ICAR-IISS celebrates World Environment Day - 2020

5^th June, 2020, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

The ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh organized a Webinar on “Soil Pollution - Threat to Soil Biodiversity” with the aim of creating awareness on the need for sincere effort to conserve soil and its biodiversity through prevention of pollution as well as mitigation of its impact.

In his inaugural address, Dr. S.K. Chaudhari, Deputy Director General (Natural Resource Management), ICAR expressed concerns on the degradation of environmental quality due to polluted effluents and hazardous wastes being generated from urban and industrial activities in the country. The DDG also highlighted the need for more comprehensive research at ICAR to address the various issues on soil pollution.

Dr. A.K. Patra, Director, ICAR-IISS interlinked the soil degradation and biodiversity decline as a result of anthropogenic and industrial activities. Dr. Patra regarded the decline in soil biodiversity as a major concern for everyone on the earth. He also accentuated the need for protecting the soil biodiversity by maintaining soil health that is a prime factor to attain healthy food, clean air and water for the human well being.

To link the above and below ground biodiversity changes due to soil pollution with ecosystem function, assessment of soil biodiversity loss in response to soil pollutants, soil biodiversity based solution to the soil pollution, nanotechnology based soil pollution remediation and soil biodiversity protection, agricultural management practices on soil pollution and their linkage with soil biodiversity loss and collaborative research with different stakeholders, Government policies and research funding on soil pollution to protect soil biodiversity and ecosystem function were some of the important recommendations made during the Webinar.

(Source: ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh)