1. Natural Disasters and Climate Change Have a Long-Term Impact on State Finances

Image Credits: PixaHive

The following article was originally published here.

Researchers use a Disaster Intensity Index (DII) to assess disaster impacts on state budgets, offering a roadmap for better disaster preparedness and economic protection.

India’s location and tropical monsoon climate make the region highly vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods and cyclones, especially in coastal and river areas. Each year, the country experiences five to six tropical cyclones, with two or three being severe. These disasters cause not only immediate loss of life and property but also put a significant financial strain on the government.

The state government bears much of the disaster response cost after natural disasters such as floods and cyclones, impacting its budget. A recent study by Ms. Nandini Suresh, Prof Trupti Mishra, and Prof D. Parthasarathy of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) analysed the financial impact of floods and cyclones on 25 states over 24 years (1995–2018). The research is published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

Traditionally, disaster response funding relies on estimating the cost of damages based on evaluating economic losses, the number of deaths, and the number of people affected. These evaluations are often inconsistent and biased. Instead, “We relied on data from weather and geographic sources (IBTrACS and the India Meteorological Department) to accurately measure cyclone strength (using wind speeds) and flood severity (based on unusual rainfall),” says Ms
Nandini Suresh. By combining this information, the researchers created a Disaster Intensity Index (DII), ensuring all types of disasters are treated fairly. The method avoids inconsistencies and biases and gives a clearer picture of disaster impacts, especially for floods and cyclones, which caused 80% of disaster-related losses in India during the study period.

The study uses a statistical model called panel Vector Auto Regression (VAR) to examine how revenue and expenditure affect each other from one year to the next few years. The model allows accounting for differences between states and ensures that past economic conditions don’t unfairly influence disaster severity measurements, giving a reliable way to study the financial impacts of disasters.

The study uses a statistical model called panel Vector Auto Regression (VAR) to examine how revenue and expenditure affect each other from one year to the next few years. The model allows accounting for differences between states and ensures that past economic conditions don’t unfairly influence disaster severity measurements, giving a reliable way to study the financial impacts of disasters.

However, based on the created DII, the study shows that disasters impact states differently. Less disaster-prone states like Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which experience droughts and occasional floods, can handle relief with their own resources and suffer less financial damage. The disaster intensity is not high enough to affect people’s income or production; hence, there is no decrease in tax or non-tax revenues. On the other hand, disaster-prone coastal states like Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and West Bengal, which frequently experience cyclones and floods, have higher recovery expenses and higher revenue losses. As a result, they often need to rely on external funding like loans, increasing state debt and making it difficult to fund other development projects.

The assistance offered by the National and State Disaster Response Funds (NDRF and SDRF) could be optimised for improved efficiency and faster disbursal. Certain regulations, such as the 25% cap on SDRF allocations for relief operations and some procedural requirements, may create hurdles in utilising these funds in a timely manner. By simplifying these processes, there may be an opportunity to enhance the overall impact of disaster relief initiatives.

The study emphasises the need for proactive disaster risk financing mechanisms such as resilience bonds, disaster insurance, and catastrophe bonds. Resilience bonds encourage investments in disaster prevention projects and offer incentives for reducing the effects of disasters. Disaster insurance supports individuals, companies, or governments in recovering from losses brought on by natural disasters. Catastrophe bonds allow governments or organisations to shift disaster risk to investors who receive interest unless a disaster occurs. “These provide quick funds during emergencies and reduce the need to take external loans after disasters,” says Ms Nandini.

However, implementing such measures in India is challenging due to a lack of awareness and understanding among stakeholders, including governments and the public, about the benefits of such instruments. The other key challenges include the high cost of disaster insurance premiums and a lack of a clear financial and legal framework for issuing resilience bonds or incorporating them into state budgets.

Public-private partnerships are also essential for building a climate-resilient economy. Governments can offer tax incentives for businesses to invest in climate resilience infrastructure and enforce sustainability regulations.

Diverting funds from other projects is a usual way for governments to handle disasters while staying within budget. However, it’s difficult to move money from fixed expenses like debt payments, salaries, or pensions as these take up most of the budget and are already set by law. Governments need flexible budgets, backup plans, and quick ways to adjust spending based on what is required so that they can quickly reallocate funds during emergencies.

The study also suggests states invest in early warning systems, cyclone shelters, and resilient infrastructure and promote sustainable land use that can minimise the economic impact of climate change and lower the long-term costs of dealing with disasters. Many states have already made progress: Tamil Nadu has installed advanced cyclone monitoring systems, Kerala has adopted climate-adaptive urban planning, and Odisha and many others have introduced budget tracking for climate-related spending.

