Climate-Smart Agricultural Systems and Sustainable Food Security: Innovations and Technological Interventions

Author Biography

Prof. Rabindra Kumar Panda is currently serving as the Director, Centre for Climate Smart Agriculture at the Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, India. Earlier, Prof. Panda was a Professor and Head of the School of Infrastructure as well as the Dean (Research and Development) at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. He has a total experience of more than 32 years in the IIT system, which includes 23 years at IIT Kharagpur and 9 years at IIT Bhubaneswar. He has supervised 20 PhD and 72 MTech theses and supervising 6 PhD students at present. He has more than 140 high impact journal publications to his credit. He has patented a low cost “Soil moisture sensor for automated micro-irrigation system”. He was the Associate Editor of The Institution of Engineers (India) Journal, a Springer Publication. The major area of specialisation of Prof. Panda is Water Resources Development and Management. Prof. Panda is currently the Principal Investigator of a BRICS project with partners from China, Brazil and South Africa. He had collaborated with Texas A&M and University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He was also the Principal Investigator of a mega project funded by the World Bank. Prof. Panda is the recipient of several Awards and Fellowships. He is the recipient of the prestigious Indo-U.S. Fellowship funded by the USAID to pursue post-doctoral research in the USA. Prof. Uma Charan Mohanty is a renowned atmospheric scientist with a distinguished academic and research career spanning over 54 years. After serving at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, he continued his contributions at Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar as a Visiting Professor and is currently a Distinguished Professor at the Centre for Climate Smart Agriculture, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar. His work in atmospheric science, particularly in the numerical modelling and prediction of high-impact weather events like cyclones, monsoons, and thunderstorms, has significantly influenced operational forecasting systems, with several of his research outcomes adopted by the India Meteorological Department and Indian Air Force. Prof. Mohanty has authored over 360 journal papers, guided 45 PhD students, and contributed to numerous technical reports, books, and chapters. His accolades include the prestigious Santi Swarup Bhatnagar award, Biju Patnaik Award for life time scientific excellence, Sir Gilbert Walker Gold Medal, 12th Mausam Award and many others. He is a fellow of all four major Indian national science and engineering academies (IASc, NASI, INSA, INAE), as well as the Indian Meteorological Society and Indian Geophysical Union. His service also includes leadership roles in scientific societies and the Odisha Bigyan Academy (president during 2013-15), reflecting his lifelong commitment to advancing meteorology and climate science in India. Dr. Binayak P. Mohanty is a Regents Professor and COALS Chair in Hydrologic Engineering and Sciences at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA. He specialises in Soil Physics, Satellite Remote Sensing, and Multi-Scale Hydrologic Processes and has transformed soil hydrology discipline from local scale phenomenological studies to global scale science and applications. He has contributed in more than 170 peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals such as Water Resources Research, Journal of Geophysical Research, Advances in Water Resources, Vadose Zone Journal, Soil Science Society of America Journal, and others. His groundbreaking work in estimating soil moisture using dominant geophysical controls offered alternatives for hydrologic, agricultural, and environmental applications in complex and data-sparse regions worldwide. He received the highest honour as Union Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), World’s largest Earth and Space Science Society, in 2025. He received the prestigious Don and Betty Kirkham Soil Physics Award from the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) in 2014. Dr. Mohanty is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Agronomy Society of America (ASA), and SSSA. Recognized for his exceptional contributions, he has been honoured as a Senior Fellow of Texas A&M Engineering and Texas A&M AgriLife Research, along with a distinguished research excellence award from the Association of Former Students (AFS). Dr. Prasanta Kumar Mishra, former Director of ICAR–Indian Institute of Soil & Water Conservation and ex-consultant to ICRISAT, is a distinguished specialist in rainfed agriculture, natural resource management, watershed development, and drought mitigation. He completed his MTech and PhD at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, which included research at KIT, Germany (1986–1988) under a DAAD Fellowship. He has led or contributed to 45 R&D projects in varied roles. He has over 140 publications, 28 books, and four copyrights. Dr. Mishra has collaborated internationally across the USA, Europe, Australia, and Nepal and represented India in the UN-IPBES Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment (2015–2018). His work has earned multiple prestigious national awards like Jawahar Lal Nehru Award from ICAR. He was the past President of the Indian Society of Soil &Water Conservationists (IASWC) and Secretary of the Indian Society of Dryland Agriculture (ISDA).