ICWAR Seminar Series

15 Mar
2024
Management of soil-water pollution using in-situ remediation and advanced monitoring methods
Management of soil-water pollution using in-situ remediation and advanced monitoring methods

Name of the Speaker: Prof. Brijesh Kumar Yadav

Title of the Seminar: Management of soil-water pollution using in-situ remediation and advanced monitoring methods

Date and Time: 15th March 2024 (Friday), 04:00 pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Prof. Brijesh K Yadav is the Head of the Hydrology Department at the Indian Institute of Hydrology (IIT) Roorkee, and a Joint Faculty at the International Centre of Excellence for Dams (ICED), IIT Roorkee. He holds an MTech in Water Resources from IIT Delhi and completed his PhD from IIT Delhi and UNESCO-IHE Delft in 2008. Prof. Yadav has been honored with the ‘Ramanujan Fellow’ award by the Government of India and has received postdoctoral fellowships from the University of California Davis (USA) and Utrecht University (Netherlands). His research focuses on groundwater management, flow and solute transport through the subsurface, phytoremediation, and bioremediation of polluted sites, managed aquifer recharge, seawater intrusion, and CO2 geo-sequestration. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed journal and book articles and presented at more than 60 national and international gatherings.

Prof. Yadav is the Secretary General and Fellow of the Association of Global Groundwater Scientists (AGGS) and serves on editorial boards, as an associate editor, and editor of five reputed journals. He has mentored postdoctoral researchers and fellows, supervised PhD scholars and MTech dissertations, and managed international and national research/consultancy projects. Prof. Yadav has organized international conferences, symposiums, and workshops, including the International Groundwater Conferences and the Roorkee Water Conclave. He has also coordinated numerous training courses/workshops and received recognition as an outstanding PG teacher at IIT Roorkee. Additionally, he chairs the “Expert Committee on Groundwater” of Sikkim and has served on various technical committees related to soil-water resources management.

Abstract: Soil-water pollution from hydrocarbons and heavy metals, caused by both human activities and natural sources, is a growing concern. Efficient remediation techniques and monitoring systems are required to address this issue. In-situ remediation techniques offer a more sustainable and economical solution by treating a mixture of contaminants directly in place. This talk discusses the principles and applications of in-situ bioremediation methods and Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRBs), along with advanced monitoring methods. Engineered bioremediation techniques were studied for land sites polluted with hydrocarbons, and an in-situ PRB system was used to treat groundwater polluted with arsenic, as demonstrated through practical experiments. A comparative assessment of various bioremediation techniques (such as Biostimulation, bioaugmentation, phytoremediation, and natural biodegradation) was conducted to evaluate their biodegradation rate, lag phase duration, and total degradation time for hydrocarbons. These treatment techniques were then applied in the field to improve the soil and water quality of problematic sites in India. Similarly, in-situ remediation of arsenic-contaminated groundwater was investigated using a well-integrated PRB system. The findings of this research can enhance the practical application of novel, well-integrated PRB systems along with these composites for arsenic remediation. The importance of bio-monitoring, along with conventional physico-chemical monitoring techniques, is discussed in last for the better management of polluted sites. Overall, implementing in-situ remediation with cutting-edge monitoring techniques is a viable strategy for controlling (sub)-surface water and soil contamination, providing long-term solutions that protect public health and the environment.

Key Words: Soil and Groundwater pollution, In-situ remediation, Bio-monitoring, Sustainable remediation strategies 

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12 Feb
2024
The Once and Future Variability of Colorado River Water Resources
The Once and Future Variability of Colorado River Water Resources

Name of the Speaker: Prof. Rajagopalan Balaji

Title of the Seminar: The Once and Future Variability of Colorado River Water Resources

Date and Time: 12th February 2024 (Monday), 04:00 pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Professor Rajagopalan Balaji is a Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering (CEAE) and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute of Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), CU Boulder. He is the former Chair of the Department during 2014– 2022. He pursues research in diverse interdisciplinary areas spanning– hydro-climatology, water resources management, Indian summer monsoon, paleoclimate, and stochastic hydrology. In addition, large-scale statistical analysis and modeling for applications to water and wastewater quality, construction safety, building energy efficiency, and others. He publishes widely in leading and prestigious peer-reviewed journals. He was elected Fellow, of the American Geophysical Union, in 2018, of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and awarded the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship in 2023, all prestigious honors.

Abstract: Now serving over 40 million people and irrigating roughly 5 million acres of land over seven western US states and Mexico, reliance on Colorado River water has never been greater, paradoxically at a time when its annual flow has been low and unreliable due to the ongoing two decades long ‘millennial drought’. As a result, two large reservoirs that can hold four times the annual average flow, are at their historical lows, stressing the water resources to crisis level. This will only be exacerbated by a future warming climate in which such droughts are projected to be frequent. Thus, leading the Colorado River to be designated, in 2022, America’s most endangered river. The management of water resources via complex decrees and agreements, the ‘law of the river’, is struggling to help the stakeholders manage the water resources efficiently during this severe and sustained drought. To enable sustainable water resources in the future, a systematic understanding and modeling of past, current, and future variability is crucial. For, the past is prologue. This understanding will provide an informed judgment for stakeholders and decision-makers to debate options and enable robust decisions. This talk will provide an overview of the current understanding of the once and future variability of flows along with emerging models for flow simulation and projections for water resources management.

