Tag: TERI

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Little people

‘Nutri gardens’ for children

Children in tribal areas of Maharashtra are overcoming malnutrition with a garden and organic farm concept launched with farmers’ associations.
by TERI Features Service

Three and a half-year-old Manish Hiraman Gowari, a resident of Khanivali village in Thane district, Maharashtra, was detected with severe acute malnutrition in 2013. He weighed just 9.9 kg then, when the standard prescribed by WHO is above 16 kg. Due to the introduction of a concept called ‘Nutri-Garden’, his life changed forever. Regular intake of protein supplements and balanced diet as advised by the project partners and doctors enabled Manish to increase his weight by more than 26 per cent in just three months.

Many children like Manish in the tribal areas of Maharashtra have benefited from a project launched by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) and the Thane Zilla Parishad (TZP), which was implemented with the help of Kisan Seva Kendras (KSKs) of IOCL and TZP. The project has today reached out to more than 900 children in 42 villages in the district.

Methods and measures

Khanivali village in Wada block was selected to implement a pilot project between June 2013 and February 2014. The project aimed to address the prevailing issue of malnourishment among Severe Acute Malnourished (SAM) and Moderate Acute Malnourished (MAM) children and to assess if SAM and MAM children could be brought into the normal category.

“To ensure sustained positive health impacts on the SAM and MAM children, it was not only essential to provide enriched nutri supplements like protein powders, vitamin tablets, but also include appropriate nutritious food ingredients in their daily diet,” says Dr. Anjali Parasnis, Associate Director, TERI. While assessing the potential of available resources like land, water and manpower, TERI promoted the concept of “Nutri-Gardens” to ensure local availability of four focused ingredients, namely spinach, papaya, sweet potato and mushrooms, which could be easily cultivated in the region, and if cultivation is not possible, the same are easily available in the market at affordable rates throughout the year.

Given that women play an important role in the health and wellbeing of a family, the focus of the program was centered on the mothers of SAM and MAM children and aanganwadi sevikas (child daycare centre workers), responsible for providing mid-day meals to these malnourished children of Khanivali village. They were provided with a “Nutri Kit” comprising resource material in local language elaborating on the crux of the issue of malnutrition, the strategies to overcome it, easy-to-follow recipes, seeds and methods to grow the identified food ingredients.

Regular awareness programs, encouragement to consume the identified food ingredients and monitoring helped bring down the number of malnourished children. When provided with protein rich milk supplements as a short-term strategy, along with balanced diets, to the targeted 140 malnourished children for a period of three months, it was observed that around 68 per cent children, who were earlier designated as MAM, showed improvement in health and were assigned into a normal category, whereas, 32 per cent SAM children were upgraded to the MAM category.

“Given the ease of adopting the concept of “Nutri-Garden”, its long-term impact and encouraging results, the concept has tremendous potential for replication in other areas,” adds Dr Parasnis. Furthermore, TERI is currently focusing on the issue of malnutrition in both rural and urban areas through its program called PROTEIN — Program to Revitalize the Overall health of the Tribals/Teenagers by Ensuring Intake of Nutritious food products.

For more information on the project, please contact Dr. Anjali Parasnis, Associate Director, TERI (anjalip@teri.res.in).

(Picture courtesy www.thebetterindia.com. Image used for representational purpose only)

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Learn

Coming soon: Pre-approved energy efficient buildings

TERI and UTC’s Center of Excellence for Energy Efficient Buildings in India will work on reporting frameworks and evaluate existing buildings.
by TERI News Features

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and United Technologies Corporation (UTC) recently launched the Center of Excellence for Energy Efficient Buildings in India. The Center has been establishled at a time when the Government of India has introduced the Smart City Programme to address the challenge of rapid urbanisation and the efficient use of energy resources.

The Center of Excellence will work towards the development of an energy-use reporting framework for existing buildings, evaluation of the existing building energy rating systems, derivation of tool and techniques for energy management, real time reporting of consumption, and identification and cost benefit analysis of conservation measures.

