Green Barriers Or Fair Trade? How EU Deforestation Rules Are Reshaping Indian Agriculture – Analysis


A coffee plantation in India. Photo Credit: INeedCoffee / CoffeeHero, Wikipedia Commons


November 13, 2026

By Sarvesh JP

Key Takeaways:

From 30 December 2026 the EU Deforestation Regulation will require plot-level geolocation proof that coffee, rubber, cocoa and other goods were not grown on land deforested after 2020, a rule India views as a costly non-tariff barrier for its 86 percent smallholder farms.

Despite India’s low-risk rating and domestic digital tools such as AgriStack and commodity-board apps, the absence of mutual recognition means European importers may still re-verify data, raising compliance costs.

Without formal recognition, phased timelines and financing support, the regulation risks diverting Indian exports to less demanding markets and undermining Europe’s own supply-chain diversification goals.

Few European laws collide with Indian farm realities as squarely as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). From Dec. 30, 2026, large and medium-sized companies must prove that coffee, rubber, cocoa, wood and other covered goods sold in the European Union did not come from land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020. Every shipment must trace back to the plots where the crop grew, using geolocation data. The date follows two postponements, and the European Commission has ruled out a third.

Brussels frames the rule as a climate benchmark. New Delhi calls it a non-tariff barrier that penalizes small, fragmented farms.

Both claims have merit. India is rated low-risk under the regulation, yet its smallholders must still produce plot-level proof. Without mutual recognition of Indian traceability systems, the rule risks steering exporters toward less regulated markets. That would undercut both Europe’s supply-chain diversification strategy and global climate goals.


The Smallholder Dilemma

India’s farm economy runs on small plots. According to Reserve Bank of India figures drawn from the Agriculture Census, small holdings make up 86% of the total, and the average holding is just 1.08 hectares.

Coffee fits the pattern. Growers in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu work roughly 366,000 holdings, 99% of them under 10 hectares, according to a 2019 study using Coffee Board data. Rubber is smaller still. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s National Rubber Policy counts about 1.3 million growers, with an average holding of 0.57 hectare and 92% of output coming from smallholdings.

Cocoa and agroforestry products add more tiny, mixed-use plots. Wooden handicraft exporters have also raised alarms, the Observer Research Foundation noted.

Large plantations can absorb the burden. They typically hold clear land records, can hire surveyors and often sell directly to exporters. Smallholders sell through several intermediaries, so each farm must be mapped, screened against forest-cover data and tied to its buyer. Under the regulation’s text, plots of four hectares or less need one GPS point, while larger plots need a boundary polygon.


Compliance vendors warn that satellite forest maps can flag shade-grown coffee and rubber, leaving farmers to prove their trees are not forest. The EU eased some rules in December 2025, creating a simplified regime for “micro and small primary operators.” But legal scholars Ysaline Reid and Gauthier Michiels argue the relief mainly benefits EU producers, because third-country smallholders who sell through traders are unlikely to qualify.

Trade Friction and Diplomatic Pushback

New Delhi has been blunt. It treats the deforestation rule and the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as unilateral measures that raise the cost of market access. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal called EU standards “irrational” trade barriers in October 2024. Last month, at the Berlin Global Dialogue, he warned that piling on regulations invites reciprocal measures and said India would trade with partners such as Singapore, which has neither CBAM nor deforestation rules.

The Global Trade Research Initiative, a New Delhi think tank, estimated that coffee, leather hides and paperboard exports worth about $1.3 billion a year would be affected. Indian planters have joined the pushback. The United Planters’ Association of Southern India has warned that traceability costs will hit fragmented coffee and rubber growers hardest and has sought government support and EU engagement.

The EU-India free trade agreement, concluded Jan. 27, did not resolve the dispute. The European Commission said the deal carries no CBAM exemption, and Argus Media reported that it also steers clear of deforestation-related concerns.


The EU-India Trade and Technology Council (TTC) met for a third time in Brussels on July 15. Its joint statement did not name the deforestation rule. It did refer to “relevant EU regulations,” pledged work on Indian access to accredited CBAM verifiers and noted talks on mutual equivalence recognition for organic products.

