Water Management Priorities in a Post-COVID World

This paper maintains that the growing crisis of water scarcity cannot be addressed from within the paradigm that created the problem. The extractive paradigm which prevails views high economic growth as the main goal of development to be achieved through the increasing extraction of natural resources. Approaches to water management that are based on this paradigm view water as a resource primarily meant for human consumption. In contrast, the paper proposes an ecosystem paradigm in which water is viewed as being embedded within the ecosystem as an essential part of it to be conserved and preserved for future generations. The author identifies five areas of action for water management in the post-COVID context: move away from water-intensive agriculture through crop diversification;sustainable and community-based groundwater management;protection of river systems and wetlands;ensuring water quality and drinking water security and the creation of strong legal frameworks for water governance. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

Silent superbug killers in a river near you how factory farms contaminate public water courses on three continents

Water downstream from factory farms harbours an invisible threat to people's health which could eclipse the COVID-19 crisis. The threat? Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs) which are driving antimicrobial resistance the world's superbug crisis - projected to kill up to 10 million people annually by 2050. This publication reports the presence of ARGs in animal waste discharged from industrial farms into public waterways or onto soil (or crops) in four countries. Gauge community impact and sentiment regarding the issue was also highlighted. The water and sediment from public water courses connected to effluent discharges from 6-10 pig farms were tested in each of four countries (Canada, Spain, Thailand and the USA).

Principles for Water Governance in a Post-COVID World: Water Sector Needs to Be Embedded in Environmental Justice

This paper argues that the crisis in humanity's relationship with water reflected in rapidly escalating demand and dangerously depleting freshwater and groundwater reserves, can be understood as the outcome of the anthropocentric assumptions underlying our current development models. These assumptions have given rise to both the challenge of severe water scarcity as well as to the kind of policies used to address it. Drawing on principles from an environmental justice framework, it calls for a drastic restructuring of the water sector on more equitable, sustainable and democratic lines. Some of the guiding principles for water governance that are suggested include ensuring that interventions in nature or river systems are along the contours of nature, focusing on managing the demand for water as against the present emphasis on supply augmentation, recognition of structural and historical inequities which determine access to water, adoption of an approach to water management that is adaptive to rapidly changing circumstances and promotion of the participation of all stakeholders in governance and knowledge production. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

Disruption and recovery of river planktonic community during and after the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China

During the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, large amounts of anti-coronavirus chemicals, such as antiviral drugs and disinfectants were discharged into the surrounding aquatic ecosystem, causing potential ecological damage. Here, we investigated plankton in the Wuhan reaches of the Yangtze River, before, during, and after COVID-19, with the river reaches of three adjacent cities sampled for comparison. During the COVID-19, planktonic microbial density declined significantly. Correspondingly, the eukaryotic and prokaryotic community compositions and functions shifted markedly, with increasing abundance of chlorine-resistant organisms. Abundance of antibiotic resistance genes, virulence factor genes, and bacteria containing both genes increased by 2.3-, 2.7-, and 7.9-fold, respectively, compared to other periods. After COVID-19, all measured plankton community compositional and functional traits recovered in the Yangtze River.

A simple framework for calibrating hydraulic flood inundation models using crowd-sourced water levels

Floods are the most commonly occurring natural disaster, with the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters 2021 report on "The Non-COVID Year in Disasters" estimating economic losses worth over USD 51 million and more than 6000 fatalities in 2020. The hydrodynamic models which are used for flood forecasting need to be evaluated and constrained using observations of water depth and extent. While remotely sensed estimates of these variables have already facilitated model evaluation, citizen sensing is emerging as a popular technique to complement real-time flood observations. However, its value for hydraulic model evaluation has not yet been demonstrated. This paper tests the use of crowd-sourced flood observations to quantitatively assess model performance for the first time. The observation set used for performance assessment consists of 32 distributed high water marks and wrack marks provided by the Clarence Valley Council for the 2013 flood event, whose timings of acquisition were unknown. Assuming that these provide information on the peak flow, maximum simulated water levels were compared at observation locations, to calibrate the channel roughness for the hydraulic model LISFLOOD-FP. For each realization of the model, absolute and relative simulation errors were quantified through the root mean squared error (RMSE) and the mean percentage difference (MPD), respectively. Similar information was extracted from 11 hydrometric gauges along the Clarence River and used to constrain the roughness parameter. The calibrated parameter values were identical for both data types and a mean RMSE value of ~50 cm for peak flow simulation was obtained across all gauges. Results indicate that integrating uncertain flood observations from crowd-sourcing can indeed generate a useful dataset for hydraulic model calibration in ungauged catchments, despite the lack of associated timing information.

