Tag: Texas A&M University

International Workshop on Biodiversity & Climate Change

We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and we are the last generation that can do something about it. We only get one home, one planet, there is no plan B. The climate has changed, we have changed, our tolerance and habits have changed. Biodiversity is our most valuable asset but least appreciated resource. Despite our many advances, our environment is still threatened by a range of problems including global climate change, energy dependency on unsustainable fossil fuels and loss of biodiversity. Therefore, there is a need to create an awareness about  maintaining ecology among the masses and address the graving concerns that pose a threat to the natural habit of human beings.

 

On the lines of creating awareness about biodiversity and climate change, the 3rd International Workshop on Biodiversity and Climate Change (BDCC-2023) was organized by the Centre for Ocean, River, Atmosphere, and Land Sciences (CORAL) at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur on the rising diminishment over ecological disruptions. The four-day programme including field trips to Sundarbans and Similipal Biosphere Reserve was attended by over 230 participants who arrived at the IIT Kharagpur campus on 15th February. The Inaugural session was organized at Kalidas Auditorium on 17th February 2023 in the august presence by eminent Professors and Scientists comprising of Dr. M Mohapatra, Director General of Meteorology, IMD; Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur; Prof. V P Singh, Texas A&M University, USA; Dr. S Behera, Director of Application Laboratory, JAMSTEC, Japan; Prof. B Pani, Dean of Colleges, University of Delhi;  Dr. T Meloth, Director, NCPOR, MoES; Prof. S K Dube, Former Director, IIT Kharagpur; Prof. K Kumar, Chairman CORAL and Prof. M D Behera, Organizing Secretary BDCC – 2023.

Prof. K Kumar, Chairman of BDCC-2023 welcomed the delegates on the dias, followed by lighting of the auspicious lamp by Dr. M Mohapatra and Prof V K Tewari in the presence of other dignitaries followed by a recitation of national anthem by a few students from Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Kharagpur. Dr. M D Behera, the Organizing Secretary provided an overview of the event with connection to the past two BDCC workshops and highlighted on the GOI Net Zero targets and nature-based climate solutions.

Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur remarked, “If we look at the nature closely, every species is a masterpiece, exquisitely adapted to the particular environment in which it has has survived. I feel honored and proud to witness the 3rd International Workshop on Biodiversity and Climate Change (BDCC-2023) organized by CORAL at IIT Kharagpur. Biodiversity forms the backbone of any Nation’s prosperity and development. India is bestowed with immense biological wealth in its different habitats and they provide various ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, food provision etc. However, with climate change crisis exacerbating biodiversity losses and shifts in ecosystems dynamics, it is the need of the hour to adopt multifaceted mitigation and adaptation measures for ecosystem restoration and sustainable development.”

Prof. S K Dube deliberated on the genesis of CORAL and its journey in the frontier era of climate change education and research. Prof. B Pani explained the compliance of the National Education Policy with climate studies, while Dr. T Meloth appraised on climate change footprints on the 3rd pole. Dr. S Behera emphasized on the prediction of monsoon and its impact on the economy in terms of crop yield and diseases like malaria. Prof. V P Singh highlighted the importance of water resources and its conservation in the era of changing climate. A pheno-meteorological observation tower installed in Similipal Biosphere Reserve was e-inaugurated by Dr. M Mohapatra in presence of Prof. V K Tewari; Dr. B K Bhattacharya and Dr. C P Singh, Scientists from Space Application Centre (SAC-ISRO), Ahmedabad.

The workshop started with four tutorials including (i) Species Distribution Modelling (SDM) using Machine Learning (ML), (ii) Soft Techniques in Environmental Geochemistry and Sediment Analysis, (iii) Geomatics and Data Analytics using Open Source – Google Earth Engine (GEE), and (iv) A Hierarchy of Glacier Models on 16th February with hands-on training by the Research Scholars of CORAL. Participants including students and young scientists from various international, national, and state institutes also attended the tutorials.

