Indian Institute for Human Settlements

This article examines the state of public libraries in India, focusing on a select state laws and their policies. It highlights the urgent need for action, revealing that inadequate funding and limited engagement with the diverse needs of communities are major barriers preventing public libraries from functioning effectively as vital social infrastructure. Key challenges identified include poor policy implementation, inconsistent data on the number and condition of public libraries, and the need for systemic revitalization. Notably, only six southern states currently levy a library tax, 13 states do not mandate one, and 17 states lack any library legislation altogether. To empower public libraries, the article proposes several policy interventions. These include formulating a Model Library Act accompanied by a national policy to guide state efforts, ensuring sustainable funding, integrating digital technologies, and promoting community-led services. Community development and advocacy are critical to making public libraries accessible, inclusive, and responsive to the evolving needs of communities.

Abstract. Improved understanding of the mechanisms driving heterotrophic CO2 emissions after rewetting of a dry soil may improve projections of future soil carbon fate. While drying and rewetting (DRW) under laboratory conditions have demonstrated that heterotrophic CO2 emissions depend on DRW features and soil and environmental conditions, these laboratory insights have not been validated in field conditions. To this aim, we collated mean respiration rates over 48 h after rewetting from two data sources: 37 laboratory studies reporting data for more than 3 DRW cycles (laboratory respiration, LR) and 6 field datasets recording hourly heterotrophic respiration and soil moisture (field respiration, FR). LR and FR were explained by six predictors using random forest algorithms and partial dependence plots. Results indicated that the most important drivers of LR and FR were SOC and temperature, respectively. Both LR and FR increased with increasing SOC and temperature. LR increased with soil dryness before rewetting, but this trend was less clear in FR. LR decreased with soil moisture increments at rewetting, while FR increased with soil moisture increments. LR was higher in soils from humid climates than from arid climates, but this effect was not observed in FR. We concluded that laboratory insights could be partly validated with current datasets. Caution should be taken when extending laboratory insights for predicting fluxes in ecosystems.

Cities, despite being responsible for the loss of habitat as they grow, are also an important refugium for biodiversity. Many urban areas in the tropical areas of the global south are rich in biodiversity and are also undergoing climate warming and heat island impacts. Eliciting support from policy and decision makers for sustaining the habitats for birds in cities may depend on how conservation of bird habitats is linked to the new emphasis on ecosystem services, including heat stress mitigation. The megacity of Bengaluru has over 350 species of birds that are found in diverse habitats that include urban forests, large institutional campuses, gardens, and parks. Based on existing literature, we a priori predicted that parts of the city with higher levels of heat will have lower bird presences and parts with higher green cover are likely to support higher presences of birds, while allowing for some birds to prefer open habitats with less greenness. We tested hypotheses on the role of green cover and heat stress on bird occurrence using an informed Bayesian regression approach. We summarized the information and uncertainty on the direction of the slope of the two covariates as hyper priors as inputs to the regression. We used satellite data on heat stress as a proxy for urban heat islands and climate warming effects, and green cover (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index [NDVI]), to test their effects on spatially explicit occurrences of urban birds. We found that all birds responded negatively to the hotter parts of the city, but the effects of green cover varied (negative, neutral and positive) with species identity (Pseudo-R2 0.13-0.36). This could partially be due to the preference for open spaces or dependence on anthropogenic food sources for foraging by these species. We mapped heat islands, cooling potential, and the bird diversity of green spaces in Bengaluru to identify areas of conservation value that also help mitigate heat stress for citizens. Going forward, these results can help us answer nuanced species-level responses and their vulnerability to the impacts of climate change and foster support for conservation of bird habitats in Bengaluru.

