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Sustainable agrarian development has emerged as a key agenda in many recent global development dialogues, owing to its intimate links with rural development. Agrarian development paradigms, however, mostly root for technocratic solutions (agro-systems’ modernization), overlooking the social dimension (social networking/learning) of agricultural innovation. In view of the above, this reflective article summarizes existing worldviews on the role of farmers’ social networking/learning on agrarian development, with special emphasis on India. Cyclic interactions between water (irrigation), food (agriculture) and energy have led to dire socioenvironmental crises (e.g., groundwater depletion, energy shortage, irrigation systems’ failures, food insecurity, livelihood loss, etc.) in India that demands focused policy interventions. Under the circumstances, participatory action via farmers’ social networks provides an effective tool to harnesses resilience. With illustrative examples from India and the world, the study demonstrates that social learning is key to adoption of new paradigms (new technology/crop/cropping methods, etc.). Dissemination of new knowledge/idea is fundamentally keyed to extent of farmer-to-farmer interaction (friendship-/peer-advising network). In the process, the study highlights key barriers to establish functional networks among farming communities. Particular emphasis is laid upon the Water Users’ Association in India, to enumerate growing concerns around farmers’ involvement in Participatory Irrigation Management schemes. Pitfalls in existing network literature are highlighted, ranging from sampling issues to unaccounted effects of “unobservable” variables. The final section attempts to outline certain strategic interventions that might be pursued at the policy level to harness social capital. Overall, the study was a plea to the concerned authorities, research bodies and stakeholders in India, to forge substantive collaborations for new knowledge creation in the theory and practice of social networking/learning and identify contextualized means to integrate them in the development matrix.

Dual concerns involving the rise in airborne pollutant levels and bulging need to protect-preserve human health have propelled the search for innovative means for air quality monitoring to aid in evidence-based decision-making (pollution prevention-mitigation). In this regard, moss bags have gathered a great deal of attention as active biomonitors. In this reflective discourse, we systematically review the world literature to present a bird’s eye view of moss bag applications and advances while highlighting potential concerns. We begin with a brief note on mosses as biomonitors, highlighting the advantages of moss bags over the passive technique (native moss), other living organisms (lichens, vascular plants), and instrument-based measurements. A major strand of moss bag research involves urban ecosystem sustainability studies (e.g., street tunnels and canyons, parks), while others include event-specific monitoring and change detection (e.g., SARS-CoV-2 Lockdown), indoor-outdoor air quality assessment, and change detection in land use patterns. Recent advances include biomagnetic studies, radioisotopic investigations, and mobile applications. Efforts are currently underway to couple moss bag results with a suite of indicators [e.g., relative accumulation factor (RAF), contamination factor (CF), pollution load index (PLI), enrichment factor (EF)] and spatially map the results for holistic appraisal of environmental quality (hot spot detection). However, while moss bag innovations and applications continue to grow over time, we point to fundamental concerns/uncertainties (e.g., lack of concordance in operational procedures and parameterization, ideal species selection, moss vitality) that still need to be addressed by targeted case studies, before the moss results could be considered in regulatory interventions.

Surging incidents of air quality-related public health hazards, and environmental degradation, have prompted the global authorities to seek newer avenues of air quality monitoring, especially in developing economies, where the situation appears most alarming besides difficulties around ‘adequate’ deployment of air quality sensors. In the present narrative, we adopt a systematic review methodology (PRISMA, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses ) around recent global literature (2002–2022), around moss-based passive biomonitoring approaches which might offer the regulatory authorities a complementary means to fill ‘gaps’ in existing air quality records. Following the 4-phased search procedure under PRISMA, total of 123 documents were selected for review. A wealth of research demonstrates how passive biomonitoring, with strategic use of mosses, could become an invaluable regulatory (and research) tool to monitor atmospheric deposition patterns and help identifying the main drivers of air quality changes (e.g., anthropogenic and/or natural). Besides individual studies, we briefly reflect on the European Moss Survey, underway since 1990, which aptly showcases mosses as ‘naturally occurring’ sensors of ambient air quality for a slew of metals (heavy and trace) and persistent organic pollutants, and help assessing spatio-temporal changes therein. To that end, we urge the global research community to conduct targeted research around various pollutant uptake mechanisms by mosses (e.g., species-specific interactions, environmental conditions, land management practices). Of late, mosses have found various environmental applications as well, such as in epidemiological investigations, identification of pollutant sources and transport mechanisms, assessment of air quality in diverse and complex urban ecosystems, and even detecting short-term changes in ambient air quality (e.g., COVID-19 Lockdown), each being critical for the authorities to develop informed and strategic regulatory measures. To that end, we review current literature and highlight to the regulatory authorities how to extend moss-based observations, by integrating them with a wide range of ecological indicators to assess regional environmental vulnerability/risk due to degrading air quality. Overall, an underlying motive behind this narrative was to broaden the current regulatory outlook and purview, to bolster and diversify existing air quality monitoring initiatives, by coupling the moss-based outputs with the traditional, sensor-based datasets, and attain improved spatial representation. However, we also make a strong case of conducting more targeted research to fill in the ‘gaps’ in our current understanding of moss-based passive biomonitoring details, with increased case studies.

