Chemical Pollution

Featured Articles
September 9, 2022
Creating jobs while managing air quality
Highlights from a new report released by iFOREST
An old coal-fired power plant has been dumping vast quantities of ash out in the open for many years. (Image: Lundrim Aliu/ World Bank; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
August 27, 2022
Himalayan lakes can potentially become long-term sinks of microplastics
Study looks at microplastic types in lakes of Ladakh
(Vinay Goel, Wikimedia Commons)
August 11, 2022
India’s rivers in trouble due to high fertilizer load and heavy monsoons
This could lead to water quality crisis reinforcing the need for basin-specific management strategies
Around the world, more than a fifth of nitrogen released by human activity ends up in aquatic ecosystems (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
July 14, 2022
Ichamati: River of poetry is dying a slow death
The river is faced with the dual problem of flood plain encroachment and growing levels of water pollution
Illegal transverse check dams (Badhals) built on Ichamati near a village in Basirhat (Image: Prithviraj Nath @ TheWaterChronicles)
June 13, 2022
Forecasting systems can reduce Delhi's cocktail of pollutants
A CEEW study indicates that forecasting systems helped avert extremely severe air pollution episodes last winter.
(Image: Ville Miettinen, Wikimedia Commons)
May 25, 2022
Transparent urban river pollution monitoring
A study develops a decision support tool to identify polluted river stretches
Ulhas river near Khandpe village (Image: Ganesh Dhamodkar, Wikimedia Commons)
Biodiversity - crucial for survival of freshwater ecosystems!
Detritivores, scavenger organisms inhabiting freshwater bodies such as streams are crucial for the survival of water bodies. However, anthropogenic changes are killing them!
Luz Boyero et al
Posted on 04 Aug, 2021 04:47 PM

Rivers, lakes, ponds and streams – natural freshwater ecosystems are a precious resource because of the rich biodiversity they support and the valuable ecosystem services they provide.
View of a s stream in Kerala (Image Source: Firos AK via Wikimedia Commons)
Ganga, a sink of microplastics
A study by Toxics Link reveals that Ganga is heavily polluted by microplastics, the highest concentration being at Varanasi.
Toxics Link
Posted on 25 Jul, 2021 01:28 PM

A new study by the Delhi-based environment NGO Toxics Link reveals the presence of microplastics in all samples collected from the river at Haridwar, Kanpur and Varanasi.
Cleaning efforts on the Ganga has so far focussed on focussed on creating sewage treatment capacities in the major urban centres along the river. (Image: Richard IJzermans, Flickr Commons, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
East Kolkata Wetlands – fast turning death traps for aquatic ecosystems?
Freshwater ecosystems in India are known to harbour rich biodiversity, but their health is being increasingly challenged in recent years. And the East Kolkata Wetlands are no exception!
Biswajit Bera
Sumana Bhattacharjee
Pravat Kumar Shit
Nairita Sengupta
Soumik Saha
Posted on 24 Jun, 2021 10:43 AM

While freshwater ecosystems in India are known to harbour rich biodiversity, their health is being increasingly challenged in recent years. And the East Kolkata Wetlands, one of the important Ramsar sites in India, and the largest wastewater fed aquaculture systems in the world that provide fish and support paddy and vegetable cultivation, are no exception.
Fishermen use wastewater from Kolkata to rear fish (Image Source: India Water Portal)
Toxic chemicals: A barrier to safe drinking water
Nonylphenol and its ethoxylates in drinking water: A health challenge
Toxics Link
Posted on 22 Jun, 2021 04:22 PM

A drinking water quality, testing, monitoring and surveillance framework was released by the Ministry of Jal Shakti in March 2021 as a part of the government’s flagship Nal se Jal scheme.
Water treatment facilities are incapable of removing many chemical compounds and need to be upgraded (Image: PxHere)
Delhi Govt gets stricter in tackling Yamuna river pollution
Policy matters this fortnight
Swati Bansal
Posted on 22 Jun, 2021 04:16 PM

Yamuna pollution: Delhi Govt bans soaps and detergents not meeting latest BIS standards
Yamuna flows under (Image source: IWP Flickr photos)
Pollution levels rising post-lockdown in cities in south India
How clean air gains of the lockdown and monsoon periods have been now lost with the reopening of the economy and with the onset of the winter.
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)
Posted on 08 Feb, 2021 11:23 AM

An analysis was done by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) of winter pollution (until January 26, 2021) in India’s five southern states - a vulnerable but poorly monitored region from the air quality perspective.
Air quality management requires regional approach to implement clean air action plans, says CSE (Image: Pixy)
Delhi smog can’t be blamed on crop fires
There is more to Delhi's air pollution than stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana.
Gurinder Kaur
Posted on 01 Jan, 2021 01:46 PM

A

The small window of a fortnight between rice harvesting and wheat sowing compels farmers to burn the crop residue (Image: Neil Palmer, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA-4.0 Generic)
Air pollution: Filling the gaps
Controlling air pollution needs long-term holistic solutions such as a reduction in the usage of biomass, coal and lignite, and agricultural residues.
Simi Mehta
Amita Bhaduri
Posted on 22 Dec, 2020 12:34 PM

Air pollution killed 16.7 lakh Indians and led to an economic loss of Rs. 
All Indian cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad surpass the air quality standards by a significant margin (Image: United Nations; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Holy waters, unholy outcomes!
A study found that mass bathing events in the Kshipra river not only led to high pollution, but also to the presence of multidrug resistant pathogenic bacteria in its waters, posing a risk to health.
Manju Purohit
Vishal Diwan
Vivek Parashar
Ashok J. Tamhankar
Cecilia Stålsby Lundborg
Posted on 28 Aug, 2020 05:52 PM

Rivers are revered and considered holy since times immemorial in India and mass bathing in some rivers is an age-old ritual. A holy dip and a holy sip of the river waters are considered to be a highly purifying. But is the dip really cleansing at all when almost all the rivers in India are known to be highly polluted?
A priest offers water to the sun at Ramghat on the Kshipra river at Simhastha (Image Source: Makarand Purohit)
Locals struggle with WASH issues post-Amphan
Cyclone Amphan wreaks havoc in the Sunderbans at a time when the country was already battling a large spread of Covid-19.
WaterAid
Subhrajit Sen
Rrydhima Prasad
Posted on 17 Aug, 2020 12:17 PM

UN’s recognition of safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right recently hit a decade and this makes us ponder even more about the situation in the Sundarbans after the Amphan cyclone. The destruction caused by Amphan in the Sundarbans poses a massive threat to the very right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation of the people living there.
Having no source of water is proving to be extremely difficult for the people living in the Sundarbans. (Image: WaterAid, Subhrajit Sen)
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