In many rural areas of developing countries, solid fuel use is still widespread. The present study aims to investigate the Household Air Pollution (HAP) exposure effect from traditional biomass fuels and biogas on the health of rural women. The results revealed that nearly 93% of rural families utilize conventional fuels for daily cooking and heating purposes, whereas clean fuels like biogas were minimal. However, high-income, educated, elderly, well-structured houses (Pucca), and hierarchically more advanced families were observed to cook with biogas fuel. Further, the present study also used spatial HAP mapping and land use mapping models to analyze exposure load patterns and sources of solid fuel availability, respectively. The clean fuel biogas burning showed the lowest HAP concentration compared to traditional fuels, except for NO2 (1.14 ± 0.05 ppm), which is also represented in the case of health risk estimation. The biogas users also observed the lowest COHb% (0.008 ± 0.01) than conventional fuels. The health risks associated with SO2 and NO2 for biogas users were revealed to be lowest in both acute and chronic instances. Monte-Carlo probabilistic model observed that coal cake may pose high health risks among traditional fuels when considering PM2.5, SO2, and NO2, but in the case of COHb% %, cow dung users showed the highest health risk (0.39 ± 0.02). These findings have significant implications for public health, suggesting that promoting the use of cleaner cooking fuels, particularly biogas, which is less affected by muscular pain and eye irritation than biomass users, could lead to substantial health benefits for rural populations. This finding also indicates that government intervention should be required to enhance the utilization of cleaner cooking fuels in rural India for women’s safety.

Societies make rainwater harvesting structures to collect and store rain water to cater for their immediate and future needs. In a remote village in the Perambalur district, the people use the dual temple tank, nearly 350 years old, for their drinking purposes. This study tries to understand the traditional knowledge embedded in the dual pond structures, cascade aerators, and an open well connected with the ground aquifer inside the tank. This study delves into projected rainfall trends using NASA POWER data for 2050, revealing a noticeable increase and an assessment of pond water quality parameters demonstrating adherence to acceptable limits set by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). However, despite meeting these standards, the water quality index deems the water unsuitable for direct human consumption, though it remains suitable for domestic household use. Moreover, analysis of land cover and land use changes by Sentinel2A data over the past 22 years underscores significant growth in settlement areas, indicative of a rising demand for water resources. The study proposes the restoration and utilization of the dual tank system as a potential solution to address this burgeoning water demand, offering a reliable water source and preserving traditional practices within the local community.

In developing countries like India, biogas technology is a clean and sustainable renewable energy for rural people. The Government of India encourages and supports disadvantaged groups of people in rural areas by launching various schemes to construct biogas plants to fulfil their energy needs and reduce energy poverty at a very low cost. Caste-based inequalities are one of the major social factors, especially in rural areas leading to low biogas utilization. This paper highlights the Indian scenario with 2000 households from the various districts of West Bengal, exploring the caste-based inequalities over the access of utilization of biogas plants. Analysis was performed on the access and utilization of biogas by different castes. The results demonstrate that the general caste households have adopted 60% of biogas plant and have controlled over the biogas than the marginalized or underprivileged caste of the society. The study found that needy and disadvantaged groups are deprived for several socio-economic barriers of the access and utilization of biogas due to a lack of consideration of caste inequalities. The households belonging to scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities have poorer access to biogas energy than the general caste. The higher caste people benefitted more by accessing biogas energy, whereas lower caste people still lack access to modern energy like biogas. It also exposes that caste inequalities still dominate the access to modern energy in the society of developing countries.