That organic track is instructive. It shows the two sides can recognize each other’s systems when they choose to.

India’s Digital Response vs. Brussels’ Benchmarks

India has not waited for Brussels. AgriStack, the government’s digital public infrastructure for agriculture, had issued more than 103 million Farmer IDs by Aug. 3, the government said. Its Digital Crop Survey covered more than 313 million plots in the 2025-26 rabi season. Coverage remains uneven, since states maintain the registries and outdated land records have slowed the drive in places such as Jharkhand.

Commodity boards are building on that base. The Coffee Board has added an EUDR module to its India Coffee App. Board officials say the platform spares growers private services that charge up to $35 per metric ton of exported coffee. The Rubber Board began geo-mapping plantations in Kerala in March 2025 under its Indian Sustainable Natural Rubber certification framework.

Yet none of this carries legal weight in Brussels. Responsibility sits with the first operator placing goods on the EU market, usually the European buyer, who files the due diligence statement. Indian data feeds that filing but does not replace it, so importers may end up re-verifying the same farms.

India’s low-risk rating trims risk assessment but not the duty to collect plot data. Defenders of the rule note that low-risk origins face the lightest enforcement, with authorities required to check just 1% of operators a year. Even so, light enforcement still leaves smallholders to produce the data.

Without a formal recognition mechanism, Indian registries remain inputs, not credentials. Progress at home cannot translate into easier access in Europe.

The Geopolitical Backfire: Trade Diversion

The risk is trade diversion. Europe anchors Indian coffee demand, but it is not the only buyer. Italy (18%), Germany (11%) and Belgium (7.5%) led destinations in fiscal 2024-25, followed by Russia (5.3%) and the United Arab Emirates (5.1%), according to a Press Information Bureau backgrounder.

Exports hit a record $2.13 billion in fiscal 2025-26, The Hindu BusinessLine reported. StoneX notes that Russia, the Middle East, Japan and South Korea are fast-growing markets, and domestic consumption offers another outlet. Buyers in Russia and the Gulf do not ask for EU-style plot-level proof.


Soluble coffee raises the stakes. A Commission delegated act now under scrutiny would bring it into scope from Dec. 30, 2027, and instant coffee alone accounted for $498 million of exports in April-January of fiscal 2025-26, according to trade data reported by India Shipping News.

If smallholder coffee cannot be certified as traceable, it will still find buyers, just elsewhere. Europe would then weaken the diversification its trade deal with India was meant to deliver, which the Kiel Institute casts as the second pillar of Europe’s diversification push. Forests gain little, since the regulation already rates India low-risk and the beans simply change destination.

A Policy Path Forward

The fix is practical, not radical. First, Brussels and New Delhi should formally recognize Indian national traceability systems, building on the joint task force the EU set up with Indonesia and Malaysia to support smallholder inclusion. Second, smallholder-heavy supply chains need phased timelines, with grace periods tied to registry coverage. Third, the EU should help finance the transition by funding farm mapping and producer organizations, not leaving growers to pay.

Europe wants deforestation-free supply chains and dependable partners. Mutual recognition would deliver both. Without it, the rule risks delivering neither. The TTC’s planned upgrade, due by year-end, offers a ready forum.


About Sarvesh JP
Sarvesh JP is a Project Associate at the Bay Of Bengal Programme Inter-Governmental Organisation (BOBP-IGO) in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. His work focuses on regional trade policy, environmental governance, and sustainable agricultural and marine value chains across South Asia.
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When the Saudi desert was green: a 125,000-year-old lakeside reveals how early humans lived

Evidence of early humans hunting, processing plants and occupying a thriving lakeside during the Green Arabia period

King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST)

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Fieldwork at 'Uruq al-Julaybah, on the shore of the ancient Mundafan lake in southern Saudi Arabia. Left: a researcher exposes finds along a survey grid line. Top right: a fossil on the surface of the ancient lake bed. Bottom right: a fossil being uncovered from the sand.

