Let's talk about dirt | Parvathy Chandrasekhar | TEDxDresden

What do we think when we hear about soil? Do we actually ever think or talk about soil? Every year we deplete 12 million hectares of soils – 1/3 the size of Germany! And why should we care? Listen to Parvathy’s eye-opening talk and find out why dirt is in fact our business and not a dirty business. Parvathy Chandrasekhar is a PhD researcher in the Soil and Land-Use Management Unit at the United Nations University (UNU-FLORES) in Dresden. She is committed to finding solutions for today’s challenges regarding sustainable food production for a growing population with declining soil and water resources. Parvathy first came to Europe in 2012 with a scholarship from TU Delft in the Netherlands to pursue her Masters in Hydrology. She came to Dresden in 2015 to continue her research under the joint PhD programme of UNU–FLORES and TU Dresden. Her work is supervised by Dr. Kai Schwaerzel and Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Feger and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Parvathy hopes to strengthen soil and water management strategies in the developing world through technical insights and policy changes. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx