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Subject: Environment

  • Rhino population up by 200 in Kaziranga

    The population of the greater one-horned or Indian rhinoceros in the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve has increased by 200 (from 2413 in 2018) in four years, the latest census of the flagship animal has revealed.

    About Indian Rhino

    • The Indian rhinoceros also called the greater one-horned rhinoceros and great Indian rhinoceros is a rhinoceros native to the Indian subcontinent.
    • It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and Schedule I animal in the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
    • It once ranged across the entire northern part of the Indian Subcontinent, along the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra River basins, from Pakistan to the Indian-Myanmar border.
    • Poaching for rhinoceros horn became the single most important reason for the decline of the Indian rhino.

    Why are Rhinos poached for horns?

    • Ground rhino horn is used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure a range of ailments, from cancer to hangovers, and also as an aphrodisiac.
    • In Vietnam, possessing a rhino horn is considered a status symbol.
    • Due to demand in these countries, poaching pressure on rhinos is ever persistent against which one cannot let the guard down.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Consider the following statements:

    1. Asiatic lion is naturally found in India only.
    2. Double-humped camel is naturally found in India only.
    3. One-horned rhinoceros is naturally found in India only.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

     

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  • Places in news: Sariska Tiger Reserve

    A massive fire has broken out in the Sariska Tiger Reserve and Air Force helicopters equipped with water sprays are battling to bring it under control.

    Sariska Tiger Reserve

    • Sariska Tiger Reserve is a tiger reserve in Alwar district, Rajasthan.
    • It stretches over an area of 881 sq km comprising scrub-thorn arid forests, dry deciduous forests, grasslands, and rocky hills.
    • This area was a hunting preserve of the Alwar state and was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1958.
    • It was given the status of a tiger reserve making it a part of India’s Project Tiger in 1978.
    • It is the first reserve in the world with successfully relocated tigers.
    • It is a part of the Aravalli Range and the Khathiar-Gir dry deciduous forests eco-region.

    Existential threats

    • It is rich in mineral resources, such as copper.
    • In spite of the Supreme Court’s 1991 ban on mining in the area, marble mining continues to threaten the environment.

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  • Detecting Microplastics in Human Blood

    A study by researchers from The Netherlands has found Microplastics in blood samples. About half of these were PET (polyethylene tertraphthalate) plastics, which is used to make food grade bottles.

    What are Microplastics?

    • Microplastics are tiny bits of various types of plastic found in the environment.
    • The name is used to differentiate them from “macroplastics” such as bottles and bags made of plastic.
    • There is no universal agreement on the size of microplastics. It defines microplastic as less than 5mm in length.
    • However, for the purposes of this study, since the authors were interested in measuring the quantities of plastic that can cross the membranes and diffuse into the body via the blood stream.
    • Hence they agreed on an upper limit on the size of the particles as 0.0007 millimetre.

    What were the plastics that the study looked for in the blood samples?

    • The study looked at the most commonly used plastic polymers.
    • These were polyethylene tetraphthalate (PET), polyethylene (used in making plastic carry bags), polymers of styrene (used in food packaging), poly (methyl methylacrylate) and poly propylene.
    • They found a presence of the first four types.

    Significance of the study

    • Making a human health risk assessment in relation to plastic particles is not easy, perhaps not even possible, due to the lack of data on exposure of people to plastics.
    • In this sense, it is important to have studies like this one.
    • The authors of the paper also remark that validated methods to detect the tiny (trace) amounts of extremely small-sized (less than 10 micrometre) plastic particles are lacking.
    • Hence this study, which builds up a methods to check the same, is important.

    Health hazard of microplastics

    • It is not yet clear if these microplastics can cross over from the blood stream to deposit in organs and cause diseases.
    • The report point out that the human placenta has shown to be permeable to tiny particles of polystyrene ( 50, 80 and 24 nanometre beads).
    • Experiments on rats where its lungs were exposed to polystryrene spheres (20 nanometre) led to translocation of the nanoparticles to the placental and foetal tissue.
    • Oral administration of microplastics in rats led to accumulation of these in the liver, kidney and gut.
    • Further studies have to be carried out to really assess the impact of plastics on humans.

