Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) is a premier institute of science and technology established in 2008. IITH has been consistently ranked in the&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/reports/" rel="noopener noreferrer">top 10 institutes</a>&nbsp;in India for Engineering&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nirfindia.org/2021/EngineeringRanking.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">according to NIRF</a>&nbsp;making it one of the most coveted schools for science and technology in the country.

IITH offers&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/under-graduate/">undergraduate programs</a>&nbsp;in all the classical engineering disciplines, applied sciences, design, as well as several modern interdisciplinary areas. Students are given a flexibility to explore a broad set of areas, and potentially pursue a minor or double major in a discipline that is not their own. Students who wish to seek a deeper understanding of their own discipline are strongly encouraged to get involved in cutting-edge research with the help of a faculty to mentor them, and earn an Honors in their own field.

The very foundation of IIT Hyderabad is based on&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/research/">research and innovation</a>. The vibrant research culture is evident from the number of patents and publications that IITH produces consistently every year. IITH offers&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/programmes-offered/">graduate programs</a>&nbsp;at both a masters, and a doctoral level, in several diverse areas. There are separate programs for technology, design, science, and liberal arts. The&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/academics/post-graduate/">MTech program</a>&nbsp;is offered in various modes and durations to cater to the ever-growing need of postgraduate level professionals in the country.

IITH encourages and supports&nbsp;<a href="https://iic-iith.netlify.app/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">innovation and entrepreneurship</a>&nbsp;at every stage. The minor program in entrepreneurship is open to all students of IITH, and many of the courses are offered by industrialists who are entrepreneurs themselves. There are various&nbsp;<a href="https://iith.ac.in/research/centres-incubators/">innovation centers and incubators</a>&nbsp;that promote entrepreneurship and help mentor young innovators. IITH has been very successful in building tie-ups with leading academic institutions around the globe.

IITH enjoys a very special relationship with Japanese universities and industries that goes beyond academic and research collaborations. In fact, some of the iconic buildings in IITH campus will carry the signature of Japanese architecture.

IITH creates a unique holistic ecosystem for education that offers interactive learning, a very flexible academic structure, cutting-edge research, strong industry collaboration, and entrepreneurship. This is an environment which enables students and faculty to translate their dreams into realities.

IIT Hyderabad

South Asia covers an area of nearly 4.78 million km2 and extends from near the Equator to 38°26′N and 60°34′E-97°25′E. It is surrounded by (from west to east) Western Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Asia, and Southeast Asia. The subregion comprises eight countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The physiography is dominated by the Himalayan Mountains, which form a physical and cultural barrier separating the subregion from China. The subregion is home to a variety of geographical features such as glaciers, rainforests, valleys, deserts, and grasslands. Two major rivers flow out of the Himalayas: the Ganges, which flows across northern India into Bangladesh, and the Indus, which flows across Pakistan. Home to the highest mountains and largest mangrove forests in the world, lush jungles, the tenth-largest desert on Earth, deep river valleys, and many other unique landscape features, this subregion boasts a most diverse assortment of geographic features. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

