eChapters

Key facts

    
•    Agriculture is the major land use across the globe. Agriculture production (plant growth) is highly dependent on climate since crop growth is influenced by solar radiation, temperature and precipitation. Agriculture is also sensitive to climate variability and weather extremes (droughts, floods, severe storms).
    
•    The yields of C₃ crops (rice, wheat, and soybean) is expected to increase (10-20%) with predicted doubling of CO₂ concentrations compared to C₄ crops (maize, sorghum, millet, sugarcane) since C₃ plants respond readily/positively to increased CO₂ levels. Therefore, CO₂ enrichment may benefit temperate and humid tropical agriculture compared to semi-arid tropics.
    
•    The predicted rise of temperature could impact crop and horticulture yield if it exceeds optimal temperature range. For example, low latitudes crops are being grown near the limits of temperature tolerance and global warming may put them to higher stress.
    
•    On a world wide basis, global warming would benefit the mid to high latitude zones for agriculture (for a small change of temperature of 1-3^ºC), whereas low latitudes, semi-arid and tropical areas will have much reduced crop and livestock yields. However, adaptation measures may reduce such impacts.

Key facts

    
•    Though water is the most widely occurring substance on earth, freshwater accounts for only 2.5% whereas the rest of water is saltwater. The agriculture sector uses more than 75% of freshwater available. 
    
•    The current observed climate change impacts on water resources include increased precipitation at high latitudes and temperate areas, decreasing precipitation at low latitudes; decreasing snow covers, and glaciers in most regions; decreasing flows in some river basins; floods and droughts in some countries and significant decreases in lake and river size in Africa.
    
•    A number of climate models projected that a doubling of atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ would increase global precipitation by at least 5%.  The precipitation is expected to increase in some areas, such as, at high latitudes and in the tropics (south east monsoon regions and over the tropical Pacific), whereas the precipitation is likely to decrease in the sub-tropics (e.g. much of North Africa and northern Sahara).

Key facts

    
•    The climate change is likely to affect millions of people both directly (via increased deaths, disease and injury from heatwaves, floods, storms, fires and droughts) and indirectly (through changes in the water, air, food quality and quantity and ranges of vectors, such as mosquitoes, water-borne pathogens).
    
•    Recent observed climate change related effects include: (a) an increase in heat related deaths across the globe (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, UK and USA; (b) spread of vector- and rodent-borne diseases such as malaria (Africa, India) and dengue and (c) increase in food poisoning (New Zealand).
    
•    Heatwaves can cause adverse health effects such as heat cramps, fainting, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Human deaths due to heatwaves are associated with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and in 2003 in Europe 70,000 deaths were recorded from heatwaves alone.
    
•    Projections : (a) cold temperature is expected to become less frequent, while heat waves will become more frequent; (b) increases in heat related deaths and illness across the globe including Australia, Germany, Portugal, UK, and USA;  (c) malaria zone may expand in Australia, Africa (highlands), India and  260-320 million more people will be affected by malaria by 2080;  (d) dengue area is likely to increase as climate would be more suitable and by 2085, about 6 billion people will be at risk of contracting dengue fever including Australia and New Zealand; (e) diarrhoeal disease may increase with temperature increase; and (f) cholera outbreaks may rise as a result of more plankton blooms providing nutrients for Vibrio cholerae.

Summary

Biodiversity (the variety of living things) is fundamental to ecosystem structures and functions, and provide the broad spectrum of goods and services that humans derive from natural systems such as food (e.g. fish), protection from disasters such as cyclones, storms, floods (e.g. mangroves) or maintenance of water quality. Species (biodiversity) respond to climate change either staying or moving out or dying out. For example, the rise of temperature as a consequence of climate change may cause some species to (a) stay in the same environment since they can tolerate to adapt to changes; or (b) may cause some species to move out in a suitable environment (e.g. some species to move pole ward, some up in elevation) or (c) some species (fish) to go deep to increased depths in the oceans to escape heat or warming or (d) may cause some species to die out or get extinct (species with restricted distribution, longer generation time will not be able to migrate or adapt to climate change). A pattern of range shifts such as pole wards and upwards has been documented in hundreds of species of plants and animals and is one of the strongest signals of biotic changes from global warming. These shifts result from two processes: cold-edge expansion and warm-edge contraction. There is now abundant evidence for local extinctions from contractions at the warm edges of species’ ranges or warm edge contraction because the species may have already reached the limits of their climatic tolerance. Investigations conducted reveals that many terrestrial and aquatic species are shifting their geographic ranges in response to rapid changes in temperature and precipitation regimes. For example, many terrestrial organisms are currently shifting in latitude or elevation in response to changing climate. It has been estimated that plants and animals have recently shifted to higher elevations at a median rate of 11.0 m per decade, and to higher latitudes at a median rate of 16.9 km per decade.

