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Subject: Environment

  • Native Indian turtles face U.S. slider threat across Northeast

    About red-eared slider

    • The red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) derives its name from red stripes around the part where its ears would be and from its ability to slide quickly off any surface into the water.
    • Native to the U.S. and northern Mexico, this turtle is an extremely popular pet due to its small size, easy maintenance, and relatively low cost.

    Reports about threat

    • Between August 2018 and June 2019, a team of herpetologists from NGO Help Earth published the finding in ‘Reptiles & Amphibians’, journal of the U.S.-based International Reptile Conservation Foundation in August 2020.
    • But the alarm was raised experts from Mizoram University’s Department of Zoology published another report in the same journal in April this year.

    How is it a threat?

    • They grow fast and virtually leaves nothing for the native species to eat.
    •  People who keep it as pets become sensitive about turtle conservation but endanger the local ecosystem, probably unknowingly, by releasing them in natural water bodies after they outgrow an aquarium, tank or pool at home.
    • Much like the Burmese python that went to the U.S. as a pet to damage the South Florida Everglades ecosystem, the red-eared slider has already affected States such as Karnataka and Gujarat, where it has been found in 33 natural water bodies.
    • Preventing this invasive species from overtaking the Brahmaputra and other river ecosystems in the Northeast is crucial because the Northeast is home to more than 72% of the turtle and tortoise species in the country, all of them very rare.

    Way forward

    • Although the red-eared slider is traded legally, the time has come for the government to come up with regulations against keeping invasive as pets.
    • There is a need to create awareness among pet traders for maintaining a database of red-eared slider buyers.
    • They can be contacted to hand over the turtles to the repository insulated from any wetland or natural water body.

  • Environment Appraisal Committee allows Great Nicobar plan to advance

    About the Great Nicobar plan

    • The Environment Appraisal Committee (EAC) – Infrastructure I of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has flagged serious concerns about NITI Aayog’s ambitious project for Great Nicobar Island.
    • The EAC was responding to ‘pre-feasibility’ report, ‘Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island at Andaman and Nicobar Islands’.
    • The report is prepared for the NITI Aayog by the Gurugram-based consulting agency.
    • The proposal includes an international container transshipment terminal, a greenfield international airport, a power plant and a township complex spread over 166 sq. km. and is estimated to cost ₹75,000 crore.
    • The committee has, however, removed the first hurdle faced by the project.
    • It has recommended it “for grant of terms of reference (TOR)” for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies, which in the first instance will include baseline studies over three months.

    What the EAC said

    • The committee noted that the site selection for the port had been done mainly on technical and financial criteria, ignoring the environmental aspects.
    • It has now asked for an independent study/ evaluation for the suitability of the proposed port site with specific focus on Leatherback Turtle, Nicobar Magapode and Dugong.
    • It highlighted the need for an independent assessment of terrestrial and marine biodiversity, a study on the impact of dredging, reclamation and port operations, including oil spills.
    • It has also highlighted the need for studies of alternative sites for the port with a focus on environmental and ecological impact,  analysis of risk-handling capabilities, a seismic and tsunami hazard map, a disaster management plan, an assessment of the cumulative impact, and a hydro-geological study to assess impact on round and surface water regimes.
    • The committee has also asked for details of the corporate environment policy of the implementing agency — whether the company has an environment policy, a prescribed standard operating procedure to deal with environmental and forest violations, and a compliance management system.

  • Climate change causing a shift in Earth’s axis, finds new study

    About the study

    • A study is published in Geophysical Research Letters of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
    • The study has added yet another impact of climate change on the earth – marked shifts in the axis along which the Earth rotates.
    • It says that due to the significant melting of glaciers because of global temperature rise, our planet’s axis of rotation has been moving more than usual since the 1990s.

