across the country, the Conference has just concluded with a "Sambalpur Declaration" that calls for saving the rivers from the current fate of high rate of degradation and giving communities their traditional rights over the rivers, among other strong resolutions.

The objective of the India Innovation Initiative project is to create an innovation eco-system in the country by sensitizing, encouraging and promoting innovators and facilitating commercialization of the innovations. DST and CII jointly launched the Young Inventors initiative "Steer the Big Idea" in the year 2004. It was aimed at capturing the innovative ideas from young innovators for the benefit of Industry & society. In 2005, CII & DST joined hands with Industry to form IRIS - Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science. IRIS has been focused so far on school students i.e. innovators below the age group of 18 years. Agilent has been organizing the Agilent Engineering and Technology Awards through which it has been encouraging engineering students towards hands-on engineering in India and recognizing innovation. CII & DST have now joined hands with Agilent in a combined effort to launch a nation-wide innovation competition for all innovators above the age group of 18+: "India Innovation Initiative - i3". i3 aims to capture the innovative ideas from the Indian innovators in the age group of 18 years and above, including students, innovators from R&D Institutes & Labs, Industry professionals and individual innovators / Entrepreneurs, grassroots innovators etc. The topic for the 2009 event is "Technology Innovation for Masses and Global Impacts".

The latest loss figures (24 Feb. 09 is five districts, 35 blocks, 33.29 lakh peopla, 9.97 lakh live stock., affected area 3.68 lakh hectares, 2.37 lakh houses, 527 human death a and 19,323 loss of cattle.