Monsoonal Landscapes: Territorial adaptation through co-habitation in critical geographies

Emergence of humans as the dominant species of the planet have come along with extreme manipulation of the earth’s systems to sustain this dominance. The Anthropocene has lasted a little over 200 years has perhaps seen the most shift from completely natural systems to requiring an additional man-made system to aid exponential growth of our...

Active microwave remote sensing of the Amazon forest region

The Amazon rainforest is among the most vital ecosystems on earth, holding about a quarter of the global terrestrial carbon sink. Since 2005, three 100-year return period droughts have occurred, the likes of which have the potential to turn the forest from a carbon sink to a source – meaning disastrous consequences for the planet. Monitoring of...

Diurnal differences in vegetation dielectric constant as a measure of water stress

Currently, vegetation is considered a barrier to soil moisture retrieval by both passive and active remote sensing missions. Microwave emission and backscattering of vegetation is driven by the vegetation dielectric constant, which is a function of vegetation water content. The latter is a measure of root zone water availability. Understanding...

Water purification in the water stressed areas of emerging markets

Many sources mention that over 1 billion people lack adequate access to drinking water. A majority of these people live in countries of emerging economies. In many cases this problem involves poor and remote areas with little infrastructure of sewage and safe water supply. For these people, often referred to as the Base of the Pyramid (BoP),...