     

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Why is there a great concern about the ‘microbeads’ that are released into environment?

    (a) They are considered harmful to marine ecosystems.

    (b) They are considered to cause skin cancer in children.

    (c) They are small enough to be absorbed by crop plants in irrigated fields.

    (d) They are often found to be used as food adulterants.

     

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  • The phenomenon of Coral Bleaching

    The management authority of the world’s largest coral reef system, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, confirmed on March 25 that the reef is experiencing a mass coral bleaching event.

    What are Coral Reefs?

    • Corals are marine invertebrates or animals not possessing a spine.
    • Each coral is called a polyp and thousands of such polyps live together to form a colony, which grows when polyps multiply to make copies of themselves.
    • Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system stretching across 2,300 km.
    • It hosts 400 different types of coral, gives shelter to 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc.
    • Corals are of two types — hard coral and soft coral:
    1. Hard corals, also called hermatypic or ‘reef building’ corals extract calcium carbonate (also found in limestone) from the seawater to build hard, white coral exoskeletons.
    2. Soft coral polyps, however, borrow their appearance from plants, attach themselves to such skeletons and older skeletons built by their ancestors. Soft corals also add their own skeletons to the hard structure over the years and these growing multiplying structures gradually form coral reefs. They are the largest living structures on the planet.

    How do the feed themselves?

    • Corals share a symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae.
    • The algae provides the coral with food and nutrients, which they make through photosynthesis, using the sun’s light.
    • In turn, the corals give the algae a home and key nutrients.
    • The zooxanthellae also give corals their bright colour.

    What is Coral Bleaching?

    • Bleaching happens when corals experience stress in their environment due to changes in temperature, pollution or high levels of ocean acidity.
    • Under stressed conditions, the zooxanthellae or food-producing algae living inside coral polyps start producing reactive oxygen species, which are not beneficial to the corals.
    • So, the corals expel the colour-giving zooxanthellae from their polyps, which exposes their pale white exoskeleton, giving the corals a bleached appearance.
    • This also ends the symbiotic relationship that helps the corals to survive and grow.
    • Severe bleaching and prolonged heat stress in the external environment can lead to coral death.

    Impact of climate change

    • Over the last couple of decades, climate change and increased global warming owing to rising carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases have made seas warmer than usual.
    • Under all positive outlooks and projections in terms of cutting greenhouse gases, sea temperatures are predicted to increase by 1.5°C to 2°C by the time the century nears its end.
    • The first mass bleaching event had occurred in 1998 when the El Niño weather pattern caused sea surfaces in the pacific ocean to heat up; this event caused 8% of the world’s coral to die.
    • The second event took place in 2002.
    • In the past decade, however, mass bleaching occurrences have become more closely spaced in time, with the longest and most damaging bleaching event taking place from 2014 to 2017.

    Significance of Corals

    • Coral reefs support over 25% of marine biodiversity, including fish, turtles and lobsters; even as they only take up 1% of the seafloor.
    • The marine life supported by reefs further fuels global fishing industries. Even giant clams and whales depend on the reefs to live.
    • Besides, coral reef systems generate $2.7 trillion in annual economic value through goods and service trade and tourism.
    • In Australia, the Barrier Reef, in pre-COVID times, generated $4.6 billion annually through tourism and employed over 60,000 people including divers and guides.
    • Aside from adding economic value and being a support system for aquatic life, coral reefs also provide protection from storm waves.
    • Dead reefs can revive over time if there are enough fish species that can graze off the weeds that settle on dead corals, but it takes almost a decade for the reef to start setting up again.