Dr RK Pachauri, Director General, TERI, said: “I am extremely happy that we are launching this initiative. We hope that this will be a model not only for this country but for other countries as well. With UTC, we can work together in bringing about a smarter world and a more sustainable world, particularly as it relates to buildings and habitat design.”

Zubin Irani, President, Building and Industrial Systems India, UTC, said: “Given the energy challenges faced by the nation, energy efficiency in the buildings sector is an important priority. World over, there has been a rapid pace of innovation when it comes to technologies and systems that go into making a building more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. It is important to note that not only do many of these technologies reduce the energy footprint of a building or infrastructure project but they also pay back for themselves in a matter of few years.”

“The Center of Excellence shall have a core research agenda on enabling energy efficiency in existing buildings in India. The collaboration between TERI and UTC in this endeavour shall help unlock the potential of energy saving in this sector,“ said Mili Majumdar, Director, Sustainable Habitat, TERI.

Globally, buildings account for 40 per cent of the total energy consumption. By using energy efficient technologies, energy consumption could be reduced by up to 60 per cent. In India, the building sector accounts for approximately 35 per cent of the total energy consumption and is growing at a rate of eight percent annually.

“One of the primary objectives of the UTC-TERI Centre of Excellence is to evaluate energy efficiency and ascertain energy requirements in existing buildings. The findings of the study have the potential of facilitating the new Government’s ambitious plan of building 100 smart cities as it will involve upgrading existing cities, expanding and building around them,“ Irani added.

The Center will first conduct a Pan-India study of 100 buildings and is scheduled to cover a wide range of climatic zones, covering cities such as Allahabad, Ajmer, Vishakhapatnam, Varanasi, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata,Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur etc. These have been selected as per the Smart Cities Programme recently initiated by the Centre.

The study will include an energy survey, derivation of tools and techniques for identification and cost benefit analysis of Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs), calibration and validation of simulation tools, development of Measurement and Verification (M&V) protocol for implementation of ECMs, development of financial mechanism, development of remote monitoring protocol and review and revision of existing building energy standards/codes/rating systems. The initiative is expected to deliver the proposed results within the next five years.

Talking about the future plans of the Centre of Excellence, Irani said: “The ultimate aim of the Centre of Excellence is to enhance the energy efficiency quotient in all buildings across the country. Staying true to this goal, the initial plan of the Centre of Excellence is to identify existing buildings and assess energy use and consumption patterns which would eventually help in base lining the energy performance of buildings with a solid roadmap to make them more energy-efficient.“

(Picture courtesy sustentabilidade.allianz.com.b. Image shows the CII-Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre in Hyderabad.)

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Deal with it

Mumbai, wake up and control your vehicular traffic

Experts deliberate on ways and means to cut down the vehicles on Mumbai choc-a-block roads, improve air quality, waste management.
by TERI News Features

Mumbai is rapidly choking on its own smoke-filled outdoor air. And unless ways are devised to improve the quality of urban infrastructure and incentivise public transport, the rising numbers of private vehicles are going to make a living hell out of the city.

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) recently organised a regional dialogue titled, ‘Sustainable Urban Transport and Solid Waste Management in Mumbai’. The dialogue was organised in the run up to TERI’s annual flagship event, the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS), which will be held in New Delhi from February 5 to 7, 2015. A series of Regional Dialogues were organized in the run-up to the Summit, which come in the wake of the new Government’s two major announcements — 100 Smart Cities for India and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

At the third and the last dialogue in Mumbai, top experts deliberated on ways to tackle the ever-increasing traffic-related problems here and also how waste management can be streamlined. Mumbai and the metropolitan region around it has been growing seamlessly, with its total population expected to touch 44 million in 2052 even as the resources to service the burgeoning masses remain more or less stagnant. The city is experiencing major traffic problems even though public transit represents more than 60 per cent of the motorised transport model share. With one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, Mumbai has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of personal vehicles.

