ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic presents a serious global health challenge to humanity in recent times. It has caused fundamental disruptions to the global transportation system, supply chains, and trade. The impact on the transport sector resulting from lockdowns has led to huge losses in revenue. At the moment there are limited studies of the road transport sector response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper fills this gap using Nigeria as a case study area. A mixed method involving both qualitative and quantitative research was employed. Principal Component Analysis and Multiple Criteria Analysis were used to analyze the data. The results suggest that road transport operators strongly (90.7%) believe that 51 adopted new technologies/innovations, processes, and procedures will keep them and passengers safe from the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. A breakdown shows that observing the lockdown directive is perceived by road transport operators as the most effective response to the pandemic. The breakdown continues in descending order thus: COVID-19 safety protocols, environmental sanitation, and promotion of hygiene, information technology, facemask, and social distancing. Others are public enlightenment, palliative, inclusion, and mass media. This indicates that non-pharmaceutical measures are very effective in the fight against the pandemic. This finding leverages support for the application of non-pharmaceutical guidelines in containing the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
Climate change has been identified as a major challenge to African countries given the prevalence of poverty, low infrastructural development, and the dependence of African countries on agriculture. The yearly rainfall pattern in Africa had been stable for most parts of the year. However, given the increasing variability in the duration and the intensity of the rains, dry season, the erratic and changing nature of weather systems like floods and extended periods of no rainfall affect farmers who rely on rainfall for their agricultural activity. Large-scale destruction of farmlands and villages by floods in Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso as well as many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa can be blamed for the dwindling food supply in the region. In an attempt to meet up with the food challenge, more virgin forests are being exploited leading to increased Green House Gases (GHGs) emissions. As a result, agriculture will certainly be affected as well as being a significant cause or major contributor to the incidence of climate change. Efforts had been put on rural development by African governments to reverse the effect of challenges posed by climate change. However, this had been limited by a sustained effect of worsening socioeconomic challenges, like the incidence of HIV-AIDS, COVID-19, other health challenges, food crises, hunger, and malnutrition. This scenario can be reduced with an effective adaptation strategy to climate change followed by a sound agricultural policy that will lead to the expansion of different channels of food access and an increase in food production. There is evidence that most of the small-holder African farmers are slow in adapting to variations in weather patterns resulting from climate change which affects the agricultural output. This calls for a comprehensive policy option that will turn the fortunes of the farmers towards improved agricultural productivity leading to increased access to food. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Climate change has been identified as a major challenge to African countries given the prevalence of poverty, low infrastructural development, and the dependence of African countries on agriculture. The yearly rainfall pattern in Africa had been stable for most parts of the year. However, given the increasing variability in the duration and the intensity of the rains, dry season, the erratic and changing nature of weather systems like floods and extended periods of no rainfall affect farmers who rely on rainfall for their agricultural activity. Large-scale destruction of farmlands and villages by floods in Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso as well as many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa can be blamed for the dwindling food supply in the region. In an attempt to meet up with the food challenge, more virgin forests are being exploited leading to increased Green House Gases (GHGs) emissions. As a result, agriculture will certainly be affected as well as being a significant cause or major contributor to the incidence of climate change. Efforts had been put on rural development by African governments to reverse the effect of challenges posed by climate change. However, this had been limited by a sustained effect of worsening socioeconomic challenges, like the incidence of HIV-AIDS, COVID-19, other health challenges, food crises, hunger, and malnutrition. This scenario can be reduced with an effective adaptation strategy to climate change followed by a sound agricultural policy that will lead to the expansion of different channels of food access and an increase in food production. There is evidence that most of the small-holder African farmers are slow in adapting to variations in weather patterns resulting from climate change which affects the agricultural output. This calls for a comprehensive policy option that will turn the fortunes of the farmers towards improved agricultural productivity leading to increased access to food. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic started in late December 2019 and is still progressing globally. The easy spreading nature of the Covid-19 causative virus made most countries implement complete lockdown. The lockdown measure taken by most countries to combat the disease has not only assisted in decreasing the rate of spread but also the pollution of the workplace and of the environment as a whole. In the absence of most human and industrial activities that cause pollution, nature is on its way to purifying itself. Without human intervention, the pollution-free environment and its interaction with the ecosystem are bouncing back at a faster pace. The article explained the impact of lockdown measures on the reduction of environmental pollution in a global scenario. This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License.
ABSTRACT
In this study, three greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, and N2O) and one conventional gas (CO) were observed at a roadside station in Shenzhen from September, 2019 to July, 2020. The average concentration of CO2, CH4, N2O, and CO was (430.8±6.1)×10-6, (2318.5±137.9)×10-9, (332.6±1.6)×10-9, and (333.4±121.2)×10-9, respectively. Seasonal variation of CO2 and CO were high in winter and low in summer, Seasonal variation of CH4 and N2O were high in autumn and low in summer. The high concentration in autumn and winter is due to the long-distance transmission of fossil fuel emissions during the heating period, and the low concentration in summer is mainly due to the reduction of long-distance transmission sources and the enhancement of sinks such as plant photosynthesis and photochemical reactions. The diurnal variation of CO2 concentration showed a two-peak and one-valley pattern, which was mainly affected by plant photosynthesis and morning and evening traffic peak;The diurnal variation of CO concentration showed a two-peak pattern, which was mainly affected by the morning and evening traffic peaks. The diurnal variation of CH4 and N2O concentration was high at night and low at day, which was mainly affected by daytime photochemical reaction. Among them, the concentration of CO2 and CO is more sensitive to the emission of traffic sources. In addition, this study compared the COVID-19 lockdown period in 2020 with the same period in 2021, and the results showed that the concentration of CO2, CH4, N2O, and CO decreased by 3.1%, 10.6%, 0.5% and 13.9%, respectively, indicating that traffic control can play an important role in reducing urban greenhouse gas emissions. © 2022, Editorial Board of China Environmental Science. All right reserved.
ABSTRACT
Persons with dementia (PWD) make up a large portion of the long-term care (LTC) population the world over. Before a global pandemic swept the world, governments and healthcare providers struggled with how to best care for this unique population. One of the greatest challenges is a PWD's tendency to "walk with purpose" and exhibit unsafe wayfinding and elopement, which places them at risk of falls and injury. Past solutions included increased use of restraints and pharmacological interventions, but these have fallen out of favor over the years and are not optimal. These challenges put enormous strain on staff and caregivers, who are often poorly trained in dementia care, underpaid, overworked, and overstressed. PWD are impacted by these stresses, and unmet needs in LTC places an even greater stress on them and increases their risks of morbidity and mortality. The physical design of their environments contributes to the problem. Old, institutionalized buildings have poor lighting, poor ventilation, long dead-end hallways, poor visual cues, lack of home-like décor, shared bedrooms and bathrooms, and are often dense and overcrowded. These design elements contribute to the four 'A's' of dementia: apathy, anxiety, agitation, and aggression, and they also contributed to the rapid spread of COVID-19 in these facilities the world over. In this review, we present current "dementia friendly" design models in the home, community, and LTC, and argue how they could have saved lives during the pandemic and reduced the stresses on both the dementia resident and the caregiver/staff.