The Himalayas, known as the Earth's third pole, are vital to regional and global climate systems, supporting globally significant biodiversity and livelihoods through ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and water. However, in the west-central Indian Himalayas, moist, broad-leaved mixed-Oak forests are increasingly being replaced by dry, fire tolerant and fire prone Chir Pine forests, posing ecological concerns. This transition threatens biodiversity, reduces ecosystem functionality, and disrupts water availability, raising significant ecological and societal concerns. While the socio-ecological impacts have been explored, the hydro-climatic consequences remain less understood. To address this knowledge and data gap, we established two research observatories in Uttarakhand’s Chir pine and mixed-oak forests (~1600m elevation, 23° slope) to investigate how these forest transitions affect land -atmosphere energy fluxes, soil moisture, streamflow, and transpiration. Our study integrates field measurements with numerical simulations to provide insights into these changes. Bowen ratio (BR) assemblies were installed at 30m (pine) and 18m (oak) heights, equipped with EE181 and HC2S3 temperature and humidity sensors. Seasonal on-site calibration ensured reliable data collection, resulting in a nearly complete year of high-quality data from these remote locations. During the monsoon season, Pines exhibit higher BR evapotranspiration (ET) compared to Oaks, while during the dry period, their ET is only marginally higher. At the tree level, Pines transpire over a larger sapwood area and exhibit less stringent regulation of sap flow and associated transpiration under varying environmental conditions compared to Oaks. Hydrological analyses indicate that the catchments dominated by Pine have lower baseflow to precipitation percentage compared to Oak, rendering streams in these Pine dominated catchments ephemeral, unlike the more sustained baseflow in Oak-dominated forests. All the measurements corroborate the higher evapotranspiration observed in the Chir pine forest compared to Oak. These observations have been used to parameterize vegetation in the Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Model, enabling high-resolution simulations of regional hydro-climatic conditions under different forest covers  This first ever study of these Himalayan vegetation transitions is likely to provide insights into the future changes in ecohydrology in this biodiversity and water security hotspot. 

Higher education institutions (HEI) in the South face a wide range of challenges in which they function, evolve and engage with knowledge production, teaching and learning. Building on earlier work where we developed a framework to analyse these challenges in planning education against the backdrop of urban equality, this paper takes a closer look at the larger political economy of higher education. Using four distinct cases, we explore the diversity in institutional contexts and the HEI’s ability to enable pedagogic disruptions, reflecting from perspectives of urban educators and practitioners in Asia and Africa. We argue that institutional structures, their governance and the external environment play a significant role in enabling or disabling the HEI’s ability to initiate and sustain pedagogic innovations in their teaching and learning around the questions of urban inequality.

Improved understanding of the mechanisms driving heterotrophic CO 2 emissions after rewetting of a dry soil may improve projections of future soil carbon fate. While drying and rewetting (DRW) under laboratory conditions has demonstrated that heterotrophic CO 2 emissions depend on DRW features and soil and environmental conditions, these laboratory insights have not been validated in field conditions. To this aim, we collated mean respiration rates over 48 hours after rewetting from two data sources: 37 laboratory studies reporting data for more than three DRW cycles (laboratory respiration, LR), and six field datasets recording hourly heterotrophic respiration and soil moisture (field respiration, FR). LR and FR were explained by six predictors using random forest algorithms and partial dependence plots. Results indicated that the most important driver of LR and FR were SOC and temperature, respectively. Both LR and FR increased with increasing SOC and temperature. LR increased with soil dryness before rewetting, but this trend was less clear in FR. LR decreased with soil moisture increments at rewetting, while FR increased with soil moisture increments. LR was higher in soils from humid climates than from arid climates, but this effect was not observed in FR. We concluded that laboratory insights could be partly validated with current datasets. Caution should be taken when extending laboratory insights to predicting fluxes in ecosystem. Drought intensity and frequency are increasing, exposing ecosystems to more frequent and intense soil drying and rewetting (DRW) events (IPCC, 2022). These DRW events can influence the size and turnover of soil carbon pools. During soil drying, less soil carbon is released because microbial growth and respiration decline as substrate availability decreases, and physiological stress at low matric potential ensues (

Extreme water events such as flooding and scarcity are becoming a common occurrence in the city of Bengaluru, India. I use case studies of textile mills in colonial Bangalore to argue that continued uncoordinated industrial and urban planning has resulted in ineffectual water governance in the contemporary period. First, I point out that fragmented governance of urban water associated with industry is a historical phenomenon with roots in the colonial period. Second, I show that, in addition to the fragmented governance, the political-economic nature of the relationship between textile mills and the state allowed concessions and bypasses, making negotiation a key process for powerful stakeholders to navigate access to urban resources. Last, I highlight fundamental continuities in the way contemporary industries are planned and governed at the urban scale, particularly in their relationship with urban natural resources.