Search: Energy and Resources Group, Water Quality and Management
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Gadgil, Ashok
Submitted by cmjones on February 28, 2007 - 1:24pm.Name of Person:
Ashok Gadgil
Picture:
Department:
Energy and Resources Group, Adjunct Professor
Research Interests:
Ashok Gadgil has active research in energy use and airflows in buildings. He also has long and active research in analysis, research, development and implementation of technologies for improved energy-efficiency and environmental performance in the developing countries, in a range of sectors.
Achievements:
Ashok Gadgil received an award from San Jose’s (CA) Tech Museum of Innovation, which honors people who use technology to help humanity, for developing a water purification system that kills bacteria with ultraviolet light. The system, called UV Waterworks and marketed by WaterHealth International, Inc., is used daily by about 300,000 people in Mexico, the Philippines, and several other countries. Several systems will soon be installed in his native India. Money is currently being raised to install the system in tsunami-stricken regions of Sri Lanka and India. His invention appeared in Forbes Magazine in 2003. Ashok Gadgil is also developing a cheap and effective way to provide safe drinking water to 60 million Bangladeshis who live under the specter of arsenic poisoning. His idea is to create arsenic filters from coal ash, the fine gray powder that piles up at the bottom of furnaces at all coal-fired power stations, waiting to be discarded. Although still in the investigational stage, Gadgil’s technique would involve coating the ash with a compound that attracts arsenic, filling teabag-sized pouches with the powder, and distributing the filters throughout the countryside, one per family per day. Water drawn from any one of the millions of contaminated wells that dot Bangladesh could then be poured through the filter and safely consumed. Gadgil has numerous publications spanning the areas of drinking water efficiency and indoor air quality.
Ray, Isha
Submitted by cmjones on February 28, 2007 - 1:29pm.Name of Person:
Isha Ray
Picture:
Department:
Energy and Resources Group, Assistant Professor
Research Interests:
Politics and economics of water, on-farm water use, common property resource management, transnational river conflicts and access to water for the rural and urban poor – especially in developing countries. Isha Ray teaches courses on research methods in the social sciences, and on development and environment studies.
Achievements:
Isha Ray’s research interests are the politics and economics of access to water in developing countries, technology and development, common property resource management and social science research methods. She has research experience on problems of drinking water as well as irrigation management in India, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Mexico. She also has extensive work experience in the non-profit sector on sustainable rural development in India, and on international water-and-development problems. Professor Ray serves on the advisory committee of several water and development related NGOs and on the editorial committee of Annual Review of Environment and Resources.
Water and Development
Submitted by cmjones on March 13, 2007 - 12:56pm.Department:
ENE, RES
Course Number:
275
Course Title:
Water and Development
Instructor:
Ray
Description:
This class is an
interdisciplinary graduate seminar for students of water policy in developing
countries. It is not a seminar on theories and practices of development
through the "lens" of water. Rather, it is a seminar motivated by
the fact that over 1 billion people in developing countries have no access to
safe drinking water, 3 billion don't have sanitation facilities and many
millions of small farmers do not have reliable water supplies to ensure a
healthy crop. Readings and discussions will cover: the problems of water
access and use in developing countries; the potential for technological,
social, and economic solutions to these problems; the role of institutions in
access to water and sanitation; and the pitfalls of and assumptions behind
some of today's popular "solutions."
Units:
3
Offered:
Fall
Course Type:
Graduate