This week the food and water group convened for a fruitful discussion of research findings thus far, which resulted in the identification of several main areas of focus to be investigated in further detail. Most fundamentally, Vizag suffers from inadequacies in both physical capacity as well as efficient management of the storage and distribution of food and water throughout the city. Despite a widening demand-supply gap, a tremendous amount of water is being wasted, with the total percentage of water leakages amounting to 40%. The group has began considering potential solutions to capture underutilized sources of water, including stormwater, recycled water and saltwater, among others. Additionally, the group has been working to identify and learn from the implementation of tools such as GIS mapping and remote monitoring systems that may be applicable to monitoring the supply, distribution, and waste of both food and water throughout the city.

As is evident from the aftermath of Hurricane Hudhud, another important focal point will be to improve the resilience to disaster and climate change of the physical and social infrastructure of Visag. In addition to researching structural and technological solutions, the group would like to innovate methods by which to mitigate the chaos caused by lack of resources and communication provided to the residents of Vizag following disasters such as Hudhud. We have begun imagining an integrated mobile and phone service through which the municipality can provide relevant information and services to residents, farmers, and businesses. For example, farmers would benefit from access to vital weather, crop rotation, and market analytics, which could be synthesized in a digestible manner in either an application or voice-activated phone service. Further research will be done on the successes and failures of implementing such systems as the group continues researching and developing solutions.

Dhruv Singhal, Jessica Lazarus, Jean Choo, Valeria Yermakova, Sidney Lee