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04 Jan
2024
Electrochemical Detection of Pollutants in Water and Air
Electrochemical Detection of Pollutants in Water and Air

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Shruti Hegde

Title of the Seminar:  Electrochemical Detection of Pollutants in Water and Air

Date and Time: 04th January 2024 (Thursday), 02:30 pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Shruti Hegde received her PhD (Chemical Engineering) from the University of Utah, USA. Currently, she is working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah. Her primary research focuses on developing low-cost electrochemical sensing methods for air and water pollutant monitoring. She has over ten publications in the above area of research. She currently works on electrochemical detection of toxic metals and biological pathogens in water and serum to develop a device for use in environmental and health applications. She has also worked on developing low-cost nano sensors to detect volatile organic gases for monitoring indoor and outdoor air quality.

Abstract: Access to clean fresh water is vital for human survival and contamination of freshwater sources, including groundwater and surface water, can cause adverse health effects. Heavy metal contamination in drinking water is unsafe and can cause various human diseases. Similarly, toxins released from pathogens like bacteria and viruses are among the most commonly found contaminants in water, leading to prevalent waterborne diseases. There is a need for rapid, cost-effective detection of the toxins in water. Spectrometry techniques for the detection of heavy metals show good sensitivity and low limits of detection but are difficult to handle and have high operation costs. Polymerase chain reaction and enzyme immunoassay techniques are the gold standard for pathogen detection. However, these methods require several complicated processing steps and expensive instrumentation, which makes these methods unsuitable for use in point-of-use systems. This talk will highlight how electrochemical biosensors are a practical solution for monitoring water quality parameters. Industrial facilities and chemical plants are significant sources of fugitive volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, and there is a need for cost-effective methods of screening these emissions. This talk will also highlight the results from a low-cost and rapid sensing system comprising an electrochemically anodized TiO2 nanotube-based sensor array to detect benzene, toluene, and ethanol at room temperature.

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27 Dec
2023
A micrometeorological perspective into wildland fire dynamics
A micrometeorological perspective into wildland fire dynamics

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Tirtha Banerjee

Title of the Seminar: A micrometeorological perspective into wildland fire dynamics

Date and Time: 27th December 2023 (Wednesday), 10:30 am

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Dr. Tirtha Banerjee is an Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine. He received his B.E. degree in Civil Engineering from Jadavpur University (Calcutta, India) in 2011 and his Ph.D. in Environmental Science from Duke University (Durham, NC, USA) in 2015. After conducting postdoctoral research at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and Los Alamos National Lab (NM, USA) as a Chick Keller Postdoctoral Fellow in climate science and subsequently, as a Director’s Fellow in atmospheric sciences, he joined UC Irvine in the fall of 2019, where he was an Assistant Professor till the fall of 2023. Research in the Boundary Layers and Turbulence (BLT) Lab led by Prof. Banerjee involves environmental fluid mechanics, biosphere-atmosphere interaction, and wildland fires using a range of theoretical, numerical, and experimental techniques. He was recently awarded the NSF CAREER Award to conduct research on the role of turbulent fluid dynamics in wildland fire behavior. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology (AMS), and Earth Systems and Environment (Springer); as an Editor for Agricultural and Forest Meteorology (Elsevier); as well as an Editorial board member for Scientific Reports (Nature). Prof. Banerjee also serves on the Science Advisory Panel of the Fire and Forest Resilience Task Force in the State of California and was recently Elected Vice-President of the Coupled Land-Atmosphere Systems (ICCLAS) Commission of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS).

Abstract: Fire suppression activities in the past few decades in North America have led to higher fuel accumulations, which coupled with shifting hydroclimatic patterns has led to an increase in frequency and severity of wildland fires. Prescribed fires and fuel treatments such as mechanical thinning are deemed to be effective tools to manage fuel loads and establish a higher degree of control over landscape management and restoration against catastrophic megafires. However, assessing the effectiveness of fuel treatments is rendered complicated due to several factors such as wind, fuel moisture, and fire-atmospheric interactions at the fine scales. The present work explores these issues by using physics-based simulations and data analysis from novel experiments while varying the degrees of fuel treatments and fuel moisture, as observed during different stages of fuel management. Systematically varying these parameters yield widely different fire behavior patterns. Detailed analyses on turbulent heat and energy exchange are conducted to understand the fundamental processes governing varying regimes of fire intensity, fire spread, ember transport, and fuel consumption under different conditions of fuel moisture and treatment. The conclusions are generalized to highlight the importance of considering vegetation response to hydrometeorological events, coupled with fine-scale fire-atmosphere interactions while managing wildland fire behavior. On the other hand, wildland fires themselves are characterized by their own weather which is driven by both shear and buoyancy-driven turbulence. They also act as a local source for scalars, namely greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide and water) and soot particles as resultants of the ignition process. In this talk, we will explore the complex turbulent dynamics of wildfire propagation using the tools of micrometeorology. Insights into the energetics of turbulent exchange processes during fire propagation will lead to a better understanding and improved models for wildland fire behavior.