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Credit: KAUST / Saudi Heritage Commission

Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, 15 November 2026 – The Saudi Heritage Commission has announced the findings of an archaeological and environmental study jointly led by the Commission, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and Griffith University. Megafauna remains, stone tools and rare plant material recovered from the 125,000-year-old lakeside site of Uruq al-Julaybah in Mundafan, southern Saudi Arabia, provide one of the most detailed pictures yet of prehistoric human life in Arabia. Together, the discoveries reveal how early people lived, hunted and used their environment during a greener, wetter period in Arabian history.

Published in Science, the study brings together KAUST researchers spanning geology, archaeology, botany and micropaleontology alongside colleagues at Griffith University and the Saudi Heritage Commission and several other international institutions. The findings add significant evidence to Saudi Arabia's deep human and environmental history and contribute to a wider understanding of early human presence across the Arabian Peninsula.

Researchers used satellite terrain modeling to map the approximately 340 km² ancient lake, which reached a maximum depth of 29 meters. Sediments, geomorphological data and aquatic remains indicated a relatively stable freshwater body surrounded by vegetation and open grasslands.

The team also carried out systematic grid surveys to collect fossils and stone tools, used two dating methods on sand and fossil teeth, applied 3D-refitting techniques to stone tools, and conducted microscopic and chemical residue analysis of tool surfaces. This comprehensive methodology provided direct insights into how early human populations lived and adapted during the last Interglacial period, a warm, humid phase approximately 125,000 years ago commonly known as Green Arabia.

The team documented more than 500 fossil specimens of plants and animals, including invertebrates, at more than 130 locations across the site. Animal remains included hippos, extinct long-horned buffaloes, camels, Arabian oryx, gazelles and ostriches.

Researchers collected 5,511 stone tools larger than 2 cm from the main study area. More than 98% were made of flint, and analyses showed the use of Levallois techniques in stone tool production.

The tools contain residues of a wide variety of plants, including some that are toxic. Traces of resin and woody tissue suggest the use of hafted weapon tips, while plant residues indicate the processing of tubers, bushes and palm leaves. These traces point to varied uses of plants for food and everyday tasks. Among the most significant findings is evidence of the potential use of toxic plant compounds in hunting technology, understood to be among the first such evidence recorded in Saudi Arabia, alongside some of the earliest evidence of palm-related vegetation found in the region. Together, these findings paint a picture of a population making diverse and sophisticated use of their environment.

What makes this site exceptional is that all of these elements (animal remains, stone tools and plant material) were found together in a single, dated context, allowing researchers to reconstruct in unusual detail the daily lives of the people who occupied this lakeside. The site provides a vivid and unusually complete picture of how humans lived in Green Arabia.

The findings also indicate that the shores of ancient Lake Mundafan brought together freshwater, animals, plants and raw materials during the humid period around 125,000 years ago. This combination supported a range of human activities, including stone tool production, the preparation of hunting equipment, the processing of animal and plant resources, and fiber working.

“It is very exciting to see how the collaboration of so many different specialists allows to reconstruct this uniquely complete picture of life, behavior and the environment in the distant past,” said Professor Frans van Buchem, KAUST Professor of Geology and co-lead scientist.

Dr. Faisal Al-Jibreen, a participating researcher from the Heritage Commission and a professor of Paleolithic archaeology, described the discovery in the sands of Lake Mundafan in the Empty Quarter as an important archaeological find that sheds light on the ancient environment and its relationship with humans and animals in southern Saudi Arabia’s early prehistory.

“This site gives us a rare and richly detailed view of how people lived in a landscape that looks nothing like Arabia today,” said Professor Chris Clarkson, co-lead scientist and Professor of Archaeology at Griffith University's Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution. “The combination of animal remains, stone tools and plant material in a single, dated context is what makes this discovery so significant.”

“Saudi Arabia has an exceptional archaeological heritage. Building Heritage Science capabilities in the Kingdom will enable us to turn the smallest traces into the biggest stories,” said Professor Laurence Hapiot, co-author and Head of Heritage Research at KAUST.

The research underscores the shared commitment of KAUST and its research partners to uncovering the rich prehistory of the Arabian Peninsula, providing pivotal evidence for our understanding of early human life, movement, and technology.

The Heritage Commission supported the study’s fieldwork during the 2023 season, contributed to research funding and facilitated scientific work. The collaboration brought together Griffith University in Australia, KAUST and King Saud University, alongside international universities and research centers specializing in archaeology, ancient environments, history and laboratory analysis.

