The Water Data Podcast

What does water have to do with power, caste, labor, and economic policy?
In this episode of the Water Data Podcast, Professor Trevor Birkenholtz (Penn State University) explains how political ecology helps us understand groundwater, irrigation, and large-scale water infrastructure in India.
Trevor Birkenholtz is a political ecologist and development geographer with regional interests in South Asia and the United States. His empirical interests are in water-supply development, water infrastructure, wetlands and the politics of environmental change.
This conversation explores how water systems are shaped not just by engineering, but by power, history, caste, labor, and policy decisions. How do subtle reservoir rule changes dispossess farmers? And why is urban “drinking water” often an industrial demand?
This episode is essential listening for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working at the intersection of water, agriculture, and development.
For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit https://welllabs.org/wdp-trevor-birkenholtz/ 
The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water hosted by Veena Srinivasan. 
For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit Subscribe to The Water Data Podcast on your favourite podcast app – and catch video episodes on the WELL Labs YouTube channel @welllabs.
Subscription links: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, Castbox, and wherever you get your podcasts! 
Recording by Vraj Acharya and Nabina Chakraborty. Video editing by Vraj Acharya. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar and Kanishka Goyal. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.

In this episode of The Water Data Podcast, host Veena Srinivasan speaks with Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni, hydrogeologist and co-founder of ACWADAM, about groundwater science in India – from basalt aquifers and rural irrigation to springshed revival in the Himalayas and participatory groundwater management.
This episode was recorded in November 2025 on the sidelines of a two-day event celebrating the life and work of Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni, marking his recognition with the 2025 International Water Prize by the University of Oklahoma. Because the conversation was long and deeply insightful, we’re releasing it in two parts – this is Part 2.
In this episode, Dr. Kulkarni explains how participatory groundwater management (PGWM) evolved in India, and why aquifers must be treated as common pool resources. He shares field-based examples of PGWM “models” in practice — from borewell bans and drinking water protection zones to borehole pooling and crop planning. He also reflects on the biggest external forces shaping groundwater outcomes, especially energy policy and market incentives. 
Through this conversation, he explains why urban groundwater remains “hidden”, and why cities must treat recharge as a public service, not just an individual mandate. Finally, he highlights the major unanswered questions in groundwater today — contamination and depletion — and why groundwater science will always remain a field science.
The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water hosted by Veena Srinivasan. 
For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit https://welllabs.org/wdp-himanshu-kulkarni-pt2/
Subscribe to The Water Data Podcast on your favourite podcast app – and catch video episodes on the WELL Labs YouTube channel @welllabs.
Subscription links: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, Castbox, and wherever you get your podcasts! 
Recording by Vedant Ambrule and Tippana Chaitanya. Video editing by Nabina Chakraborty. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar and Kanishka Goyal. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.

In this episode of The Water Data Podcast, host Veena Srinivasan speaks with Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni, hydrogeologist and co-founder of ACWADAM, about groundwater science in India – from basalt aquifers and rural irrigation to springshed revival in the Himalayas and participatory groundwater management.
This episode was recorded in November 2025 on the sidelines of a two-day event celebrating the life and work of Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni, marking his recognition with the 2025 International Water Prize by the University of Oklahoma. Because the conversation was long and deeply insightful, we’re releasing it in two parts – this is Part 1.
In this episode, Dr. Kulkarni traces the origins of his groundwater journey – from early memories of the first wells and springs he encountered, to studying geology and being mentored by an exceptional hydrogeology teacher Vilasrao Salunkhe. He then takes us into his landmark field research in Pabal in rural Maharashtra, where detailed well surveys and long-term measurements revealed how basalt aquifers behave, why groundwater availability varies sharply across the same landscape, and how farming decisions around wells, pumps, and crops change when water availability and markets shift together. Along the way, the conversation unpacks key hydrogeology ideas in accessible ways, including layered basalt aquifers, heterogeneity, anisotropy, transmissivity, storage, and why some wells are productive only seasonally while others sustain longer.
They also discuss groundwater decline, cropping pattern changes, watershed development, spring revival programmes, community water governance, urban groundwater challenges, and why trust and local knowledge cannot be scaled like physical infrastructure. The episode reflects on groundwater as a shared commons and introduces the broader arc of Dr. Kulkarni’s work – from the watershed movement and the emerging groundwater crisis to the practice-driven approach that later shaped ACWADAM’s capacity building efforts and participatory groundwater management in India.
The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water hosted by Veena Srinivasan. 
For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit https://welllabs.org/wdp-himanshu-kulkarni-pt1/ 
Subscribe to The Water Data Podcast on your favourite podcast app – and catch video episodes on the WELL Labs YouTube channel @welllabs.
Subscription links: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, Castbox, and wherever you get your podcasts! 
Recording by Vedant Ambrule and Tippana Chaitanya. Video editing by Nabina Chakraborty. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar and Kanishka Goyal. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.

