Impact of lockdown Covid-19 pandemic on himalayan environment

The COVID-19 Pandemic have caused severe impact on lives in various ways, but our environment has experienced a positive outcome due to the lockdown which was imposed all over world including Himalayan region of India. The worldwide spread of COVID 19 has reduced movement of vehicles, industries and all tourism activities. Due to shutdown of all the commercial activities and traffic has helped the environment to reclaim naturally. The Himalayas is one of the world's most fragile and sensitive hotspots to global climate change, with impacts manifesting at a particularly rapid rate. The Himalayan glaciers are the water towers of Asia, and the source of many of the world's great rivers. In this research paper, an attempt has been made to describe the improvement in physiochemical characteristics of surface water, all parameters were compared with BIS standard of drinking water quality during pre lockdown and lockdown period. The ambient air quality have also been significantly improved and noise level were also found under permissible limit of Ambient air quality Standard.

Paleofire Data for Public Health Nursing Wildfire Planning: A Planetary Perspective

Public health Is Increasingly threatened by global warming, land use, and changing wildfire patterns that shape vegetation type, structure, and biodiversity and ultimately affect ecosystem services and our society.1 Uncontrolled large wildfires emit greenhouse gases and aerosols that induce direct and indirect climate feedback through radiative forcing in the atmosphere2 and irreversible changes of natural vegetation, thereby further accelerating climate change and associated fire risks.3 Wildfires are also harmful to human health because they create high pollution concentrations of fine particulate matter that are 2.5 micrometers or smaller (PM2.5) and concentrations of coarse particulate matter that are between 2.5 and 10 micrometers in size. When inhaled, particulate matter significantly increases a myriad of health outcomes, including overall mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and emergency department visits for respiratory morbidity, congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and angina.4,5 Between July and October 2020, high PM2.5 concentrations from massive wildfires surrounding a large regional hospital in the western United States were associated with a 6% increase in COVID-19 cases.6 Risks for developing adverse health effects from wildfire smoke are greatest among people who are living with chronic conditions;who are experiencing intergenerational racial, economic, and housing discrimination;and who are facing social inequities from the COVID-19 pandemic.4The unprecedented recent wildfires in the western United States and their ill effects on human health and society, as well as the multiple other threats to people and places brought about by climate change, draw attention to the increasing urgency of developing new public health approaches and long-term adaptation strategies to support future population health. Observational fire data covering the past few decades give valuable information on current wildfire events.1 However, these data hardly capture long-term trends (i.e., centennial to millennial time scales) of wildfires and associated atmospheric emissions that may help to improve future fire models and thereby provide the base to adapt public health systems.3 To understand long-term trends, natural archives preserve fire history on a wide range ofspatial scales in the past beyond the period of observational fire data;examples include polar and highalpine ice cores;lake, peat, and marine sediment cores.3,8,9 Such paleofire records are based on measurements of the gaseous tracers ammonium and nitrate or particulate matter, such as levoglucosan and black carbon, and charcoal that reflect different components of wildfire-induced atmospheric smoke pollution.8,9 These paleofire records have previously identified complex regional interactions of humans, ecosystems, and climate change.3 Submicron-sized (100-500 nm in diameter) black carbon particles from wildfires and fossil fuel during the industrial era (i.e., the past 250 years) measured in ice cores and lake sediments can be used as a direct tracer for the release of harmful PM2.5 to the atmosphere.8,10 Such paleo black carbon records have been established from both polar and high-alpine glaciers on several continents and are recently developed from lake sediments.10 These found significant changes of fire activity in response to climate and human impact and enhanced pollution levels varying both in time and space. With public health nurses being well positioned to understand population health needs, planetary health, and the health consequences of wildfires, public health nurses can improve upon wildfire adaptation planning and essential public health services by understanding historical perspectives from past fires.9,11,13 Paleofire data provide direct estimates of historical atmospheric emissions from past wildfires and associated harmful concentrations of particulate matter over long distances.