    Current condition of the Great Barrier Reef

    • The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report this month, which warned that the life of the Great Barrier is in grave danger.
    • The report said that if temperatures continue to rise, bleaching events may occur more often and a large proportion of the remaining reef cover in Australia could be lost.
    • Just a couple of weeks after this warning, the Barrier Reef Authority confirmed a mass bleaching phenomenon affecting all pockets of the reef system.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Consider the following statements:

    1. Most of the world’s coral reefs are in tropical waters.
    2. More than one third of the world’s coral reefs are located in the territories of Australia, Indonesia and Philippines.
    3. Coral reefs host far more number of animal phyla than those hosted by tropical rainforests.

    Which of the above statements is/are correct?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1 and 3 only

     

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  • Gahirmatha beach witnesses Arribada

    About 2.45 lakh Olive Ridley sea turtles crawled ashore on the Nasi-II beach of the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary along the Odisha coast for laying eggs, marking one of the largest opening day arrivals of turtles at the site.

    Olive Ridley Turtles

    • The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), also known as the Pacific ridley sea turtle, is a medium-sized species of sea turtle found in warm and tropical waters, primarily in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
    • In the Indian Ocean, the majority of olive ridleys nest in two or three large groups at Rushikulya rookery near Gahirmatha in Odisha.
    • The coast of Odisha in India is the largest mass nesting site for the olive ridley, followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.
    • The species is listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List, Appendix 1 in CITES, and Schedule 1 in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

    Special feature: Mass nesting

    • They are best known for their behavior of synchronized nesting in mass numbers, termed Arribadas.
    • Interestingly, females return to the very same beach from where they first hatched, to lay their eggs.
    • They lay their eggs in conical nests about one and a half feet deep which they laboriously dig with their hind flippers.
    • They hatch in 45 to 60 days, depending on the temperature of the sand and atmosphere during the incubation period.

     

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  • Noise Pollution in India

    The city of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh is the second-most noise polluted city globally, according to a recent report title Frontier 2022 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

    What is Noise Pollution?

    • Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise with ranging impacts on the activity of human or animal life, most of them harmful to a degree.
    • It is generally defined as regular exposure to elevated sound levels that may lead to adverse effects in humans or other living organisms.
    • The source of outdoor noise worldwide is mainly caused by machines, transport, and propagation systems.
    • Poor urban planning may give rise to noise disintegration or pollution, side-by-side industrial and residential buildings can result in noise pollution in the residential areas.
    • Some of the main sources of noise in residential areas include loud music, transportation (traffic, rail, airplanes, etc.), maintenance, construction, electrical generators, wind turbines, explosions, and people etc.

    Defining Noise Pollution

    • Sounds with a frequency over 70 db are considered harmful to health.
    • The World Health Organization (WHO) had recommended a 55 db standard for residential areas in the 1999 guidelines, while for traffic and business sectors, the limit was 70 db.
    • The WHO set the limit of noise pollution on the road at 53 db in 2018, taking into account health safety.

    Noise Pollution in India

    • The report identifies 13 noise polluted cities in south Asia. Five of these, including Moradabad, are in India, which have recorded alarming levels of noise pollution:
    1. Kolkata (89 db)
    2. Asansol (89 db)
    3. Jaipur (84 db)
    4. Delhi (83 db)
    • The noise pollution figures given in the report relate to daytime traffic or vehicles.
    • Moradabad has recorded noise pollution of a maximum of 114 decibels (db). The Frontier 2022 report mentions a total of 61 cities.

    Case in the neighborhood

    • The highest noise pollution of 119 db has been recorded in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.
    • At third place is Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, where the noise pollution level has been recorded at 105 db.

    Hazards created

    • High levels of noise pollution affect human health and well-being by having an effect on sleep.
    • This has a bad effect on the communication of many animal species living in the area and their ability to hear.
    • Regular exposure for eight hours a day to 85 decibels of sound can permanently eliminate the ability to hear.
    • Not only that, exposure to relatively low noise pollution for long periods in cities can harm physical and mental health.