How can simple models explain the complexity of rivers, landscapes and water systems?  Why does hydrology sometimes struggle to connect theory and reality?
In this episode of the Water Data Podcast, Veena Srinivasan speaks with Prof. Hubert Savenije, Emeritus Professor of Hydrology at TU Delft and one of the most influential thinkers in modern hydrological science.
They discuss Hubert’s early journey in hydrology and how intuition shaped his scientific thinking, the importance of embracing uncertainty in water science, and why catchments behave like complex adaptive systems. They explore emergent hydrological behaviour, the limits of top-down and bottom-up modelling approaches, the role of vegetation and root systems in storing water and shaping landscape memory, and the difference between evaporation and transpiration in driving water loss. 
The discussion also covers large-scale water balance patterns such as Budyko curves, the challenges of modelling hydrology under climate change, the risks of over-parameterisation and data-heavy modelling approaches, and practical advice for young researchers on building intuition, spending time in the field, and connecting theory with real-world observation.
This episode offers a rare philosophical and practical perspective on hydrology- bridging theory, observation, and imagination.
The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water hosted by Veena Srinivasan. 
For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit https://welllabs.org/wdp-hubert-savenije/
Subscribe to The Water Data Podcast on your favourite podcast app – and catch video episodes on the WELL Labs YouTube channel @welllabs.
Subscription links: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, Castbox, and wherever you get your podcasts! 
Recording by Vraj Acharya, Nabina Chakraborty. Video editing by Vraj Acharya. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.

When a lake turns green with algae, or nitrate shows up in drinking water, the most obvious question would be: Why can’t we fix this quickly?
In this episode of the Water Data Podcast, Veena Srinivasan speaks with Professor Nandita Basu from the University of Waterloo about nitrogen and phosphorus legacies – the hidden nutrient stores in soils, groundwater, and sediments that keep polluting waterways for decades.
They unpack how the Haber-Bosch process transformed agriculture, why nitrogen use efficiency stays low, and how drained agricultural landscapes can rapidly transport nitrates from fields to major river systems and even the Gulf of Mexico. They also explore why phosphorus behaves differently - sticking to soils and sediments, fuelling algal blooms, and creating stubborn feedback loops when lakes turn low-oxygen.

Finally, they discuss what can still be done: turning the ‘easy knobs’ like phosphate in detergents, targeting livestock manure hotspots, using small ponds and wetlands as high-impact interventions, and why India urgently needs far more empirical measurement to diagnose problems and track solutions.
The Water Data Podcast is a talk show on the science, systems, and stories of water hosted by Veena Srinivasan. 
For all references and further readings related to the episode, visit ________
Subscribe to The Water Data Podcast on your favourite podcast app – and catch video episodes on the WELL Labs YouTube channel @welllabs.
Subscription links: Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, Castbox, and wherever you get your podcasts! 
Recording by Vraj Acharya, Nabina Chakraborty. Video editing by Vraj Acharya. Graphics and artwork by Aparna Nambiar. Audio mixing and mastering by Vijay Doiphode. Podcast production and management by Nabina Chakraborty and Pavan Srinath.