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In India, the globally accepted threats caused by environmental degradation are soil degradation and desertification, pollution, droughts, floods and water scarcity. The study was conducted in two districts of Haryana state namely, Hisar and Kaithal and a total number of one hundred twenty women were selected and interviewed with the help of well structured schedule. The study revealed that majority of the women were of middle age group (36-50 years), educated up to higher education, belonged to nuclear family with 4 members, performed government, private jobs and self employment. Very serious losses due to environment degradation were air pollutant effect on human health, animals and plants (1.47), deeper level of ground water table leads to irrigation scarcity (1.35), quality deterioration of crop produce and fertilizers cause toxicity in food products (1.23), lost of biodiversity and tropical forest, extinction of plant and animal species (0.41) as per their 'Z' score. Least smoky trees should be planted and used, Baval, Neem, Pipal, Bargad, Shisham, Aam, Jamun (94.16%), Installing chimneys to rent smoke from indoor stoves (90.83%) Storage and disposal of farm wastes properly (79.16%), Campaigning for healthy environment (74.16%), enhancing the area under agro and social forestry (69.16), empowerment of women for different development programs (66.66%) were found very effective among the women to making the environment healthy. To reach the results the aggregate total score was calculated to each alternative measure separately, and on the basis of calculated total score, a weighted mean score were obtained which were ranked according to the maximum or minimum mean scores for assessing the effectiveness of alternative measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional rice-wheat cropping system (RWCS) in western Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) is carbon and energy intensive. A field experiment was conducted to evaluate energy budgeting, carbon footprints (CF) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from RWCS under long-term tillage and residue management practices. Experiment consisted six treatment combination of tillage [conventional tillage (CT), reduced tillage (RT) and zero tillage (ZT)] and residue [with residue (+R) and without residue (–R)] namely (i) CT-R (conventional farmers' practice), (ii) CT + R, (iii) RT-R, (iv) RT + R, (v) ZT-R and (vi) ZT + R. Energy consumption ranged from 51.87 GJ ha−1 (ZT-R) to 64.91 GJ ha−1 (CT + R) and irrigation water was major energy intensive input (41–44%) followed by chemical fertilizer (32–40%). Compared to CT-R, energy use efficiency (EUE) increased by 8.7–22.4%, CF lowered by 77.9–34.3%, and GHG emission lowered by 12.8–16.3% in different treatments. Residue addition enhanced the soil carbon accumulation in ZT + R (1213 kg C ha−1 yr−1) and RT + R (987 kg C ha−1 yr−1). Overall, switching from CT–R to ZT + R lowered energy consumption (19%), GHG emission (16%) and CF (78%), making it best-bet option for climate change mitigation and global warming related environmental protection in western IGP and similar agro–ecologies. [Display omitted] • Energy use efficiency (EUE), Greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission and carbon footprints (CF) were analysed. • Irrigation water contribute maximum (41–44%) share of input energy followed chemical fertilizers (32–40%). • Conservation tillage and residue management enhanced energy productivity (15.8–21.0%) and EUE (17.1–22.4%). • The CF lowered by 77.9% in zero tillage with residue to 45.2% in reduced tillage without residue. • Zero tillage with residue addition is most energy efficient system with lower GHG emission and carbon footprint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]