? of the Population is Still Waiting for a Better Quality of Water. She Knows How to Help Them

Nowadays, we can find electronics?everywhere, so it’s no wonder that one of our researchers has decided to place?a special kind of electronic sensor in water to examine, measure, and detect it. This brave young woman is Kiranmai Uppuluri. She knows a LOT about water and will do her best to have her own, even the smallest, impact on improving the quality of water.?

Kiranmai, you examine water, so please tell me – why water?

Angelina, you and I can have this conversation now because there is one molecule that sustains the life in both of us: water. Water is so essential that all living organisms on this planet depend on it. There is a nice quote from one of my heroes – Dr. Sylwia Earle and she said: ‘no blue, no green’, meaning without water nothing can survive. We must respect the significance of this critical resource and that is why water is so crucial, not only for human beings but across all other species of flora and fauna.

When did you start being interested in this subject? As a student? Or maybe even as a kid?

I did my bachelor’s in Physical Science at the University of Delhi and during those years I travelled to the mountains every summer vacation to work with some NGOs. For my first experience, I worked with an NGO called RUCHI (Rural Center for Human Interests) where we would build rainwater harvesting tanks for the villagers ensuring that they have water supply.

In the mountains, the water flows downwards so if there is a village or town which is rather remotely situated from the water stream or river, transporting water to a higher altitude requires infrastructure such as pipes and pumps and it is very challenging to do anything at all of that sort in the mountains. Therefore, it’s important in these kinds of areas to harvest rainwater so that the people can depend on this water supply in case the supply from the lower altitude is disrupted or ideally, to be completely independent of it. Around the world, rainwater harvesting is one of the most encouraged methods of conservation.

Another summer, I worked with an environmental NGO called Waste Warriors. In this NGO, our job was to hike 5 to 6 hours for 9 kilometers to a height of 2800 meters and collect all the garbage that we could find on the way. Unfortunately, sometimes people are not very respectful towards the environment and they throw trash carelessly. In general, every responsible hiker should carry a small bag for trash with them. It can be overwhelmingly disappointing but at the same time very satisfying. It was especially fun when other hikers joined us and helped us to collect the waste. We collected all this garbage on the way to the top. At the end of the day, we segregated the waste into paper, plastics, metal, and non-recyclables.

Working with these NGOs really inspired me to study environmental engineering for my master’s and I decided that this is the cause I want to work for. I realized that the problem is very real and common. It just doesn’t limit itself to India or Asia, it’s a global problem. And therefore I decided to enter this field of science.

Do you know that in 2010 the United Nations established that access to safe drinking water is a human right? Unfortunately, there are still many places in the world where people have limited or no access to water. We cannot sit still and accept this situation. Here in Europe I can turn the water and drink directly from the tap. I never had that when I was growing up because the tap water in India is not so clean and potable.

Could you expand on that?

Wherever people can afford it, they have continuous access to water. However, there are still many places where the shortage of water weighs heaviest on those who cannot afford it. They must queue up in lines, waiting for tanks to bring them water. Water scarcity is so severe and supply management is so poor that people wait for water tanks and queue up to fill their drums and buckets. They use that water until the next tank comes, whenever it does. I saw it my entire life and it still continues this way in the area where I grew up in Delhi. In some other areas of the planet, women and children walk for hours to collect and bring water home. These problems will not disappear overnight and they require a gigantic amount of effort to be solved. Especially in densely populated and remote areas where it can be very difficult to lay the infrastructure for a municipal water supply network or a stormwater drainage system.

So by becoming an engineer who examines water you wanted to make your own contribution? To do something about this situation?

Yes, my father is a social worker. He spent his life working for the betterment of people, especially women and children. He is my hero and he inspired me to do something for society and the planet.

Is there anything that you do in Europe and can introduce to India afterwards?

Yes, we need to solve the problem that not everyone has access to water because we DO have access to water. Because I have access to water, it’s my responsibility to at least do something small to make this access available to somebody who doesn’t have it. Similarly, countries that are strong economically and they can help countries which are in a difficult situation. And indeed, they do. Globally, we can see that international NGOs are helping areas to have access to water, medicine, electricity, and so on.

One-in-four people do not have access to safe drinking water (ourworldindata.org)

So if you ask if I think of developing something from Europe for India, I absolutely agree because coming here, learning the technology which is available is a worthy asset. However unfortunately, from my experience, these technologies are really expensive. That is the number one factor why economically weaker countries do not adopt them. But secondly, even if they do have external financial help to implement these technologies, they suffer from terrible levels of corruption and poor implementation. Therefore the system fails miserably. Help is provided but it’s not used well. So nobody wins, everybody loses. But we should not lose heart over it and instead focus on connecting with people and organizations that sincerely want to bring a positive change.

What exactly do you want to do in regards to water?