-ENDS-

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aef9342

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Poisoned hunting weapons, megafauna and plant use at a 125,000-year-old Arabian paleolakeshore

Article Publication Date

12-Nov-2026

A fossil fragment exposed on the surface of the ancient Mundafan lake bed at ‘Uruq al-Julaybah, marked with a flag during the team’s systematic survey. The team documented more than 500 fossil specimens at more than 130 locations across the site

Sand dunes in the Empty Quarter (Rub’ al-Khali), southern Saudi Arabia. Around 125,000 years ago, during the humid “Green Arabia” period, this area held Lake Mundafan, a freshwater lake of about 340 km², and early humans lived along its shores.

Credit

KAUST/Heritage Commission

Ancient lakeshore reveals how early humans lived in Arabia

Griffith University

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Researchers recovered more than 5,000 stone artefacts alongside fossil animal remains, providing insight into how early Homo sapiens adapted to and flourished in Arabia. 

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Credit: Chris Clarkson

A new study has found people living in Arabia 125,000 years ago used complex technologies including composite hunting weapons, plant-fibre processing and possibly poison-assisted hunting, while making use of a freshwater lake rich in resources. 

The research, co-led by Griffith University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), and the Saudi Heritage Commission, Ministry of Culture, brings together an international team including researchers from Griffith’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE). 

The analysis, accepted for publication in Science, examines the well-preserved prehistoric lakeshore site of ‘Uruq Aljelibah in Saudi Arabia’s Rub’ al-Khali, or Empty Quarter. 

It challenges the idea that Arabia was merely a transit corridor during human dispersals, showing how people could settle and develop complex technologies there. 

Lead researcher Professor Christopher Clarkson, of ARCHE, said the site lay beside a freshwater lake in the Mundafan basin, in what is now one of the driest regions on Earth. 

The site preserves a rare snapshot of life during a humid period known as Marine Isotope Stage 5e.  

Researchers recovered more than 5,000 stone artefacts alongside fossil animal remains, providing insight into how early Homo sapiens adapted to and flourished in Arabia. 

“The lakeshore preserves evidence of a very different Arabia where freshwater, grasslands and trees supported people and abundant wildlife,” Professor Frans van Buchem, of KAUST, and co-lead author said. 

“One of the most significant discoveries is evidence that some stone points were used as hafted hunting weapons,” Professor Clarkson said. 

“This suggests people were manufacturing composite weapons made from multiple materials rather than simply using handheld stone tools.” 

Several stone points showed impact damage consistent with hunting large animals, while microscopic analysis revealed traces of animal tissue near the tips and plant resin and fibres at the base. 

Several points also contained chemical biomarkers linked to Acokanthera schimperi, the arrow-poison tree, which is known historically for its toxic cardiac glycosides. 

Researchers identified other potentially toxic plant compounds on weapon points suggesting that poison may have been used in hunting. 

“The residues give us clues to parts of these weapons that rarely survive,” Associate Professor Carney Matheson, of Griffith University, said. 

“Animal tissue near the tips and resin and fibres at the bases help us reconstruct how the points were mounted and used. 

“The chemical traces also raise the possibility that some weapons carried plant poisons.” 

The distribution of stone tools closely matched clusters of animal bones, suggesting the lakeshore was a focal point for hunting and processing game. 

Fossil evidence indicates the area once supported hippopotamuses, buffalo, camels, gazelles and oryx. 

Researchers also found microscopic traces of plant materials including fibres, wood fragments and preserved palm tissue. 

Evidence of cutting, scraping and fibre processing suggests these communities exploited a wide range of plant resources for food, tools and binding materials. 

The findings add to growing evidence that Arabia repeatedly supported human occupation during wetter climatic phases. 

A separate study published in Nature in 2025 documented recurrent humid periods in Arabia over the past eight million years, offering a longer environmental context for these discoveries. 

“During wetter phases, Green Arabia provided the water and other resources that people needed to settle and develop complex ways of life,” Professor Michael Petraglia, of ARCHE, said. 

“This site helps us understand what people did in those environments from making hunting weapons to processing plants and animals.” 