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03 Nov
2023
Melting Ice, Rising Oceans: A Peek into the Future based on Current Knowledge
Melting Ice, Rising Oceans: A Peek into the Future based on Current Knowledge

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Surendra Adhikari

Title of the Seminar: Melting Ice, Rising Oceans: A Peek into the Future based on
Current Knowledge

Date and Time: 3rd November 2023 (Friday), 04:00 pm

Venue: ICWaR lecture hall

Online Platform: MS Teams (link  to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Surendra Adhikari is an Earth and space scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Dr. Adhikari holds a Ph.D. in theoretical glaciology and a master’s degree in engineering geology. His general research interests lie in the intersection between climate science and solid Earth geophysics. Currently, he focuses on understanding the Earth’s surface and interior mass transport processes and their manifestation in terms of Earth’s gravitational, rotational, and deformational changes. Dr. Adhikari is a member of the NASA Sea-level Change Team, Solid Earth Team, and GRACE/-FO Science Team. He has received several early career awards, including a NASA Public Achievement Medal and an AGU John Wahr Award.

Abstract: Significant uncertainty in sea level projections stems from poorly understood evolution processes of polar ice sheets. The recent IPCC report states that a more than 15 m global mean sea-level rise cannot be discarded under high emission scenarios by 2300, mainly owing to instability processes associated with the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. In this presentation, I review current knowledge of ice sheet dynamics, instability processes, and feedback mechanisms involving oceans, atmosphere, and solid Earth. While constraining individual processes is critical, I argue that a system modeling approach is essential for improved projections of the polar ice sheets and global and regional sea levels.

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20 Oct
2023
Revisiting the Length of the Monsoon Rainy Season (LRS) over Northeast India (NEI)
Revisiting the Length of the Monsoon Rainy Season (LRS) over Northeast India (NEI)

Name of the Speaker: Prof. B. N. Goswami

Title of the Seminar: Revisiting the Length of the Monsoon Rainy Season (LRS) over
Northeast India (NEI)

Date and Time: 20 October 2023 (Friday), 10:00 am

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Prof. Goswami did his pre-university in 1966 and B.Sc. from Cotton College in 1969 and master’s in physics from Gauhati University in 1971. He did his Ph.D in Plasma Physics from PRL, Ahmedabad in 1976 and a two-year postdoc with Prof. Jule Charney, a.k.a the ‘Father of modern Meteorology’ at the MIT and a 3-year postdoc at the NASA/GSFC on monsoon modelling. He then joined IISc, Bangalore from 1985 to 2006, becoming Professor and Chair of the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Science (CAOS). He then moved to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune in 2006 and then lead the Indian Monsoon Mission Program to uplift Indian weather and climate prediction capability to be one of the best of the world. He has served on many National and International Committees and has been Visiting Research Faculty at the Princeton University and Maryland University. He has been Members of many National and International Committees and has several Awards to his name such as Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, 1995, K.R. Ramanathan Prize by Indian National Science Academy, 2008, Fellow, The World Academy of Sciences, Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, Fellow, Indian National Science Academy, Fellow, National Academy of Sciences, India, Fellow, Indian Meteorological Society, National Award in Atmospheric Science and Technology, 2014 by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, K. R. Ramanathan Medal, Indian Geophysical Union, 2014, Life Time Achievement Award in Science and Technology by Government of Assam, 2018, SERB Distinguished Fellow Award, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. India, (2018-2023) and many more.

Abstract: An iconic feature of the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR), a longer than June-September rainy season over the Northeast India (NEI) while a much shorter one over the northwest India is expected to be altered by climate change but an objective definition of the length of the monsoon rainy season (LRS) over the NEI is lacking. While the May rainfall over the NEI is larger than June rainfall over central India (CI), the Onset of monsoon over NEI is considered to take place by June 5 by IMD. Here, defining the LRS objectively over NEI, we show that that climatological onset over NEI takes place around 18th May and withdrawal around 15th October making the length of the rainy season ~155 days. We further show that the El Niño and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a primary driver of LRS while rainfall during LRS is poorly correlated with the ENSO. We also provide compelling evidence to establish that May rainfall is ‘monsoon rainfall’ and not ‘pre-monsoon’ rainfall as assumed by the community so far. Inclusion of May rainfall over NEI in the seasonal rainfall of All India monsoon rainfall has important implications on variability and predictability of India monsoon rainfall. In contrast to a significant decreasing trend of LRS and LRS-rainfall during the historical period, the projected LRS under SSP5-8.5 scenario continues to decrease while the LRS-rainfall acquires a significant increasing trend over NEI. A significant increase in impact of hydrological disasters is expected over NEI in future due to increasing intensity and frequency of extreme rain-events within a shorter rainy-season.

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23 Aug
2023
Dynamic Data Assimilation – overview
Dynamic Data Assimilation – overview

Name of the Speaker: Prof. S. Lakshmivarahan

Title of the Seminar: Dynamic Data Assimilation – overview

Date and Time: 23 August 2023 (Wednesday), 5:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: After completing his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science in 1973, S. Lakshmivarahan held faculty and post-doctoral positions at the IIT-Madras, Brown and Yale Universities through 1978. In the Fall of 1978, he joined the School of Computer Science, University of Oklahoma (OU) where he held the position of George Lynn Cross (GLC) Research Professor since 1995. Since July 2019, he holds the position of GLC Research Professor Emeritus at OU.

