A video on groundwater depletion in India
Published in The Hindu on August 20, 2009
A streaming video of the paper on groundwater depletion in the three States of India — Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana, including the National Capital Territory of Delhi — published today in the print edition of the Nature journal is freely accessible. The findings of the paper, first published online on August 12, were widely reported in the media in India and in other countries.
Making streaming videos of very important papers published in the journal is part of its policy to effectively convey the findings to a larger audience.
The three authors of the paper — Matthew Rodell from the Hydrological Sciences Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, Isabella Velicogna from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and James Famiglietti of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of California — explain the significance and implications of the study. The scientists used the data from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite and a modelling system to show that goundwater depletion occurs at a rate of 4 cm per year in the States of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana (including Delhi).
The video “An Indian hotspot” is available in two formats: as a trailer and a full film lasting a couple of minutes.
