'Water scarcity in coastal regions, a grave concern '

Mission Monsoon to better prediction of rainfall

The Centre has launched ‘Mission Monsoon’ programme towards improvisation of rainfall predictions and towards addressing the challenge of seasonal and climate changes, Union Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary Dr Shailesh Nayak said.

Delivering the inaugural address at the International Conference on Water Resources, Coastal and Ocean Engineering (ICWRCOE-2015), organised by Department of Applied Mechanics and Hydraulics in National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, Mangaluru on Thursday, he said government is batting for a better climate prediction system to study the consequences of climatic changes.     
                            
Water cycle has a significant role in global energy cycle. But, there has been several changes in water cycle.

Use of land cover, construction of dams, various means of extracting water and other human activities have eventually changed the evaporation and precipitation pattern.

Due to climatic changes, there have also been changes in the flow of water from glaciers into rivers.

Dr Shailesh Nayak said water scarcity is turning out to be a serious problem in coastal regions. Following scarcity of water, sea water is being used for industrial purposes, after converting it into fresh water.

But, there are environmental issues such as pollution. Also, serious problem of releasing of pesticide residue, nitrogen and phosporous to the surface water needs to be addressed as this can have an adverse impact on human health.

This will also have an adverse affect on fishing. The industrial affleunts in turn join the oceans through rivers. Better planning is needed for river cleaning projects. He meanwhile expressed the concern of providing fresh water to ecosystem.

Ecological balance
The ecological balance of oceans is very important as in future, there may arise a need for us to depend upon oceans for Cobalt, Nickel and other metals. Deep water technologies need to be built in this regard, he said.

Speaking on interlinking of rivers, he stated that transfer of water across the basin requires lage amount of energy. 

He meanwhile felt for a change in existing modelling framework and said that key scientific factors need to be used as inputs for future projects including distribution of available water resources.

Anna University, Chennai, Centre for Research Director and Centre for Water Resources Professor Dr Usha Natesan was the guest of honour, NITK Director(in-charge) A Kandasamy and others  presided over the inaugural programme.