Speaking at the event, Shri Prakash, Distinguished Fellow, TERI, said: “Although the rail-based transport system consisting of suburban rail and newly introduced metro and monorail would cater to the major transport needs of the city, provisions of adequate facilities for growth of non-motorised transport are also very essential for accessible and sustainable transport system.” Added UPS Madan, Metropolitan Commissioner, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, “We are looking at smart ticketing, smart cards that can be used for all modes of public transport system. A 100 to 200-km network in the next eight to 10 years should have a positive impact on Mumbai city’s infrastructure.”

“It is not only about setting up transport systems but also about improving road connectivity and accessibility, which are extremely critical,” said Abhay Mishra, CEO, Mumbai Metro One Pvt Ltd.

Waste management in MumbaiWhile discussing waste management, experts said the city generates about 10,000 MT of municipal solid waste and more than 2700 MLD of sewage per day. Managing and processing this huge amount of waste is a huge challenge faced by urban local bodies. Even in small peripheral cities of Mumbai, MSW collection and treatment is a huge task. Dr Suneel Pandey, Associate Director, Green Growth and Resource Efficiency, TERI, said: “It’s time to look at an integrated waste management framework to not only treat and dispose the waste, but also, in the process of doing so, recover resources like energy, nutrients and water not only to close the loop of material use, reduce use of harmful chemicals but also improve financial viability of waste processing options.”

“Decentralisation, biomechanisation, and waste management at the household level are the need of the hour. Today, waste processing, co-processing are some of the technologies which can treat waste efficiently. There is a need to introduce curriculum in universities that will teach people to run and operate the technology systems. This is currently lacking,” he added.

“Each individual generates waste and today there is no understanding of waste management. The need of the hour is to first study how, where and what waste is being generated. This will let us decide how we can best manage waste in the country. Then develop the right technology for the specific waste. Bad and inadequate waste management is responsible for the spread of dengue,” said Dr Amiya Kumar Sahu, President and Founder, National Solid Waste Association of India.

What do you think are some of the challenges in Mumbai city today? Tell us in the comments section below.
(Pictures courtesy searchpp.com, coastalcare.org)
Categories
Trends

India continues to suffer outdoor air pollution

WHO report says outdoor air pollution continues to be a big reason for mortality in India; is a major health burden.
by TERI Features

A new report by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) says that if current trends of vehicle population, fuel and emission standards persist, PM 2.5 emissions  will increase by a factor of three, and those of NOx will increase by a factor of five. The transport sector contributes about 15 to 50 per cent of PM 2.5 emissions in cities, and is a dominant contributor to NOx emissions, says the report.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that of the 67 risk factors studied in their Global Burden of Disease project, outdoor air pollution was ranked fifth in mortality and seventh in health burden in India, contributing to over 627,000 deaths and 17.7 million healthy years of life lost in 2010.

The new report titled ‘Options to reduce road transport pollution in India’ establishes the scientific basis for reducing emissions, the technologies available, and governance issues that need to be urgently addressed to improve air quality in Indian cities.

Said Dr RK Pachauri, Director General, TERI: “We should go beyond technological transfers and evolve pathways for pollution control as there are co-benefits of reducing greenhouse gases and reducing the health burden. We need to develop larger frameworks to mobilise resources and invest in technological innovations. This report will provide intellectual inputs to formulate specific pollution control models for States, and this will require the intervention of not just the government, but all stakeholders.”

80 per cent of cities in India have exceeded the ambient air quality standards prescribed by the Government of India. And this is worsening air quality and leading to a plethora of health problems.

Said Dr Mary Nichols, Chairman, CARB: “In 1991, there were 20 million vehicles in India. The number had skyrocketed to 140 million in 2011, and by 2030, vehicle population is expected to reach a staggering 400 million. We need multiple strategies to bring regulatory agencies and the regulated communities together and provide incentives to reduce the pollution load.”

Vehicular emissions contribute to particulate matter (PM) smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM 2.5) and to Nitrogen oxides, NO and NO2 (NOx). NOx in turn leads to the production of ozone. PM 2.5 is the dominant contributor to premature deaths and numerous other illnesses, followed by ozone and NOx, and these are the major contributors to agricultural impacts, says the report.

