Research Focus: Western Regional Centre, Goa

goa research focus

Marine and coastal research

This Centre is active in the marine and coastal sector of various states in the country, in the areas of coastal resources management, pollution monitoring, biodiversity mapping, aquaculture, education and training. Work undertaken in this sector includes ecological baseline assessment and biodiversity mapping of coastal ecosystems; assessment of fishery productivity community based resource management by building capacity in artisanal fishery; entrepreneurship development, livelihood diversification and woman empowerment in sustainable aquaculture culture technologies through trainings and demonstrations. Educational tours for schools have also been conducted at the TERI Coastal Education Hub, Goa, to connect students to science and inspire environmental action.

Water science and technology

The overall focus of this core area is to offer solutions for better water resources management. The specific interventions include boosting of rural water supply by implementation of River Bank Technology and analysing the impacts of climate change on water availability through hydrological modeling. The team has been instrumental to conducting studies related to vulnerability assessment and climate resilient infrastructure, roadmap for Goa state urban climate resilience policy, inputs to National Plan of action to prevent pollution of coastal waters from land-based activities

Environment-development interface studies

In this area, projects have been conducted in the areas of sustainable agriculture, waste management, and biotechnological applications. Some of them are development of a sustainable, collaborative, agri-business ecosystem for small farmers community; increasing water use efficiency through modelling; building capacity among village panchayats on rural solid waste management; creating awareness on green buildings and the GRIHA rating; plant tissue culture for micro-propagation of commercial forest tree species; entrepreneur initiatives for dissemination of improved cook stoves; analysis of rural energy transitions and inequities in Goa

Sustainable development outreach & youth education

The aim of this thrust area is to enable youth to comprehend importance of environment and encourage efforts to conserve it. Projects have been undertaken at the school levels by reaching out to teachers and students to sensitize and provide climate change information; teacher training for sustenance of activity-based environment education; sensitization on energy conservation and efficiency; sensitization and provision of a system for collection of recyclable dry waste; waste and water sanitation; conducting of annual events to assess knowledge of students on the environment.