World University root node

Department of Civil Engineering

Groundwater Environment in Asian Cities: Concepts, Methods and Case Studies

Water Environment in South Asia: An Introduction

Hyderabad, a city with a history of more than 400 years, attracts extensive domestic and international tourists. The uncontrolled and haphazard growth of Hyderabad in the past four decades has drastically changed land use patterns, resulting in greatly reduced natural recharge to groundwater. In the recent past, Hyderabad City developed as an information technology (IT) hub. The establishment of many national and international IT companies and institutions has put tremendous pressure on the city's groundwater resources. In March 2015, groundwater levels in most parts of the city were at an all-time low even though the city received more seasonal rain than normal. Groundwater contributes about 25-30% of the city's total water requirement. Hyderabad has a hard-rock aquifer and reduced recharge. Extensive pumping has created water stress even at depths of the aquifer system ranging from 100 m to 300 m (CGWB, 2013). Hundreds of lakes in and around the city, which in the last few decades served as the main source of groundwater recharge, no longer exist. Over 200 water bodies within the jurisdiction of the Hyderabad Metro Development Authority have been encroached upon as water resources. The effects of urbanization and industrialization in Hyderabad have led to contamination of the aquifer. Due to an inadequate sewerage system and treatment capacity, domestic sewage and industrial effluents flow directly into streams, causing severe groundwater contamination. The Musi River, the main source of water in the area, receives estimated untreated sewage of 500 million liters a day (MLD), and more than 70% of the city's groundwater samples show nitrate concentrations above the maximum permissible limit (MPL) of safe drinking water standards (CGWB, 2011). At present, the city has a water deficit of about 400 MLD, which is going to increase to 585 MLD by 2031 (Anon., 2011). To compensate for current and future water requirements, the government has initiated state-scale megaprojects such as the Krishna Water Supply Project and Pranahita Chevella Project, which are currently in progress. Both central and state groundwater departments monitor groundwater levels and assess the groundwater resources of the city on a continuous basis. The government has initiated several environmental guidelines and standards to regulate domestic and industrial discharges, but proper enforcement is required to avoid illegal discharge. Steps toward rainwater harvesting, wastewater reuse, and monitoring of groundwater withdrawals have been taken at individual house/apartment level for effective water utilization to avoid further overexploitation of the resource. Several research organizations and groundwater departments have initiated studies to understand the hydrogeology of the city's aquifer on a regional scale since the 1970s; however, due to the high heterogeneity and anisotropic nature of the aquifer systems, more studies at a finer resolution are necessary. Considering the precarious situation, groundwater development and management has to be implemented by fully understanding the sociohydrology of the city. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Groundwater Environment in Hyderabad, India

Antibiotics have been extensively and effectively used in human and veterinary medicines. Their benefits have been recognized in agriculture, aquaculture, bee-keeping, and livestock as growth promoters. This paper collects information from several investigations on the sources and occurrences of antibiotics in natural and artificial environmental systems. Several antibiotics were reported for their occurrences in water resources, effluent from industries, sludge, manure, soil, plants, and organisms across the globe. Sorption, photo-degradation, biodegradation, and oxidation were recognized as the main elimination pathways for these compounds and have been discussed in detail. The adverse effects of the pollutants were also highlighted and necessary suggestions were made for effective monitoring and mitigating pollution, which may provide the scope for future research. Potential pathways for antibiotics to enter the environment include release from manufacturing facilities, disposal of unused antibiotics by patients, hospitals, or distributors either to wastewater or to solid waste, patient excretion of and their metabolites to wastewater, use in aquaculture and animal farming. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Clean - Soil, Air, Water

Antibiotic Pollution in the Environment: A Review

Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can enter the natural environment during manufacture, use and/or disposal, and consequently public concern about their potential adverse impacts in the environment is growing. Despite the bulk of the human population living in Asia and Africa (mostly in low- or middle-income countries), limited work relating to research, development and regulations on APIs in the environment have so far been conducted in these regions. Also, the API manufacturing sector is gradually shifting to countries with lower production costs. This paper focuses mainly on APIs for human consumption and highlights key differences between the low-, middle- and high-income countries, covering factors such as population and demographics, manufacture, prescriptions, treatment, disposal and reuse of waste and wastewater. The striking differences in populations (both human and animal), urbanization, sewer connectivity and other factors have revealed that the environmental compartments receiving the bulk of API residues differ markedly between low- and high-income countries. High sewer connectivity in developed countries allows capture and treatment of the waste stream (point-source). However, in many low- or middle-income countries, sewerage connectivity is generally low and in some areas waste is collected predominantly in septic systems. Consequently, the diffuse-source impact, such as on groundwater from leaking septic systems or on land due to disposal of raw sewage or septage, may be of greater concern. A screening level assessment of potential burdens of APIs in urban and rural environments of countries representing low- and middle-income as well as high-income has been made. Implications for ecological risks of APIs used by humans in lower income countries are discussed. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Fulltext

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Potential ecological footprints of active pharmaceutical ingredients: An examination of risk factors in low-, middle- and high-income countries

