Fellowship report by Girish Kumar Jha
I availed this fellowship at one of the UK partner institutes: Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom. During my fellowship, I worked on the topic entitled: “Availability of organic wastes for soil improvement in India” in collaboration with Professor Jo Smith from the host institute. Efforts have been made to estimate the potential of organic wastes to improve soil fertility using simulations of the RothC model. Simulations has been run to see the long-term changes in soil carbon and its sequestration. The study is expected to answer series of questions like how much organic wastes is used in India for energy, animal feed, manuring etc., how much is burnt in the field as well as effect of alternative soil amendments of organic wastes on water saving.
Besides research work and training, I also attended one course on “Ecological and Environmental Modelling” during the fellowship period. It was a very useful course which exposed me to the basics of modelling methods. This fellowship provided me a good opportunity to interact with academia from three different Institutions: University of Aberdeen, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and University of Edinburgh, which will certainly help me in future research collaborations. The knowledge of modelling tools, like RothC and Cool Farm tool, as well as the interaction with the fellow researchers has helped me in building scientific knowledge and expertise, which will certainly strengthen my research work, teaching and training at my home institution.
My stay at Aberdeen was truly amazing. Besides academics, I got the opportunity to visit in and around the city, as well as understanding people and their culture. The city is home to an international population and is situated by the side of the North Sea. I also attended a public meeting on climate change and visited Trump International Golf Links to present a copy of the Ladybird book on climate change. Furthermore, watching seals at Newburg beach on a sunny day was another interesting experience to mention. Aberdeenshire is also known as “Scotland’s castle county” - during my visit we explored the castle of Stonehaven. Finally, we spent a couple of days in Edinburgh, where we met our colleagues at the University of Edinburgh and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH).
At Trump International Golf Links
With the seals at Newburg beach
At the castle of Stonehaven
Lunch with colleagues from CEH and the University of Edinburgh
Girish Kumar Jha
