A two-day research policy workshop on climate change perspective in Manipur was inaugurated at the court hall of Manipur University administrative block at Canchipur campus in Imphal on Thursday.
The workshop is an effort to bring and strengthening multi-stakeholder platforms for science-policy-practice in the region.
Directors Dr Y Nabachandra (Environment department), Prof Goutam Sutradhar (National Institute of Technology) Manipur, Prof RatanKumar Saha (Central Agricultural University) attended the inaugural function of the workshop along with Prof N Rajmuhon of Manipur University and Dr Ng Romeji of NIT Manipur.
The workshop was jointly organized by Central Agricultural University (CAU), National Institute of Technology (NIT) Manipur and MU in association with Directorate of Environment, Manipur.
It was attended by many experts, researchers, government officers, media and NGO representatives.
Addressing the inaugural function, Director Prof Goutam Sutradhar of NIT Manipur expressed his desire to contribute something while combating the climate change impact as a representative of an institute.
He also proposed to take up an integrated data base study of Loktak and its eco-systems so that researchers and work further for the betterment of the generations.
In his speech, Director Dr Nabachanda informed that the department is taking up necessary efforts to make version II of the state action plan on climate change as the 2013 version of state action plan was based on secondary information.
So such workshop would help in increasing the understanding on the climate change issues besides making state action plan in comprehensive way,he added.
In his key note address, Deputy Director Dr T Brajamukar of Environment department said that the main objective of the workshop is to bring about a communion to reinforce climate change adaptation and mitigation with emphasis on the research project deliverables besides creating an understanding of climate sensitive issued in the Indian Himalayan region specially in Manipur through research on climate science.
In the technical session, Dr Indu K Murthy of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore spoke on climate change impact modelling and data needs.
Prof Manju Mohan of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi spoke on impacts on micro-climatic conditions from changing landuse landcover patterns.
Prof EV Divakara Shastri of Central Agricultural University (CAU) delivered a lecture on climate resilient plant type and crop varieties.
Dr Saravanan of National Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu delved on climate change impact on hydrology and water balance modeling .
Later Prof NH Ravindranath of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore chaired a panel discussion on challenges in climate science in north-eastern region.