India is a very committed towards tackling the effects of climate change and has promoted and enacted various initiatives. India has tapped the potential of nature-based solutions to achieve net zero targets and uphold its commitment to the Paris Agreement. India’s commitment towards achieving Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents through additional forest and tree cover, Mission LiFE, Honourable Prime Minister’s ‘Panchamrit’ or five-fold declarations project our stance for circular and sustainable economic development,” remarked Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

The workshop accommodated seven technical sessions such as  Biodiversity and Land Cover Dynamics; Geomatics and Data Analytics; Forest and Agricultural Resource & Biotechnology; Extreme Weather Events and Natural Hazards; Global Cryosphere and The Himalayas; Biogeochemistry- Terrestrial and Marine; Nature-based Solution and Net-Zero Targets. The technical sessions were conducted in parallel in three halls with three keynote talks in each technical session by eminent scientists, who also co-chaired the sessions.

The first plenary session was chaired by Prof V P Singh, wherein Dr. M Mohapatra, Mr. D Ray, PCCF and CWLW, WB state and Dr. S Behera talked on ‘Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events’, ‘Climate threats to Sunderbans Mangroves’ and ‘Monsoon Climate and Food Security’ respectively. The plenary session-II was chaired by Prof B Pani, wherein Dr. E Sharma, Ex-DDG, ICIMOD and Dr. T Meloth and Dr. C Biradar, Country Director, CIFOR-ICRAF, Delhi talked on ‘Himalayan responses to changing climate’, ‘Climatic responses of polar regions’, and ‘Agroforestry interventions towards food security in the warming world’. The plenary session-III was chaired by Prof. S K Dube, wherein Dr. S Nayak, Former Secretary MOES, GOI); Dr. A Orr, British Antarctic Survey, UK; Dr. D H Bromwich, Ohio State University, USA and Dr. Kyle Clem, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, deliberated on a wide range of topics with respect to climate actions in different spheres.

“All these key policy decisions and initiatives clearly demonstrate  that our efforts for climate change mitigation should begin at the grassroot level starting from an individual and become unified as a massive wave for the common goal of preserving our planet. Being blessed with lush green campus, our staff and students of IIT Kharagpur have a plethora of opportunities to create a better world. We are proud to have undertaken different projects to enhance and maintain IIT-KGP campus a green campus. With our vision being – Dedicated to the service of the Nation, we seek to impart value based knowledge in addition to academic curriculum to our students in order to transform them into future leaders of tomorrow. This International workshop is a critical step in that direction which combines both traditional as well as modern fields of science. I congratulate Dr. Mukunda Dev Behera and the entire team for organizing this great event. I strongly encourage the researchers  and participants to take full advantage of this workshop,”

 

stated Prof. V K Tewari.

The keynote talks of each technical session were oriented towards sustainable development perspectives. The participants presented their works in terms of rapid-oral and standard-oral as per specific format and allotted time. A few awards were adjudged from each session by the session co-chairs and the awardees were given a certificate and momento in the Valedictory session on 18th Feb 2023. Field trips to Sunderbans and Siilipal Biosphere Reserve on 19th and 20th February. Several deliberations in the event have led to better understanding of how can we better understand feedbacks between climate change and biodiversity, how do we maintain a balance between bioresource management and socio-economic development, how do cryospheric changes in polar regions and high mountains affect biodiversity, water cycle and global climate etc. Forecasting and preparing for natural hazards and extreme weather events, understanding the intricacies between terrestrial and marine bio-geochemical cycles, geomatics perspective on spatial biodiversity and ways to achieve the net-zero targets through nature-based solutions were among the other topics of discussion.

Healthy ecosystems constitute healthy planet. In this connection, ecosystem restoration is a win-win strategy that is crucial to attain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate targets of the Paris Agreement. The on-going climate change is unequivocally anthropogenic and together with other stressors like deforestation, land degradation, biological invasion, etc. has resulted in species losses and shifts in landscape dynamics. The carbon cycle and the water cycle, arguably the two most important large-scale processes for life on Earth, depend on biodiversity at genetic, species, and ecosystem levels and can yield feedbacks to climate change.

Inputs by: Prof. M D Behera, CORAL, IIT Kharagpur
Email: mdbehera@coral.iitkgp.ac.in

Edited by : Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

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Written on the walls

As a former detention centre for freedom fighters during the Raj and then as the first Indian Institute of Technology that laid the foundation of the IIT system, IIT Kharagpur’s heritage is widely known and acknowledged. The academic building, together with a host of early structures in the campus, stands testimony to a momentous era. Do they bear any other secret?

