Restoration of a site previously prepared using dredged and waste clays from underground construction or tailing sludge, is a serious geotechnical problem. Much of these clays exist as lumps which ranges in size from a few tens of millimetres to a meter suspended in slurry, with poor engineering properties. This double porous material consolidates because of the expulsion of water from the voids between the lumps, as well as the voids within each lump. Due to this complex nature, the conventional theory of consolidation is not applicable to lumpy clay fills.

Calcium carbide residue (CCR) is a waste by-product of acetylene gas manufacturing industry. Because of its zero recovery value, the present Indian practice is to dump it in open land or landfills. This not only adversely impacts the volume of the landfill, but also reduces the biodegradation process of many other wastes because of its high alkali content. Hence to support the environment, it is necessity to develop means to reuse this industrial waste. This is the background of the study.

Soils under road or rail embankment are subjected to millions of low amplitude cyclic loads. Similar large number of load cycles are seen in wind and wave loaded storage structures and below machine foundations. These load levels are not high enough to cause soil liquefaction or particle breakage, but the significantly large number of cycles can alter the soil fabric and cause significant volumetric strain accumulation over time. Under the best case scenario, this can cause the embankment’s strength to increase, thus permitting even greater axle load over them.

Ecosystem management has become critical in present times with rapidly shrinking forests, pollution in water bodies and increasing green house gas levels. The role of corporate assumes importance in this context as they are responsible for the environmental degradation on one hand and have access to resources (financial and technological) that can provide solutions, being economic engines of growth and employment. Firms’ practices towards ecosystem management are usually based on their sector, stakeholder interests, products or services and business models.

Indian policymakers are confronted with commitments to decarbonise the electricity sector to achieve climate change mitigation targets. In this context, it is important to find cost effective policies to create suitable conditions for penetration of green technologies. Many model-based studies have been previously performed to study carbon emission trajectories for future scenarios. Previously performed studies analyse the effectiveness of carbon prices in achieving mitigation targets and none of them focuses on existing policies under implementation. 

India is one of the fastest growing major economies of the world. It imports three quarters of its oil demand, making transport sector major contributor of green house gas (GHG) emissions. Around 40% of oil consumption in India comes from transport sector and over 90% of energy demand is from road transport sector. This has led to serious increase in CO 2 emission and concentration of air pollutants in India. According to Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), transport can play a crucial role for mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This study was commissioned by the Group of Eight + Five (G8+5), hosted by United Nations Environment Programme and launched in 2007 by Germany and the EU Commission. It builds on the analysis of the millennium ecosystem assessment and takes the analysis further by demonstrating the economic significance of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation in terms of negative effects on human well-being’. So far, nature’s benefits have played a minor role in policy. Why is this the case?

Recognising the importance of valuing the ecosystem services, the TEEB-India initiative (TII) has been launched by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate change for the forests, wetlands, coastal and marine ecosystems. This study, funded by The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Ministry of Environment and Forests, GoI, is part of the TII initiative on forest ecosystems for which Western Ghats has been considered as study region as it is the most

A scoping study to build forests accounts in Himachal Pradesh was carried out in 2013 as part of the Development Policy Loan. The World Bank has initiated the Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) in various countries. WAVES is a global partnership that aims to provide technical support to countries within the World Bank Group, through related programs and funding instruments to bring natural capital into economic decision-making and promote sustainable development. The HP exercise is useful and there are several interesting initiatives to share.

In parallel to the national efforts to address climate change, all Indian States have embarked on a process to individually develop action plans aligned with the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) to plan for low carbon and climate resilient development in their respective States. This has assumed the shape of formulation of the State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC). It is clear that meeting the plans requires enormous funds and can be a major stumbling block in realising sub-national climate change goals.

This project examines the feasibility of implementing a congestion tax for the city of Chennai in the State of Tamil Nadu. Based on secondary data, it calculates the time cost, fuel cost and cost of emissions due to congestion and makes recommendations regarding the effective design and application of such a tax. Chennai ranks one of the highest among all South Asian cities in terms of GHG emissions as well emissions of other criteria pollutants, especially NOx and PM10. The city also suffers from heavy volumes of traffic and congestion, particularly on the arterial roads.

The study, funded by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), aims at exploring the feasibility of using the payment of ecosystem services to restore Lake Sevan in Armenia. This report provides the preliminary findings of the pre-feasibility study on Payment for ecological services, which is a relatively younger instrument, for the water purification and waste treatment services of Lake Sevan in Armenia.

Most of the hydro-climatic time series possess nonlinear and non-stationary properties, and understanding the changing behavior and its modeling is challenging and it has a high practical significance in the simulation and forecasting of hydrological variables.

Various parts of the world often confronts with hydrological extremes of floods and droughts. The extreme events can be studied quantitatively through event magnitude / severity, peak, duration, spatial extent, etc. To manage the extremes in a region, it requires understanding the expected frequency of multiple characteristics of flood (drought) extreme (say, magnitude for different durations and spatial extent). To understand the risks and plan the activities, generation of flood (drought) vulnerability mapping and flood inundation maps, etc., are very useful in different contexts.

Floods continue to be the most recurring natural disasters and also affect a larger number of people worldwide. Regardless of the progress in technology, the economic loss and deaths due to floods are increasing day by day. Worldwide economic loss of $788.9 billion and 272,251 deaths during 1970-2012 are recorded by World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Climate change and global warming are reported to exacerbate the situation. Some serious recent floods in India are 2017 Mumbai flood, 2017 Gujrat flood, 2015 Chennai flood, 2013 Uttarakhand flood, 2005 Mumbai flood, etc.

To overcome the inherent limitations of conventional optimisation techniques in solving large-scale nonlinear water resource optimisation problems, my research team works on development of bio-inspired search algorithms (such as ant colony optimisation, particle swarm optimisation, honey bee search algorithm, cross entropy algorithm, gravitational search algorithm, genetic algorithms, differential evolution, etc.) for single and multiobjective optimisation, and employing it for planning, design, and operation of water resources systems, such as single and multipurpose reservoir operation; r

The Land fill slope stability Model (LSSM) software was developed using Visual Basic,.NET in C# language. LSSM can deal with thefollowing problems:

1. Stability of cover soil for infinite Slope

2. Veneer Slope Stability Analysis (without and with reinforcement)

3. Veneer Slope Stability Analysis for unreinforcedTapered Cover Soil

4. Veneer Slope Stability Analysis for reinforced Tapered Cover Soil

5. Seismic Analysis for Veneer Slope Stability

6. Seismic Analysis for Veneer Slope Stability (With reinforcement)

Laboratory model tests were performed on end bearing stone columns confined with bamboo made partial and full length encasements in very soft Marin clay. Effectiveness of the natural bamboo encasement was checked in comparison to a full length polyester geogrid encasement. Experimental results indicated improved footing capacity over column treated clay bed with increase in the length of bamboo encasement. Maximum footing capacity was achieved with full length bamboo encasement. The proposed bamboo encasement was found effective to produce significant improvement in footing capacity.

The development of new proposed engineered cover system units have will be replace the conventional cover system to reduce the potential for water infiltration and minimize crack formation. Inclusion of fibres improves shear strength of soil. PP S fibre having fibre content 1% shows better shear strength as compare to others, so fibres can be provided in cover soil.

Integrated waste management can reduce pollution caused by open dumping, says IIT Bombay study

Managing the tons of municipal waste we generate is a challenge that municipal bodies are trying to crack. A study by scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) has attempted to solve this. The researchers compared various waste management methods that are available today and suggest that combining these options, instead of dumping the waste in the open, can reduce the impact on our environment.