Engagement with the State and policy-making
- Technical guidelines of the BWSSB Amendment Act 2012
- Advocating for and helping create the Sir M Visvesvaraya Rainwater Harvesting Theme Park
- Strongly shaped Karnataka State Wastewater Policy and contributed to Karnataka Aayoga’s new State Water Policy formulation exercise
- Trainings for government officials conducted by State Institute of Urban Development (SIUD), Abdul Nazir Sab State Institute of Rural Development (ANSSIRD) and City Managers’ Associations Karnataka
- Technical guidelines of the BWSSB Amendment Act 2020
- WHO’s Sanitation Safety Plan (see page v for Avinash’s and Vishwanath’s names)
- Participated in the Jal Shakti Mission’s State Specific Action Plan (Karnataka) workshop
- Member, Steering Committee of Karnataka State WASH Coalition
- Resource partner for the formulation of Environmental Surveillance for COVID-19 – a Playbook
Engagement with schools
- Rainwater harvesting and water literacy in Government Schools in and around Bengaluru
- Rainwater harvesting and water literacy in Meghalaya and Tripura
- Toolkit to conduct workshops on water and sanitation
- Wipro Earthian booklet on “Sustainability and Water”
- Rainwater Harvesting at Vidya Prabodhini College, Alto-Parvari-Goa
- Rainwater Harvesting at Marsur school
Engagement with urban and peri-urban communities
- Catalysing integrated urban water management at a 35 acre gated layout
- Participatory aquifer mapping of Upper Ponnaiyar watershed (in collaboration with ACWADAM)
- Best practices in participatory integrated water management at Devanahalli (in collaboration with ACWADAM)
- Working with the Mannu Vaddar well digger community (informal sector)
- Chikkaballapur District Water Quality Platform
- National level workshop on Urban Waters
- Cubbon Park recharge wells
- ‘Million wells for Bengaluru’ campaign
- Mapping of the wells dug in Bengaluru city
- Well walks
- Documentation of wells in Bengaluru
- Art in Transit – mural at Cubbon Park metro station
- Mapping Bengaluru’s shallow aquifer
Engagement with lake groups
- Identifying and reviving a ‘dead zone’ at Jakkur Lake – covered here by Work in Progress Blr
- Citizen Science and Lakes – building floating wetlands
- Citizen Science and Lakes – System Maps
- Citizen Science and Lakes – Water Quality Testing
- Citizen Science and Lakes – Lake Display Boards
- Citizen Science and Lakes – Biodiversity Walks
- Citizen Science and Lakes – Biodiversity Walks – Train the Trainers
- Wetlands – STRAINS
- Wetlands and Livelihoods
- Documentation of Bengaluru’s tanks
- Map of STPs, lakes and wetlands in Bengaluru
- Citizen Lakes Dashboard
Research studies
- Fluoride in groundwater – survey in Mulbagal Taluk
- Pilot testing of Sanitation Safety Plan (SSP)
- Urban wastewater management in Karnataka
- Understanding wastewater reuse as a climate change mitigation strategy – Bengaluru and its hinterland
- The practice of sustainable urban sanitation – learnings from nine Indian cities
Presentations at conferences / workshops
- Poster on “Million Wells for Bengaluru” presented online at the UNESCO conference on ‘Groundwater – Key to the Sustainable Development Goals’ in Paris, France in May 2022
- Poster on the ‘Millon Wells for Bengaluru’ campaign presented as part of the India Pavilion at the London Design Biennale in June 2021
- Paper presentation at World Water Week 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden
- Presentation on ‘Initiatives in managing water resources’ at the 9th National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship
- Paper presentation on the ‘Resource Recovery and Reuse: From Research to Implementation Project’ at the 37th WEDC International Conference
- Paper presentations at the 8th INSEE Conference
Creation and dissemination of communication and awareness material
Biome has put a lot of information together about various aspects of water that would be useful to the general public. This information is in various formats that can be read on the website, and some of which can also be downloaded and printed out as posters, booklets, etc.
