Monsoon

This scientific correspondence by P Goswami in Current Science is in response to a recent article in it by Sulochana Gadgil and J Srinivasan where they presented the outcome of the project ‘Seasonal Prediction of the Indian Monsoon’ (SPIM). The article dealt with the prediction of Indian summer monsoon rainfall by five atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) during 1985–2004.

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This pocketbook, prepared by the National Institute of Oceanography aims at enabling the visitor to pursue the fascinating world of the oceans.

The pocket book provides an overview of the oceans,their formation, characteristics, and the dynamics that determine their evolution. It also contains information on how the interested reader can pursue these topics further through books and websites.

The pocket book is divided into the following chapters:Read More

Water quality of the Ganga as it passes through various states is presented in this document. The data has been collected over a period of many years from 39 water quality monitoring stations along the main river and 102 stations on its tributaries which were setup in 2008/09.

The study focuses on the parameters for dissolved oxygen, (DO), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and faecal coliforms (FC) as these indicate the biological health of the river. The period of study for the river Ganga is 1999-2008. The study finds that most of the water quality parameters studied do not meet the standards.Read More

In this article published in Commodity Vision, the author presents the concept of the establishment of a 'futures market in water availability' in the context of the risk of water availability that Indian agriculture has been facing in the recent years.Read More

With South Asian agriculture being dependent on the timely occurrence of the monsoons, any deviation from the scheduled arrival of the monsoon causes problems not only for the farmers, but also produces a threat to the food security of the region. However, the author argues that, there is no market in South Asia where users and investors exposed to water availability risk can effectively hedge against such a risk.