Contamination, Pollution and Quality

Featured Articles
December 16, 2022 In this article, we will understand how the WQM course is continuing to influence the needs of learners that come from diverse backgrounds. The course model also offers core insights to many others who would like to engage in a virtual training program.
During a WQM course, a field team member from INREM facilitating a demonstration
September 9, 2022 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)
September 5, 2022 In an attempt to present a perspective on how rivers are used and abused, a map of the Bengaluru rivers illustrate how waste flows through natural river corridors, polluting the rivers and altering their status.
Vrishabhavathi river flow at Thagachguppe Bridge, Kumbalgodu (Image Source: Paani.Earth)
August 27, 2022 Study looks at microplastic types in lakes of Ladakh
(Vinay Goel, Wikimedia Commons)
August 19, 2022 Better access to clean water coupled with health education to bring about changes in behaviour are critical to prevent exposure to dangerous cholera bacteria that lurk in untreated waters.
The hidden threat of cholera in India (Image Source: IWP Flickr photos)
August 11, 2022 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)
Curious case of disappearing fish
Fish species are rapidly disappearing from Himalayan rivers. Dams are not the reason. Human activity is. Posted on 07 Jan, 2017 09:41 PM

Jaman Ram, a resident of Bhikia Sain, a tehsil in Uttarakhand, remembers fishing with his father in the Ramganga. “We could catch 80-100 kilograms of fish a day. That is no longer possible,” he says. Shafiq of Haldwani shares an unsettling memory of the Ramganga. As a young man on a holiday, he was paddling in the river near Marchula when the rock he was standing on shifted.

Mahseer swim in the bracing waters of the Ganga in Uttarakhand.
The sea mouths crisis
The opening of sea mouths in the Chilika is increasing the salinity of the lake, affecting the fish population and the livelihood of the fishing communities. Posted on 06 Jan, 2017 11:21 PM

Lingaraj Jena is a worried man. At 86, he is one of the older fishermen in Berhampura village, an island on the Chilika lake in Odisha. Though he no longer goes for fishing due to old age, he is worried about the opening of new sea mouths; he knows it is not good news for the fishing communities he is a part of that depend on the Chilika for their livelihood.

A view of the Chilika in the evening.
Rivers: Not just clean them, revive them
The increasing pollution and the decrease in river water flow have made revival of rivers a non-negotiable need today. The solution is in cleaning the rivers--not in parts but as a whole. Posted on 29 Dec, 2016 02:05 PM

A river is a natural stream of fresh water fed by rain or melting snow during the monsoon. On its onward journey, many tributaries join in and the river and its tributaries form the drainage basin. The river collects the available runoff and groundwater discharge and flows into an ocean or a landlocked water body at the end of its journey.

River Krishna at Wai (Source: India Water Portal)
Hyderabad water bodies unfit for even irrigation
News this week Posted on 25 Dec, 2016 07:19 PM

Most of Hyderabad water bodies reduced to cesspools

Himayat Sagar lake in Hyderabad (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Stunting in India: The sanitation connect
India has the highest number of stunted children worldwide. Not just toilet numbers, but poor toilet use and hygiene behaviour too need urgent redressal at the policy level to reduce stunting. Posted on 22 Dec, 2016 11:57 AM

On Children’s Day on November 14 this year, two organisations in Odisha--Shramajeebee Sangathan (SJS), Malkangiri and Jeebika Suraksha Mancha, Kandhamal--organised a massive padayatra (street walk) in villages as an awareness drive and to mobilise communities to curb m

Rally on nutrition awareness by Jeebika Suraksha Manch, Odisha (Source: Amir Khan)
Saving the Ganga, one step at a time
A walk along the Ganga is all it takes to get a better perspective on the river and its deteriorating ecosystem. Here’s an attempt at it. Posted on 21 Dec, 2016 09:11 AM

An aerospace engineer from IIT, Kharagpur, Siddharth Agarwal could have been drawing a fancy salary like any other 25-year-old if he hadn’t followed his passion.

Siddharth Agarwal (Photo credit-Siddharth Agarwal)
A notification to ensure ecological flow of rivers
Environment lawyer Ritwick Dutta talks about the highs and lows of the new river Ganga notification and how environmentalists can use it to make an impact. Posted on 12 Dec, 2016 11:27 PM

I have objected so many times to the change in the name of Ministry of Water Resources to the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. It shows where the priority of the government lies. It says that all the rivers need to be developed except the Ganga which needs to be rejuvenated.

Boys wait to collect coins thrown into the Ganga at Kanchla, Uttar Pradesh.
Breathing life into Baitarani
The river basin of Baitarani is facing many challenges in these changing times. Initiatives are on to protect it. Posted on 12 Dec, 2016 12:13 PM

Pranab Choudhury has been actively engaged with the causes of the poor and the environment for more than a decade.

Pranab Choudhury
Tiger authority to monitor Ken-Betwa river link
Policy matters this week Posted on 28 Nov, 2016 12:36 PM

Constitute a committee to monitor Ken-Betwa river link, suggests NTCA

Ken-Betwa river link shown on a map. (Source: Shannon via Wikipedia)
Namami Gange not holding water
The Ganga clean-up drive may go on but won’t yield result without better planning, execution and coordination between Centre, states and stakeholders. Posted on 24 Nov, 2016 10:42 AM

After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power with Narendra Modi as the prime minister of the country on May 26, 2014, the new government initiated several key programmes with the protection of the environment in mind. One of the major programmes that gained momentum instantly was the Ganga river rejuvenation.

The Ganga at Varanasi (Source: India Water Portal Flickr Photos)
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