Said Prof V Ramanathan, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, University of California, San Diego (UCSD): “Tackling air pollution may seem a complex problem, but California has demonstrated how drastic reductions in air pollution can be achieved. We simply cannot ignore the linkages and the multi-dimensional impacts of air pollution – for instance, ozone pollution leads to massive crop losses.”

TERI-UCSD-CARB collaboration

Without affecting its impressive economic growth, California has drastically cut down its emissions. In the 1960s, California had one of the highest air pollution levels in the world, and this triggered a public health outrage. Over the past 40-50 years, California has succeeded in reducing the levels of all air pollutions by 75 to 90 per cent though a series of measures. In particular, it has significantly reduced black carbon and particulate pollutants from automobiles.

On the other hand, 80 per cent of cities in India, which have comparatively much fewer vehicles, have exceeded the ambient air quality standards prescribed by the Government of India. And this is worsening air quality and leading to a plethora of health problems. There is mounting evidence now to show that the transport sector is largely responsible for the increase in the concentrations of particulate pollutants.

In an attempt to replicate the best practices, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) launched a programme – India California Air Pollution Mitigation Programme (ICAMP) – in 2013, to learn from air pollution control measures implemented in California to mitigate vehicular emissions and improve air quality in Indian cities.  Based on research and dialogues between Indian and Californian experts, the project partners have now come up with this new report.

(Picture courtesy en.wikipedia.org)

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Learn

It really is getting hotter in here

It’s often said that human activity has caused gradual warming of the atmosphere during the last century. Here’s some proof.
by TERI Features

The Sun influences the Earth’s climate, and during the last century there has been a gradual warming of the atmosphere related to human activity. The present solar models predict that the early Sun was about 30 per cent fainter than it is now. In about three billion years, the outer atmosphere of the Sun will begin to swell so much that our own atmosphere will heat up. Eventually the Sun’s outer layers will envelop Mercury, Venus and probably our planet as well, says Dr Siraj Hasan, Distinguished Professor and Former Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

In a recent lecture titled, ‘Journey to the Sun: A Gateway to the Stars and the Universe’, the focus was on the importance of the Sun, our main star in the solar system and the source of energy that provides sustenance to the Earth and humanity. Dr Hasan said the Sun is a cosmic powerhouse that has a profound impact on our planet and its future. Its stormy atmosphere displays rich phenomena ranging from sunspots to powerful explosions that strongly influence the Earth and the space environment. The Sun’s activity is fundamentally due to solar magnetism and its emission changes with the sunspot cycle as well as on longer time scales of centuries to millions of years.

He added, “Major studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have carefully examined over 100 years of measurements and concluded that the average global temperature has risen about 0.8 degree Celsius.  The years 1983– 2012 have likely been the warmest 30 years in the last 1400. The gradual temperature increase is related to the emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and most likely human activity.”

Talking about the National Large Solar Telescope (aperture 2 m) that will be installed in Ladakh, he says, “It will be one of the world’s most powerful solar telescopes to address a multitude of crucial, well-posed problems in astrophysics and critical issues in the Sun’s important influences on the Earth (“space weather”), and understanding the release of solar energy into the solar system on a gigantic scale. It is ready to go into construction and become operational within five years.”

(Picture courtesy www.juancole.com)

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Learn

The perils of water mismanagement

A TERI analysis on the state of the world’s current water mismanagement paints a scary picture for the world’s future.
by Girija K Bharat | TERI Feature Service

By 2030, about 47 per cent of the world’s population will live in highly water-stressed areas. The only way to reverse this trend is to invest in environmental infrastructure and effective management of water to bring relief to millions afflicted by poverty, hunger and disease.

More than 700 million people in 43 countries across the world live in water-stressed conditions with the Middle East being the world’s most water-stressed region, having an average annual availability of only 1200 m3 per person. By 2030, about 47 per cent of the world’s population is expected to dwell in areas that will be highly water-stressed (per capita water availability less than 1700 m3). Around 60-90 million hectares in Africa will be under arid and semi-arid climatic regime and this will have serious implications on food and water security in the region.

