AI based drought advisory tool launched in India

AI based drought advisory tool launched in India

International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in partnership with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research – Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (ICAR-CRIDA) and the CGIAR Climate Action Program have developed SukhaRakshak AI, a tool that can provide early warning and location-specific guidance for managing droughts in India.

The tool combines satellite data, seasonal and short-term weather forecasts, and district-level drought contingency plans. The system uses Gemini 2.0 Flash, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and integrates data from sources including SADMS, Google Earth Engine, and global forecast systems such as NOAA, GEFS, and CFS.

The system can be used by smallholder farmers, agricultural extension workers, and local authorities and provides customised advisories through a chatbot interface, using AI models that draw from climate, weather, and remote sensing data.

Tribal women in Panna improve their lives and livelihoods by cultivating mushrooms

Women from tribal-dominated Ranipur, Gandhi Gram, Maanjha, Sunhara and Bador villages in Panna are silently leading a revolution by improving their earning opportunities by growing mushrooms. The region is known for diamond mining and men often work at the mines or stone quarries, and die at an early age due to lung ailments such as tuberculosis and silicosis. Women are forced to take up work as manual labourers to make ends meet following the death of their husbands.

In 2021, the women took up mushroom cultivation, with support from Prithvi Trust, a Panna-based non-profit who set up a mushroom training centre in Gandhi Gram to train people in mushroom cultivation.

Mushrooms can be easily cultivated at home with limited resources and generate decent profit with low input costs. They also help in improving the diets of tribal families who often do not have means to buy green vegetables and costly ingredients, and often resort to eating chapatis with salt. Anaemia and malnutrition are common among women and children in the region.

Women hang plastic bags that serve as containers for substrates like stubble, upon which mushrooms grow — from the wooden frame that holds the roof.

Rivers develop multiple channels if erosion along their banks exceeds sedimentation: Study

Rivers, arteries of the Earth are made up of water, sediment and nutrients that self-organise into diverse, dynamic channels as they journey from the mountains to the sea. Some rivers carve out a single pathway, while others divide into multiple interwoven threads or channels.

Geographers at UC Santa Barbara recently mapped the channel dynamics along eighty four rivers with global satellite imagery to find out why some rivers followed single pathways while some divide into multiple channels.

The team used Landsat data from the Google Earth Engine repository, focusing on 84 rivers in different regions of the globe. They tracked erosion and deposition on each river's banks using an image-processing algorithm called particle image velocimetry.

The study found that rivers develop multiple channels if they erode their banks faster than they deposit sediment on their opposing banks. This causes a channel to widen and divide over time (Phys.org).

The red crowned roofed turtle makes a comeback in the Ganges

The red-crowned roofed turtle or batagur kachuga, on the verge of extinction in the Ganga river, has made a comeback after 30 years. The turtles were once found in the Ganges river and its tributaries , but their numbers plummeted due to excessive hunting, illegal trade, loss of habitat and changes in the flow of the river. The turtle is also found in the Brahmaputra river region, but now only a few turtles are left in the National Chambal Sanctuary.

In April, 20 turtles were translocated from the Garheta Turtle Conservation Centre located within and under the supervision of the National Chambal Sanctuary, Uttar Pradesh. For the rehabilitation process, the turtles were divided into two groups – one group was released above a barrage at the Haiderpur wetland, while the other group was released into the mainstream of the Ganga river. The aim was to determine which method is the most effective for the rehabilitation of turtles.

This study is the first telemetry-based monitoring effort of turtles in the Ganga river. All turtles have been fitted with a transmitter that emits signals at a specific frequency, which has made it possible to identify each turtle individually and track its movement, habitat choice and behavioural patterns. This process will help understand how the turtles are adapting to the new environment, and dealing with ecological challenges. Future conservation and management strategies will be formulated based on this data (The Scroll).

Tribal farmers in Gujarat turn crisis into opportunity

With rapidly depleting groundwater and seasonal rivers as the only surface water sources, smallholder farmers from northern Gujarat continued to struggle with fragmented landholdings, poor agricultural yields, and deepening economic distress.

A transformative partnership between VIKSAT and the Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUF) was launched, focused on tackling water insecurity in the region. The first step was to build water literacy within communities through tools like crop water budgeting, governance games, and awareness campaigns via local institutions such as Self-Help Groups (SHGs), Village Organisations (VOs), and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs).

Following this, surface water harvesting techniques such as check dams and farm ponds were built. Deepening and widening of canals and check dams and soil moisture conservation works like farm bunding and stone bunding were also carried out. Simultaneously, sustainable agricultural practices were promoted through peer learning and demonstration plots. Runoff capture and managing demand through informed decision-making.

Efficient harvesting and management practices enhanced water availability across the programme villages. Adoption of sustainable practices further led to higher crop yields and improved incomes. And better water use and soil health practices also contributed to ecological restoration (Village Square).

 This is a roundup of news updates from July 1, 2025 to July 15, 2025. Read our policy updates here.