SWEDISH SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES NETWORK

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School of Pure and Applied Natural Sciences,
Linnaeus University, Kalmar:

On January 1, 2010, Kalmar University and Växjö University were amalgamated and formed Linnaeus University

Postal Address: Naturvetenskapliga institutionen, Linnéuniversitetet, SE 391 82 Kalmar.
Web page: http://www.hik.se/nv/

The School of Pure and Applied Natural Sciences is a fusion of the former Department of Chemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Department of Biology and Environmental Science and Environmental Engineering at the Departement of Technology. The School of Pure and Applied Natural Sciences was established on 1 January 2007.

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Division of Environmental Engineering

Division of Marine Science, Marine Ecology Group

Division of Natural Resources Management
/CORDIO

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Division of Environmental Engineering

Visiting address: Norra Vägen 47, Kalmar
Web page: http://www2.hik.se/applikationer/forskningspresentation/subject.aspx?subjectid=19

Contact person: Professor William Hogland, phone: +46 (0)480 446721
Personal web page: http://homepage.hik.se/staff/thowi/

Professor William Hogland has been working with waste management and recovery since the late 1980’s, first in the Dept. of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University, and then at Kalmar University. In 1999 he was awarded the professoral chair of Environmental Engineering at the Dept. of Technology. All along he has also participated in national and international committees on both Urban Hydrology and Waste Management; and worked for the International Energy Agency (IEA). He has experiences of teaching and research in over 50 countries, and has been employed as a lecturer and supervisor in several international courses in the area of water resources and waste management in developing countries. Besides he has published more than 250 reports and papers in his research fields; Hydrology and urban environmental studies: Hydraulics and technical development; Water and waste water treatment; Water/waste management in developing countries; Waste fuels and energy from waste; Landfilling and material recovery/energy utilisation; Waste characterisation, recycling and product development; System analysis of Municipal solid waste(MSW); and System analysis in industries.

While at Lund University, Prof. Hogland was also engaged in organising educational training programmes for professionals working with solid waste management in developing countries. Programmes being funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida. These courses are still run, but now by Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg.

At the University of Kalmar, Prof. William Hogland has been responsible for organising the so-called Kalmar Eco-tech conferences since 1997. The sixth Eco-tech Conference, coinciding with the 30th Anniversary of the university itself, was held 26–28 November 2007, and Prof. Hogland was the contact person for the event. The theme for the conference was ”Technologies for Waste and Wastewater Management and Emissions Related to Climate”, and it also included a section about ”Waste and Waste Water Management in Tropical Climate”, jointly organised by the Dept. of Technology, University of Kalmar, and the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. For more information, see http://www.eco-tech.hik.se.
Three Indian speakers/participants for the conference were invited with the help of a SASNET guest lecture programme grant. Dr. Sunil Kumar, Dr. Kurian Joseph, and Dr. Anjali Srivastava, visited Sweden. They participated in a special section on Waste and Waste Water Management in Tropical Climate. See the full list of SASNET planning grants 2007.
The Conference in total was very sucessful with 200 participants from 29 countries. Kalmar Eco-tech’07 resulted in a proceedings were 81 papers are collected.

Prof. Hogland participated in the SASNET workshop on ”The role of South Asia in the internationalisation of higher education in Sweden” held in Stockholm 29-29 November 2006, where he gave a presentation in the session about ”South Asian students in soft sciences in Sweden”. Read Prof. Hogland’s presentation at the workshop (as a pdf-file).
Prof. Hogland was previously connected to the Department of Technology at Kalmar University, but this unit was closed down in early 2007. Due to the academic and administrative collaboration between Kalmar University, Växjö University and Blekinge Institute of Technology, most of the engineering programmes at Kalmar University has moved over to Blekinge. Prof. Hogland stays on in Kalmar, but he has moved over to the School of Pure and Applied Natural Sciences.
On Thursday 15 February 2007, SASNET’s Director Staffan Lindberg and Deputy Director Lars Eklund visited Kalmar University and had a meeting with Prof. Hogland. He presented plans for a new BSc/MSc/PhD programme in Environmental Science and Engineering that is planned for in collaboration with the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand. Read the SASNET report from the meeting.

Research connected to South Asia

William Hogland is, along with Dr Lennart Mårtensson, School of Engineering, Kristianstad University; Professor Lennart Mathiasson, Dept. of Analytical Chemistry, Lund University; and Dinesh Raj Manandhar from the Environmental Public Health Organization (ENPHO), Kathmandu, Nepal; engaged in a major research project on waste management in Kathmandu, Nepal, financed by a two-years Sida grant for the years 2003–04 (SEK 450 000 per year). The departments in Kathmandu, Nepal involved in the project are the Central Department of Microbiology (CDM), Tribhuvan University; the Environmental Public Health Organization; and the Development Network (P) Ltd. (Dnet). Dinesh Raj Manandhar spent 6 months during the Spring 2004 in Kalmar, working with hydrological issues.
Project name: Analysis of Pollutants from City Dump/Landfills in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, with Emphasis on Heavy Metals and Persistant Organics.
Summary of research programme: The objective is to characterise leachate with respect to heavy metals and persistent organics from dump sites in Nepal and to compare with Swedish conditions. The efficiency of different geofilters will be studied on site in Nepal with respect to pollutant reduction in leachat The information obtained from experiments and workshops will be used for building competence in Sweden about waste management in Nepal and help to improve the local situation. A basis for standardisation of evaluation methodology will be established. Mitigation measures to combat the environmental pollution and protect the water resources from leachate contamination will be proposed.

