In an exclusive interview with Shivaprakash Nagaraju, Senior Applied Scientist, The Nature Conservancy talks about the immediate need for conserving wetlands, using AI and green infrastructure to tackle climate change, and making sustainable food systems for a better future.
Conserving freshwater ecosystems has become paramount as water scarcity hits key cities such as Bangalore. With increasing demand and pollution hitting the ecosystem, what can be done to conserve the country’s wetlands and freshwater reserves?
India has 4% of the world’s freshwater resources, however, this resource has come under increasing demographic stress since India is home to about 18% of world population. As per recent estimates, freshwater wetlands in India cover 58.2 million hectares, of which at least 15.98 million ha of wetlands in India are at least 2.25 ha in size.
As per the Global Wetland Outlook by the Ramsar Convention, wetlands – one of the world’s most economically valuable ecosystems and regulators of the global climate, are disappearing three times faster than terrestrial ecosystems. The main threat is climate change and anthropogenic activities.
The change in rainfall patterns and increasing temperature and sunny days threaten India’s wetlands and freshwater bodies exposing them to frequent and long periods of drying.
Increasing urbanization leads to encroachment of wetlands in Urban areas for commercial development.
For example, water bodies in Bangalore shrunk from 207 in 1993 to 93 in 2010…that 72% of the lakes have lost their catchment areas, 66% are now sewage-fed and 14% are hemmed in by slums. The loss of wetlands led to frequent floods and water security issues in large cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi, and other cities across India.
The unregulated extraction of groundwater for residential and commercial purposes and agriculture further leads to water security issues across India. Fourteen out of 20 river basins in India will be water-stressed by 2030 and over 600 million people will face severe water stress.
How can green and renewable infrastructure address the key challenges of heat islands, air pollution, and water scarcity?
Globally 73% of GHG emissions are caused by using fossil fuel-based energy. When fossil fuels are burned, they release particulate matter (PM 2.5), produce oxides of nitrogen and sulphur, and GHGs such as CO2 to the atmosphere contributing to air pollution.
Across the globe, burning fossil fuels is the major source of air pollution. Air pollution and higher particulate matter 2.5 concentrations in ambient air originating from fossil fuel combustion cause 2.5 million deaths (30% of deaths) annually in India.
Fossil fuel-linked air pollution responsible for 1 in 5 deaths globally. RE-based energy is known for zero or low emissions of particulate matter and GHGs.
Thus, moving away from fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy is a key solution to address air pollution.
There is mixed evidence for the role of renewable infrastructure in addressing the heat island effect. A 2016 study (Barron-Gafford et al. 2016) findings demonstrated that temperatures around a solar power plant were 3-4 °C warmer than nearby built environment and natural desert ecosystem.
This result demonstrates that renewable infrastructure (solar) can create a local heat island effect although the added heat dissipates quickly and can’t be measured 100 feet away from the power plants.
In contrast, another study (Masson et al. 2014) suggested that renewable infrastructure (solar) reduces the urban heat island effect. Thus, it is difficult to conclude the role of renewable infrastructure in addressing the heat island effect.
However, integrating green cover (vegetation) in urban areas is known to negate the urban heat island effect by reducing surface air temperature. Therefore, Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) can partially reduce UHI intensity, promoting a resilient urban environment and contributing to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Mapping and analyzing food systems reveal the transitions needed on the ground to meet this century’s most pressing challenge, climate change. Can you talk more about these food systems and their role in climate change?
The way we produce and consume food is inextricably connected to the earth’s changing climate. The agriculture sector, together with forestry and other land uses, contributes nearly a quarter of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).
Half of this share comes from direct agricultural emissions, mainly from livestock, with most of the rest from deforestation of which agriculture is the main driver. Therefore, GHG emissions from food systems are a major contributor to climate change.
Emission reductions from food production have so far received less attention in GHG mitigation policies than those from energy, transport, and other industrial sectors; consequently, emissions from agriculture and food systems could become the dominant source of global emissions by mid-century.