His research interests are in Applied Mathematics and Computation and includes Data Mining and Analytics, Data Assimilation, Computational Finance, Parallel Computation and Learning Algorithms. He is author/coauthor of six books in these areas. Two of his books – “Dynamic Data Assimilation: a least squares approach” Cambridge University Press, 2006 and “Forecast Error Correction using Dynamic Data Assimilation, Springer, 2017 together cover all aspects of the theory and applications of Data Assimilation in Science and Engineering.

He was elected as a Fellow of the IEEE in 1993 and a Fellow of ACM in 1995. He has held short-term visiting positions at Centers of Higher Learning in Japan, China, Taiwan, India, Germany, England, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, and USA.

Abstract: There is a steady shift away from the analog model building and upward scaling analysis towards mathematical/digital representation of the physical processes – called digital twin, that captures most if not, all aspects of the process in question. While models represent our perceptions and are abstractions of reality, the actual observations of physical processes (modulo the measurement noise) represent reality. The mathematical process of bridging the gap between the model and the observation has come to be known as Data Assimilation. Using a simple example, this talk will bring out the benefits of data assimilation in improving the quality of forecast products. An overview of various methods for dynamic data assimilation will be provided.

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27 Jul
2023
High resolution remote sensing data in eco-agro-hydrology:  opportunities in the context of the CNES/ISRO TRISHNA mission
High resolution remote sensing data in eco-agro-hydrology: opportunities in the context of the CNES/ISRO TRISHNA mission

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Gilles Boulet

Title of the Seminar: High resolution remote sensing data in eco-agro-hydrology: opportunities in the context of the CNES/ISRO TRISHNA mission

Date and Time: 27 July 2023 (Thursday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Dr. Gilles Boulet is an IRD Senior Scientist affiliated with the CESBIO lab in Toulouse (https://www.cesbio.cnrs.fr/) and currently deputed at the Indo-French Cell for Water Science at the Indian Institute of Science. He leads the Ecosystem Stress Group of the TRISHNA CNES/ISRO Thermal InfraRed mission proposal on the French side and is the PI of several research projects sponsored by the french space agency CNES as well as the french national funding body ANR to develop and evaluate evapotranspiration products based on remote sensing data. His interests lie in water fluxes and variables retrieval from TIR data, land surface modeling and Data Assimilation. He has more than 30 years of experience in field experiments and research developments designed for semi-arid water resources sustainable management and currently leads one of the two CESBIO research teams entitled “Modeling and remote sensing of land surface processes”. He is also the Secretary of the Remote Sensing commission of IAHS. 

Abstract: In his talk, he will address what and how land surface water variables and fluxes can be retrieved from high resolution remote sensing data with current and future platforms such as TRISHNA, SBG or LSTM. This will be put in perspective with key questions such as the sustainable management of water resources at local an regional scales and the fire and drought risk assessment. He will bring also some concrete elements on the TRISHNA evapotranspiration and water stress products definition and algorithms, as well as the current and future corresponding cal/val activities.

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08 Jun
2023
Microwave and VIR remote sensing for soil moisture and crop phenology using AI
Microwave and VIR remote sensing for soil moisture and crop phenology using AI

Name of the Speaker:  Dr. Jasmeet Judge

Title of the Seminar: Microwave and VIR remote sensing for soil moisture and crop phenology using AI

Date and Time: 08 June 2023 (Thursday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Jasmeet Judge is a Professor in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Florida, where she is also the Director of the Center for Remote Sensing. She received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and atmospheric, oceanic, and space sciences from the University of Michigan. Her expertise includes microwave remote-sensing applications to terrestrial hydrology for agricultural regions; machine learning methods for spatio-temporal scaling and data-model fusion. She has led many field experiments with active and passive microwave sensors to develop/improve remote sensing, crop growth, hydrology, and AI algorithms. She has been awarded NASA Group Achievement Awards for interdisciplinary field campaigns. She has been active in advocating for the protection of the EM spectrum for passive scientific use from radiofrequency interference as the past Chair of the National Academe’s Committee on Radio Frequency. She is a Senior Member of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, where for the past 2.5 decades she has served in many roles.

Abstract: Space-borne sensors provide global information for many valuable applications including agriculture and hydrology. New sensors and technological advances continue to improve spatial and temporal resolutions, further enhancing its value. This seminar will include two research projects conducted at the Center for Remote Sensing: the first, spatio-temporal scaling of microwave observations for soil moisture studies using AI. In this project, data-driven machine learning methods are used to merge data at microwave and other wavelengths to obtain high resolution soil moisture in agricultural regions. In the second project, remotely sensed VIR observations are integrated with physics-guided machine learning for estimating in-season crop phenology.

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29 May
2023
Recent results from investigating annual rainfall-runoff relationship changes during the Millennium Drought in south-eastern Australia.
Recent results from investigating annual rainfall-runoff relationship changes during the Millennium Drought in south-eastern Australia.

