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Mapping Pollution in Godavari

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July 12, 2017

Why in news?

A group of U.S. researchers is working on a system to map surging pollution trends in the Godavari.

What is the project about?

  • The exercise is part of a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation project.
  • It is to support the programme of the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) to provide city-wide sanitation improvements in urban Andhra Pradesh.
  • The team’s long-term objective is to inform State officials and citizens of a probable spike in levels of dangerous microbes or effluents.
  • The project has identified two “hotspots” of pollution.

What methods are used?

  • The methods includes satellite-monitoring to collect water samples.
  • It also uses special sensors to measure bacterial and chemical pollution.
  • Cloud-based data collection and real-time mapping is also used.
  • The sampling exercise measures parameters such as total dissolved salts, nitrate, pH, temperature, turbidity and electrical conductivity.
  • These are then relayed to map environmental parameters for analysis.

What are the advantages of this project?

  • It is accesses “raw data” that could be used to inform the efficacy of a proposed faecal sludge treatment plant
  • It also can be used to analyse behavioural interventions including incentives or punishments to restrict activities that pollute the river could actually work.
  • It can detect and anticipate pollutants that enter the Godavari.
  • It can develop an economical river water forecast system.
  • In advanced stages, low-cost sensors can be used to measure microbial levels in real time.

 

Source: The Hindu

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