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Source: The post is based on the article “Year-End Review -2022: Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare” published in PIB on 27th December 2022.
What is the News?
The Ministry of Earth Sciences has launched several initiatives and schemes in 2022.
What are the schemes and initiatives launched by the Ministry of Earth Sciences?
-Six Doppler Weather Radars (DWRs) have been commissioned at various locations. Thus taking the total number of DWRs to 35.
-Expansion of South Asia Flash Flood Guidance System (SAFFGS) for providing Flash flood guidance to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. SAFFGS, having a high resolution of 4×4 km and covering 30000 watersheds over the Indian region is capable of issuing flash flood threats and risks for the next 6 and 24 hours respectively.
-A very high-resolution (400 metre) Air Quality Early Warning System (AQEWS) integrated with A Decision Support System (DSS) for air quality has been developed showing an accuracy of 88% for predicting extreme pollution events. This is much higher than the estimates available for a similar system across the globe.
-The Atmospheric Research Testbed (ART) facility has been established on approx.100 acres of land at Silkheda village in Sehore District of Madhya Pradesh. This facility will study important atmospheric processes particularly: a) Clouds and Convection; b) Land-Atmosphere interactions; c) Aerosol and Radiation; and d) thunderstorms.
–Autonomous coastal water quality “Coastal Observatories” at Kochi and Visakhapatnam along the Indian coast were established in 2022. These house multiple sensors for physical (temperature, salinity, depth, surface current) and water quality (dissolved oxygen, nutrients, chlorophyll, turbidity, pH, pCO2) parameters.
-A web GIS-based decision support system “Digital Coast – India (D-COIN)” has been developed to house all datasets on coastal and marine pollution, marine litter, shoreline changes, coastal hazards, ecosystems etc. This long-term spatial database would be an invaluable tool for coastal administrators for effective decision-making.
-MoES is setting up a geochronology facility at Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC), New Delhi to cater to the need of geoscientists of the country. The geochronology facility has the mandate of developing an internationally-competitive centre for geochronology and isotope geochemistry that will facilitate generation of quality isotopic data for geochronological and isotopic fingerprinting.