“Sites such as ‘Uruq Aljelibah reveal the depth of Saudi Arabia’s human history,” Dr Faisal al-Jibrin, of the Saudi Heritage Commission, said. 

“Working with international colleagues allows us to investigate this heritage in detail and understand its place in the wider story of human settlement beyond Africa.” 

“Archaeological sites this old rarely preserve such a complete snapshot of daily life with hunting weapons, butchered animals, plant processing and tool-making areas all in one place,” Professor Clarkson said. 

The study ‘Poisoned hunting weapons, megafauna and plant use at a 125,000-year-old Arabian paleolakeshore’ has been accepted for publication in Science. 

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aef9342 

 

Erdogan says Gaza has suffered 'ecocide' as he opens COP31 in Turkey

Turkey's president used his host's address to put Gaza on the climate agenda. / Jaber Jehad Badwan, cc-by-sa 4.0

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By bne IntelliNews November 12, 2026

Gaza has suffered "ecocide" as well as genocide, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told world leaders at the COP31 global climate summit in Antalya on November 11.

"As I also emphasised in my address to the UN General Assembly, Gaza has suffered not only genocide but also ecocide," Erdogan said, as reported by Middle East Eye. "Centuries-old olive trees have been cut down, the soil and water have been contaminated, and cities have been reduced to enormous piles of rubble."

Turkey, locked in a perpetual war of words with Israel, is using its turn as a COP host to put Gaza on a climate agenda that is already crowded with war. The summit, which runs from November 9 to November 20, opened with Iran already castigating the US and Israel for the environmental destruction their war on it has caused at sea and on land. The US is absent for a second year from the annual event and several other big-economy leaders have stayed away.

Erdogan paired his attack on Israel's conduct in its war on Gaza with the demand that developing countries bring to every COP: that rich nations pay more of the bill.

Erdogan said heavy rain and flooding had made the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worse, leaving tens of thousands of tents and shelters under water. "Hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters in Gaza, with no roof under which to take shelter, especially innocent children trembling with cold, are struggling to survive amid the floodwaters in these winter conditions, often without their mothers or fathers," he said.

He then turned to the climate, calling it "one of the deepest existential crises" in humanity's history. "As humanity, our home has only one roof, and that is the sky. As humanity, our home has only one garden, and that is the Earth," he said. "We have no other sky, no other Earth, no other seas, oceans or forests."

Developed countries must take on more responsibility for financing climate action, Erdogan said. He said agreement on what needs to be done had not been matched by action or by money to pay for it, and called for climate finance to be easier to reach and more predictable, with the least developed countries and small island states given better access to funding and technology, Turkish media reported.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who leaves office at the end of the year, told the same session that "the climate crisis is outrunning us", pointing to rising emissions, record temperatures and worsening disasters. "This is the path to mutually assured destruction," he said, according to the UNFCCC transcript and press reports. Fossil fuels must "go the way of the dinosaurs", he added, but would not do so on their own because, unlike the dinosaurs, they have a lobby, Al Jazeera reported.

Oil and gas producers have profited from the wars pushing up hydrocarbon prices. Brazil's Petrobras lately posted third-quarter profit up 21.5% on the back of the oil price surge.

Negotiators at COP31 from nearly 200 countries are trying to revive stalled efforts to move away from fossil fuels. Brazil, which handed the COP presidency to Turkey on November 9, has presented a road map for that shift, though it is not binding.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, re-elected last month, said that momentum behind COP31 had faded early in the year and that climate had dropped out of leaders' speeches and documents. "We started talking more about weapons and tariffs than the survival of future generations," he said. Erdogan echoed him, saying: "Wars, crises, migration, famine and poverty increase the need for international solidarity each day." The two leaders met on the sidelines to discuss critical minerals and defence ties.

A UN report published in October found the world on course to overshoot the 1.5C warming limit that countries agreed to pursue under the 2015 Paris Agreement. This year's disaster season brought heatwaves across western Europe and a glacier collapse in Nepal that set off a deadly flood.

The summit brings together 196 countries and the EU. The US, the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, has stayed away since President Donald Trump pulled it out of international climate co-operation after returning to office in 2025. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi are also skipping the leaders' summit, Al Jazeera reported.

