A financing agreement for a World Bank (IDA) assistance of $250 million for the Jhelum and Tawi Flood Recovery Project in Jammu and Kashmir was signed today.

Recolonisation of soil by macrofauna (especially ants, termites and earthworms) in rehabilitated open-cut mine sites is inevitable and, in terms of habitat restoration and function, typically of great value. In these highly disturbed landscapes, soil invertebrates play a major role in soil development (macropore configuration, nutrient cycling, bioturbation, etc.) and can influence hydrological processes such as infiltration, seepage, runoff generation and soil erosion.

GUWAHATI: All Assam Congress Committee (APCC) on Tuesday organized a volunteers' meet on Global Climate Change and its impact on Assam.

A new FAO book out today takes a close look at how the world's major cereals maize, rice and wheat - which together account for an estimated 42.5 percent of human calories and 37 percent of our protein - can be grown in ways that respect and even leverage natural ecosystems.

Around five percent of children under the age of five in Banke are suffering from severe malnutrition.

Munrothuruthu (‘Munroe Island’) is a place renowned for continuous settlement, in the Kollam district of Kerala. The Indian Ocean earthquake and Tsunami of 2004 triggered this major problem. The island is located at confluence of the Ashtamudi Lake and the Kallada River. Low lying regions of the island are facing progressive settlement which has become pronounced since the occurrence of Tsunami. The area has been affected by upward seepage of saline water during High Tide events, denoting the axial lowering of land mass.

The Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) has released a briefing paper on the role of soil organic carbon (SOC) in offsetting climate change.

The world's soils are rapidly deteriorating due to soil erosion, nutrient depletion, loss of soil organic carbon, soil sealing and other threats, but this trend can be reversed provided countries take the lead in promoting sustainable management practices and the use of appropriate technologies, according to a new UN report released.

Soil erosion by water is one of the major threats to soils in the European Union, with a negative impact on ecosystem services, crop production, drinking water and carbon stocks. The European Commission's Soil Thematic Strategy has identified soil erosion as a relevant issue for the European Union, and has proposed an approach to monitor soil erosion.

Continuous soil erosion despite plantation of 16 lakh trees

*Environ degradation least priority for many MLAs

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