Prof. Priya Jain, Associate Director, Center for Heritage Conservation and Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University, believes they do. “IIT Kharagpur was the first large scale campus that was designed in the modernist style in India,” said Prof. Jain during her recent visit to the campus. Apart from its antiquity as the first IIT, its architecture itself has a history to tell.

Jawaharlal Nehru inspecting Guard of Honour of NCC Cadets at IIT KGP

The IITs, said Prof. Jain, who is working on a series of paper of the architecture of the IITs, were all built in in the modernist style of architecture that was pretty new in India at that time. Globally, modernism emerged as a movement in the early 20th century as a response to industrialization. This new thinking on design and minimalism coincided with social movements like the rise of socialism. Modernism utilized new materials and advanced technology and rejected old, traditional, historical ideas and styles, and ornamentation.

Newly-independent India also felt the need for new ways to express itself. Prof. Jain explained, “Nehru picked up modernism because this new international style, with no historic connection with either Hindu or Muslim art, was found to be a neutralizing architecture and a new vocabulary for India.” This was what led him to Le Corbusier and the eventual building of Chandigarh in its distinctive architecture.

Post-independent India was an exciting time, but most of the literature on the architecture refers to Chandigarh. “I wanted to look outside it and IITs became an interesting proposition particularly since each IIT was designed with international collaboration in an era of cold war politics,” says Prof. Jain.

Prof. Jain is greatly interested in what she calls these “sub-stories”. In the case of IIT Kharagpur, where a lot of foreign countries were involved, a Swiss architect is believed to have made the masterplan. However, Prof. Jain’s initial research in the National Archives shows that a lot of the early work was done by Indian architects of PWD in Delhi. By the time the Swiss architect came, a lot had already been accomplished. “I am trying to go to primary sources and pin down how the planning came about, how the design and construction was done… There is a lot of interest in architectural circles about history and global modernism and I feel India has a lot to contribute to the existing body of knowledge.”

But her interest in the architecture of the IITs also reflects a larger concern of hers. A licensed architect in both India and the US, with over a decade of experience in building reuse and renovation, Prof. Jain has worked on the restoration of a diverse range of historically significant buildings including Trinity Church in Boston, St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington DC, the Richardson-Olmsted Complex in Buffalo and the Jewett Art Center at Wellesley College. She is particularly interested in technical building investigations, preservation of large institutional sites and buildings of the recent past. While at IIT Kharagpur, she also gave a talk at the Department of Civil Engineering, pointing out that there were few structural engineers and even fewer mechanical engineers who could work on historical buildings.

She became aware of how endangered modern-era historical buildings are in India with the news of the destruction of the Hall of Nations in 2017, the world’s first and largest-span space-frame structure built in reinforced concrete in 1972. The architecture holds special significance in India’s post-colonial history, but it took only days to be brought down. “Because of the Hall of Nations example, I felt that these buildings are very threatened in India.”

Involved with the conservation efforts in her own campus, Prof. Jain is aware that university campuses are always in a state of flux, and sometimes old structures have to make way for the new. Prof. Jain argues, “If historical research exists, the authorities will know that what they are trying to take down are the most historical buildings or have unique architectural features. This might lead to a rethink.” Even if a structure is demolished eventually, a 3D laser scan or some other method can be adopted to document what is being demolished.

“This is called conservation master planning and is done frequently on US campuses,” she says. She has, in fact, worked with many universities, such as Wellesley College and Pennsylvania State University, which have created heritage conservation master plans that look at the campus buildings historically. Her own university recently updated their master plan and she is trying to supplement that information with more research on the post-war modern era architecture..

On her first visit to the IIT Kharapgur campus, Prof. Jain found the campus bewitching. “Early pictures show the campus to be very barren. That was the image I had, but I was struck by how green and lush it is here.”

Prof. Jain has been digging into  multiple sources for her research- archives at IIT-Kharagpur, the National Archives in Delhi, the National Library in Kolkata ,  and archives at UNESCO, US and Switzerland, to name a few.

Prof. Priya Jain is Associate Director, Center for Heritage Conservation and Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University. She serves as Field Editor (Architecture) for the Getty Conservation Institute’s AATA Online-Abstracts of International Conservation Literature and is Co-Chair of the Central Chapter of the Association for Preservation Technology-Texas