Spatial-Temporal Evolution Patterns and Influencing Factors of Hotels in Yellow River Basin from 2012 to 2022

Governmental attention towards the high-quality development of the Yellow River basin has brought new development opportunities for the hotel industry. This study aims to reveal the spatial-temporal evolution patterns and influencing factors of hotels in the Yellow River Basin from 2012 to 2022, based on economic, social, and physical geographic data of 190,000 hotels in the Yellow River flowing. With the help of a GIS technology system, the spatial-temporal evolution patterns of all hotels, star hotels, and ordinary hotels were explored, respectively. Then, the significant influencing factors of these patterns were revealed by using geographic detector and Person correlation analysis. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) the overall scale of the hotel industry in the Yellow River Basin expanded year by year, achieving rapid growth from 2016, and fluctuating around 2020 due to the impact of the novel coronavirus epidemic;the overall spatial distribution had significant regional differences, showing the structural characteristics of "southeast more, northwest less”;(2) there was a great difference in the degree of spatial autocorrelation agglomeration among prefecture-level cities, and the degree of agglomeration of both the hotel industry as a whole and general hotels decreased year by year, showing a random distribution in 2022;star hotels were always distributed randomly. Additionally, a strong synergistic correlation was shown between the number of ordinary hotels and the number of star hotels in local space;(3) overall, the development of the hotel industry was significantly affected by seven factors: structural force, macro force, ecological force, internal power, consumption power, intermediary power, and external power. There were differences in the forces acting on different types of hotels, which gives a pattern recognition in-depth.

Role of the COVID-19 imposed lockdown in climate change

As the transmission of COVID-19 increases rapidly, the whole world adopted the lockdown activity with restriction of human mobility to prevent its spread. Everyone thinks of the COVID-19 negatively;however, it has some positive aspects too. Before COVID-19, the world was suffering by a high level of urban air pollution especially in the form of CO2, SO2, NO2 and particulate matter. During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown and limited human engagement with nature accompanied by social distance have proven to be beneficial for nature. As a result, significant reduction in environmental pollution and improvement in the quality of air, cleaner rivers, less noise pollution, undisturbed and calm wildlife was observed. Knowledge gained from the studies suggests that a substantial relationship exists between the contingency measures and environmental health. It is concluded that the COVID-19-induced lockdown has a positive impact on the global warming, a major issue of the 21st century.

Monitoring of the Surfactants in Surface Waters in Slovakia and the Possible Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Their Presence

In order to keep the home and occupational environment clean and non-infectious, the consumption of cleaners and disinfectants, including cosmetics, is increasing. Excessive use of these products results in their accumulation in the aquatic environment. Conventional wastewater treatment plants are unable to effectively remove the emergent pollutants, including personal care products. This article is focused on the monitoring of the presence of personal care products in surface waters in two river basins in the Slovak Republic, in terms of the surfactant content. Ecotoxicological evaluation of the selected samples from the monitored river basins was performed by an acute toxicity test using the test organism Daphnia magna. The monitoring results indicate the presence of personal care products in the aquatic environment which poses an ecological and environmental risk. Monitoring in the Hron and Nitra river basins confirmed contamination with the surfactants, to which the measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic contributed. The content of the surfactants in personal care products is significant, and their impact on the aquatic environment is not sufficiently monitored.

China's Largest City-Wide Lockdown: How Extensively Did Shanghai COVID-19 Affect Intensity of Human Activities in the Yangtze River Delta?

COVID-19 has been the most widespread and far-reaching public health emergency since the beginning of the 21st century. The Chinese COVID-19 lockdown has been the most comprehensive and strict in the world. Based on the Shanghai COVID-19 outbreak in 2022, we analyzed the heterogeneous impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on human activities and urban economy using monthly nighttime light data. We found that the impact of lockdown on human activities in the Yangtze River Delta is very obvious. The number of counties in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui showing a downward trend of MNLR (Mean of Nighttime Light Radiation) is 100%, 97%, 99% and 85%, respectively. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, the proportion of counties with a downward trend of MNLR was 19%, 67%, 22% and 33%, respectively. Although the MNLR of some counties also decreased in 2019, the scope and intensity was far less than 2022. Under regular containment (2020 and 2021), MNLR in the Yangtze River Delta also showed a significant increase (MNLR change > 0). According to NLRI (Nighttime Light Radiation Influence), the Shanghai lockdown has significantly affected the surrounding provinces (Average NLRI < 0). Jiangsu is the most affected province other than Shanghai. At the same time, Chengdu-Chongqing, Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao and the Triangle of Central China have no obvious linkage effect.