Water mismanagementThe water resource endowment and distribution across the world vary spatially and temporally. The problem of inequitable resource endowment has implications for water security. The variations in intra and inter-regional vulnerabilities are by virtue of their geographical locations, whereby runoff is projected to increase in high latitudes and wet tropics (like in China, Finland, high latitudes and large parts of USA) and decrease in the mid-latitudes and some parts of the dry tropics (parts of West Africa, Middle East, Southern Europe and Southern South America and Central America). Ironically, nearly two-thirds of the world’s population resides in areas receiving only one-quarter of the world’s total annual rainfall. In these circumstances, sustainability of water resources is of paramount importance.

Water scarcity impacting poverty

Water scarcity, unclean water and lack of sanitation affect the poor people all over the world. One in five people in the developing world lack access to clean drinking water (a suggested minimum of 20 liters per day), while average water use in Europe and the US ranges between 200 and 600 litres/day. A number of studies including the report by the United Nations Development Programme have revealed that people living in slums in developing countries pay between 5 to 10 times more per unit of water than do people with access to piped water (UNDP, 2006). Over 1 billion people suffer from diseases due to lack of safe water, and are consequently less productive than they would be. The poor spend a huge amount of time fetching water, the opportunity cost of which they hardly realize. The desperate situation of the poor, therefore, exacts a toll on the economy as well as on their environment and its ecosystem.

For poor people, water scarcity is not only about droughts or rivers running dry, it is about guaranteeing the safe access they need to sustain their lives and secure livelihoods. For the poor, scarcity is about how institutions function and how transparency and equity are guaranteed in decisions affecting their lives. It is about choices on infrastructure development and the way they are managed. In many places throughout the world, organizations struggle to distribute resources equitably.

While access to safe water and sanitation have been recognized as priority targets through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Johannesburg plan of action of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), there is increasing recognition that this is not enough. Millions of people rely on water for their daily income or food production. Farmers, small rural enterprises, herders and fishing communities – all need water to secure their livelihoods. However, as resources become scarce, an increasing number of them see their sources of income disappearing. Silently and progressively, the number of water losers is increasing – at the tail end of the irrigation canal, downstream of a new dam, or as a result of excessive groundwater drawdown.

Along with the UN’s MDGs for ending poverty, eradicating hunger, achieving universal primary education, improving health, and restoring a healthy environment, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment examines the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being, and analyses options for conserving ecosystems while enhancing their contributions to human society. Environmental degradation is a major barrier to sustainable development and to the achievement of the MDGs. More than 70 per cent of the 1.1 billion poor people surviving on less than US $1 per day live in rural areas, where they are directly dependent on ecosystem services.’ Investing in environmental assets and the management of those assets can help achieve national goals, bringing relief to millions of people from poverty, hunger and disease.

In large parts of the developing world, irrigation remains the backbone of rural economies. However, smallholder farmers make up the majority of the world’s rural poor, and they often occupy marginal land and depend mainly on rainfall for production. They are highly sensitive to many changes – such as droughts, floods – and also on shifts in market prices. Investment in water infrastructure, in both its physical and natural assets, can be a driver of growth and the key to poverty reduction.

The waters ahead!

Poverty reduction and economic growth can be sustained only if natural resources are managed on a sustainable basis. Greening rural development can stimulate rural economies, Water shortagecreate jobs and help maintain critical ecosystem services and strengthen climate resilience of the rural poor. Conversely, environmental challenges can limit the attainment of development goals. As the economy grows rapidly, it will meet the constraint of natural resources and will have to exploit them in a sustainable manner for growth to persist.

The governments in many of the developing countries are developing schemes to deliver green results and contribute to the goal of ‘faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth. As the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Sustainability notes, there exists tremendous opportunity for a dramatic improvement in the lives of the rural poor, even while they move towards more sustainable production models. Resource users will need access to assets, technology and markets. Success will depend on initiatives with capacity to effectively coordinate efforts and cooperation in water resource use. This will not only help overcome the constraints posed by environmental degradation, but utilise environmental resources as an opportunity to spur growth and poverty reduction.

(Pictures courtesy blogs.wsj.com, balaramranasingh.blogspot.com, www.indiawaterportal.org)

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