     

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  • Re-introducing African Cheetahs to India

    The cheetah, which became extinct in India after Independence, is all set to return with the Union Government launching an action plan in Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.

    According to the plan, about 50 of these big cats will be introduced in the next five years, from the Africa savannas, home to cheetahs, an endangered species.

    Distribution of cheetahs in India

    • Historically, Asiatic cheetahs had a very wide distribution in India.
    • There are authentic reports of their occurrence from as far north as Punjab to Tirunelveli district in southern Tamil Nadu, from Gujarat and Rajasthan in the west to Bengal in the east.
    • Most of the records are from a belt extending from Gujarat passing through Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.
    • There is also a cluster of reports from southern Maharashtra extending to parts of Karnataka, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
    • The distribution range of the cheetah was wide and spread all over the subcontinent. They occurred in substantial numbers.
    • The cheetah’s habitat was also diverse, favouring the more open habitats: scrub forests, dry grasslands, savannahs and other arid and semi-arid open habitats.

    What caused the extinction of cheetahs in India?

    • The major reasons for the extinction of the Asiatic cheetah in India:
    1. Reduced fecundity and high infant mortality in the wild
    2. Inability to breed in captivity
    3. Sport hunting and
    4. Bounty killings
    • It is reported that the Mughal Emperor Akbar had kept 1,000 cheetahs in his menagerie and collected as many as 9,000 cats during his half century reign from 1556 to 1605.
    • The cheetah numbers were fast depleting by the end of the 18th century even though their prey base and habitat survived till much later.
    • It is recorded that the last cheetahs were shot in India in 1947, but there are credible reports of sightings of the cat till about 1967.

    Conservation objectives for their re-introduction

    • Based on the available evidence it is difficult to conclude that the decision to introduce the African cheetah in India is based on science.
    • Science is being used as a legitimising tool for what seems to be a politically influenced conservation goal.
    • This also in turn sidelines conservation priorities, an order of the Supreme Court, socio-economic constraints and academic rigour.
    • The issue calls for an open and informed debate.

    What is the officially stated goal?

    • To establish viable cheetah meta-population in India that allows the cheetah to perform its functional role as a top predator
    • To provide space for the expansion of the cheetah within its historical range thereby contributing to its global conservation efforts

    Issues in re-introduction

    • Experts find it difficult whether the African cheetahs would find the sanctuary a favorable climate as far as the abundance of prey is concerned.
    • The habitat of cheetahs needed to support a genetically viable population.

    Back2Basics: Asiatic Cheetah

    • Cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal was declared extinct in India in 1952.
    • The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List, and is believed to survive only in Iran.
    • It was expected to be re-introduced into the country after the Supreme Court lifted curbs for its re-introduction.
    • From 400 in the 1990s, their numbers are estimated to have reached to 50-70 today, because of poaching, hunting of their main prey (gazelles) and encroachment on their habitat.

     

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  • What is a Heatwave?

    The Konkan region, including Mumbai, has been experiencing sweltering heat in recent days, with the maximum temperatures touching the 40 degrees mark.

    What is a Heatwave and when is it declared?

    • Heatwaves occur over India between March and June.
    • IMD declares a heatwave event when the maximum (day) temperature for a location in the plains crosses 40 degrees Celsius.
    • Over the hills, the threshold temperature is 30 degrees Celsius.

    Following criteria are used to declare heatwave:

    To declare heatwave, the below criteria should be met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological subdivision for at least two consecutive days and it will be declared on the second day.

    a) Based on Departure from Normal

    • Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.5°C to 6.4°C
    • Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.4°C

    b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature (for plains only)

    • Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≄ 45°C
    • Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≄47°C

    How long can a heatwave spell last?

    • A heatwave spell generally lasts for a minimum of four days. On some occasions, it can extend up to seven or ten days.
    • The longest recorded heatwave spell, in recent years, was between 18 – 31 May 2015.