    How the earth’s axis shifts

    • The Earth’s axis of rotation is the line along which it spins around itself as it revolves around the Sun.
    • The points on which the axis intersects the planet’s surface are the geographical north and south poles.
    • The location of the poles is not fixed, however, as the axis moves due to changes in how the Earth’s mass is distributed around the planet.
    • Thus, the poles move when the axis moves, and the movement is called “polar motion”.
    • Generally, polar motion is caused by changes in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, oceans, or solid Earth.
    • But now, climate change is adding to the degree with which the poles wander.

    What the study says

    • As per the study, the north pole has shifted in a new eastward direction since the 1990s, because of changes in the hydrosphere (meaning the way in which water is stored on Earth).
    • From 1995 to 2020, the average speed of drift was 17 times faster than from 1981 to 1995.
    • The faster ice melting under global warming was the most likely cause of the directional change of the polar drift in the 1990s, the study says.
    • The other possible causes are terrestrial water storage change in non‐glacial regions due to climate change and unsustainable consumption of groundwater.

  • Melting of Glaciers

    Glaciers shrinking faster than before

    • A new study by ETH Zurich and University of Toulouse researchers finds that the world’s glaciers are shrinking at a faster rate than before.
    •  If the trend continues this will put the densely-populated parts of Asia at risk of flood and water shortages.
    • The study found the world’s ice fields lost 298 gigatons of ice per year from 2015 to 2019, a 30% increase in the rate of retreat compared with the previous five years.
    • Glaciers in Alaska, the Alps and Iceland are among those disappearing at the fastest pace.
    • The scientists used images from a special camera aboard NASA’s Terra satellite, which has circled the Earth every 100 minutes since its launch in 1999.

    Impact

    • The situation in the Himalayas is particularly worrying.
    • Swathes of India and Bangladesh could face water stress during dry periods when major rivers like the Ganges and Indus are mainly fed by glacial runoff.
    • Glaciers typically accumulate ice in the winter, but a warming climate means summer melting has outstripped those gains and caused a net loss of ice in mountain regions.
    • The melting in turn contributes to global warming and indirectly accelerates sea level rise, raising the risk of flooding faced by coastal communities.

  • Rare white-bellied heron spotted in Arunachal Pradesh

    About the bird

    • The white-bellied heron is categorised as ‘critically endangered’ in International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Data Book.
    • It is listed in Schedule IV in the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
    • It is one of the rarest birds in the world and is found only in Bhutan, Myanmar and the Namdapha Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh.
    • It had also been recorded in the adjacent Kamlang Tiger Reserve in Lohit district in camera trap images.

    Significance of recent sighting

    • The recent sighting at a height of 1,200 metres above sea level is a first at such a higher elevation in India.
    • The presence of nesting sites within this area is a positive sign for the future habitat as the breeding season of the white-bellied heron starts in February and lasts till June.
    • It is great news that the critically endangered bird is establishing new habitat beyond its traditional range.

  • Delhi’s air quality deteriorates, again

    Air quality to oscillate between poor to very poor

    • Delhi’s air quality deteriorated from ‘moderate’ to ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ on April 29.
    • It will be oscillating between ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ for the next three days, according to the SAFAR-System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research.
    • Delhi’s air typically worsens in October-November and improves by March-April.

    What is the cause

    • Current weather conditions are not unfavourable, unlike in winter.
    • Hence, apart from local emissions, the deterioration in air quality is being attributed to an increase in fire counts, mostly due to burning of wheat crop stubble in northern India.
    • Deteriorating air quality is worrying amid an increasing number of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and deaths.

    Quality classification

    • An AQI between 0-50 is considered ‘good.
    • An AQI between 51-100 is considered satisfactory.
    • An AQI between 101-200 is considered moderate.
    • An AQI between 201-300 is considered poor.
    • An AQI between 301-400 is considered very poor.
    • An AQI between 401-500 is considered severe.
    • Above 500 is the ‘severe-plus’ or ‘emergency’ category.