Turkey has used the meeting to sign energy deals of its own, including a Saudi pact on 3,000 MW of wind power, and plans to invest $80bn in its power grid by 2040. However, Ankara is under fire for sticking to plans for new coal-fired power production as part of its energy mix.

Turkey has pointedly not invited Israel to COP31 events, though it has the right to attend various parts of the formal agenda should it wish to do so.

 

Taking into account the role of neglected farmer groups in recharging groundwater

Indian Institute of Science (IISc)

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Pastoralists grazing their sheep herd on their horse gram field

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Credit: Charlotte Hemingway

A new study by researchers at the Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences (IFCWS), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), introduces a new framework for water budgeting in agricultural regions that includes farmers’ social categories that are usually neglected.

Conventional water accounting methods often focus on how much water agriculture consumes, without adequately considering who extracts groundwater and whose farming practices help replenish it. This can obscure the links between groundwater depletion, agricultural livelihoods, and social inequality.

In the study, the team proposes a new indicator, the Blue Water Potential (BWP), to assess each farmer category’s potential to exploit or replenish groundwater resources. It estimates the difference between groundwater recharge and the amount of groundwater required for irrigation under assumed optimal farming conditions. A positive BWP indicates that a farming system potentially contributes more water to groundwater recharge than it requires for irrigation. A negative BWP indicates that its irrigation requirements exceed its estimated contribution to recharge.

Applied to the case of a village in the semi-arid region of Rayalaseema in southern Andhra Pradesh, the researchers found extremely large variations in BWP at the plot level. Perennial irrigated orchards – such as pomegranate, sweet lime, and grapes – exhibit heavily negative BWP on average, consuming roughly 1,000-1,200 mm/year more water than they return to the aquifer. In contrast, rainfed groundnut crops and grasslands have a positive BWP of 200-300 mm/year.

Aggregation at the village level reveals stark inequalities. A minority (26%) of wealthier farmers appear to exploit most of the groundwater resource for horticulture, while a large majority of poorer rainfed groundnut farmers and pastoralists replenish it. However, policymakers often ignore the critical contribution of these poor farmers to groundwater resources. The study therefore identifies a hidden interdependence: groundwater-dependent farmers rely, in part, on recharge generated by rainfed farms and grazing lands. These latter groups are often economically disadvantaged, despite contributing to a shared resource on which more profitable irrigated agriculture depends.

“The regional water balance so far seems positive, but our results suggest that small increases in the area of cropping systems with highly negative BWP such as fruit trees would suffice to induce groundwater overexploitation, especially if this increase happens at the expense of the area with positive BWP,” says Charlotte Hemingway, first author and researcher at IFCWS.

These findings are particularly timely, as the Andhra Pradesh government recently unveiled an ambitious Rs 1 lakh-crore project to transform the historically parched Rayalaseema region into the "Fruit Bowl of the World" by expanding the region’s horticultural area from 8.41 lakh hectares to 14.41 lakh hectares through major irrigation projects.

“A robust assessment is needed to determine the water that will be imported through canals to improve the current fragile water balance at the village scale against climate risks as well as to sustainably satisfy the future needs of altered crops,” says co-author M Sekhar, Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, IISc.

The paper includes open-source software, led by co-author and IISc alumna Rutuja Chitra-Tarak, that lets users compute the BWP for any cropping system or region of interest, which the authors hope will help design sustainable agricultural development policies.

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Journal

Journal of Hydrology

DOI

10.1016/j.jhydrol.2026.136621

Article Title

Accounting for the unaccounted: a new framework for incorporating farm social diversity in micro-regional water budgets

 

Shape-shifting rubber blades could make tidal power cheaper

University of Edinburgh

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Test turbine fitted with flexible rubber blade at the FloWave facility, University of Edinburgh.

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Credit: University of Edinburgh/Michelin

Fitting tidal turbines with flexible rubber blades could enable the machines to generate cheaper power by making them simpler and tougher, a study suggests.

Rubber blades that change shape in strong currents can generate as much electricity as today’s most advanced designs, without the complex machinery they need to survive at sea, researchers say.