Name of the Speaker              Dr. Murray Peel
Title of the Seminar               Recent results from investigating annual rainfall-runoff relationship changes during the Millennium Drought in south-eastern Australia.
Date &Time                             Monday, May 29, 2023, 11:00 A.M (IST)
MS Teams link – MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)
Abstract: The Millennium Drought in south-eastern Australia (1997-2009 ) was a 13-year extended dry period during which unusual catchment responses were observed. In just over half of the catchments investigated a statistically significant downward shift in long-term annual rainfall-runoff relationship was observed. In those shifted catchments, a given amount of rainfall resulted in less runoff than expected during the drought. Furthermore, later research demonstrated that many of the shifted catchments had not recovered several years after the drought ended and they were still producing less runoff than expected. Here I present a summary of recent results from our investigations into shifted rainfall-runoff relationships and modelling of runoff during the Millennium Drought. The Millennium Drought is an observed case study of a prolonged dry period, potentially indicative of future conditions in south-eastern Australia, which has significant implications for long-term streamflow behavior and modelling of climate change runoff projections.
About the Speaker: Dr Murray Peel is a Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne. He has a Ph.D. (Geography) and BSc (Hons) from the University of Melbourne. His research interests include catchment hydrology; hydro-climatology; understanding the drivers of interannual variability of annual precipitation and runoff around the world; understanding and modelling the hydrologic impacts of land use change; understanding and modelling the hydrologic impacts of climate change and the uncertainty around those projections; improving hydrologic modelling under changing conditions; and drawing hydro-climatology insights from palaeoclimatology information. His research and consulting activities have produced over 120 publications, including 86 articles in international journals and 9book chapters.
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24 Apr
2023
How the land resonates with the atmosphere: a manifesto for complexity in land models
How the land resonates with the atmosphere: a manifesto for complexity in land models

Name of the Speaker:  Dr. Eleanor Blyth

Title of the Seminar:  How the land resonates with the atmosphere: a manifesto for complexity in land models

Date and Time: 24 April 2023 (Monday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: With over 30 years of academic research and land-surface model development at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford. Eleanor’s scientific expertise is the role of the land surface in climate, meteorology and hydrology, with specialist expertise in Evapotranspiration and Land-Atmosphere Interactions. She has a particular interest in the complex interactions of ecology and hydrology and the role of this interaction in regional carbon budgets of the region. She is known for developing understanding of the physics of land surface models. Especially, the 3 components of evapotranspiration: interception, transpiration and bare soil evaporation using observations and models and for innovative methods for evaluating Land-Atmosphere models.

She has held the following roles in international science committees:

  • Current Member of the JSC for WCRP.
  • Previous Editor for Land in the AGU Journal for Advances in Modelling Earth Systems (JAMES) (2018-2022)
  • Previous co-Chair of iLEAPS (2006 – 2020): integrated Ecosystem Land Atmosphere Process Study – a global research project of Future Earth
  • Previous Member of Science Steering Group of GEWEX (2006 – 2012): Global Energy and Water Exchange).

Abstract:  The land system responds to changes and drivers from the atmosphere in different ways around the planet. This is true of both the water and energy system as well as the carbon system. In this talk, we explore how this change can affect the weather and climate system and what that means in terms of how complex our models need to be.

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30 Mar
2023
Working at the limit: How thermodynamics shapes the Earth system
Working at the limit: How thermodynamics shapes the Earth system

Name of the Speaker:  Dr. Axel Kleidon

Title of the Seminar:  Working at the limit: How thermodynamics shapes the Earth system

Date and Time: 30 March 2023 (Thursday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Axel Kleidon studied physics and meteorology at the University of Hamburg and Purdue University, Indiana, USA. He received his doctorate in 1998 from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology on the influence of deep-rooted vegetation on the climate system. He subsequently conducted research at Stanford University in California and at the University of Maryland. Since 2006, he has led the independent research group “Theory and Modeling of the Biosphere” at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. His research interests range from the thermodynamics of the Earth system to the natural limits of renewable energy sources.

Abstract:  Earth system processes perform work to maintain motion, cycles and metabolisms – an aspect that is not commonly considered.  In this talk I will show how thermodynamics plays a central role in the Earth system, determining how and how much work can be extracted from sunlight.  Work, in turn, is a major constraint on dynamics, from atmospheric motion to hydrologic cycling and the global biosphere.  I show that by maximizing work we can describe highly complex Earth system processes in a relatively simple way.  I use examples from the atmospheric circulation, hydrology and terrestrial ecosystems to illustrate this approach and its utility for Earth system science.

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28 Feb
2023
Food Safety Standard Authority India Rules and Regulations for Packaged Drinking water
Food Safety Standard Authority India Rules and Regulations for Packaged Drinking water

Name of the Speaker:  Dr. Yashavanth Kumar GS

Title of the Seminar:  Food Safety Standard Authority India Rules and Regulations for Packaged Drinking water

Date and Time: 28 February 2023 (Tuesday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Dr. Yashavanth Kumar G S is the Chief Chemist at the Central Chemical Lab, Bangalore. He is a passionate communicator on the Food Safety and Standard act and Food Adulteration Concepts. He has published more than 13 Research articles in reputed peer-reviewed journals and presented research papers in various national/international conference proceedings. He was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (2009-13) from University Grant Commission (UGC), New Delhi. He has a Ph.D in Chemistry (2014) from Kuvempu University, and has collaborations with IISc Bangalore. His research interests are Nanotechnology, Solar Cells and Food Chemistry.

