National Conference on Water Resource Management for Industries

PROPOSAL

Sustainable water resources management and climate change adaptation are increasingly becoming highly recognized global issues. Due to its multiple benefits and the problems created by its excesses, deficit, and quality deterioration, the conservation and management of water resources requires special attention on the management of environment of the water resources system. During the last couple of decades, fast industrial growth has led to rapid urbanization resulting in multifold increase for demand of water, whereas remarkable change in climate has occurred. The rising pressure on water resources has resulted in altered watersheds and changes in the course of river systems. These alterations have greatly affected the flow in system of water resources which have contributed to rising issues on sustainability. Rapid urbanization, change in climate, changes in watershed condition and course of rivers demand better strategies for management of this precious resource for sustained industrial growth so that water necessary for industrial as well as agricultural use can be made available for a secured future.

Jadavpur Centre for Study of Earth Science is going to organize a national conference on Water Resource Management for Industries to investigate the role of industry in the exploitation, management and treatment of water resources. Conference will focus on sustainable water policies, accounting and conservation of water and energy, and the development and application of appropriate water treatment and reuse technology. Corporate sustainability initiatives that result in measurable reductions in water use will be discussed as well as case studies and "lessons learned" related to use of municipal effluent in place of potable water and the internal reuse of industrial water supplies.

The Conference provides a platform for professionals involved in water resources management to exchange knowledge and gain an insight in to the state of the art in the current technology, techniques and solutions in sustainable water management as they have been developed and applied in different countries. Participants include a wide variety of stakeholders from research and academia, like industrial sectors as well as government organisations.

It is expected that the conference will be held in early November 2015 at Kolkata.

2 day conference to be held in a Hotel in Kolkata

Sub theme

•          General Methodology for Sustainable Water Management in Industries
•          Water Efficiency and resource management
•         Ecosystem Management
•          Multi-sectoral and cross cutting issues in water resources management
•          Stakeholder’s cooperation for water sustainability
•          Corporate Social Responsibility: impacts on the water sector

Registration

Industries: 5000 per delegate

Individual/Academics:  2000 per delegate

Students/ Research scholars: reduced registration fee/ full waiver

Report on the Training of the Geologists of Tata Steel by JCSES

Report on the Training of the Geologists of Tata Steel by JCSES

A comprehensive training programme for imparting training to the geologists of Tata Steel was taken up by Jadavpur Centre for Study of Earth Science as per the request of Natural Resource Division (NRD) of Tata Steel, Jamshedpur. The proposed training encompassed broadly ‘Geological mapping, coal exploration techniques and other associated studies, Coal Resource Assessment and Geological Report writing in West Bokaro Coalfield, Jharkhand and the time scheduled wasaround two weeks.

Five faculty members were selected to take up the assignment and as per their suggestions and after severaldiscussions with NRD, Tata Steel a detailed programme was chalked out  and the broad outline of the same areas follows:

1.      Reconnaissance Traverse by four faculty members along with officials of Tata Steel in Ara – Dumurbera area of West Bokaro Coalfield for three days in the month of February 2013to select the mapping area

And by five faculty members between the  periods from 9th to 22nd of April 2013 :

2.      Introductory lectures on different aspects of mapping& coal exploration, Gondwana geology and local geological set up -2 days

3.      Geological mapping of coalfield along with lectures on different related geological topics -7 days

4.      Exercises on different  coal exploration techniques, borehole core logging, assessment of coal resource of an explored block and preparation of geological map, sections, charts, tables etc. and report writing - 5 days

Training programme for ten geologists was inaugurated on 9-4-2013 at the Training Centre of Tata at West Bokaro and attended by Senior executives of Tata Steel, Jamshedpur and  W. Bokaro and was followed by inaugural lecture on Gondwana basins of India and coal/ lignite occurrencesby a faculty of JCSES. From the following day the training continued uninterruptedly as per schedule and officials of Tata steel extend their full cooperation to make it a success. Relevant noteson the different topics and procedure for carrying out  necessary exercises were distributed to the trainees. At the end of training all the trainee geologists submitted reports and the same were scrutinized by the faculty members and returned to them. The evaluation test covering all aspects of training was arranged on 22-4-2013. All the trainees scored above 90%.

 A valedictory function was organized by Tata Steel in the evening of 22-4-2013 where the  both the trainees and the faculty members expressed their views on the training and the senior executives of Tata Steel also conveyed sincere gratitude to the faculties of JCSES.

ROLE OF MAP LITERACY IN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Maps are defined as a two dimensional, geometrically accurate representation of a three dimensional space. It is graphic representation of a set of features whose relationships are shown by size, position and time. Map is a tool by which we can view, measure and understand our environment. Map is one of the easiest tools and probably the best tool for establishing any environmental dialogue. It has generally been observed that the basic knowledge about maps is rather low among the people of this country, even among the formally educated. Map learning can make people able to handle geo-environmental information of local, regional, national and global levels efficiently and more accurately. Science Communicators’ forum, a Kolkata based NGO is pursuing map literacy programme in West Bengal since 2004. The organisation had implemented map literacy programme in 40 rural schools of West Bengal where 3000 students were given training on understanding, using, updating and creating maps of their local area. The exercises had given them a better idea and understanding of their local environment. They learnt how to observe the changes that occurred in terms of demography, social pattern, natural resource, pollution and biodiversity. Environmental mapping programme can be a part of environmental education where the learners will learn to prepare local area thematic maps based on different environment related themes and develop local environmental database. In an advance stage of map learning other geo-informatics tools like GPS, remote sensing and GIS may be introduced. A systematic curriculum can be prepared