Polar Research turns 40

Gjelsvik occupied the dual role of the journal’s chief editor and chairman of its editorial board, and the remaining board members were NPI scientists and the institute’s communications officer, who was also the journal’s managing editor and the only woman on the board (Fig. 3). In the period 1982–87, 10% of contributors were women (women were 12% of lead authors). Most of the journal’s 10 most cited articles concern environmental conditions—air temperature, permafrost, glaciers, fjord ecosystems and snow—in Svalbard or conditions in the Arctic Ocean and contribute to the literature on climate change.

What drives landslide risk? Disaggregating risk analyses, an example from the Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier valleys, New Zealand

We present a quantitative risk analysis (QRA) case study from the Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere / Franz Josef Glacier and Te Moeka o Tuawe / Fox Glacier valleys, on the west coast of the South Island, Aotearoa / New Zealand. The glacier valleys are important tourist destinations that are subject to landslide hazards. Both valleys contain actively retreating glaciers;experience high rainfall;and are proximal to the Alpine Fault, which is a major source of seismic hazard on the west coast. We considered the life safety risk from rockfalls, soil/rock avalanches, and flows that either are seismically triggered or occur aseismically. To determine the range in risk values and dominant contributing variables to the risk, we modelled nine different risk scenarios where we incrementally changed the variables used in the risk model to account for the underlying uncertainty. The scenarios represent our central estimate of the risk, e.g. neither optimistic nor conservative, through to our upper estimate of the risk. We include in these estimates the impact time-variable factors, such as a recently reactivated landslide, have had on locally increasing risk and the time-elapsed since the last major earthquake on the nearby Alpine Fault. We disaggregated our risk results to determine the dominant drivers in landslide risk, which highlighted the importance of considering dynamic time-variable risk scenarios and the changing contributions to risk from aseismic versus seismic landslides. A detailed understanding of the drivers of landslide risk in each valley is important to determine the most efficient and appropriate risk management decisions.

A Review of the Impacts of Climate Change on Tourism in the Arid Areas: A Case Study of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China

Tourism is more sensitive and susceptible in global arid regions to climate change than other sectors, and climate change mainly affects the behavior of tourists, selection of tourist destinations, tourism resources, and tourism safety. China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is a representative area of the global arid region. To review its comprehensive impacts of climate change on tourism has indicative significance for the global arid region tourism industry to cope with climate change impacts. On the whole, the impacts of climate change on tourism in the XUAR will coexist with opportunities and challenges both at present and in the future. The XUAR is experiencing or will experience climatic process of warming and wetting. For the tourism climate comfort and extension of suitable travel period, the opportunities far outweigh the risks (high reliability). However, future climate change is expected to have great negative effects on cultural heritages, glacier and snow resources, and agricultural landscapes in arid areas of northwest China (high reliability). The above impacts are potential and long-term, and the measures should be taken as soon as possible to mitigate and adapt to climate change challenges to tourism.

Six months in the Lhù'ààn Mân' (Kluane Lake) watershed: Autobiographical reflection on the benefits of an extended data collection campaign

Lhù'ààn Mân' is located in the southwest corner of Yukon Territory, tucked into the foot of Kluane Ranges of the St. Elias Mountains. The lake is situated on the traditional territory of the Kluane First Nation, Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, and the White River First Nation. The lake and its watershed are culturally significant and provide sources of fresh water, fish, land animals for hunting and trapping, berries, and lumber. Miller is a a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Calgary working on an exploratory hydrology research project in the Lhù'ààn Mân' watershed. In May of 2016, Kaskawulsh Glacier retreat redirected the meltwater away from it. The event caused the volume of water to decrease significantly, leaving the areas of the river valley that were previously under water dry. Kaskawulsh Glacier runoff was the largest source of glacial water to the lake until then. By August, its level dropped nearly 2 m and has not refilled. This drastic change over a short time period drew a lot of attention and has raised questions in the academic and local communities about glacially-connected water resources in a changing climate.

The loss of the world's frozen places

By Alexandra Witze In the summer of 1948, a small group of men in Juneau, Alaska, packed boots, axes, ropes and camping gear, and set off into the ice and snow that sprawls just north of the city. Big polar glaciers, including Thwaites Glacier, are central to how rapidly the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting into the ocean, raising sea levels. Fox moves into this space from his background as a ski writer (a previous book was about skiing and climate change).