Abstract:  Packaged drinking water is both a need and a necessity in a country like India where most of the freshwater resources have a high contamination levels. We all are aware of multiple brands providing packaged drinking water, but are they following some standards and what are they? In this talk the regulations on packaged drinking water by the Food Safety Standard Authority of India (FSSI) will be discussed. More specifically:

  • What are FSSI rules and regulations, how it works.
  • Guidelines for packaged drinking water and what are the water quality parameters.
  • FSSAI amended certain conditions for packaged drinking water. What are they?
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19 Jan
2023
Contending with Uncertainty in Hydrologic Experiments Across Scales
Contending with Uncertainty in Hydrologic Experiments Across Scales

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Rao S. Govindaraju

Title of the Seminar: Contending with Uncertainty in Hydrologic Experiments Across Scales

Date and Time: 19 January 2023 (Thursday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Rao S. Govindaraju is the Bowen Engineering Head and the Christopher B. and Susan S. Burke Professor in the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University. He earned his PhD in civil engineering from the University of California, Davis, in 1989. His primary areas of research include surface and subsurface hydrology, contaminant transport, watershed hydrology, and climatic influences. He is interested in developing algorithms for analyzing and learning from hydrologic data. He specializes in problems dealing with uncertainty and spatial variability. His research work has been supported by various agencies such as NSF, EPA, DOD, and DOE.  He has chaired national level committees, served on the editorial boards of several journals, and served as the President of American Institute of Hydrology (2017-2018).

Abstract:  Hydrologic modeling efforts have to contend with several types of uncertainties. Measurement uncertainties exist because of errors in measurements of state variables, while structural uncertainties result from errors in the mathematical representation of hydrologic processes. Further, parametric uncertainties arise from both measurement and structural uncertainties, and because of limited information in the available data. Despite its ubiquitous nature, uncertainty quantification is not addressed often because of (i) lack of good algorithms, and (ii) inability to separate the various forms of uncertainty through calibration exercises. In this regard, Dr. Govindaraju will share some of his enduring research efforts that he has been pursuing in collaboration with students, and try to read the tea leaves as to where his future efforts will lead him in this journey.

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23 Dec
2022
Sharing your research for impact and engagement
Sharing your research for impact and engagement

Name of the Speaker: Pallavi Eswara

Title of the Seminar: Sharing your research for impact and engagement

Date and Time: 23 December 2022 (Friday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Pallavi Eswara (she/her) is the Director, Postdoctoral Affairs at Boston University (BU), Boston, Massachusetts since June 2022. In this role she manages both the administrative and professional development aspects of postdoc training. Some of the programs she has created so far at BU have been around preparation for academic careers and grant writing. Prior to that she worked briefly at Northeastern University, Boston in Graduate Operations. Majority of her professional career was at the Pennsylvania State University where she was the founding staff member in 2007 of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA) and led the office as the Director from 2016-21.

During the 14 years of her tenure in OPA, Pallavi created and established the annual postdoc research exhibition where postdocs from different disciplines shared their research with faculty, postdocs, graduate students from all disciplines, scientists and nonscientists. She also created a Science Cafe program where postdocs would share their research to lay audiences at a local coffee and community center. Additionally, she created a science outreach grant program to allow postdocs to create activities for local area school children.

She has been invited to present on topics of professional development to both graduate students and postdocs. She has served in leadership roles in her community and in professional societies such as the National Postdoc Association and Graduate Career Consortium (GCC). Pallavi currently serves on the Executive Committee of GCC. Further details of her work and past scientific contributions are at https://www.linkedin.com/in/pallavi-eswara-86b59a11/

Abstract:  There is an increasing need to engage with broad audiences to convey the findings, importance of scientific research and motivate younger generations to be involved with science. Academic and research institutions, funding bodies and government agencies are very interested in scientists being able to engage widely with the public.

When it comes to sharing about their research to a broad audience- be it educated people, lay audience or school children it is indeed a challenge for scientists to convey the hypothesis, methods, findings and conclusions without technical jargon or feeling like they are “diluting the science”.

In this talk, we will discuss the state of science communication, principles and best practices for communication to a broad audience. Benefits of this kind of engagement to the scientist and society will also be presented. The presentation will also discuss how scientists can use science communication as a tool to further interdisciplinary research collaboration and non-traditional stakeholder collaborations.

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30 Nov
2022
Water Systems Integration Modelling Framework - A Tool to Inform Future Water Planning at a Systems Level
Water Systems Integration Modelling Framework – A Tool to Inform Future Water Planning at a Systems Level

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Ana Mijic

Title of the Seminar: Water Systems Integration Modelling Framework – A Tool to Inform Future Water Planning at a Systems Level

Date and Time: 30 November 2022 (Friday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Dr Ana Mijic is a Reader in Water Systems Integration and Director of the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation (CSEI) at Imperial College London. She is leading the development of novel systems tools focused on quantifying the interaction between water systems and sustainable development. The work has aim to inform regulatory bodies and water industry if and how we can support economic growth whilst ensuring sustainable water use and flood and water quality management under future uncertainties. Through NERC Innovation Fellowship funding she worked with the UK Environment Agency to apply systems thinking and systemic approaches to develop principles of systems water management at a catchment scale. She has led the CHANSE project on systems water management and irrigation water use in India. Currently, Ana is a Systems Lead for the CAMELLIA impact programme, where her work is focused on the development of systems water management models and she is leading the VENTURA project, which is developing virtual decision rooms for water neutral urban planning. Ana is a member of the EWRE Hydrology group that was awarded the 2019 Imperial President’s Award for Excellence in Research for Outstanding Research Team and she is the recipient of 2022 Satish Dhawan Chair Professorship at IISc Bangalore.

