Note: This post does a recap from the event reviewing year 2 of our project India Sand Watch in the public domain.
As the India Sand Watch project completed 2 years in the public domain since its launch in 2023, we wanted to spend time with our partners, supporters, collaborators and friends, to reflect on our journey, and share future possibilities and plans.
India Sand Watch (ISW) is an environmental accountability project with an open-data platform at its heart. Over the past year, our attempt has been to make the platform more accessible and enable more people to use it. With our partners and collaborators, we are archiving data on river sand mining, using technology for monitoring mining at scale, conducting workshops, doing outreach, publishing and communications.
The open-data platform is built in partnership with Ooloi Labs, and is enabling collection, annotation & archiving of data related to sand mining in India. This open-data archive of reports addresses critical gaps in evidence for better monitoring and management of sand mining in India.
The full event recording is embedded above, and a brief recap is produced below.
Introduction
Our Associate Rhea Lopez, started us off with an introduction to the work we do at Veditum and the journey that led us to India Sand Watch. We shared some exciting updates about the platform – there are over 2500 reports on India Sand Watch now!
In the preceding year, we archived reports of sand mining from over 90 rivers. These reports include news reports, survey reports, research material, sand mining observations, and court documents related to sand mining on India’s rivers!
Check out the archived reports on the India Sand Watch platform here: sandwatch.in; You don’t need to log in to view the archive.
You can also create an account to upload data & mining observations, or download data to create insights.
We talked about what we’ve been up to the last year, including the various Data Sprints and Sediment Stories conversations we’ve had, as well as the talks, workshops and podcasts we’ve been a part of, to take conversations around rivers and sediments to more people.
Partners Talk 01 (+ Feature Announcements) – Akshay Roongta, Ooloi Labs
Akshay from Ooloi Labs talked about the journey of Open Knowledge Framework (now called Dots) over the years – elaborating on how the learnings from previous years of working with different data-types, and making these accessible has shaped the vision for Dots and the imagination of possibilities for open-data.
He shared an exciting update – that the India Sand Watch Portal is soon going to be accessible in more languages!
In line with our efforts to make data more accessible, and with major ongoing ISW projects being focused in the northern and central parts of the country, the platform is first being made available in Hindi. The platform’s interface will be available in Hindi, whereas user provided information will continue to be in English.
Another important update on the platform is the feature of data visualization that will be soon made available. As part of Dots, their team has been building out some cool analytic features and making that available to their partners.
For the India Sand Watch platform, this means that users will soon be able to create insightful visualisations from the data on the platform. The tool will allow more nuanced storytelling, evidence building and understanding around sand mining, contributing to better accountability and strengthening citizen action.
Data Visualisations
Siddharth from our team gave a preview of the kind of visualisations possible from the news reports, mining observations, and court cases archived on the India Sand Watch platform. We discussed some of the inferences, data points and how it can help in using data as evidence for legal action, research, media reporting and environmental accountability.
Interested in creating insights from the data on India Sand Watch platform? Email us your ideas at sandwatch@veditum.org
Also, check out these interesting visualisations created by Sankalp Srivastava on this link and insights by Joseph Philip on this link.
Partners Talk 02 – Ando Shah, Sand Mining Watch, Berkeley School of Information
Could data collected by citizens help accurately predict sand mining at scale?
This is a question that our partners from Berkeley School of Information have been experimenting with, through their project Sand Mining Watch.
Ando Shah talked about the importance of open-source data, how the machine learning model is being trained, the challenges in training a machine learning model and how after several editions of fine-tuning, the model is now more responsive and accurate. He shared a prediction over the Chambal, and what they have in store for the next year.
You can view the currently available mining predictions on this link
Partners talk 03 – Tarun Nair & Dr. Nachiket Kelkar, Wildlife Conservation Trust
Dr Nachiket talked about the work they are doing at Wildlife Conservation Trust across rivers in the country such as Son, Ganga, Chambal, Ghaghra, Gandak, and Kosi, and the evolving partnership with India Sand Watch. Their work looks at how governance, hydel projects and climate change will impact the intensity and patterns of sand mining.
In context of the Chambal river, Tarun talked about the role of sandbanks and its importance for species like the Gharial, Indian skimmers. They’ve found the India Sand Watch platform very useful to collate data like news reports or mining observations from their field surveys, and make it publicly available. He also shared about a new grant through which they get access to high quality imagery for monitoring at scale.
Our close partnership continues to help monitor sand mining, build the archive and advance river conservation in prime habitats for vulnerable species.
Action Grant by The Habitats Trust
Aishani from our team shared about the Action Grant by The Habitats Trust, of which India Sand Watch is a recent recipient. The grant allows us to expand our work in Madhya Pradesh towards the goal of protecting riparian habitats in the state from destructive sand mining through improved availability of open data and to co-imagine ecologically sensitive governance frameworks.
She also talked about the Data sprints that we organised as part of our engagement in Madhya Pradesh, along with some of the reflections from our participants. Aishani went on to present the DSR assessment framework – which allows users to assess the District Survey Reports of a state, a crucial document in monitoring sand mining in a district.
Presentations by Interns
Our interns from the summer internship 2025 presented snippets of the reports they have been working on, which review critical governance and policy documents for Madhya Pradesh through various lenses.
- Ashwin Sreekumar reviewed the state Sand Mining Policy of Madhya Pradesh
- Khushi used an ecological lens to analyse the District Survey Reports of districts along the river Ken
- Yogeshwar Gupta analysed the District Survey Reports of districts along the river Chambal using a spatial lens
- Sunidhi analysed the role of the court, especially the National Green tribunal in monitoring sand mining in Madhya Pradesh
Partners Talk 04 – Aditi, Agami
Aditi from Agami talked about the OpenNyAI makers residency, which saw conversations and discussions around increasing access to enviro-legal data. She introduced us to the various sessions during the residency and how collaborations between individuals and organisations can happen in such spaces that result in fruitful actions.
She also highlighted how we have worked together closely over the past year to tell deep stories from the India Sand Watch journey to inspire action.
Open Discussion
We opened up the conversation to hear from our audience, their relationship with sand and any reflections from hearing from the talks by our team and our partners!
As we move forward, we will also continue to make the India Sand Watch platform accessible to more people, and continue to work with our partners to develop and offer new ways of thinking, frameworks and toolkits for better accountability in the sand mining sector, and empower citizen to take action for their rivers!
Looking back
To assess how far we’ve journeyed and how the project has evolved in the past year, inviting you to read the recap of our 1 year event.
You’ll see that many pathways continue to be deepened, while new pathways for change are being set up as you read this!
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