India8
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Finding Answers to the Worsening Water Crisis in Gujarat, India
As explained in a recent blog post, falling groundwater levels in the Northern regions of the state of Gujarat, India, are reaching dramatically dangerous proportions. Columbia Water Center (CWC), however, believes that there are numerous technologies and practices that could save significant amounts of water and energy. Farmers have shown interest in applying them, but…
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The Worsening Water Crisis in Gujarat, India
For more than three decades, the farmers in Northern Gujarat State, in India, have produced abundant food crops, and have had a thriving dairy industry. In order to make that happen, they have been using once plentiful underground water resources. Because local aquifers are being replenished more slowly than the water is being withdrawn, groundwater…
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At AGU, Earth Institute’s Columbia Water Center Adds to the Abundance of Scientific Riches
The annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting is an all-you-can-eat buffet of the most current scientific knowledge available on the planet. Name your pleasure: space, climate change, geomagnetism, nonlinear geophysics, volcanology, biogeosciences, etc. You have to be careful to indulge in moderation over the five-day event, or risk unseemly bloating. The Columbia Water Center contributed…
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Finding Sustainable Solutions As Water Crisis in India’s Food Bowl Grows
The rapidly declining groundwater table in Punjab–one of the most agriculturally productive states and the heart of green revolution belt in northern India–is a disturbing trend.
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India’s Water Is Running Out
India is running “the largest water-mining project in the world”–and it cannot be sustained much longer, Columbia Water Center researcher Shama Perveen told an audience on Monday. That is mainly because farmers, who depend heavily on irrigation water drawn from underground aquifers, are using far more water than rainfall can replenish. Perveen’s talk, “Quantifying the…
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Direct Seeding of Rice – A Simple Solution to India’s Water Crisis?
In traditional rice cultivation, rice is sprouted in a nursery; sprouted seedlings are then transplanted into standing water. With direct seeding, rice seed is sown and sprouted directly into the field, eliminating the laborious process of planting seedlings by hand and greatly reducing the crop’s water requirements.
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‘Small is Also Beautiful’ – Appropriate Technology Cuts Rice Farmers’ Water Use by 30 Percent in Punjab, India
Since the 1960s, farmers in Punjab, India have practiced some of the most intensive broad scale grain production in the world. As a result, the state has earned the nickname “the food bowl of India” for its out sized role in adopting and implementing Green Revolution technologies that in the last decades of the 20th…
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Can We Have Our Water and Drink It, Too? Exploring the Water Quality-Quantity Nexus
Water quantity and quality have generally been considered as separate problems and have usually been treated as such in policy-making and environmental restoration efforts. Increasingly, however, research and experience is beginning to show a strong link between water quantity and quality.
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The Glaciers Disappear: The Startling Photos of David Breashears
Mountaineer, photographer and documentary filmmaker David Breashears is obviously a tough man—he has, after all, reached the summit of Mount Everest over five times, one of the very few people in the world to even attempt such a feat. In person, though, the soft-spoken Breashears comes off less like an indomitable mountain conqueror than like…
AGU25, the premier Earth and space science conference, takes place December 15-19, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme—Where Science Connects Us—puts in focus how science depends on connection, from the lab to the field to the ballot box. Once again, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School scientists, experts, students, and educators are playing an active role, sharing our research and helping shape the future of our planet. #AGU25 Learn More