     

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  • Mumbai Climate Action Plan

    The Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP) has laid down a 30-year road map for the city to tackle the challenges of climate change by adopting inclusive and robust mitigation and adaptation strategies.

    What is MCAP ?

    • The MCAP has set short-, medium- and long-term climate goals aimed towards zero emission of greenhouse gas or a net-zero target for 2050.
    • It focuses on priority across six strategic areas:
    1. Sustainable waste management
    2. Urban greening and biodiversity
    3. Urban flooding and water resource management,
    4. Energy and buildings
    5. Air quality and
    6. Sustainable mobility

    Features of the plan

    • The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) prepared the plan with technical support from the World Resources Institute (WRI), India and the C40 Cities network.
    • It concentrates on the city, its ecological, cultural and economical landscapes.
    • The plan throws light on the current climate of the city called Baseline Assessment—climate and air pollution risks, greenhouse gas inventory.
    • The plan then assesses future trajectories in the business-as-usual scenarios and assesses future emission reduction scenarios to make Mumbai net-zero by 2050.

    Why does Mumbai need a climate action plan?

    • As per a study conducted by WRI India on Mumbai’s vulnerability assessment, the city will face two major challenges—temperature rise, and extreme rain events which lead to flooding.
    • The city is already witnessing a warming trend.
    • The analysis has revealed a warming trend over 47 years (1973-2020) with an increase of 0.25°C per decade for the city.

    What is the current greenhouse gas emission?

    • In 2019, which is taken as a base year, Mumbai’s GHG emissions were 23.42 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission, which is 1.8 tonnes CO2e per person.
    • Out of which, 16.9 million tonnes or 72 per cent is from the energy sector, followed by 4.56 million tonnes of CO2 e or 20 per cent from the transportation sector.
    • The city’s waste sector contributes to a total of eight per cent of the total emissions.
    • Most of the city’s emissions come from energy use in residential buildings followed by commercial buildings and transport.
    • Electricity consumption contributes significantly to total emissions (64.3%), due to the city’s predominantly coal-based grid.

     

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  • What are Karewas?

    Kashmir’s highly fertile alluvial soil deposits called ‘karewas’ are being destroyed in the name of development, much to the peril of local people

    What are Karewas?

    • The Kashmir valley is an oval-shaped basin, 140 km long and 40 km wide, trending in the NNW–SSE direction.
    • It is an intermountain valley fill, comprising of unconsolidated gravel and mud.
    • A succession of plateaus is present above the Plains of Jhelum and its tributaries.
    • These plateau-like terraces are called ‘Karewas’ or ‘Vudr’ in the local language.
    • These plateaus are 13,000-18,000 metre-thick deposits of alluvial soil and sediments like sandstone and mudstone.
    • This makes them ideal for cultivation of saffron, almonds, apples and several other cash crops.

    Significance of Karewas

    • Today, the karewa sediments not only hold fossils and remnants of many human civilisations and habitations, but are also the most fertile spots in the valley.
    • Kashmir saffron, which received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2020 for its longer and thicker stigmas, deep-red colour, high aroma and bitter flavour, is grown on these karewas.

    How are they formed?

    • The fertility of these patches is believed to be the result of their long history of formation.
    • When formed during the Pleistocene period (2.6 million years to 11,700 years ago), the Pir Panjal range blocked the natural drainage in the region and formed a lake spanning 5,000 sq km.
    • Over the next few centuries, the water receded, making way for the valley and the formation of the karewas between the mountains.

    Threats to Karewas

    • Despite its agricultural and archaeological importance, karewas are now being excavated to be used in construction.
    • Between 1995 and 2005, massive portions of karewas in Pulwama, Budgam and Baramulla districts were razed to the ground for clay for the 125-km-long Qazigund-Baramulla rail line.
    • The Srinagar airport is built on the Damodar karewa in Budgam.

     

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