  • No mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles at Rushikulya in Odisha this year

    No mass nesting this year

    • The annual spectacle of the mass nesting of millions of Olive Ridley sea turtles near the Rushikulya river mouth in Odisha is likely to be missed this year, as the time for it is almost over.
    • It’s been around one month since the mass nesting of last year.
    • If they do skip the beach, this won’t be the first time.
    • In 2002, 2007, 2016 and 2019, the turtles had not shown up at Rushikulya.
    • The Rushikulya river mouth is considered the second-biggest rookery in India after Gahirmatha.
    • Mass nesting in the Gahirmatha marine sanctuary occurred from March 9-23, 2021 and over 349,000 eggs were laid during this period.

    What could explain the miss in mass nesting

    • It is a natural phenomenon. During some years, they did not turn up for mass nesting even though a huge number had congregated in the sea.
    • Beach erosion might be one of the causes for the turtles staying away this year.

  • Major oil and gas producers form Net Zero Producers’ Forum

    About the Net Zero Producers’ forum

    • Five of the world’s major oil and gas producers are working together to ‘develop pragmatic net-zero emission strategies’.
    • Qatar, the US, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Norway, collectively responsible for 40% of global oil and gas production, will come together to form a cooperative forum that will develop pragmatic net zero-emission strategies.
    • Energy producers are faced with unique responsibilities to furnish the world with energy but the climate crisis requires serious leadership and a strong alliance to deliver a path to net-zero.

    Strategies and technologies

    • The Net Zero Producers’ Forum will consider strategies and technologies which include methane abatement, circular carbon economy approach, development and deployment of clean energy and carbon capture and storage technologies, diversification from reliance on hydrocarbon revenues etc.

    Source:

    https://www.energy.gov/articles/joint-statement-establishing-net-zero-producers-forum-between-energy-ministries-canada

  • Major seismic hazard along Assam faultline

    Location of epicentre

    • An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 on the Richter scale hit Assam around 8 am on Wednesday.
    • The primary earthquake had its epicentre at latitude 26.690 N and longitude 92.360 E, about 80 km northeast of Guwahati, and a focal depth of 17 km, the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) said.

    The faultline

    • The preliminary analysis shows that the events are located near to Kopili Fault closer to Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT).
    • The Kopili Fault is a 300-km northwest-southeast trending fault from the Bhutan Himalaya to the Burmese arc.
    • The fault is a fracture along which the blocks of crust on either side have moved relative to one another parallel to the fracture.
    • The area is seismically very active falling in the highest Seismic Hazard zone V associated with collisional tectonics where Indian plate sub-ducts beneath the Eurasian Plate the NCS report said.
    • HFT, also known as the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT), is a geological fault along the boundary of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates.

    Need for earthquake preparedness

    • The Northeast is located in the highest seismological zone, so we must have constant earthquake preparedness at all levels.
    • Continuous tectonic stress keeps building up particularly along the faultlines.
    • Today’s earthquake was an instance of accumulated stress release — probably, stress was constrained for a fairly long time at this epicentre, and hence the release was of relatively higher intensity.

  • Limited sops make scrappage policy for vehicles unattractive

    Why the Vehicle Scrappage Policy is unattractive

    • The policy proposes to de-register vehicles that fail fitness tests or are unable to renew registrations after 15-20 years of use.
    • Limited incentives and poor cost economics for trucks in the Vehicle Scrappage Policy, coupled with lack of addressable volumes for other segments is unlikely to drive freight transporters to replace their old vehicles with new ones, said a Crisil report.
    • Though the scrappage volume of buses, PVs and two-wheelers is expected to be limited as well, the policy’s impact on new commercial vehicle (CV) sales could be sizeable, based on addressable volume, ratings agency Crisil Research said in its report.
    • The potential benefit from scrapping a 15-year-old, entry-level small car will be ₹70,000, whereas its resale value is around ₹95,000. That makes scrapping unattractive, Crisil said in the report.