The scientific activities related to the evolution of agrosystems and natural ecosystems with global changes strongly rely on an Environmental observatory and an analytical water platform.
The Kabini CZO / SNO M-TROPICS
Known as the Kabini Critical Zone Observatory in India and as the Indian sites of the SNO M-TROPICS in France, the observatory is supported by IISc, INSU, IRD and UPS. Its objective is to acquire, over the long term (several decades), the basic weather, hydrological and geochemical timeseries needed for assessing water and biogeochemical budgets in :
– a pristine forested ecosystem, the Mule Hole experimental watershed (4.1 km2) located in the core area of the Bandipur National Park, under sub-humid tropical climate, set up in 2003
– an agrossytem, the Berambadi experimental watershed (84km2) located aside Bandipur under sub-humid to semi-arid tropical climate and set up in 2010. The Berambadi watershed has also become, over the years, a Cal-val site for satellite observations, in particular for soil moisture.
The dataset collected by the observatory are in open access here.
The analytical water platform
The Indo French Cell Laboratory is located in the Civil Engineering Department of the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore.
The lab is set up to analyse the major elements in water sample such as :
- pH, conductivity
- alkalinity
- dissolve organic carbon
- anions (fluoride, chloride, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate)
- cations (sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium)
- silica