Extraordinary rainfall intensities during the last few years in India and other countries resulted in urban flooding incidents with both increased frequency and magnitude. In flood affected cities, this could lead to immense loss of life, property and livelihoods of its inhabitants. Coastal urban cities are vulnerable to flooding under combined influence of heavy rainfall and high tides. Hence, there is a need for development of urban flood inundation models which would enable an effective management of floods.

Indian Monsoon provides 80% of the annual rainfall in India and is associated with the northward shift of Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ); governed by large scale circulation. It is believed to be dominated and controlled by distant moisture sources from oceans. However, the contributions from large evapo-transpiration flux, being generated from the land surface processes, specifically from the agriculture intensified Ganga basin, is largely overlooked.

This is an integrated and interoperable service platform or system for remote monitoring and decision support in precision horticulture. The project is a multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary collaborative initiative, lead by IITB, supported by the Information Technology Research Academy (ITRA) of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The project has unique approach with research, curriculum, outreach and social impact matrices.

Research and engineering interventions include:

In the vicinity of IIT Bombay campus lies Powai lake, known for its varied flora and fauna. But over the years in recent past, the lake has undergone enormous eutrophication (algal bloom) due to reckless discharge of untreated domestic effluents into the lake. This pathetic sight of a dirty lake is an eye sore for the public besides the slow decay of the lake. Hence, in order to find an effective remediation, our group along in collaboration with Prof. Yen Wah Tong from National University of Singapore is working to check water pollution in urban localities using green algae.

Public transport systems are regarded as efficient and environmental friendly as compared to personal transport. Nevertheless, the perceived advantage of public transport should not be taken for granted as it is sensitive to several factors viz. type of fuel and electricity used for running vehicles, material intensity of supporting transport infrastructure, service life of vehicles and infrastructure, etc. Therefore, our lab in collaboration with Dr. Rajesh Kumar Singh from thinkstep sustainability solutions Pvt Ltd.

Do you know that for every liter of alcohol consumed, about 8-15 litres of wastewater is generated? Are you aware that a mind boggling 40 billion liters of waste waters are generated from distilleries in India alone? Please understand that distilleries in a way are transforming ~100 million litres of drinking water in rural areas into wastewater every day. The water, which should have been used by farmers to grow crops! There is one more dark side of these dark, dirty looking and odorous waste waters, severe contamination of receiving surface or ground waters.

A large amount of food waste is being generated from hotels, restaurants, canteens, companies, vegetable markets, super markets and residential blocks. These waste ultimately ends up rotting in landfills. Anaerobic digestion (AD) is the route that can transform this food waste into a renewable energy source by producing ‘biogas’, a renewable energy source as electricity, heat and vehicle fuel.

Are you fed up of seeing waste being dumped on lands and causing all sorts of pollution? We too! However, for our researchers, this is not just ‘waste’ but ‘wealth of resource’. Yes, you read it right. Our researchers in collaboration with industry have taken up the challenge to covert wastes into soil. Soon you may start seeing these wastes turning waste barren lands into green lands – which are safe and sustainable.

Our group specialises in water and wastewater treatment. We have developed cheap and effective pollutant removal technologies which includes community scale hand-pump attachable arsenic removal filter using indigenous materials to achieve international drinking water standard. This filter is the most economical amongst the available technologies for arsenic removal and more than fifty units are installed and functioning across India.

water is no longer a safe and free commodity because most perennial Indian rivers are polluted with persistent organic pollutants. Thus provision of clean and safe potable water to all sections of society is the key challenge faced by our nation today. Clean water is also the key to enable Indian industries to produce goods of environmentally acceptable quality.