Causal Analysis of India's Response to Maritime Security Debate at the UNSC

UNSC debate on the maritime security-initiated discussion on response and reaction plan not only for particular countries and regions overall. The Eastern part of the Indian Ocean (IO) has been a boiling cauldron due to the race of maritime hegemony, maritime alliances for economic cum security dimensions and choking important points of maritime trade in crisis. The outbreak of Covid heavily restricted global supply chains. Security cooperation should focus on 'reassurance' rather than 'deterrence' to create the desired security order in which multilateral frameworks may be formed. In this scenario, security interactions would help nation-states converge their national interests and minimize a zero-sum security situation. UNSC debate on maritime security demands for cooperative security approach through a framework of likeminded states. Pakistan foresees this debate as an increasing challenge by constructing the role of the Pakistan Navy to perform and ensure its capacities for maritime security in the long run. The paper presents the response to Indian Duplicities in the wake of the Russian proposal for maritime security management at UNSC in 2021. Strategic analysis with qualitative research method and exploratory approach is adopted in this research with pertinent and feasible findings.

COVID-19 lockdowns promoted recovery of the Yangtze river's aquatic ecosystem

The impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on human life, air quality, and river water quality around the world have received significant attention. In comparison, assessments of the implications for freshwater ecosystems are relatively rare. This study explored the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on aquatic ecosystems in the Yangtze River by comparing river water quality, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish data collected at the site in the middle reach of the Yangtze River in 2018 and 2020. The results show that during COVID-19 lockdowns, the reduction in industrial and domestic effluent discharge led to a reduction in organic pollution and industrial plant nutrient pollution in rivers. Among them, PO43--P, CODMn, and TP were significantly decreased (p < 0.05). During lockdowns, nutrient supplies such as TN and TP were reduced, which led to inhibition of algae growth and decreased phytoplankton abundance. Phytoplankton affects the abundance of zooplankton through a bottom-up effect, and a decrease in phytoplankton density leads to a decrease in zooplankton density. The decrease in plankton density led to lower primary productivity in rivers, reduced fish feed supplies, intensified competition among fish populations, with increases in population dominated by high trophic level carnivorous fish. In addition, the decrease in fishing intensity has contributed to an increase in the number of rivers-sea migratory fish;the fish community was earlier mainly dominated by small-sized species with a short life cycle, and the number of supplementary populations has now increased. As a consequence, the fish community structure shows a tendency toward high complexity and high fish diversity. Overall, these observations demonstrate that the rapid revival of the retrogressive Yangtze River ecosystem is possible through limitation of anthropic interferences.

Research on the Spatiotemporal Evolution of China's Intercity Network Structure from the Perspective of the Relationship between Listed Companies and Customers

The connection between enterprises is an important part of urban connection. Strengthening the analysis of urban functional network based on the connection between enterprises is of great significance to enrich the theoretical research of urban network. Based on the trade relationship data between listed companies and their top five customers from 2010 to 2020, this paper constructs China's urban network, and analyzes the spatio- temporal evolution characteristics of urban network based on the perspective of trade links between enterprises. The research shows that: ① From 2010 to 2020, the urban network scale shows the characteristics of first rising and then falling, and the overall network density is low, ranging from 0.014 to 0.018. The center of gravity of the network presents the trend of "S" - shaped spatial trajectory change and overall southward movement.This feature is consistent with the trend of China's economic center moving southward in recent years. The overall spatial structure of the network changes from coastal to "T" - shaped structure. This feature is consistent with the "T" strategy of China's land development. ② The network traffic is concentrated in a few node cities. The total amount of capital in and out of the top 20 cities accounts for 71.9% of the total capital flow. Beijing and Shanghai are the absolute core of the network. The provincial capitals or sub provincial cities such as Hangzhou, Wuhan, Shenzhen and Guangzhou assume the function of regional centers. Foshan, Qiqihar, Nantong and other manufacturing developed cities are important nodes. It indicates that trade links are more likely to occur in cities with high administrative levels or developed industries. ③ The Pearl River Delta has the highest network density, which is between 0.324 and 0.334. The Yangtze River Delta has the highest total trade flow, which is 78.35 billion yuan. Although the networking level of urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and Chengdu Chongqing urban agglomeration is relatively low, they have become an important force to promote the evolution of network structure. ④ The COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the trade flow and network structure of the overall network. The network associations have been further divided and reorganized. The Guangzhou Shenzhen associations have been significantly strengthened. It shows that Guangzhou and Shenzhen have a strong combination effect. The Shanghai associations have been significantly weakened. The research results have a certain reference value for promoting the construction of domestic big cycle and unified big market. © 2023 Journal of Geo-Information Science. All rights reserved.

