On the occasion of the World Environment Day 2021, the Departments of Management, Kochi and Amritapuri jointly organized a webinar on the topic’ Challenges for Eco-restoration in the Western Ghats of Kerala in a Changing Climate: Some Reflections’.
Dr. C. G. Madhusudanan (Co-Founder and CEO, EQUINOCT – Community Sourced Modelling Solutions) was the resource person. Dr. Madhusudanan is an active researcher who recently completed a detailed research on the Kerala floods, supported by the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie & the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Government of India.
The webinar session was designed in line with this year’s theme of the “World Environment Day: Putting ecosystem restoration on a pedestal”. The active and direct involvement of the resource person in matters related to ecosystem restoration ensured that his talk was very informative and eye-opening to the audience that attended the webinar. Another aspect that made this webinar timely was that the United Nations is seeking to attract the attention of investors, businesses, governments and communities on the increasingly urgent need to restore the Earth’s ecosystems. The resource person also touched upon these aspects in his talk. Dr. Madhusudan also willingly answered all the queries that the audience had. The webinar was attended by the management students and staff of all the Amritapuri, Coimbatore and Kochi campuses.
Western Ghats is known for its rich, diverse and fragile ecosystems and is one of the eight hottest biodiversity hotspots of the World. The forests and ecosystems of the Western Ghats are severely damaged by various development activities, industrial and agriculture plantations, mining, and encroachments, poaching etc. The changing climate, with extreme rainfall and increasing temperature, threatens these already degraded ecosystems further. Though there are significant outcries for saving these unique and fragile ecosystems, the challenges are enormous.
This talk explored a lesser known and very unique hydrological process in the Western Ghats which has high significance for water resource management and conservation, and is critical to eco-restoration in these mountains.
Dr. C G Madhusoodhanan,
Co-founder & CEO
EQUINOCT- Community Sourced Modelling Solutions
Dr. Madhusoodhanan’s research work is focused on understanding natural resource inter-linkages in India in the wake of extensive human interventions and climate change. He has a PhD in Water Resources Engineering from the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India.
He was the Principal Investigator of the Project on Kerala Floods 2018: Causes and Risk Mitigation Strategy, a project of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie funded by National Disaster Management Authority, GoI
He has expertise in the assessment of hydrological impacts of climate and human interventions on the Energy-Land-Water-Climate Nexus, Climate change assessments, tropical hydrology, hydrologic modelling, integrated river basin management, water conflicts, agricultural transitions, vegetation dynamics, and natural resource management.
He also has experience in grass-root level participatory technology implementation across rural India. He is the recipient of the Global Indus Technovators Award 2004 and Excellence in Research Award of IIT Bombay in 2018.
He is also a consultant for developing Flood Risk Reduction Plan for Cochin International Airport Ltd.
He has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles, popular articles and books.