With climate change increasing the frequency and intensity of disasters, Indian states will face greater financial challenges. “By adopting these measures, India can mitigate long-term financial risks while protecting lives and infrastructure and build a stronger, more sustainable future,” concludes Ms Nandini.

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The original academic article titled The Impact Of Floods And Cyclones On Fiscal Arrangements In India: An Empirical Investigation At The Sub-National Level was written by IIT Bombay’s researchers and published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 110.

The original paper can be found here.

2. IIT Bombay Researchers Use New Technique To Measure Rate Of Degradation Of Coatings On Iron

Image Credits: peter731 from Pixabay

The following article was originally written by Mr. Joel. P. Joseph and published here.

Combining two electrochemical techniques, hydrogen permeation-based potentiometry (HPP) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), the researchers efficiently measured the coating degradation rates on the industrially relevant metal.

Metals corrode with time, and some metals corrode more than others, e.g., iron rusts in days, while gold and silver take decades or centuries to deteriorate. Metals often have a layer of protective coating, like the paint on our cars, to prevent corrosion. A more efficient way of protecting metals is by coating them with organic coatings. Organic coatings are layers of carbon-based polymeric substances, natural or synthetic, applied in the form of paints and varnishes. According to a recent market analysis report by Grand View Research, the market for such corrosion inhibitors is a USD 8.93 billion market projected to grow at 3.6% annually from 2025 to 2030.

The efficiency of organic coatings deteriorates with time, eventually damaging the metal. That is because the coatings have pores and defects that allow water and oxygen to reach the underlying metal surface over time and corrode it. The coating wears with time because of a fundamental electrochemical process called oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), where molecular oxygen gets reduced to water or hydrogen peroxide or hydroxyl ions. This process occurs in various electrochemical devices, including fuel cells and metal-air batteries.

Understanding the rate at which ORR occurs is important to know how quickly the coating may give way for the metal to corrode. This knowledge is critical in several industrial applications. Traditional techniques, such as linear sweep voltammetry and potentiodynamic polarization, used to measure ORR rate are based on electrochemistry, i.e., chemical reactions that produce or consume electrical energy. In linear sweep voltammetry, a continuously changing voltage is applied to the metal and the current generated in response to it is measured. The resulting current-voltage curve provides insights into the rate at which ORR can occur on the metal.

However, in coated metals, because organic coatings block the passage of ions required to generate current, the rate at which the coating degrades is often representative of current generated only at pre-existing tiny holes in the coating. This may not reflect the actual degradation rate at the interface. There are two main methods of measuring the ORR happening at the interface between the metal and the organic coating – Hydrogen Permeation-based Potentiometry (HPP) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS).

In the HPP setup, electrochemical cells force hydrogen to permeate through the metal and reach the interface with the organic coating. Here, it causes changes in electrochemical potential measured due to its reactions with oxygen. In this way, the amount of hydrogen that has passed through the metal is used as a sensor to measure the ORR rate.

EIS is a technique used to analyse how materials respond to electrical signals, including hydrogen-induced ORR progress. An alternating current (AC) voltage is applied to the material, and the resulting current response is measured, from which the material’s impedance (or resistance) can be calculated. The impedance values associated with different processes occurring on the metal surface can be used to measure the ORR.

A couple of years ago, researchers led by Prof Vijayshankar Dandapani at the Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) established an improved quantitative method to characterise the performance of organic coatings used for corrosion protection. In their innovative approach, the IIT Bombay researchers combined hydrogen permeation-based potentiometry (HPP) with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Combining HPP and EIS techniques allowed the researchers to quantify the degradation rates at the interface between the organic coating and the metal. While HPP gives a direct measure of hydrogen permeation, EIS provides insights into how hydrogen permeation corrodes the coated metal.

“The idea itself came from an attempt to find if a complementary technique such as EIS can be used to strengthen the interpretations from the hydrogen permeation-based potentiometry (HPP) approach,” says Prof Vijayshankar.

In their earlier study, the researchers provided a proof-of-concept by measuring ORR at the interface between a model polymer coating and palladium metal using HPP and EIS. In this new study, the IIT Bombay group, along with researchers from the University in Brest, France, have extended this application to an important industrial metal, namely, iron.

This study received funding from the Indo-French Centre for Promotion of Advanced Research
-CEFIPRA and the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), India.

The researchers coated a thin layer of iron on palladium membranes and coated the iron with a polymer called poly-methyl methacrylate (PMMA). They measured the rate at which oxygen reduction reaction occurred at the interface between PMMA and iron using HPP-EIS. They captured the current-potential (I(U)) curves and corresponding impedance values, which they found to be higher than that for a bare iron surface. High impedance values correspond to low corrosion rates and vice versa. The combined usage of HPP-EIS also gave a clearer picture of ORR happening at the interface between the iron surface and the organic coating, more than either of them could individually.