Integrated quantitative evaluation framework of sustainable development – The complex case of the Yangtze River Delta

Sustainable development is central to the current societal functioning, whose complexity demands consideration on a regional scale. However, there are disparate methods to express sustainable development, many of which use qualitative analysis cumbersome for policy-makers. Previous studies focused on environmental, economic, and social impacts without fully considering the regulation mechanisms of the plethora of administrative bodies. To fill this research gap, this research establishes an integrated assessment framework involving four pillars: environment and ecology, society and culture, economics, and governance and policy. Further, indicator systems and quantitative analysis give comparable and objective results. The current study applied them to one of the most economically significant and developed Chinese regions, the Yangtze River Delta. The result shows a dynamic variation in regional sustainability from 2010 to 2019, indicating an annual increase. Although economic and societal development has been increasing steadily, environmental development has stagnated in the past two years, and the influencing policy has fluctuated dramatically. Our analysis was done in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui. Even though all regions showed increasing sustainability, we observed an imbalance in regional sustainable development. Achieving a regional approach and enhanced regional coordination in the Yangtze River Delta is imperative and cannot be ignored by local, regional, and national policy-makers. More importantly, this study created a model capable of predicting the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on regional sustainable development. The model showed that, compared with predicted values, a 6.65% decrease in the integrated sustainability index ensued, attributed to the pandemic in Zhejiang province. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

From city to sea: Spatiotemporal dynamics of floating macrolitter in the Tiber River

Rivers are undoubtedly the main pathway of waste dispersed in the environment that from land reaches oceans and seas increasing the amount of marine litter. Major cities are a great source of riverine litter as large urbanization can originate pressure on the integrated waste management resulting in litter entering the rivers. Within this study, we aim to investigate the dynamic of floating riverine macrolitter (items >2.5 cm) in the city of Rome before it reaches the sea by assessing the composition, amount, and seasonal trends of litter transported from the urban centre to the main river mouth of Tiber River. Visual surveys for a whole year (March 2021–February 2022) were conducted from two bridges, Scienza Bridge (in the city) and Scafa Bridge (at the main river mouth) and followed JRC/RIMMEL protocol for riverine litter monitoring. Overall, similar litter composition was observed from the city centre to the mouth with a prevalence of plastic material, mainly related to fragmentation process (i.e. plastic pieces) and single use items, mainly in food and beverage sectors. An extrapolated annual loading of 4 × 105 items/year was estimated at the main mouth of Tiber River. The litter flux seems to be influenced by the seasonal variability and hydrometeorological parameters. The frequency of size classes decreases with increasing size in both sites, and more than half of the recorded items were below 10 cm. Specific categories belonging to "other plastics” have been reported related to anti-Covid-19 behaviour such as face masks and beverage sector, e.g. bottle lids and rings. The main colour of plastics was white, suggesting weathering process of floating riverine litter. This study contributes to increasing knowledge of the origin, composition and spatiotemporal dynamics of riverine floating litter from the city and entering the sea. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

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.

SPECIAL ISSUE ON THE JULY 2020 HEAVY RAINFALL EVENT IN JAPAN

In July 2020, the Kyushu region experienced record-breaking heavy rains from July 4-7, causing extreme floods in the Kuma and Chikugo Rivers. This was followed by atmospheric instability over a wide area from western Japan to the Tohoku region, resulting in heavy rainfall on July 13-14 in the Chugoku region, and on July 27-28 in the Tohoku region, and flooding of large rivers including the Go River and the Mogami River. In recent years, record-breaking torrential rainfall disasters have been occurring every year, and the heavy precipitation scale as well as the rainfall intensity has been increasing in space and time, resulting in spatio-temporal expansion of the damage. Furthermore, in 2020, the disaster occurred while the social activities had been restricted due to COVID-19 pandemic. The compilation and dissemination of disaster survey data and lessons are essential toward the sustainable development of society. Therefore, JSCE has planned a special issue on the July 2020 torrential rain disaster in order to share and disseminate disaster information and to contribute to the advancement of technology and science related to disaster prevention and mitigation.抄録　令和2年7月，九州地方では4日から7日にかけて記録的な大雨となり，球磨川や筑後川では記録的な洪水が発生した．その後も西日本から東北地方の広い範囲で大気が不安定となり，江の川，最上川など大河川においても氾濫が相次いだ．近年では，毎年のように記録的な豪雨災害が発生しており，降雨強度だけでなく降雨のスケールが時空間的に大きくなっており，被害が時空間的に拡大している．さらに，令和2年度は新型コロナウィルスによる感染症対策のため，人々の活動が制限される中での災害となった．災害調査データを取り纏め，情報発信することは今後の持続可能な社会を検討する上で不可欠である．土木学会論文集では，災害情報を共有・発信し，防災に関する技術および学術分野の進展に資するために令和2年7月豪雨災害に関する特集を企画した．

