Courses
The Farmpond Collaboration
I have a strong interest in understanding the systems level impact of farm-ponds in semi-arid regions. Farm-ponds have emerged as one of the most popular interventions as an answer to a variety of problems. Programs on farmponds aim to achieve one or more of the following (often simultaneously): climate resilience, drought proofing, protective irrigation, productive irrigation, agricultural intensification, enhancing farmer incomes and so on. While there are a large number of studies which show farm-level benefits of farm-ponds, there is very little understanding of the systems level impact of large scale implementations that aim to saturate an area with farm-ponds. Given that water is a common pool resource, is there a threshold beyond which building more farm-ponds is counter-productive? If so, how do we recognize this threshold for different contexts and types of farm-ponds and ensure that farm-ponds do not lead to unsustainable and inequitable water use? Some outputs below mark the development of my research trajectory and ideas on this topic, which have laid the foundation of the Farm-pond collaborative.
July 2018: Jalyukta Shivar workshop for colleges in Unnat Maharashtra Abhiyaan, Maharashtra Institute of Technology, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Analysing farmponds
Oct 2018: International System Dynamics Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland: Socio-hydrological model of farm-ponds presentation and the conference paper
April 2022: Publication in Agricultural Water Management link
Oct 2022: Presentation given in the webinar organized by WoTR on Farm Ponds in Rainfed Regions Video link
Feb 2024: SD Workshop at IIT Bombay presentation
July 2024: Kickoff of the Farmpond Collaborative - invitation flyer and kickoff presentation
Dec 2024: Conference paper in American Geophysical Union AGU24 link
May 2025: Workshop on Farm pond Typologies - workshop flyer, group photo and in discussion
