The Value of Green: Why Cities Must Invest in Nature-Based Solutions

The Rural Futures programme was designed to answer a deceptively simple question: how can we increase rural income without degrading land and water quality? As WELL Labs turns 3, we look back at the programme’s journey and impact across Karnataka’s Raichur and Chikkaballapur districts.

Jay Famiglietti, a leading hydrologist and former NASA scientist joins host Veena Srinivasan to talk about the groundbreaking GRACE satellite mission and its role in transforming global hydrology.

Despite many women holding elected positions in Panchayats, the decision-making power largely rests with their male relatives. Our training sessions showed that reservation alone does not ensure empowerment; it also requires knowledge and solidarity.

Karan Misquitta unpacks the long and complex history of watershed development in India – from its origins in colonial famine relief programmes to its evolution into large-scale public policy and, more recently, technology-driven interventions.

The Urban Water Programme was designed to tackle the issues of water security and resilience in urban areas. As WELL Labs turns 3, we look back at the journey and impact this programme has had on Bengaluru’s water story.

In part two of this seven-part series on learnings from three years of running WELL Labs, Veena Srinivasan shares how the organisation stays accountable.

WELL Labs is three years old. Veena Srinivasan, our Executive Director, writes about the journey, and what we have learnt from it in a series of blogs. This is part one of seven.

Hydrogeologist Vivek Grewal unpacks the basic science of groundwater and how groundwater behaves in the Indo-Gangetic region.

Raichur’s resilience to climate change is not built on a single path, but through the conscious navigation of multiple, co-existing hydro-social pathways. This makes the landscape of possibilities visible so that communities, researchers, and policymakers can together decide which futures to pursue.

Veena Srinivasan and Gayathri Muraleedharan join host Pavan Srinath to unpack the nature of Bangalore’s water crisis — what caused the severe summer crisis of 2024, why similar crises may recur, and what the city can do to avoid lurching from one groundwater emergency to the next.