Abstract:  Integrated water management and planning has been a focus of research for many decades, but only recently we have started discussing the challenge from a systems perspective. The need for systems approach to water management is defined through integration between physical, environmental, and socio-economic components of the system, for which the evidence should be provided at adequate spatiotemporal resolutions. In this seminar, the novel Water Systems Integration Modelling (WSIMOD) Framework will be presented. The WISMOD allows for the representation of the water system’s demands and impacts of multiple sectors and actors’ decisions within a single tool, which is considered beneficial to increasing a shared understanding of system performance and for more collaborative and coherent decisions on integrated water resources, water quality and flood management. The WSIMOD is a self-contained software package that includes modelled representations of key physical and infrastructure elements of the water cycle (urban and rural), with each type of modelled element generically described as a component. Components are written in such a way that any component can interact with any other component. This enables a flexible representation of a water system that is needed to accommodate the wide variety of different built/natural infrastructure configurations and scales. The talk will showcase how the tool has been developed and successfully tested through a range of applications in the UK, including integrated analysis of urban water systems, catchment water management and urban water neutrality.

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28 Oct
2022
Shaping the Future of India’s Food Water Energy Livelihood Nexus
Shaping the Future of India’s Food Water Energy Livelihood Nexus

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Naresh Devineni

Title of the Seminar: Shaping the Future of India’s Food Water Energy Livelihood Nexus

Date and Time: 28 October 2022 (Friday), 9:00am

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Naresh Devineni is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at The City University of New York’s City College. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University. He did his post-doctoral studies at Columbia University. He also worked as a Consultant for the World Bank for a brief period in 2009. He is a past recipient of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Award. He has diverse interests in hydro-climate modeling and extremes analysis, statistical methods, water sustainability and risk assessment, and water systems analysis. His recent work focuses on agricultural systems sustainability in a changing climate, applied to the United States and the Indian subcontinent. More information about his research and professional activities can be found at https://nareshdevineni.com/about/

Abstract:  This study provides a formal analysis of the design of an Indian food procurement system that considers climate-driven variations in renewable water supply, needs for groundwater pumping, varying regional productivity of crops, and farm-level economics, assuming that the food security goals are to be met while keeping current procurement prices fixed for each crop and maximizing net aggregate farm income from the procurement system. A systems approach is taken to integrate data from disparate sources and predict water stress and sustainable agricultural enhancement regions. A by-product of the analysis is a reduction in the aggregate use of non-renewable water and the consequent decrease in irrigation water requirements and hence water and energy stress. Thus, the “climate-food-water-energy-livelihood” nexus of issues is addressed conjunctively by leveraging data analytics and systems approaches.

The talk will be based on our recent paper in Nature Communications on solving groundwater depletion in India while achieving food security https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31122-9

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28 Sep
2022
Effects of Urbanization and Extreme Climatic Events on Water Quantity and Quality
Effects of Urbanization and Extreme Climatic Events on Water Quantity and Quality

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Tushar Sinha

Title of the Seminar: Effects of Urbanization and Extreme Climatic Events on Water Quantity and Quality

Date and Time: 28 September 2022 (Wednesday), 9:30pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Dr. Sinha is working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M University – Kingsville (TAMUK). Prior to joining TAMUK in September 2014, he has worked as a Research Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University (NCSU) for over 1.5 years and as a Postdoctoral Scientist for about 4 years at NSCU and Arizona State University combined. He received his B.S. in Agricultural Engineering and MS in Civil Engineering from India and Ph.D. in Agriculture and Biological Engineering from Purdue University in 2008. He has worked in hydrologic modelling, climate change impacts on hydrology; water resources management; surface water – groundwater interactions; and geospatial analysis. He has published about 30 journal articles including several high impact journals such as PNAS, Earth’s Future and Journal of Geophysical Research. Dr. Sinha has received funding as PI and Co-PI from multiple federal and state agencies. He has also served as chair of technical sessions at national and international conferences. He has been a recipient of TAMU-K’s College of Engineering Excellence in Research Award in 2018.

Abstract:  Rapid urbanization and intensification of extreme climatic events directly affect peak flow and water quality in streams in both urban and mixed-use watersheds. Low Impact Development (LID) strategies such as Green Roof (GR) and Rain Garden (RG) can partially mitigate such effects on stormwater runoff and water quality. However, efficiency of LID strategies in handling moderate to large rainfall events to improve the water quality of a watershed is not well understood. Thus, this talk will discuss how different LID strategies affect peak flow and water quality in urban and mixed-use watersheds. The analysis on effects of different LID strategies showed that during the high rainfall intensity event of 15 cm/day, no significant differences due to LID strategies were observed on the peak flow reduction. However, about 32% reduction in peak flow was attained when all three LID strategies considered in this study (GR, RG and GR+RG in series) under low to moderate rainfall intensities of 2 – 3 cm/day. In addition, better water management strategies are needed to mitigate floods and droughts by co-managing green (wetlands) and grey (dams) infrastructure. A framework to co-manage green and grey infrastructure will be discussed to enhance water resilience under extreme climatic events.

