Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Environment) – August 1, 2020

The State of Global Air 2019 annual report and accompanying interactive website are designed and implemented by the Health Effects Institute in cooperation with the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Texas, Austin.

• According to the report exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution contributed to over 1.2 million deaths in India in 2017.
• The report added that worldwide, air pollution was responsible for more deaths than many better-known risk factors such as malnutrition, alcohol abuse and physical inactivity.
• In India, air pollution is the third-highest cause of death among all health risks, ranking just above smoking;
• Each year, more people globally die from air pollution related disease than from road traffic injuries or malaria.
• Meanwhile, for the first time, this year’s report and website include worldwide estimates of the effect of air pollution on life expectancy.
• Worldwide, air pollution reduced life expectancy by an average of 20 months in 2017, a global impact rivaling that of smoking; this means a child born today will die 20 months sooner, on average, than would be expected without air pollution.
• The report also highlighted that nearly half of the world’s population — a total of 3.6 billion people — were exposed to household air pollution in 2017. Globally, there has been progress: the proportion of people cooking with solid fuels has declined as economies develop.

Farmcil, an eco-friendly plantable seed pencils.

• Farmcil pencils come with a seed capsule containing seeds of ten different varieties of plants, including vegetables such as tomato, ladies finger and brinjal and flowering plants such as sunflower, zinnia and balsam.
• The capsule part can be buried into the soil after the pencil has shortened with use.

E-waste (Management) Rules, 2016, enacted since October 1, 2017.

• Over 21 products (Schedule-I) were included under the purview of the rule.
• The rule also extended its purview to components or consumables or parts or spares of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE), along with their products.
• Currently, India’s e-waste rules have no laws mandating solar cell manufacturers to recycle or dispose waste from this sector.

NOTE: Some of the 21 products of Schedule 1 are Centralized data processing: Mainframes, Minicomputers, Personal Computers (Central Processing Unit with input and output devices), Cellular telephones, Television sets (including sets based on (Liquid Crystal Display and Light Emitting Diode technology), Refrigerator, Washing Machine and Air-conditioners excluding centralized air conditioning plants.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent intergovernmental body established by States to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development.

• It was established in Panama City, on 21 April 2012 by 94 Governments.  It is not a United Nations body.
• However, at the request of the IPBES Plenary and with the authorization of the UNEP Governing Council in 2013, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provides secretariat services to IPBES.
• A landmark new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the summary of which was approved at the 7th session of the IPBES Plenary, meeting last week (29 April – 4 May) in Paris.
• The Report finds that around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.
• To increase the policy-relevance of the Report, the assessment’s authors have ranked, for the first time at this scale and based on a thorough analysis of the available evidence, the five direct drivers of change in nature with the largest relative global impacts so far. These culprits are, in descending order: (1) changes in land and sea use; (2) direct exploitation of organisms; (3) climate change; (4) pollution and (5) invasive alien species.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released (May 2019) a report, Sand and Sustainability: Finding new solutions for environmental governance of global sand resources, that highlights a problem that has largely stayed under the radar: sand consumption globally has been increasing and we are extracting it at rates exceeding natural replenishment rates.

• Sand and gravel, the report says, are the second largest natural resources extracted and traded by volume after water, but among the least regulated.
• The report notes that China and India head the list of critical hotspots for sand extraction impacts in rivers, lakes and on coastlines.
• The report suggests better spatial planning and reducing unnecessary construction — including speculative projects or those being done mainly for prestige — thereby making more efficient use of aggregates, investing in in infrastructure maintenance and retrofitting rather than the demolish and rebuild cycle, embracing alternative design and construction methods, even avoiding use of cement and concrete where possible, and using green infrastructure.

Severe Cyclone Fani rendered not only several thousand people homeless as it tore along India’s east coast last week, but also dealt a body blow to wildlife and forest resources in the region.

• The scenic stretch along the tree-lined Marine Drive that bisects the Balukhand Wildlife Sanctuary adjacent to the Bay of Bengal between Puri and Konark, is now a wasteland with hardly any tree left untouched.
• “As many as 20% of the trees were uprooted, while the rest were found snapped and broken. The devastation has left around 400 spotted deer homeless”.
• Apart from deer, the sanctuary, spread over an area of 87 sq km, was home to wild boar, jackals, striped hyenas, wolves and mongooses.
• In Bhubaneswar, the cyclone had uprooted decades-old trees inside the Nandankanan Zoological Park.
• Several animal enclosures too have been affected forcing authorities to shut down the zoo for an indefinite period.
• The Chandaka Wildlife Sanctuary, which is close by, has also been impacted with thousands of trees uprooted. Authorities are attempting to assess the extent of damage.
• As a result, hundreds of displaced monkeys have now entered residential colonies in the periphery of Bhubaneswar. Residents have reported cases of the simians attacking people after loss of habitat and food sources.

India now has a fifth brown pit viper but with reddish tinge.

• A team of herpetologists have described a new species of reddish-brown pit viper — a venomous snake with a unique heat-sensing system — from a forest in West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh.
• The new species also makes Arunachal Pradesh the only Indian state to have a pit viper named after it.
• The other four — Malabar, horseshoe, hump-nosed and Himalayan — were discovered 70 years ago.

The National Centre for Coastal Research, an institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, in India, has a field research station in the Gulf of Mannar region, and researchers have found an alarming pattern of bleaching in the reefs in Mandapam, Keezhakkarai and Palk Bay.

• About 12% of coral species observed at depths between 0m and 2m such as Porites solida, Poritis lutea, Montipora digitate, Acropora hyacinthus were completely bleached.
• About 5% of species observed at depths between 2m and 4m such as Acropora formosa, Acropora hyacinthus, Montipora digitata, Montipora foliosa, Pocillopora damicornis, Goniastrea retiformis, Platygyra sinensis, Dipsastrea favus, Dipsastrea speciosa were partially bleached.
• Porites species observed in Palk Bay region were completely bleached at depths from zero to 4 metres. Corals at depths over 5m did not face bleaching.
• In some sites the massive corals such as Porites species were completely bleached but branching corals such as Montipora digitata and Acropora species were not bleached.
• Coral reefs are important hotspots of biodiversity in the ocean. Corals are animals in the same class (Cnidaria) as jellyfish and anemones.
• They consist of individual polyps that get together and build reefs. Coral reefs support a wide range of species and maintain the quality of the coastal biosphere.
• Corals control the level of carbon dioxide in the water by converting it into a limestone shell.
• If this process does not take place, the amount of carbon dioxide in the ocean water would increase significantly and affect ecological niches.

The Indian Ocean is home to 75% of the world’s population of the whale shark, a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest fish species on earth.

• The whale shark — an endangered species under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
• The Whale Shark also receives international protection due to its inclusion in Appendix II of the Convention in International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Changthang sanctuary is home to a diversity of flora and fauna and is spread over an area of 1,600 sq km.

• It is located in the Ladakhi Changthang Plateau in the Leh district of Ladakh Union Territory.
• It boasts of the highest lake on earth, Tso Moriri. Not just that it is also believed to include the world’s highest village, Korzok Village that draws tourists for the Korzok Monastery.
• From sighting the rare snow leopard, one can also spot a kiang or a wild ass, along with the dark-necked crane.
• Other interesting species one can find are the Tibetan wolf, wild yak, bharal, brown bear and the mormot that seems to be present everywhere.
• It also has a wide variety of avifauna and around 44 types of water birds and seasonal species of migratory birds are also found here.