Their findings show the blades naturally bend to shed excess force, reducing by up to one-third the rapid swings in load that wear turbines out.

The approach could ultimately eliminate the costliest and most failure-prone parts of tidal turbines, the team says, helping unlock a clean energy source that – unlike wind and solar – can be predicted years in advance.

The UK aims to install 1 gigawatt of tidal stream capacity by 2035, enough to power around 1 million homes. International projections estimate that more than 300 gigawatts could be generated by tidal power worldwide by 2050.

However, fast-flowing tidal channels are among the harshest places on Earth to build a machine. Turbulence, waves and shifting currents batter turbine blades with constantly fluctuating forces, causing fatigue, shortening lifespans and leading to costly unplanned downtime.

To cope, the largest tidal turbines rely on a system of motors, sensors and bearings – known as pitch control – that twists blades away from the flow when currents become too strong. These systems are expensive, difficult to maintain underwater and a major source of breakdowns.

Now, engineers from the University of Edinburgh and Michelin have designed and tested at experimental scale a blade that does the job by itself.

Taking inspiration from nature – where fish and trees bend to cope with strong water and wind flows – the team developed blades made of flexible rubber with a stiff internal steel spar running from root to tip.

As the current strengthens, the trailing edge bends and flattens the blade’s curved profile, automatically shedding excess load without the need for hinges, bearings or actuators.

The team tested a 1.26-metre model turbine at the University of Edinburgh’s FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility, a 25-metre circular tank that recreates the turbulence found at real tidal energy sites. Cameras submerged in the tank filmed the blades changing shape as they spun.

Combining their measurements with simulations of a full tidal cycle, researchers found that the rubber-bladed turbine produced the same amount of energy as a conventional turbine with active pitch control under the same conditions.

At the same time, the flexible blades reduced the rapid load fluctuations that drive fatigue damage – which pitch control systems struggle to respond to – by up to 29 per cent. Because rubber has a similar density to water, the blades can be made neutrally buoyant, further limiting load fluctuations, the team says.

The new design could, if successfully validated at larger scale, enable the construction of lighter blades and support structures, more powerful generators and cheaper maintenance, all of which would reduce the cost of tidal electricity. It could also open up highly energetic, turbulent sites currently deemed too punishing for tidal turbines, the team says.

Computer simulations of a 20-metre turbine suggest that the blades could be similarly effective at commercial scale. Early calculations suggest full-size rubber blades could potentially exceed the 20-year service life expected of current turbines, the team says.

The work remains at the research stage, and further development and testing would be required before any potential industrial application or commercialisation, the team says.

The findings are published in the journal Nature. The research was supported by Michelin and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), alongside Edinburgh Innovations, the University of Edinburgh’s commercialisation service.  Michelin has filed a patent on the technology, and the University, a leader in the field of tidal energy, holds related patents.

Professor Ignazio Maria Viola, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, who co-led the study, said: “Tidal energy is one of the most predictable renewable resources we have, but the sea is so unforgiving that turbines have needed complex machinery just to survive it. Our blades do that job on their own. By simply bending, they shed excess load and smooth out damaging fluctuations, while producing just as much energy. Removing parts that are expensive and prone to failure could help make tidal power a cost-competitive pillar of a secure, net zero energy system.”

Dr Zhehong Zhang, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, co-first author of the study, said: “The idea is simple: let the blades adapt to the flow, rather than relying on complex mechanical systems to withstand harsh ocean currents. Our research shows that flexible blades can reduce damaging loads without compromising energy capture, making it possible to harness powerful, turbulent tidal currents that are currently too challenging to exploit.”

Bertrand Daval, VP Research & Development composite solutions at Michelin, who co-led the study, said: “Michelin’s expertise lies in understanding how rubber performs under heavy, repeated loads in demanding environments. This research is a great example of how this knowledge and experience can be applied to help tackle one of the toughest challenges in renewable energy: developing turbines capable of withstanding demanding marine conditions, with the potential to reduce costs.”

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Journal

Nature

A researcher demonstrates the flexible properties of the rubber turbine blades.

The research team prepare the turbine for tests at the FloWave facility, University of Edinburgh.

Credit

University of Edinburgh/Michelin