In her Confluence lecture, water researcher Veena Srinivasan calls for a new approach to science that is problem driven, interdisciplinary and grounded in real-world questions. She presents three examples to illustrate why we must consider anthropologic changes in this new approach. She addressed the case of disappearing surface water in the Upper Arkavathy watershed near Bengaluru, the impact of droughts on Chennai and questions whether tree planting is good or bad for streams.
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Biography
Veena Srinivasan is a Fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, where she leads the Water, Land and Society Programme. Veena’s research interests include inter-sectoral water allocation, impacts of multiple stressors on water resources, ground and surface water linkages, and sustainable water management policy and practice. Veena has won the 2015 Jim Dooge Award for best paper in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Science from the European Geophysical Union, the 2012 Water Resources Research Editor’s Choice Award from the American Geophysical Union and the Teresa Heinz Environmental Scholars Award.
