Rajasthan facing severe drought- Introducing cloud seeding for artificial rain in Rajasthan
Severe drought has affected several places of Rajasthan state. Inorder to produce artificial rain in drought affected places, the Rajasthan government has introduced cloud seeding system. Read this article to know more about the drought affected places of Rajasthan, cloud seeding in Rajasthan, Hindustan zinc and cloud seeding, cloud seeding chemicals and many more!
Drought is a serious condition experienced for a particular period of months or years by a region when there is deficiency of water supply. This is a condition almost seen in some places of the world. Nowadays Rajasthan state is also facing severe drought conditions. This is not the first case in Rajasthan. For the past several years the state has been severely affected by drought. The major cause of drought in Rajasthan is related to a fact which states that the region received only consistently below average precipitation. Image courtesy: the-south-asian.com
Earlier this August 2012, the state government has declared drought in places like Nagaur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Balmer and Bikaner districts of Rajasthan state, India. This regions of Rajasthan will remain in droughtaffected status from 1 August 2012 to 31 July 2013. Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Geghlot had given instructions to the officials to take the assessment exercise of losses very seriously. Some places of the world have not faced any drought situations and even some persons are not even aware of the consequences related to it. My opinion is every person of the world must be aware of the consequences associated with this situation. Consequences of drought affected areas in Rajasthan
In the above post, I guess you all got some information regarding the drought affected areas of Rajasthan. According to Rajasthan chief ministers report, the 5 districts never received any rain and that is the main cause of drought in that areas. As a result there will be huge scarcity of water. Now itself the water levels in water storing resources has been lowered. The Rajasthan government have to work hard to make necessary arrangements so that the people may receive proper supply of drinking water, electricity and fodder. Majority of the people in Rajasthan mainly depends on agriculture for their needs. So if their areas are seriously affected by this drought, there will be a chance of people migrating to other places.
Some common consequences of drought include the reduction of water quality, diminished crop growth, dust bowls and dust storms, famine, malnutrition, reduction in electricity production, water shortage and even wildfires. Another fact that causes drought is the negligence of human activiites. Some examples are over farming, excessive irrigation, deforestation etc. Inspite of all this dangerous effects, you may be interested to know the future plans of Rajasthan government to fight the drought. Now the latest news is related to the introduction of cloud seeding for artificial rain in Rajasthan. Most of you have not heard much about cloud seeding. So check out the following points to know the details of cloud seeding.Rajasthan government plans cloud seeding for artificial rain
Inorder of fight the drought that has caused severe damage to many of the places in Rajasthan state, the government has now planned to introduce cloud seeding. According to the newest report, Hindustan Zinc, which is a Vedanta Resources Subsidiary and one of the world's largest manufacturer of zinc has got all clearance for the cloud seeding experiment and is waiting for he proper time to spray NaCl salt used for cloud cladding. There is a speciaility related to Vedanta group. It is considered to be the first organization to conduct such an experiment at own cost without any government aids. Cloud seeding cost is very high. An approximate estimate of cloud seeding cost is between 15-20 crore. Anyway we all are expecting a positive result in Rajasthan state. Now let me ask you a question? Do you know what actually cloud seeding is? If not, you have to know it because you must be aware more about this artificial rain. What cloud seeding is?
In simple terms we can say that cloud seeding is an international weather modification whose principle was discovered in July 1946 by Vincent Schaefer, an American chemist and meterorolgist. In cloud seeding, the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds is changed by the dispersion of certain substances into the air which is having the capability of changing the microphysical processes within the cloud. Examples of chemicals that are used for cloud seeding include solid carbon dioxide and silver iodide. Chemistry students are always familiar wth a fact that solid carbon dioxide is also known as dry ice.
On the otherhand silver iodide, a bright yellow solid is considered to be an inorganic compound which is represented by the formula AgI. So I think you all now got an idea regarding the chemicals used for altering the precipitation that falls from the clouds. Now another important question is how this chemicals are dispersed into the air? These chemicals are dispersed using aircrafts or by devices located on the ground that includes generators. In the world, the major users of cloud seeding system is that of People's Republic of China, Australia, America and European countries. Atlast our Rajasthan state is going to be the major user of cloud seeding system in India.
