Empowering communities to become groundwater-wise

24/10/2024 0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Gender, Health & Science

From Left: Mamta, Varda Devi, Tulsi Devi Bhatt, Rukmini Devi, Hira Bai, Chanda Choubisa in Hinta Village in Udaipur District of Rajasthan (India). Photo Credit: ©Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Hinta and Dharta Villages (Rajasthan), 24.10.2024 (Loss and Damage Research Observatory): Tulsi Devi Bhatt, draped in an embellished purple sari and a full sleeve red kurti (top), navigates her way through the wheat fields in Hinta village in the western Indian state of Rajasthan’s Udaipur district. She is on her weekly mission to measure water level in the dug wells – the quantity of water is critical for the food security and livelihood of her community.

Hinta is part of the two multi-village, hard rock aquifer watersheds – the 6400-hectare Dharta watershed in Rajasthan and 5000-hectare Meghraj watershed in Gujarat, where MARVI – Managing Aquifer Recharge and Sustaining Groundwater Use through Village-level Intervention – project has been instrumental in enhancing groundwater recharge and availability.

Spearheaded by the Western Sydney University in Australia, working in collaboration with seven other partners in India and elsewhere, the MARVI project is aimed at empowering farmers like Tulsi with the knowledge and tools necessary for sustainable and equitable groundwater management in their villages.

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Blue economy must benefit fishing communities in Global South: WorldFish Chief

07/06/2024 0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Health & Science

Dr Essam Yassin Mohammed, Director-General of WorldFish and CGIAR's Senior Director of Aquatic Foods. Photo Credit: ©WorldFish

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 07.06.2024 (IPS): The Global South is crucial for ensuring aquatic food security to feed the growing world population. It is imperative that blue economy initiatives benefit fishing communities in developing and small island nations, which are facing disproportionate impacts of climate change, says Dr Essam Yassin Mohammed, Director General of WorldFish, an international non-profit research organization based in Penang, Malaysia.

“More than three billion people depend on aquatic foods as their main source of protein and micronutrients, and nearly 800 million people rely on fishing for their livelihood. The Global South produces a significant portion of the world’s aquatic food and 95 percent of the fishing workforce comes from these regions,” notes Mohammed, who is also CGIAR’s Senior Director of Aquatic Food Systems.

Growing up in Eritrea’s capital, Asmara, situated on a highland plateau 2325 meters above sea level, Mohammed learned the value of food early in life. The country had recently gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991, and young children like him were motivated to contribute to the nation’s food security.

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AI forecasting deployed to predict Nepal landslides

07/06/2024 0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Health & Science

As the monsoon season approaches, landslides pose a major risk in many countries of the Asia Pacific region. Photo Credit ©Ritu Dak in Ghes Village (Uttarakhand) India

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 07.06.2024 (SciDev.Net): A landslide forecasting system driven by artificial intelligence (AI) is being rolled out in Nepal, one of the most landslide prone countries in the world, as the monsoon season approaches.

Devastating landslides in Papua New Guinea last month show the need for better forecasting and early warning systems to protect lives and properties, especially in mountainous developing countries in Asia Pacific which lack dedicated disaster monitoring systems and the means to communicate risks to the population.

In Nepal, more than 80 per cent of land is on a slope and much of it was destabilised during the 2015 earthquake in Gorkha, which killed around 9,000 people, according to project lead Antoinette Tordesillas from the University of Melbourne. “With the monsoons due anytime now, we are helping policymakers and risk managers better prepare for future monsoons when increasingly frequent and heavy rains can trigger more devastating landslides,” she said.

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