This validated the use of the HPP-EIS technique to evaluate ORR occurring at interfaces that one cannot easily study using the traditional methods because the interface between organic coatings and metals is buried and inaccessible.

(Left) ORR-assisted polymer coating degradation eventually forming rust on the iron layer deposited on the palladium membrane. (Right) Mechanism of HPP-EIS for determining ORR rate before rust formation.

HPP-EIS is cost-effective because it requires only two potentiostats, simple electronic devices that control and measure the voltage between two electrodes.

According to Prof Vijayshankar, HPP-EIS can be used to monitor how quickly the organic coating will give way for the iron to rust, and that the method would be of interest not only to the steel industry but will also be useful in the field of fuel cells and sensors.

With hydrogen blending becoming increasingly popular to reduce emissions from natural gas, one can also apply the HPP-EIS technique “to determine how quickly the coat of paint on a natural gas pipeline, where hydrogen is blended with natural gas, degrades,” says Prof Vijayshankar, highlighting a potential application.

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The original academic article titled Cathodic Oxygen Reduction Kinetics At An Organic Coating/Iron Interface Using A Combined Hydrogen Permeation Based Potentiometry And Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy Technique  was written by IIT Bombay’s researchers and published in the journal, Corrosion Science, Volume 244.

The original paper can be found here.

3 – Mapping Maharashtra’s Changing Mangroves and Wetlands

Image Courtesy: Research Matters

Researchers from IIT Bombay have mapped the transformation of Maharashtra’s mangroves and wetlands over the past decade using satellite imaging and machine learning techniques. Their findings reveal a 15% decline in Palghar’s mangroves, while Mumbai saw a 16% increase, likely due to conservation efforts. However, wetland areas in Palghar shrank by 19%, highlighting the growing threat of urbanization. This study underscores the impact of human activities on fragile ecosystems and the crucial role of technology in guiding conservation efforts.

For the full story, click here: Study maps changes to mangroves and wetlands along Maharashtra’s coastline.

4 – IIT Bombay Pioneers Affordable Tinnitus Diagnosis Device, Bringing Relief to Millions

Image Courtesy: India Today (Representative Image from Getty Images)

IIT Bombay continues to redefine the boundaries of science and research with its latest breakthrough—a device designed to diagnose and manage tinnitus, an often-debilitating condition that affects millions worldwide.

Imagine living with the constant hum of phantom sounds—ringing, buzzing, clicking—like an echo in your head that never fades. For over 740 million people globally, this is a daily reality. More than 120 million people suffer from severe symptoms, and for many, tinnitus becomes more than just an annoyance—it disrupts sleep, heightens anxiety, and strains relationships, making even the simplest tasks feel impossible.

But thanks to the tireless efforts of researchers at IIT Bombay, there is new hope. The Institute has developed an affordable and portable device that not only diagnoses tinnitus but also offers personalized treatment plans, helping patients regain control over their lives. In a world where tinnitus management solutions are often expensive and inaccessible, this innovation provides a cost-effective answer, particularly for individuals in low-income regions.

The device, which pairs with an intuitive app, allows clinicians to match the exact nature of the sounds patients experience. Its customizable approach ensures that each treatment is tailored to the individual, offering a more effective solution for those struggling with the condition. The device doesn’t just diagnose—it tracks the progress of tinnitus over time, giving doctors and patients an actionable tool to monitor improvements.

What sets this development apart is the human element. Tinnitus is not just a medical condition—it is a barrier to living a full, healthy life. The researchers, working alongside M.Tech students and medical experts from Hinduja Hospital, have poured their expertise into creating something that will improve the daily lives of countless people. This is not just about technology for the sake of it; it’s about making a real difference in the world, one patient at a time.

This innovative project has been made possible with support from the Tata Centre for Technology and Design (TCTD), IIT Bombay, and the Wadhwani Research Centre for Bioengineering (WRCB). Their funding has been pivotal in bringing this solution to life, ensuring that the technology is both affordable and accessible to those who need it most.

IIT Bombay’s commitment to making technology accessible extends beyond the labs—it is about empowering individuals and communities. The device is already being taken forward by a startup, which aims to bring it to market and expand clinical trials. This marks another chapter in IIT Bombay’s ongoing role in advancing global healthcare solutions, from accessible diagnostics to cutting-edge therapies.

With this breakthrough, IIT Bombay continues its legacy as a torchbearer of innovation, where science meets humanity. This device offers not just a diagnosis but hope, and that is the true power of technology in shaping a better tomorrow.

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