PhD students from the department worked with the setting-up of the experiments in Nepal and they also performed the analyses in Sweden, and Minor field studies have been carried out by Swedish Masters students from the three Swedish universities involved. The three senior researchers supervise the work performed in the project both in Sweden and Nepal, and they are also responsible for the arrangement of work-shops and compilation of working material based on experimental experiences and discussions with authorities in Nepal. In October 2003 they arranged a workshop on ”Waste management in developing countries” in Kathmandu.
Read an article on the project, and field work carried out on the Kathmandu city dump by the Kalmar University students Christina Anderzén, and Veronica Blees, in Östra Småland 8 November 2003.

In December 2005 Staffan Lindberg and Lars Eklund from SASNET visited Development Network in Kathmandu and met Dr. Manandhar and his researcher colleagues involved in the collaborative project mentioned above. Read a report from the meeting.

The Swedish researchers mentioned above, based at three south Swedish universities, have formed a research group called Laqua, focusing on water and-waste management issues and focus a significant part of the research and teaching of the group for future work in developing countries. It is headed by Prof. William Hogland. The base of knowledge also includes local socio-economic realities, which will facilitate discussions on how to establish more efficient waste and water treatment systems in the developing countries. The gained competence will be utilised for development of systems, tailor-made for actual sites.
With external funding, the Laqua has developed the Nepal project and established a Swedish Centre of Excellence in Nepal for Support of Development of a Sustainable Society in Nepal, offering among other things a PhD course in International Environmental Engineering Sciences for Eco-Cyclic System. More information about the Swedish Centre in Nepal.

Kathmandu International Conference 2006

An International conference on Sustainable Solid Waste Management in Developing Countries, called ”For a Better Tomorrow” was held in Kathmandu, Nepal, 8–12 January 2006. The conference – the first one to focus on local waste management issues in Nepal – was organized by DNet, an organization involved in the issue in Kathmandu, on behalf of Kathmandu University and the Swedish LAQUA group (involving the three universities of Kalmar, Lund and Kristianstad). The conference was funded by the International Foundation for Science, and its Scientific Program Coordinator Dr. Cecilia Öman was present. More information on the conference.
A conference declaration was issued afterwards. Read the declaration.

PhD Course on International Environmental Engineering Sciences for Eco-Cyclic Systems

A PhD Course on International Environmental Engineering Sciences for Eco-Cyclic Systems was held in Kathmandu 16-24 October 2008. The theme for the course was Solid Waste and Water Management, and was later supposed to be followed by another two PhD courses dealing with ”Air Pollution and Soil Remediation” (to be held in either Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia or India) and ”Chemical Analytical Studies – Sampling and Analyses in Practice” to be held in Sweden.
The Kathmandu course, equal to 8 ECTS, was organised by the Swedish Centre of Excellence for Support of Development of a Sustainable Society in Nepal, a collaboration initiative between Kathmandu University, Tribhuvan University, Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Anna University in Chennai, and the Laqua group. The Centre is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agence Sida. The objective behind the course is to increase the knowledge and the scientific level of the PhD students from Sweden and from Nepal concerning waste and water management problems in developing countries and to increase the research cooperation with South East Asia with the help of the knowledge of the Laqua Research Group, and researchers from the Sida ARPET program. Full information about the course (as a pdf-file).

Marine Ecology Group, Marine Science Division

Visiting address: Kalmarsundslab, Landgången 3, Kalmar
Web page: http://www2.hik.se/applikationer/forskningspresentation/subject.aspx?subjectid=20

Contact person: Associate Professor Willem Stolte, phone: +46 (0)480 44 73 08

A collaboration project has been established with the University of Ruhuna in Matara, Sri Lanka. The collaboration project got financial support from the Swedish International Programme Office for Education and Training (Internationella programkontoret) in the form of a Linnaeus-Palme International Exchange Programme grant. The grant was first given in March 2007, for exchange activities involving sending teachers and students both ways from 2007-08. More information about the Linnaeus Palme grants 2007.
The contact person on the Srilankan side is Dr. P.B. Terney Pradeep Kumara, Lecturer at the Dept. of Oceanography and Marine Geology, University of Ruhuna.
The Linnaeus Palme collaboration project included a planning tour during 2007, and the first exchange of teachers took place in 2008.
For several years, Dr. Kumara has been connected to the CORDIO project, administered from the University of Kalmar (more information below), and he was also registered as a PhD Candidate at the School in Kalmar, supervised by Prof. Olof Lindén. Mr. Kumara defended his thesisfocusing on 'Coral larval settlement on reefs recovering from major disturbances and factors affecting on larval settlement' in 2008.