- bengaluru.urbanwaters.in is a website that has information on different aspects of water – rainwater, groundwater, surface water, wastewater, water management and water quality – that is useful to anyone interested in water
- TEDxBiomeEnvironmentalTrust – video story of Bengaluru’s water in the words of Samaaj, Sarkaar and Bazaar
- Manuals on RWH and sanitation put together by Biome, Navya Disha and Grameen Koota
- Visual primers on RWH, lakes, wetlands, open wells, recharge well, and borewells
- Neera and Jalaj – comic books on Integrated Urban Water Management and sewage treatment
- Posters and brochures on RWH, lakes, water demand, open / recharge and borewells
- Posters for schools
- Video guides in multiple languages on RWH
- Communication materials in Kannada
- Communication materials in Tamil
- Communication materials in Telugu
- Communication materials in Marathi
- Communication materials in Hindi
- RWH manuals for individual houses / layouts / apartments – funded by ITC
- Trashonomics – pictorial booklet on wastewater management for school students by TAICT.org
Internships and trainings
- Bhoomi College: Every year in January, Biome is invited by Bhoomi College to do a 3-day workshop for their students on Sustainable Water Management. The workshop covers all aspects of urban water management broadly and includes site visits to relevant locations.
- GCIL interns: As part of the University of Washington’s Grand Challenges Impact Lab (GCIL), several of their students come to Bangalore to do a six week internship in the months of January and February. Biome hosts four of them every year.
- Earthian interns: Under their Earthian sustainability program, Wipro Foundation funds 4-5 students from different colleges every year to intern at Biome.
- CEPT interns: The Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad, has been sending four of their students for the past couple of years to intern at Biome for 4-5 weeks in June-July.
- The Biome interns’ blog is a platform on which our interns record their assignments in their own words.
- Leaders’ Quest: Leaders’ Quest (LQ) is a social enterprise that works with business, NGO and civil society leaders to enhance their impact in today’s fast-changing world. Through experiential learning journeys (called ‘quests’), they bring together individuals from all walks of life to deepen their sense of purpose and enhance personal impact. Biome facilitates workshops on sustainable water management for LQ whenever they reach out to us.
- Workshops for RWAs, corporates, schools, etc: Biome has conducted workshops on water conservation awareness for different groups of people over the years. Our schools project includes water literacy workshops for school students and faculty. We are often approached by RWAs, corporate entities and other institutions to help them understand how to become more sustainable in water consumption. We also conduct training programs for govt officials, govt employees, plumbers, civil engineers, architects, etc.
OUR WORK
Engagement with the State and policy-making
- Technical guidelines of the BWSSB Amendment Act 2012
- Advocating for and helping create the Sir M Visvesvaraya Rainwater Harvesting Theme Park
- Strongly shaped Karnataka State Wastewater Policy and contributed to Karnataka Aayoga’s new State Water Policy formulation exercise
- Trainings for government officials conducted by State Institute of Urban Development (SIUD), Abdul Nazir Sab State Institute of Rural Development (ANSSIRD) and City Managers’ Associations Karnataka
- Technical guidelines of the BWSSB Amendment Act 2020
- WHO’s Sanitation Safety Plan (see page v for Avinash’s and Vishwanath’s names)
- Participated in the Jal Shakti Mission’s State Specific Action Plan (Karnataka) workshop
- Member, Steering Committee, Karnataka State WASH Coalition.
- Resource partner for the formulation of Environmental Surveillance for COVID-19 – A Playbook
Engagement with schools
Engagement with urban and peri-urban communities
- Catalysing integrated urban water management at a 35 acre gated layout
- Participatory aquifer mapping of Upper Ponnaiyar watershed (in collaboration with ACWADAM)
- Best practices in participatory integrated water management at Devanahalli (in collaboration with ACWADAM)
- Working with the Mannu Vaddar well digger community (informal sector)
- Chikkaballapur District Water Quality Platform
- National level workshop on Urban Waters
- Cubbon Park recharge wells
- ‘Million wells for Bengaluru’ campaign
- Mapping of the wells dug in Bengaluru city
- Well walks
- Documentation of wells in Bengaluru
- Art in Transit – mural at Cubbon Park metro station
- Mapping Bengaluru’s shallow aquifer
Engagement with lake groups
- Identifying and reviving a ‘dead zone’ at Jakkur Lake and covered here by Work in Progress Blr.