FLOOD CONTROL MEASURES OF CORE MEDICAL INSTITUTION: LESSONS LEARNED FROM FLOODS IN KUMA RIVER IN 2020

Recordable heavy rainfall hit and caused severe floods from the Kuma River in Hitoyoshi and Kuma regions in July, 2020 due to an active frontal rain system. This paper aims to clarify challenges and issues in measures taken by core medical institutions against large-scale floods, which have been identified in the flood event in Kuma River in July 2020, based on the interview with the core medical institution in those regions. The paper then discusses directions for effective flood countermeasures of core medical institutions in order to have more robust Business Continuity Plan (BCP) for large-scale flood disasters.抄録　令和2年7月豪雨災害では，九州地方や東北地方などで大規模な出水となり，中でも九州地方では人的被害を含む甚大な被害が生じた．一方で，本災害は，新型コロナウイルス感染症（COVID-19）が全国的に流行する中で発生した最初の大規模水害であり，特殊な感染症への対応を継続しつつも，大規模な水害が発生した場合に地域の医療機能をどのように維持していくかが大きく問われた災害でもあった．本稿では，人吉・球磨地方における地域医療の拠点病院に対して令和2年7月豪雨災害での球磨川の氾濫に伴う浸水時の状況と対応についてヒアリングを行った結果を報告するとともに，これを踏まえた拠点医療機関の水害対策の課題と方向性について述べる．

INTRODUCTION FROM THE EDITORIAL TEAM

The American South has the highest rate of COVID-19 mortality relating to "unhealthy lifestyle behaviors" that persist in this region, especially among the areas where historically marginalized populations are concentrated (e.g., https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/physical -activity-and-COVID-19.html,<https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/data/inactivity -prevalence-maps/index.html>). Schmitz and McCreary evaluate the influence of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) river basin regarding the Florida v. Georgia Supreme Court case. [...]the authors note that the Florida v. Georgia case provides insight for others, particularly geographers, studying the ACF river basin or other transboundary river basins from either analytical or political perspectives.

Introduction: Ecology, Music and Community—Exploring Performance in South Asia

This essay offers an introduction to a special section on ecology and performance in South Asia. Aiming at ‘green’ studies of music and performance, this collection explores intersections between ethnography, history, eco- and ethnomusicology, and film and performance studies by paying particular attention to the ecological turn more broadly visible in South Asian studies. The papers address varied ecological settings of South Asian music and performance, from riverscapes to coastal communities, and from the locations of instrument-makers to negotiations of the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. The novelty of the section lies not just in mapping the dialogism between ecology and music through reflections on liminality, gender, resistance and identity, but also in bringing forth new archival strategies (digitisation and digital cultures) in conversation with ethnographic findings. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Pollutants distribution using environmetric technique in surface water sited at Gebeng, Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia

The quick response of contaminants from various sources and the extensive deterioration of rivers' water quality may harm our biodiversity, aquatic creatures, and environment. The depletion of this river water quality can be caused by both natural and manmade factors and this condition will jeopardize its use for many human uses and may harm the residents' health. Our concerning phenomenon prompted this investigation to study the primary pollutant source in two rivers near Gebeng. A total of ten sampling stations from both Balok and Tunggak Rivers were selected and physicochemical parameters reading were measured monthly afore and in COVID-19 Pandemic spread in Malaysia from March 2019 to October 2020. Later, the Cluster and Principal Component Analysis (CA and PCA) were applied. CA grouped the ten sampling stations into three clusters which are upstream areas that were considered as most polluted. PCA yields only four significant components that represented 90.68% of the total variability. The findings of this study can provide useful information regarding the current state of river water quality in the Gebeng area, and the proposed method can be used as a strategy for sustaining the use of water resources in support of long-term development goals.