The river Karanja, a major drinking water source for the Bhalki municipality is under threat by the disposal of effluents from the industries such as Sugar, Paper and distilleries. To study the effect of effluent disposal on this river, one dimensional steady-state stream water quality model was developed using QUAL2Kw. In this model pre-monsoon data is used for calibration. From the sensitivity analysis, it was observed that the model is sensitive for temperature, bottom width, discharge and biochemical oxygen demand. Simulations were carried out for several scenarios such as bottom algae, head water release, shade and temperature under dry weather flow condition. All these profile did not meet the requirement of minimum DO concentration, to get it bottom algae is to be reduced to 75%, head water BOD is to be reduced to 8mg/L, and shade is to be increased up to 30%. © 2012 CAFET-INNOVA TECHNICAL SOCIETY.

International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering

Water quality modeling and management of Karanja River in India

Bench scale transport and biotransformation experiments and mathematical model simulations were carried out to study the effectiveness of bio-barriers for the containment of hexavalent chromium in contaminated confined aquifers. Experimental results showed that a 10 cm thick bio-barrier with an initial biomass concentration of 0.205 mg/g of soil was able to completely contain a Cr(VI) plume of 25 mg/L concentration. It was also observed that pore water velocity and initial biomass concentration are the most significant parameters in the containment of Cr(VI). The mathematical model developed is based on one-dimensional advection-dispersion reaction equations for Cr(VI) and molasses in saturated, homogeneous porous medium. The transport of Cr(VI) and molasses is coupled with adsorption and Monod's inhibition kinetics for immobile bacteria. It was found that, in general, the model was able to simulate the experimental results satisfactorily. However, there was disparity between the numerically simulated and experimental breakthrough curves for Cr(VI) and molasses in cases where there was high clay content and high microbial activity. The mathematical model could contribute towards improved designs of future bio-barriers for the remediation of Cr(VI) contaminated aquifers. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Journal of Hazardous Materials

Development and validation of a model of bio-barriers for remediation of Cr(VI) contaminated aquifers using laboratory column experiments

Trench-type biobarrier is one of the commonly used in situ systems for bioremediation of contaminated aquifers. Design variables for such a system are the length of the biobarrier, L, initial microbial concentration, M0, and inlet substrate concentration, S0. In this work, a procedure, based on a simple mathematical model, was developed for obtaining the interrelationship between these design variables for containing Cr(VI) in contaminated confined aquifers. The microbial characteristics used in this study were obtained by batch and bench scale column studies. A simulation-optimization model is presented for obtaining the screening level optimal solutions, corresponding to a minimal cost. Variation of values of design variables are presented as a function of a nondimensional parameter π1, which represents the relative magnitude of microbial growth rate and aquifer flow conditions. As π1 increases, the optimal length of the biobarrier and, hence, the cost of the treatment system is reduced. The screening level design procedure presented here can be the starting point for design using more sophisticated mathematical models. © 2007 ASCE.

Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste Management

Design of a passive biobarrier system for chromium containment in confined aquifers

Bench-scale soil column experiments were conducted to study the effectiveness of Cr(VI) containment in confined aquifers using in situ bio-transformation. Batch adsorption studies were carried out to estimate the adsorption capacities of two different soils for Cr(VI) and Cr(III). Bio-kinetic parameters were evaluated for the enriched microbial system. The inhibition constant, evaluated using Monod's inhibition model, was found to be 11.46 mg/L of Cr(VI). Transport studies indicated that it would not be possible to contain Cr(VI) by adsorption alone. Transport and bio-transformation studies indicated that the pore velocity and the initial bio-mass concentration significantly affect the containment process. In situ bio-remediation is effective in the case of silty aquifers. Cr(VI) concentration of 25 mg/L was effectively contained within 60 cm of a confined silty aquifer. Cr(VI) containment could be achieved in sandy aquifers when the pore velocity was very low and the initial augmented bio-mass was high. A bio-barrier of approximately one meter width would be able to contain Cr(VI) if the initial Cr(VI) concentration is as much as 25 mg/L. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.