- Citizen Science and Lakes – building floating wetlands
- Citizen Science and Lakes – System Maps
- Citizen Science and Lakes – Water Quality Testing
- Citizen Science and Lakes – Lake Display Boards
- Citizen Science and Lakes – Biodiversity Walks
- Citizen Science and Lakes – Biodiversity Walks – Train the Trainers
- Wetlands – STRAINS
- Wetlands and Livelihoods
Research studies
- Fluoride in groundwater – survey in Mulbagal Taluk
- Pilot testing of Sanitation Safety Plan (SSP)
- Urban wastewater management in Karnataka
- Understanding wastewater reuse as a climate change mitigation strategy – Bengaluru and its hinterland
- Paper presentations at the 8th INSEE Conference
- Paper presentation on the ‘Resource Recovery and Reuse: From Research to Implementation Project’ at the 37th WEDC International Conference
- Presentation on ‘Initiatives in managing water resources’ at the 9th National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship
- Winning the Impactathon 2019 for problem solving using tech innovations
- Paper presentation at World Water Week 2019 at Stockholm, Sweden
Presentations at conferences / workshops
- Poster on “Million Wells for Bengaluru” presented online at the UNESCO conference on ‘Groundwater – Key to the Sustainable Development Goals’ in Paris, France in May 2022
- Poster on the ‘Millon Wells for Bengaluru’ campaign presented as part of the India Pavilion at the London Design Biennale in June 2021
- Paper presentation at World Water Week 2019 in Stockholm, Sweden
- Presentation on ‘Initiatives in managing water resources’ at the 9th National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship
- Paper presentation on the ‘Resource Recovery and Reuse: From Research to Implementation Project’ at the 37th WEDC International Conference
- Paper presentations at the 8th INSEE Conference
Creation and dissemination of communication and awareness material
Biome has put a lot of information together about various aspects of water that would be useful to the general public. This information is in various formats that can be read on the website, and some of which can also be downloaded and printed out as posters, booklets, etc.
- bengaluru.urbanwaters.in is a website that has information on different aspects of water – rainwater, groundwater, surface water, wastewater, water management and water quality – that is useful to anyone interested in water
- TEDxBiomeEnvironmentalTrust – video story of Bengaluru’s water in the words of Samaaj, Sarkaar and Bazaar
- Manuals on RWH and sanitation put together by Biome, Navya Disha and Grameen Koota
- Visual primers on RWH, lakes, wetlands, open wells, recharge well, and borewells
- Neera and Jalaj – comic books on Integrated Urban Water Management and sewage treatment
- Posters and brochures on RWH, lakes, water demand, open / recharge and borewells
- Posters for schools
- Video guides in multiple languages on RWH
- Communication materials in Kannada
- Communication materials in Tamil
- Communication materials in Telugu
- Communication materials in Marathi
- Communication materials in Hindi
- RWH manuals for individual houses / layouts / apartments – funded by ITC
- Trashonomics – pictorial booklet on wastewater management for school students by TAICT.org
Internships and trainings
- Bhoomi College: Every year in January, Biome is invited by Bhoomi College to do a 3-day workshop for their students on Sustainable Water Management. The workshop covers all aspects of urban water management broadly and includes site visits to relevant locations.
- GCIL interns: As part of the University of Washington’s Grand Challenges Impact Lab (GCIL), several of their students come to Bangalore to do a six week internship in the months of January and February. Biome hosts four of them every year.
- Earthian interns: Under their Earthian sustainability program, Wipro Foundation funds 4-5 students from different colleges every year to intern at Biome.
- CEPT interns: The Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad, has been sending four of their students for the past couple of years to intern at Biome for 4-5 weeks in June-July.
- The Biome interns’ blog is a platform on which our interns record their assignments in their own words.
- Leaders’ Quest: Leaders’ Quest (LQ) is a social enterprise that works with business, NGO and civil society leaders to enhance their impact in today’s fast-changing world. Through experiential learning journeys (called ‘quests’), they bring together individuals from all walks of life to deepen their sense of purpose and enhance personal impact. Biome facilitates workshops on sustainable water management for LQ whenever they reach out to us.
- Workshops for RWAs, corporates, schools, etc: Biome has conducted workshops on water conservation awareness for different groups of people over the years. Our schools project includes water literacy workshops for school students and faculty. We are often approached by RWAs, corporate entities and other institutions to help them understand how to become more sustainable in water consumption. We also conduct training programs for govt officials, govt employees, plumbers, civil engineers, architects, etc.