Re-Verse Initiative
India
Winner
For India-based recipients, this section describes the work being recognised. The Iris Prize itself is an unrestricted personal award to the named individuals, not funding for future project activity.
Along a 36 km stretch of the Tamiraparani River in southern India, drownings have become a regular occurrence. The river irrigates close to 40,000 hectares of farmland and is the lifeline of the communities beside it, but it has become harder to read. Fluctuating water levels and sand mining are reshaping the riverbed into sudden drop-offs and sinkholes. Riparian encroachment and unregulated riverfront development have reduced otter habitat, taken roosting sites from migratory birds such as painted storks, and cut off grazing land, which falls hardest on small farmers and on women rearing livestock.
Traditional stone mandapams built into the riparian zone, which communities relied on for generations as safe access points for water, fishing and cultural practice, are deteriorating as a result of construction and altered river flows. At the same time, the river is changing quickly enough that traditional ecological knowledge alone is no longer always sufficient to navigate it safely.
Through Re-Verse Initiative’s approach, Vidhya, Shenha and their team have combined hydrology, water quality, biodiversity and land-use mapping with community knowledge together to identify safer access zones and high-risk areas. They have also documented and restored mandapams using sustainable materials and local craftsmanship, then reactivated them as community spaces for safe access, environmental learning and early flood awareness. Video footage and 3D animated simulations of unsafe sites carry the findings back into community consultation, alongside ecological assessment of otter habitat.
Vidhya and Sneha developed Re-Verse Initiative, working with a team of seven — four river stewards and three researchers, who are working along a river most of them grew up beside. The initiative began with a question: why had stretches of the Tamiraparani become dangerous while still looking calm, and why was the knowledge of how to read it disappearing faster than the river itself was changing?
Each of them came to it with a different thread: ecological science, GIS mapping, aquatic fauna research, community engagement, environmental education. Over two years, those threads became a method, and each of them grew into a leader in their own part of the work. Their collaborations with local NGOs, self-help groups, artisans and community leaders mean the work is co-created rather than delivered, and community members who started as participants are now stewards embedded in the team.
The Iris Prize is an unrestricted personal award recognising Vidhya and Sneha’s work to date. The outcomes below describe the impact of their work and their future ambitions; they are not conditions or requirements attached to the Prize.
Vidhya and Sneha have tested Re-Verse Initiative’s approach across 6 km of the Tamiraparani. Field mapping, site identification and community engagement are complete, and restoration is underway at five sites with support from the Re-Earth Initiative.
Looking ahead, Vidhya and Sneha hope to see the approach extended across the full 36 km stretch, supported by stronger data systems and greater fieldwork capacity. They also hope to develop a bilingual platform in English and Tamil, opening the data, tools and learning to communities, researchers and policymakers facing the same changes on other rivers across South Asia.
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