Prasanta Kalita, a professor in the department of agricultural and biological engineering, studies water quality and environmental protection issues.
Media reports out of India early this year stated that pollution levels in the Ganges River threatened to curtail the ritual bathing during the sacred Hindu pilgrimage, Ardh Kumbh Mela. A report in June noted that water levels in the river (and, thus, Hindu religious practices) are threatened by the shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers caused by global warming. Prasanta Kalita, a professor in the department of agricultural and biological engineering, studies water quality and environmental protection issues.
How are these news reports indicative of water problems in India generally?
Some may argue on the issue of global warming and its effect on Himalayan glaciers, but in reality, India is facing severe water scarcity as well as water pollution problems. With growing population, demand for food production, and industrial needs, water is being pumped out of the aquifers at an alarming rate, causing groundwater levels to drop as much as a meter every year. The non-point (diffused) sources are accelerating pollution problems in surface waters (rivers and lakes) very quickly. Millions of rural people depend on surface water year-round and the water pollution is affecting their health, social, cultural, and economic conditions.
You have done research on the treatment, handling, and disposal of animal waste with regard to water quality. To what extent is that research related to India’s water quality problems?
Although it is a big problem (especially in rural areas), I believe animal waste management is still not one of the top priority issues in India. More than the animal waste, human waste handing and treatment are prime concerns. Raw sewage and industrial waste discharge directly into streams without any primary treatment, and that raises severe health questions – disease causing pathogens, chemicals, metals, and everything that one can think of coming out of these sources are affecting human health. Many of our practices for animal waste management can be applied in India to improve water quality from areas that receive animal, human, and industrial waste without much difficulty.
You’re about to begin to work collaboratively with several partners, from both American and Indian institutions, on water quality issues in India. What do you hope to accomplish?
This is a collaborative project (with Iowa, Purdue, Cornell, Texas A&M, and Ohio State) to build expertise and human capacity under the US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative (AKI) program on water management. We want to develop a consortium of US and Indian universities, research institutes, and NGOs to develop MS and Ph.D. degree programs in “International Water Management,” as well as develop collaborative research programs on the use of wastewater for irrigation and water harvesting techniques for groundwater recharge.
Increasing the capacity of rain-fed agriculture to feed growing populations in places like India has received some attention lately. Crop breeding is not your specialty, but will your projects in India be involved in this strategy at all?
We have discussed the issue of increasing rain-fed agriculture with Indian scientists and government officials. The average annual rainfall of 117 centimeters in India is higher than the global average, but most of it falls during the four monsoon months and more than 70 percent of this is lost as runoff, which erodes substantial amounts of soil and nutrients. Considerable scope exists to harvest the large amount of unutilized rainfall, and our project deals with developing water harvesting techniques at watershed levels and recharge groundwater. Another way to handle the situation is to change or shuffle or intensify some cropping practices that have high water demands (rice for example) to the regions where rainfall is abundant.
