Irrigation linked to reduced rainfall in northern India
India remains one of the most highly irrigated regions in the world. Although the rise in irrigation over the decades has boosted crop productivity, it has also caused the depletion…
Nature’s fury 2019: A year of extremes for India
Record extreme events exacted a heavy toll on human, animal lives and property in India as a high-impact mix of seven cyclones, the heaviest monsoon in 25 years, floods that…
Climate change threatens Wayanad’s agrarian and tourism prospects
Mananthavady, a major town of Kerala’s northern district Wayanad which shot into national limelight in the recent months after emerging as the chosen parliamentary constituency of Indian National Congress leader…
Hills of peril: Southwest monsoon inflicts severe damage in the Nilgiris
A pristine valley located hardly 26 km away from the famous hill station Udhagamandalam (Ooty), Avalanche got its name from a massive landslide that took place here more than 150…
Natural, man-made air pollutants tinkering with Guwahati’s rainwater
As rapidly-expanding Guwahati, northeast India’s largest metropolis, gears up to clean its air under the National Clean Air Policy (NCAP), a study suggests a cocktail of natural and man-made pollutants…
[Commentary] Is Indian monsoon turning into a string of extreme weather events?
From the time settled agriculture started on the Indian subcontinent millennia ago, there was a dependence on the calendrical reliability of the rains as they sustained the crops. Every year…
Over 1,300 people died in July-August this year due to floods and heavy rainfall
Episodes of heavy, intense and unprecedented rainfall in a single day are increasing in India, endangering both human lives and property. So far this year, according to the data analysed…
[Commentary] Is climate change the only reason for flooding in the Western Ghats?
Our earth has taken billions of years for its formation and to bring life forms on it. It is the only living planet that we are aware of. Every natural…
[Interview] Weather forecasting to move from information-based to impact-based forecast
India’s meteorological department has, in recent years, made improvements in its accuracy of weather forecasting. In an interview with Mongabay-India, the director-general of India Meteorological Department, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, discusses the…
Kerala floods: Unpacking the reasons for heavy, sustained rainfall
A confluence of factors that powered the extreme rainfall in the southern Indian state of Kerala in 2018, triggering the worst flood in a century in the country, could be…