Most governmental initiatives in India, to leash down urban air pollution, have yielded little results till date, largely due to purely technocratic vision, which is shrouded by technological, economic, social, institutional, and political hardships. We present this reflective article on urban greenery, as a proposition to urban authorities (e.g., pollution regulators, environmental systems’ managers, urban landscape planners, environmental policy makers), shift from purely technocratic way of thinking to thinking with nature , by strategic greening of urban spaces, for long-term air pollution prevention and control measures. To that end, we offer a meta-analysis of recent (post 2005) global literature using four-stage PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach. We open the narrative by briefing about main pollutant filtration mechanisms by trees, followed by cognitive aspects of species selection (e.g., deciduous vs. evergreen, air pollution tolerance index, environmental stressors). Till date, most Indian studies on urban greenery mostly but focused on physiological aspects of trees. Here, we draw attention of urban authorities to an equally compelling, but yet less explored, aspect: design criteria, with reference to two most common urban configurations, namely, street canyon and open road. With pictorial depictions, we enumerate various categories of street canyons and discuss aspect ratio (building height to street width) and various wind flow regimes (isolated roughness, wake interface, and skimming), that the urban authorities should be cognizant about to maximize pollutant removal efficiency. For open road, we discuss vegetation barriers, with special emphasis on canopy porosity/density functions. In the final sections, we reflect on a potential systems’ thinking approach for on-ground implementation, comprising of revamping of urban forestry programs, research and development, community mobilization and stakeholder engagement, and strategic outreach. In addition, we emphasize on means to harness co-benefits of urban greenery, beyond mere pollutant removal, to garner support from urban residents’ communities. Last but not the least, we also caution the urban authorities about the undesirable outcomes of urban greenery that will require more process-level research.

NA=states with no irrigation pricing data or drought-affected districts (source: CWC 2017) Crop-specific rates (INR ha–1) Paddy Wheat Sugarcane State Maximum Minimum Maximum Minimum Maximum Minimum Year of last revision Drought-affected districts (2015–2016) (%) Punjab 123 123 123 123 123 123 1974 NA Himachal Pradesh 49 49 49 49 49 49 NA NA Tripura 312 312 312 312 NA NA NA NA Goa 180 180 NA NA 360 360 NA NA Gujarat 160 160 160 160 300 300 1981 15 Jammu and Kashmir 298 298 150 150 298 298 NA NA Karnataka 247 247 148 148 988 988 1985 93 Assam 751 281 562 562 222 222 NA NA Maharashtra 476 119 476 476 6297 6297 1990 78 Orissa NA NA 170 170 500 500 1981 90 Andhra Pradesh 494 370 NA NA 864 864 1986 77 Arunachal Pradesh NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Bihar 247 108 185 138 370 370 1983 NA Chhattisgarh 494 200 NA NA 741 741 NA 93 Haryana 148 123 123 111 197 172 1975 NA Jharkhand 217 108 185 138 370 370 NA 92 Kerala 99 37 NA NA NA NA NA NA Manipur 602 305 305 305 NA NA NA NA Meghalaya NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Mizoram NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Madhya Pradesh 155 85 125 75 960 960 1992 90 Nagaland NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Rajasthan 197 49 148 64 286 103 1982 58 Sikkim 100 60 NA NA NA NA NA NA Tamil Nadu 49 5 NA NA 55 5 1962 NA Telengana NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 70 Utter Pradesh 123 37 287 40 474 99 1983 67 West Bengal NA NA 49 49 NA NA 1977 NA There is as yet little effort to price groundwater, even though it furnishes the bulk of irrigation water demand. Several factors contributed to this ‘transition’: (1) growth in rural population density; (2) boom in smallholder farms (<2 ha); (3) increased demand for year-round, on-demand water supply; (4) inefficient institutional governance (incomplete projects, poor maintenance of infrastructure, low public investment) of canal-sourced irrigation; (5) energy subsidies to pump groundwater; and (6) new irrigation methods (Amarasighe et al. 2009). Challenges magnify where political interests conflict. [...]even though water pricing is likely to curb over-extraction (Mukherji et al. 2009), efforts are thwarted by regional politics. From Area to Volume In India, irrigation water pricing is mostly based on crop area (Sindhu 2010), which is both labour-intensive and prone to error. [...]as it sets arbitrary charges on irrigation water use, agrarian communities do not welcome it.

