Ecology and Environment

Featured Articles
December 16, 2022
Healthy soil critical to human health and for achieving SDGs
Soil research must focus both on technology development and implementation
The ability of soils to support soil functions or services is decreasing (Image: Katrin Park/International Food Policy Research Institute)
November 25, 2022
Categorising watersheds for freshwater ecosystem conservation in India
These maps at the watershed scales have been made to not only ensure inclusion of different freshwater ecosystems, their connectivity and hydrological processes, but can also provide a spatial context for conservation decisions.
A stream at Anini, Arunachal Pradesh (Image Source: Roshni Arora)
November 16, 2022
Improving community resilience in ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction in India
Adoption of hybrid solutions - grey and green structures appropriate for resilience building
Healthy wetland ecosystems help in reducing disaster risks and managing climate risks (Image: Pxhere)
October 30, 2022
Slow disaster: Political ecology of hazards and everyday life in the Brahmaputra valley, Assam
This book by Dr. Mitul Baruah presents a fascinating, ethnographic account of the challenges faced by communities living in Majuli, India, one of the largest river islands in the world, which has experienced immense socio-environmental transformations over the years, processes that are emblematic of the Brahmaputra Valley as a whole. This is an excerpt from the book.
Floods are recurrent phenomena in Assam (Image: Mitul Baruah)
October 6, 2022
Deteriorating landscapes and threatened ecosystems of Jammu and Kashmir
Rapid urbanisation and faulty land use policies are rapidly destroying forests, grasslands and wetlands in Jammu and Kashmir, India and the ecosystem value services they provide. Can these valuable ecosystems be saved?
Deteriorating ecosystems of Jammu and Kashmir, India (Image Source: tkohli at Flickr via 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)
Delhi residents to be charged an 'environmental compensation fee'
Policy matters this week
Sabita Kaushal
Posted on 05 Aug, 2015 09:25 AM

Charge fees, use funds to clean Yamuna: NGT 
Bid to clean Yamuna through 'environment compensation fee' (Source: Wikipedia)
India set to become water scarce in 10 years
News this week
Sabita Kaushal
Posted on 04 Aug, 2015 10:20 PM

India set to become water scarce in 10 years time: Govt tells Parliament
Water scarcity: A reality in 2025? (Source: Wikipedia)
Groundwater: It's not a source, it’s a resource
Nawraj Pradhan from ICIMOD explains how they are looking at the challenge of drying springs in the Kailash landscape from different angles -- ecological, cultural and physiographic.
Nawraj Pradhan
Posted on 02 Aug, 2015 08:11 AM

Springs play an important role in the daily lives of thousands of communities in the hills and mountains of the Himalayas. However, in many places once reliable springs are drying up, presenting rural communities, and women in particular, with new challenges.
A spring next to a temple in Uttarakhand is the source of the Ramganga river
Shivaji and Sardar Vallabhai Patel: Bigger than their proposed statues
Two statues of two great leaders are to be built inside the Narmada river and the Arabian sea. While we know how much they will cost the exchequer, how much will they cost the environment?
Sabita Kaushal
Posted on 31 Jul, 2015 09:05 AM

What do these two iconic figures -- Shivaji, the great Maratha leader and Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the ‘Iron Man of India’ -- have most in common? While one might think that it was their fight for the freedom of their motherland, albeit at different times, that is not all.
Shivaji & Sardar Patel to be immortalised as statues (Source: Wikipedia & www.statueofunity.in)
The invasion of Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh
Many locals express feelings of regret for the support they initially showed to the hydropower projects in the hope of getting jobs and contracts, but development still continues.
Manshi Asher
Posted on 28 Jul, 2015 07:02 PM

Hydropower development has been given topmost priority in the resource rich state of Himachal Pradesh.
100 MW Tidong-I project, Kinnaur HP
CPCB fails to tackle rising river pollution: Report
News this week
Swati Bansal
Posted on 28 Jul, 2015 09:22 AM

In the last 26 years, polluted river stretches rise from 22 to over 300
Polluted Yamuna river in Agra
Flawed embankment strategy converts Bihar into a watery grave
The engineering solutions put in place to tackle the issue of floods has created more problems than solutions in Bihar, says Dinesh Mishra in an interview.
Dinesh Mishra
Posted on 27 Jul, 2015 02:31 PM

Dr. Dinesh Kumar Mishra of Barh Mukti Abhiyaan, an authority on the river network of North Bihar speaks to India Water Portal about the flood problems, the skewed flood control policy of the Government, the Kosi breach of 2008 and the gargantuan interlinking of rivers project.
Floods in Bihar (Source: Usha Dewani, IWP)
90% of malarial deaths happen in rural India
The economic burden of malaria in India is $1940 million -- lost earnings make up 75 percent while treatment costs make up the rest -- despite the GoI spending $51.33 million towards it in 2013.
Makarand Purohit
Posted on 24 Jul, 2015 07:07 AM

Stagnant puddles, which are a breeding ground for mosquitoes, follow the rains every year causing an increase in the incidence of water-borne diseases. Malaria is the third most common of these diseases in India after diarrhoea and typhoid. 
An Anopheles stephensi mosquito feasting (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Green nod to Dibang hydel project opposed in NGT
Policy matters this week
Swati Bansal
Posted on 20 Jul, 2015 10:25 PM

Petition filed against green nod granted to Dibang hydel project
People protesting Dibang Project (Source: SANDRP)
The sacred springs of Sikkim
Devithans are shrouded in rituals and myths but serve as an important institution to preserve springs. While religious sentiments sometimes get in the way, development around them continues.
Usha Dewani Das
Posted on 16 Jul, 2015 09:31 AM

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase". - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Devithan at Kolbung village, Namthang
Subscribe to Ecology and Environment
×