Division of Natural Resources Management/CORDIO

Visiting address: Barlastgatan 11, Kalmar
Web page Division of Natural Resources Management: http://www2.hik.se/applikationer/forskningspresentation/subject.aspx?subjectid=20&ScientistListPage=2#scientists
Web page CORDIO: http://www.cordio.org/

Contact person: Professor Olof Lindén, co-opted (”adjungerad”) Professor at the University of Kalmar. Phone: +46 (0)40 356 330 or +46 (0)70 646 5323. He is also also Professor in Marine Environmental Management at the World Maritime University in Malmö.

Prof. Olof Lindén has been strongly involved in the research programme Coral Reef Degradation in the Indian Ocean (CORDIO), a collaborative program involving researchers in 11 countries in the central and western Indian Ocean. It was created in 1999 to assess the widespread degradation of the coral reefs throughout the region. Gradually much of the research is focusing on mitigation of damage to reefs and on alternative livelihoods for people dependant on reefs that are being degraded due to climate change and other stress factors.
CORDIO has been supported by Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), the Government of Finland, the Dutch Trust Fund of the World Bank, WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and IUCN (World Conservation Union).
In December 2003, the board of Sida Research Department decided to continue the support to the CORDIO project for another 4-year period (2004-2007). The total sum that Sida pårovided was SEK 12 million. The support has focused on the following project areas: A. Long-term ecological and socioeconomic research; B. Targeted research; C. Alternative livelihoods (research and development); D. Training and capacity building; and E. Networking and communications.

CORDIO has had its central coordination within the School of Pure and Applied Natural Sciences at the University of Kalmar, Sweden and regional centres in East Africa (Kenya), South Asia (Sri Lanka) and Indian Ocean Islands (Seychelles).
The Swedish center, coordinated by Prof. Olof Lindén and Dr. David Souter, has been in charge of overall coordination, core fundraising, and annual reporting, and the regional centers managing implementation of funding agreements, project management, reporting from the subregions and regional fundraising. In 2005, an extensive report was edited by Lindén and Souter, the ”Coral Reef Degradation in the Indian Ocean Status Report 2005”. More information.

The report includes a large number of case studies, several of them dealing with India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, e g an article title ”Bandaramulla Reef of Southern Sri-Lanka: Present Status and Impacts of Coral Mining”, written by P. B. Terney Pradeep Kumara (mentioned above) with inputs from Olof Lindén and Prof. P.R.T. Cumaranathunga. Read the article (as a pdf-file)

Regional CORDIO office for South Asia:

Contact person: Jerker Tamelander, IUCN Regional Marine Programme South Asia, Colombo, Sri Lanka

The CORDIO programme in South Asia has worked towards improving management of coral reefs in South Asia since its initiation in early 1999. The programme, supported primarily by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), has included a number of projects and activities in India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. The objectives of the Programme have been
• To Enhance coral reef related bio-physical and socioeconomic research and monitoring;
• Raise public awareness of issues relating to the use and conservation of coral reef resources;
• Investigate the feasibility of restoration of damaged coral reefs;
• Provide alternative livelihoods for people dependent on coral reefs.

During the years 1999–2004, the Regional Coordinator was Dan Wilhelmsson from the Dept. of Zoology, Stockholm University. He is now back at his home department in Sweden.

/webbdokument/kalmarkemi.htmlThe collaboration between CORDIO and NARA in Sri Lanka builds on previous capacity development and support provided by Sida/SAREC between 1989 and 1998. In addition, since 1999, CORDIO has funded a M.Sc. study investigating the spatial and temporal patterns of coral recruitment in the Maldives
The CORDIO programme has also trained several people at MRC in methods to conduct general coral reef surveys and assessments of recruitment and erosion of reefs.
Further, the first comprehensive surveys of the reefs of the Tuticorin Coast in India were conducted by Suganthi Devadason Marine Research Institute (SDMRI) as part of the CORDIO Programme. Through the institutional capacity building within the programme, SDMRI has established a research group equipped for repeated monitoring of coral reefs along the Tuticorin Coast. Several of the projects carried out by SDMRI have provided students with PhD degrees.

With assistance from the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) and the Sri Lanka Sub-Aqua Club, CORDIO provided training and basic equipment to students at Eastern University, Batticaloa, on the east coast of Sri Lanka. Eastern University completed the first surveys of the reefs of Passichuda during 2003–2004. It is anticipated that this will form the basis of expanded coral reef and socio-economic monitoring along the east and north-east coasts of Sri Lanka. Upon request, CORDIO also organised a training course in coral reef monitoring at Colombo University in 2000. Moreover, CORDIO has provided support for a number of researchers from India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives to attend international coral reef training courses and conferences.