India is a global hotspot for irrigation-induced groundwater withdrawal, leading to widespread lowering of water levels, in turn resulting in disproportionate access to irrigation supplies among farming communities. Efforts to mitigate the situation, however, have fallen short, largely due to technocentric vision (e.g. microirrigation adoption) of the regulatory authorities (RAs), which does little to integrate the vast groundwater-dependent socioecologies with the decision making system. In view of that, we invite the RAs to deliberate upon a cap-and-trade mechanism that proposes to mobilize the farmers at every aspect of planning and execution, while to tackling multiple challenges simultaneously: (a) restrict groundwater pumping to a pre-defined safe level (cap), (b) creating a shared space/quotas for all to pump (allocation); and (c) making provisions for trade of allocations. The latter further augments farmers’ access to groundwater (and irrigation). Using a systematic bibliometric analysis of relevant world literature and contextual appraisal of groundwater-irrigation landscape in India, we develop a conceptual framework of cap-and-trade in three parts. In the first Pre-implementation stage, we emphasize a reality check study to assess ground conditions, if favorable for a cap-and-trade approach (existing social, economic, institutional circumstances). Next, in the Implementation stage, (1) we recommend an integrated hydrogeological-hydrometeorological modeling to determine flexible capping arrangements, with the possibility of delineating certain priority regions (coastal ecosystems); (2) for allocations, a reasonable fraction of the cap over a defined period; we envision a thoroughly participatory arrangement, centering on four action areas: identifying, informing, consulting, and involving the farmers, alongside all stakeholders engaged in the groundwater-irrigation decision making; (3) for trade, we urge the RAs to create win-win situations for both the sellers and buyers; develop the transaction protocols on certain foundational principles (e.g. simplicity, transparency and consistency); strengthening of local institutions, and development of targeted financial support schemes. We consider the third part of the narrative, Post-implementation stage, as a real game changer, comprising of a monitoring, auditing (performance benchmarking) component coupled with multitiered outreach-mentoring drives that demonstrate to the farmers the benefits of becoming part of the cap-and-trade program. Overall, a main motivation to present this research is to shatter the age-old socio-cognitive beliefs/taboos around groundwater pumping (My land, My Water) , breaking the hegemony of the water sellers (rich/wealthy large landholder clans), to potentially, create a social norm whereby the farmers realize the value of restricting groundwater pumping and sharing for mutual prosperity.

Aquifer-based groundwater quality assessment offers critical insight into the major hydrochemical processes, and aids in making groundwater resources management decisions. The Texas Rolling Plains (TRP), spanning over 22 counties, is a major agro-ecological region in Texas from where highest groundwater nitrate (NO₃ ⁻) levels in the state have been reported. In this study, we present a comparative assessment of major hydrochemical facies pertaining to NO₃ ⁻ contamination and a host of species such as sulfate (SO₄ ²⁻), chloride (Cl⁻), and total dissolved solids (TDS) in different water use classes in the Seymour and Blaine aquifers, underlying the TRP. Aquifer-stratified groundwater quality information from 1990 to 2010 was obtained from the Texas Water Development Board and aggregated over decadal scale. High groundwater salinization was found in the municipal water use class in the Blaine aquifer with about 100, 87 and 50 % of observations exceeding the secondary maximum contaminant level for TDS, SO₄ ²⁻, and Cl⁻, respectively in the 2000s (2000–2010). The NO₃-contamination was more alarming in the Seymour aquifer with 82 and 61 % of observations, respectively, exceeding the maximum contaminant level (MCL) in the irrigation and municipal water use classes in the 2000s. Salinization was more influenced by SO₄ ²⁻ and Cl⁻ in the Blaine aquifer and by NO₃ ⁻ in the Seymour aquifer. High NO₃ ⁻ (>MCL) observations in the Seymour aquifer occurred in the Ca–HCO₃ and Ca–Mg–HCO₃ facies, the domains of fresh water recharge and anthropogenic influences (e.g., agricultural activities, waste disposal). High SO₄ ²⁻, Cl⁻ and TDS observations in the Blaine aquifer dominated the Ca–Cl, Na–Cl, and mixed Ca(Mg)–SO₄(Cl) facies indicating evaporite dissolution, mixing and solute exchange, and lack of fresh recharge.