Here at ?ukasiewicz, I basically make sensors for water. Currently, we have very traditional methods of measuring water. Recently, I have spoken about sensors to make them smaller. Traditional water sensors look like this (Kiranmai is showing me the one). We need an electrolyte solution to store it which is a problem, it’s bulky, it’s made of glass, and if I hit it, it will break. What we are trying to do instead is to replace it with this (she is showing me a very small sensor). It’s small, handy, it will not break easily, it’s stable and this aluminum side can be used again. That was the first part of my job here which I started 3 years ago. But now we are moving a bit forward, we are using these sensors to be applied in remote sensing devices. It looks like this (she is showing me a device). Best part, it gives you real-time data. It’s instantaneous! We are sitting here, Vistula river is over there. And I have all the information about the Vistula river on my phone. What is the temperature right now, what is the pH, etc.

Why is this important? Why do we need real-time data? Recently there was a controversy in Norway. They had such a situation that there was some contamination in the water supply of the city and many people got sick from it. ?It was a sort of wake-up call for municipalities and authorities around the world towards the importance of real-time data. If there is a problem in the water supply going to the city we must find it out immediately. So this is the biggest advantage of real-time monitoring: fast action.

Another way is, let’s say that somebody puts hazardous or toxic waste into the lake or river. It will be a lot easier for the police to catch the criminals who are poisoning the environment if they are informed immediately. Additionally, authorities can go to the spot immediately and perhaps remove or obstruct this waste before it contaminates the entire water body.

Unsafe water is responsible for 1.2 million deaths each year. (ourworldindata.org)

And can you find it out thanks to measuring the pH of water?

Yes, when such toxic materials are added to the water, the pH will change very fast. The pH of water bodies is usually quite stable so it is a good parameter to depend on for monitoring any changes.

For another example, let’s say that there are some people suffering due to contamination in the drinking water and it is hard to tell where the source of this contamination is because it is very mild. This requires collection of pH data from different locations over a period of time to observe exactly where the pH is changing by the largest magnitude. If the pH sensor is very sensitive then the source of contamination could be revealed much sooner.

Many of the disasters of this planet could have been avoided if we only knew about them in time. Knowledge is very empowering for action. If we want to protect the planet, we must know what is wrong with it.

We are scientists and we must make sense of what we are doing. Science is beautiful and it is so easy to get lost in the complex worlds of materials and chemistry. But the application of our work is also very important. We must never forget that our discipline comes with a responsibility towards not just the scientific community but also towards the planet and society. However, most of this effort is never seen in the public eye. In fact, we ourselves do not see a lot of the work our fellow scientists do outside of our fields. Yet, every research makes a difference. A researcher might find out that one material has a better temperature resistance than another material. And we can think “how does it help the planet?”. But science has really helped humanity in such an invisible way because it takes years and years of research to find out even the smallest detail that can for instance, make our hands warmer with a small puffed packet in our palms. So the positive consequence of science cannot always be visible. We must respect science and all its various disciplines because the results of different research compound together to have an overall progressive impact on technology and society.

Lack of access to safe water sources is a leading risk factor for infectious diseases, including cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid and polio (ourworldindata.org)

What are the perfect parameters of let’s say environmental water?

Different bodies of water have different levels of temperature, oxygen, and pH to support the life inside them. These parameters are usually dependent on the environment around them. Let’s say that authorities want to make sure that the Vistula river is in good condition, then they have to take care of the levels of metals, oxygen, pH, etc., and make a decision about its health.

Who decides about these levels?

In the European Union, there is European Environment Agency which develops these guidelines. Globally it’s the World Health Organization that has guidelines for water quality standards to be followed for rivers, lakes, municipal water, drinking water, etc. They are based on scientific data and research. So it’s sensible for countries to respect these guidelines. Not all the countries follow these standards. One of the reasons could be that their industrial priorities are higher than environmental ones.

The last Tuesday there was The International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem. They grow in water so I guess you might know something about it.

Mangroves are shrubs that grow in coastal saline water. They are quite alike to strong warriors because they are very resilient to conditions such as low oxygen and salinity. They support a diverse and unique ecosystem of organisms around their roots such as oysters, shrimps, algae, sponges, etc. and they also hold a large amount of blue carbon through carbon sequestration. A mangrove forest is like an army that protects against storms and tsunamis by dissipating the wave energy. If we don’t preserve them and they become weaker than the waves themselves, the waves uproot them. Therefore it’s very important to not destroy these coastal beauties. Unfortunately, artificial beaches and hotels destroy their habitat. I’ve read that Aruba in the last 30 years lost 70% of its mangrove forests. Firstly, we need to protect them and not destroy what is remaining, and number two: is rehabilitation which is to replant mangrove forests as much as we can to bring them back to our environment.

You’re a scientist, you do charity work, and you’re also a model, right? You were a miss of India, yes?

I was a finalist.

Out of how many?

I don’t know the number of participants but I remember that when I went to Mumbai after winning the competition from my state for Miss India Universe, there were around 200 girls. In the end, we were only 30 remaining. So if there were so many girls in the national round, I cannot imagine how many actually participated in the first place from each state and all over the country. I did not expect to see so many but the competition in India is naturally very high given the size and population of the country. So it makes sense and one might even say it is more fun because there are more opportunities to meet interesting people. The one thing I most fondly remember about this experience is meeting all these amazing girls because they were very inspiring. So many different girls coming from all walks of life. We ended up empathizing with each other more than competing.

Beautiful. Thank you for the conversation.