The Brahmaputra To Host Floating Laboratory -The River’s Ecosystem
The centre, in a bid to develop the Northeast in terms of innovation, awareness, and to promote science, has now announced three initiatives of which floating Science labs on the Brahmaputra will be at the apex.
Asia’s largest riverine island- Majuli, is fast eroding and the initiative will be involving in-depth study regarding the various ways this area could be safeguarded using research carried out on floating ‘B4’ boat labs along the Brahmaputra river.
Majuli, the first island district of the country, was once 1200 square kilometres but due to excessive erosion has since shrunk to under 500 square kilometres. It is also known for being the seat of Assam’s Vaishnava monasteries.
The ‘Brahmaputra Biodiversity and Biology Boat’, a two-storey vessel being put together with an initial investment of Rs 50 crore, is expected to dedicatedly research the effects of climate change, dams and human intervention on the river’s ecosystem.
The lab will have the capability to study climate change and analyse soil, water, environment, plant and animal life, human health, agriculture and river system. This will be done with in-boat instrumentation, linked to local institutions and national laboratories across the
country through ‘cloud’.Work on the boat lab – a refurbished trawl – will start by the end of 2017. The blueprint of the floating lab is being put together by scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. Apart from the laboratory, the boat is expected to house a cold storage facility for samples, a fleet of satellite boats or rafts and one floor dedicated to outreach and education for local people.
“The large boat with the permanent lab will be spread over two floors and will go up and down the river. One floor will be dedicated to scientists, while the other floor will be accessible to residents of the area to learn about the eco-system,” said DBT secretary K. Vijay Raghavan on Wednesday. “The idea is to study the changes caused by dams, climate change, human interventions and the eventual effects it has on the river eco-system. Despite supporting considerable biodiversity, the Brahmaputra has not been studied as extensively as the Amazon,” he said.
Union Science Minister Harsh Vardhan and senior scientists from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) said the two-storied barge with other small barges or mobile labs in the tributaries will be rolled out this December.
“No major river for this size had been studied in this particular region. In future, such projects would be connected with other similar projects in the country,” said Union Science And Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan.
IIT-Guwahati is the nodal agency of the programme. Multiple other small boat labs or satellite barges in the tributaries of the river will also connect local research institutions along the river and will occasionally give access to the local community to see the bio-diversity from a scientific angle. The IIT Guwahati scientists, say it would be ‘challenging as well as exciting’ to research the hydrology, water quality, biodiversity and the associated ecosystems of Bramhaputra, one among the longest rivers of the world.
Taking inspiration from a similar lab on boat in the river Amazon in South America, the science and technology ministry will set it up as part of its three biotechnology missions in the north-east.
The other two missions include Phyto-Pharma Plants Mission and Frugal Microscopy Mission. The Phyto-Pharma Mission will promote cultivation and conservation of endangered medicinal plants in the north-eastern states while Frugal Microscope Mission will provide foldscope (world’s cheapest microscope costing less than Rs 70) to schools, colleges and scientists for education and research.
“The department of biotechnology (DBT) has committed to dedicate at least 10% of our budget every year for the north-east. This year, we aim to spend at least Rs 200 crores for our north-east programmes”, said the Minister.