Therefore, meeting the Paris Agreement’s targets to combat climate change and achieving multiple SDG goals will be impossible without the agriculture sector doing its part.
Food systems transformation is now being recognized as a significant part of the solution to the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. In climate, the latest IPCC Report (AR6) highlights that “land, water and food” adaptation and mitigation options offer the greatest potential in responding to the climate crisis.
At COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, the Food Systems and Agriculture Agenda has been a priority as never before at a climate COP. For the first time, Heads of State and Government attending COP28 committed to a Leaders’ Declaration on Food Systems, Agriculture, and Climate Action.
Over 130 countries signed the Declaration – covering over 5.7 billion people, nearly 500 million farmers, and 76 percent of the total emissions from the global food system. More than US$2.5 billion has been mobilized to support the food-climate agenda, including a $200 million partnership between UAE and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
It is critical now to transform our food systems or change the way we produce and consume food. We need to transform our food systems in a way that, is carbon-neutral and nature-positive agriculture and food sector.
In this direction, The Nature Conservancy using geospatial analysis has identified priority foodscapes across the globe including India to transform food systems in away that it would reduce emissions from the food sector, use less water and conserve freshwater reserves, store carbon in plants and soil, and make farmers more resilient by adapting food systems to changing climate conditions.
What would be the role of geospatial in the future roadmap for The Nature Conservancy?
The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. Our vision is a world where the diversity of life thrives, and people act to conserve nature for its own sake and its ability to fulfill our needs and enrich our lives.
We work toward our vision by focusing on these key areas of conservation (tackle climate change, protect land and water, provide Food & Water Sustainably, and build healthy cities) each of which is advanced through the Conservancy’s use of geospatial science and technology.
GIS and remote sensing have informed TNC’s conservation science approach for decades. At least one in every three Conservancy staff uses maps and geospatial analysis, whether to monitor preserves, negotiate land and water transactions, develop ecosystem services analyses, map threats to ecosystems, spatial conservation action planning, etc.
Integrating Artificial Intelligence with advanced geospatial technologies marks a new era in biodiversity conservation and natural resource management. TNC’s future roadmap is to make use of these integrated technologies to solve conservation and climate change issues.
Steps for Curbing Agro Pollution
- Promote conservation agricultural technology such as Happy
seeder and other technologies that does away with paddy
residue burning and feed residue back to the soil. - Eliminating burning of one million hectares of cropland.
- Getting at least 250,000 farmers to adopt a no-burn cropping system.
- Preventing at least six million tonnes of CO2e from entering
the atmosphere. - Saving 500 billion litres of water from enhanced soil health and agronomy
- Piloting financial instruments that incentivize farmers to adopt no-burn practices.
Crop burning is a recurring issue that is bringing about plethora of problems with it. The Nature Conservancy is addressing this concern with Project HARIT. Can you please talk more about it?
About 80 percent of agriculture in Northwest India uses a paddy wheat crop rotation and has traditionally been burning paddy residue for clearing fields between the paddy harvest and wheat planting.
Due to the short window to prepare the land for planting wheat (about three to four weeks) –of all the options available, many farmers see burning the paddy stubble as the most viable solution for preparing their fields.
About two million farmers in Punjab and Haryana burn 12 million tonnes of paddy residue in the month of October and November every year.
This results in a blanket of haze in the Northern region and the nation’s capital Delhi contributing to severe air pollution.
The residue burning also contributes to over 20 million tonnes of CO2e emission annually apart from health hazards due to severe pollution.
The Nature Conservancy in collaboration with other organizations launched two multiyear projects called “Harnessing the power of Agricultural Residues through Innovative Technologies (HARIT) and Promoting Regenerative And No-burn Agriculture (PRANA)” with the ultimate objective to eliminate crop residue burning in two northwestern states of India-Punjab and Haryana.
