The project will conduct a study on the evapotranspiration mechanisms and partitioning, atmospheric CO2 fluxes over tea plantations

Intending to execute an Inter-Institutional Collaborative Project on ’Evapotranspiration Modelling, Water Budgeting and Assessment of CO2 flux over tea plantations in the Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu,’ the ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (IISWC), Dehradun, Uttarakhand signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad.

The ICAR-IISWC, Research Centre, Udhagamandalam is the collaborating unit with the Central Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM), Calicut and National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad.

Dr M Madhu, Director, ICAR-IISWC, Dehradun, Uttarakhand and Dr Venkteshwar Rao, Joint Director, NRSC, Hyderabad signed the MoU on the behalf of their respective organisations.

As per the MoU, the present project will conduct a study on the evapotranspiration mechanisms and partitioning, atmospheric CO2 fluxes that would guide to understand the energy partitioning over tea which is a major plantation in the temperate mountainous ecosystem of Nilgiris from the Western Ghats.

The data generated on evapotranspiration, soil-vegetation-atmospheric characteristics, soil and atmospheric CO2 from the temperate mountainous ecosystem will be used in the ICAR-IISWC’s research activities and form a database under the ’National Hydrology Project (NHP)’ of the NRSC (ISRO).