Groundwater quality degradation is a major threat to sustainable development in Texas. The aim of this study was to elucidate spatiotemporal patterns of groundwater fluoride (F−) contamination in different water use classes in 16 groundwater management areas in Texas between 1960 and 2010. Groundwater F− concentration data were obtained from the Texas Water Development Board and aggregated over a decadal scale. Our results indicate that observations exceeding the drinking water quality threshold of World Health Organization (1.5 mg F L−1) and secondary maximum contaminant level (SMCL) (2 mg F L−1) of the USEPA increased from 26 and 19% in the 1960s to 37 and 23%, respectively, in the 2000s. In the 2000s, F− observations > SMCL among different water use classes followed the order: irrigation (39%) > domestic (20%) > public supply (17%). Extent and mode of interaction between F− and other water quality parameters varied regionally. In western Texas, high F− concentrations were prevalent at shallower depths (<50 m) and were positively correlated with bicarbonate (HCO3−) and sulfate anions. In contrast, in southern and southeastern Texas, higher F− concentrations occurred at greater depths (>50 m) and were correlated with HCO3− and chloride anions. A spatial pattern has become apparent marked by “excess” F− in western Texas groundwaters as compared with “inadequate” F− contents in rest of the state. Groundwater F− contamination in western Texas was largely influenced by groundwater mixing and evaporative enrichment as compared with water–rock interaction and mineral dissolution in the rest of the state.

Land degradation and desertification (LDD) has gained worldwide policy attention due to decline in land quality and the resultant economic burden accrued upon a vast population reliant on land-based natural capital. In India, the impacts are becoming apparent as 24 out of 29 states have been experiencing LDD since the early 2000s. Here, we adopt a mixed-method approach combining hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and multilinear regression analysis (MLRA) with contextual assessments to draw on, using state-level information from 2011–2013, an age-old question: do farming operations aggravate LDD? The HCA identified 11 states that currently lead the trajectory with the highest state-wise percentages of LDD areas under ‘water erosion’, ‘salinity’, and ‘water logging’, which are the three most widely reported impacts of farming practices on land systems’ sustainability as apparent in the relevant LDD literature. MLRA of the 11-state cluster revealed that state-wise NPK fertilizer-application rates (p < 0.01); number of moldboard ploughs (p < 0.01); net irrigated area (p < 0.01); groundwater-sourced irrigation (p < 0.05); and multiple cropping practices (p < 0.01) exacerbate LDD, while bio-pesticides (p < 0.05) and zero-till drills (p < 0.01) do the opposite. In recent years, the government has introduced several improved measures, such as nutrient-based subsidies (NBS) and integrated nutrient management (INM), to help farmers optimize agrochemical applications, thus moving from traditional practices (input intensive) to a more land-conservation-centric approach. However, at the cognitive level, farmers are unsure/unaware of the benefits. Moreover, due to various institutional weaknesses, lack of sensitization, extension services, capacity building, incentives, and certain inherent flaws in these newer strategies, their uptake remains low, while traditional practices continue at the grassroots. We attempt to broaden the regulatory purview by reflecting on the DPSIR framework (Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response), highlighting the role of indirect drivers of LDD that largely influence farmers’ preferences for certain practices. In the final section, we emphasize the need for a data revolution to support process-level research to be able to devise more informed and targeted LDD control–abatement strategies, which is currently largely absent.

Nitrate (NO3) is a major contaminant and threat to groundwater quality in Texas. High‐NO3 groundwater used for irrigation and domestic purposes has serious environmental and health implications. The objective of this study was to evaluate spatio‐temporal trends in groundwater NO3 concentrations in Texas on a county basis from 1960 to 2010 with special emphasis on the Texas Rolling Plains (TRP) using the Texas Water Development Board's groundwater quality database. Results indicated that groundwater NO3 concentrations have significantly increased in several counties since the 1960s. In 25 counties, >30% of the observations exceeded the maximum contamination level (MCL) for NO3 (44 mg L−1 NO3) in the 2000s as compared with eight counties in the 1960s. In Haskell and Knox Counties of the TRP, all observations exceeded the NO3 MCL in the 2000s. A distinct spatial clustering of high‐NO3 counties has become increasingly apparent with time in the TRP, as indicated by different spatial indices. County median NO3 concentrations in the TRP region were positively correlated with county‐based area estimates of crop lands, fertilized croplands, and irrigated croplands, suggesting a negative impact of agricultural practices on groundwater NO3 concentrations. The highly transmissive geologic and soil media in the TRP have likely facilitated NO3 movement and groundwater contamination in this region. A major hindrance in evaluating groundwater NO3 concentrations was the lack of adequate recent observations. Overall, the results indicated a substantial deterioration of groundwater quality by NO3 across the state due to agricultural activities, emphasizing the need for a more frequent and spatially intensive groundwater sampling.