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30 Aug
2022
VEDAS: A platform for web-based visualization and analysis of Satellite data
VEDAS: A platform for web-based visualization and analysis of Satellite data

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Shashikant A Sharma

Title of the Seminar: VEDAS: A platform for web-based visualization and analysis of Satellite data

Date and Time: 30 August 2022 (Tuesday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Shashikant A Sharma, Scientist-G and Group Director, VEDAS Research Group, Space Applications Centre (ISRO), Ahmedabad, India. He joined ISRO in 1986 and has worked in the field of Remote Sensing, GIS, and Digital Image Processing. He has a special interest in applications of Geoinformatics for Agriculture and Renewable Energy. He is instrumental in the development of the Geospatial portal – VEDAS ( Visualisation of Earth Observation Data and Archival System) (https://vedas .sac.gov.in), which has visualization and analysis capabilities of Geospatial data. Earlier he was a lead role in the development of indigenous GIS software.

His current interests are Digital Image Processing, Geospatial analytics on the Web, and AI/ML applications of Satellite data. He is the recipient of many national awards in the field of Geoinformatics.

Abstract:  ISRO is operating a fleet of Earth Observation satellites with a wide range of sensors of varying capabilities. In addition to making satellites and launch vehicles, ISRO is also conducting scientific research and demonstrating applications of space-based inputs in many disciplines including agriculture, forestry, geology, environmental studies, urban planning, infrastructure development, meteorology, planetary sciences, disaster management, etc. The efficient utilization of this voluminous geospatial content generated by the thematic experts and the data acquired by several Indian and publicly available EO satellites is essential for adding greater societal value as envisaged by Dr Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of India’s space programme.

In this context, the Space Applications Centre at Ahmedabad contemplated the development of the ‘Visualization of EO Data and Archival System’, abbreviated as VEDAS. It aims to organize the vast quantum of geospatial databases on various themes and develop customized decision support systems and applications for an improved understanding of the earth and planetary systems. VEDAS is a step towards creating a “geo-data-rich society” supporting mainstreaming of satellite imagery and remote sensing in the process of National Development.

In this talk, I will provide an overview of the VEDAS, its capabilities and its potential for research and decision-making, while illuminating what lies ahead for us. For example, VEDAS has endeavoured to support web-based geospatial analysis by providing processing tools for analysis on the internet and we are now building an online interactive platform for Big Data analytics and supporting the application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) tools.

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29 Jul
2022
What (NOT) to do as an early career academic and researcher in India
What (NOT) to do as an early career academic and researcher in India

Name of the Speaker: Dr. Arpita Mondal

Title of the Seminar: What (NOT) to do as an early career academic and researcher in India [Gallery]

Date and Time: 29 July 2022 (Friday), 4:00pm

Online Platform: MS Teams (link to the video of the seminar)

About the Speaker: Dr. Arpita Mondal works as an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and Interdisciplinary Program in Climate Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. Her research focuses on hydroclimatic extremes – how they can be characterized, what causes them, and how they are likely to evolve with climate change. Arpita serves as an Associate Editor of the AGU journal Earth’s Future and the Springer journal Regional Environmental Change. She received the Early Career Research Award from the Science and Education Research Board (SERB), and the INSPIRE Faculty Award. She also received the Asian University Alliance (AUA) Scholars’ Award. Arpita has been selected to feature in the book ‘She Is: 75 Indian Women in STEAM’ by the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and the Red Dot Foundation, honoring 75 Indian Women in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. She has been an invited speaker in the session on Women in STEM in the South Asia Leadership Summit of the British Council, India. Arpita completed her PhD in Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, MTech in Water Resources Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Bachelors in Civil Engineering at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. As a PhD student, Arpita had received the Endeavour Research Fellowship of the Government of Australia, the Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship of the United-States India Education Forum, and the Berkner Travel Grant of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Abstract: ‘How to become a professor in an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)?’ is a question which is asked by several in our country. There is an increasingly large number of awareness and mentoring programs conducted by organizations and academies in this country to address this query among the public in general, and graduate students in particular. Another equally important question to which answers must be sought is, ‘How to survive as an early career academic or researcher in today’s India?’. Many Indian academic or research institutions offer to young professionals what are termed as ‘permanent’ jobs; however, stagnation, dearth of progress and lack of navigation along multiple directions of growth (both one’s own individual growth and that of his/her employer) can prove fatal for one’s career and more importantly, personal well-being, if adequate, timely steps are not taken to make sure one is not only ‘surviving’ but also ‘thriving’, particularly compared to global benchmarks. In this seminar, I will talk about key responsibilities expected out of an early career academic in a leading engineering institute in India, highlight some opportunities and challenges towards a bright and successful academic/research career and also offer suggestions to avoid some mistakes (I think) I did. I will share some stories, and advice that I had been lucky to receive, and hopefully hear back from the audience about what drives them towards their own pursuit of excellence. Women graduate students and early career researchers are expected to particularly benefit from this talk, since I will also share some experiences and suggestions on overcoming gender-defined obstructions.

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Interdisciplinary Centre for Water Research (ICWaR) - IISc Bangalore