Summary

Climate change (floods, droughts, rise of temperature and sea level) can directly impact the incidence of water related diseases through effects on water temperature and precipitation frequency and intensity. This chapter focuses on some common water quality related diseases that may enhance due to climate change such as arsenicosis, cholera, cyanobacterial toxins, dengue, diarrhoea and malaria. Arsenicosis is the disease caused by arsenic (As) contamination. As poisoning via groundwater has become a worldwide problem with 21 countries experiencing As groundwater contamination including Bangladesh, India, and China. In Bangladesh, out of 64 districts, As levels in 60 districts have exceeded WHO recommended guidelines of 10 µg/L and in 51 districts it exceeded Bangladesh recommended guidelines of above 50 µg/L. Chronic exposure to As has been linked to carcinogenic effects in both humans and animals. These include cancer of the various skins and internal organs (lung, bladder, liver and kidney) and reproductive and developmental effects; cardiovascular disease; reduced intellectual function in children and mortality. Alternate floods and droughts (due to climate change) have been found associated with the release of As and contamination of groundwater in Bangladesh, therefore may increase the risks of the disease due to rise of extreme events such as floods and droughts. Cholera is a diarrhoeal disease caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. In 2012, WHO reported 245, 3931 cases of cholera in 48 countries, with more than 3,034 deaths with a case-fatality rate (CFR) of 1.2%. The highest cases were from Africa, followed by Latin America and Asia. The epidemic of cholera is reported to be linked strongly with climate change. Changes in temperature, salinity, rainfall and abundance of phytoplankton have been shown to cause an impact on distribution and survival of V. cholerae. In Bangladesh, cholera (cholera-toxin producing strain of V. cholerae) outbreaks are related to plankton blooms and rise of sea temperature.

Summary

Climate change can affect the quantitative and qualitative status of water resources by altering hydrological cycles, systems and through changes of water quality via chemical and biological contamination. Changes in these variables lead to impacts on all the socio-economic and environmental goods and services that depend on these variables directly or indirectly including water supply, damage to ecosystems, water dependent food production. The most dominant climate drivers for water quantity or water availability are precipitation, run-off and river flows, floods, droughts, snows, glaciers, sea level rise etc. The observed climate change related impacts on world’s water resources/water quantity include increased precipitation at high latitudes and temperate areas and decreasing trends at low latitudes. The annual run-off in some regions may experience increased run-off, such as in high latitudes and large parts of the USA, whereas there has been a decrease in run-off such as parts of West Africa, southern Europe and southernmost of South America. Floods have been the most reported natural disaster events in Africa, Asia and Europe than all other natural disasters and in case of Bangladesh, six extreme floods have occurred in the last two decades. More intense droughts have been reported from Australia, semi-arid and semi-humid regions, western USA and southern Canada, the Sahel. Precipitation is projected to increase at mid- and high latitudes, in the tropics, whereas precipitation is projected to decrease over many sub-tropical areas (North Africa, northern Sahara), tropical Central American (Caribbean) and the Mediterranean. In areas where evaporation rates are expected to increase it would lead to reduced river and stream run-off. In contrast, areas receiving higher precipitation would likely have higher lake and river levels and may experience floods. The annual stream flow in the Murray-Darling basin (Australia) is projected to fall by 10-25% by 2050 and 16-48% by 2100 which would have severe consequences on irrigated agriculture in the region. Rivers depending on the Himalayan glaciers such as the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Syr Darya and Amu Darya could face water shortages or river run-off due to retreat of glaciers, and this would cause dramatic impact on drinking water supplies, biodiversity, hydropower, industry, agriculture and ecosystems on which about 2.4 billion people in Asia depends. Globally, ground water is the source of one third of all freshwater withdrawals, supplying an estimated 36%, 42% and 27% of the water used for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes, respectively. The demand for groundwater is likely to increase due to global increase of water use for irrigation and a decline in surface water quality and reduced summer flows in snow-dominated basins. It is projected that climate change (drought, floods) will affect groundwater recharge rates (e.g. floods would increase recharge, drought would decrease recharge).

Climate
This refers to the long-term statistical data of temperature, humidity, wind, precipitation, atmospheric particle count, and many other meteorological parameters in a particular area. However, weather refers to the current state of these same elements over a maximum of two weeks. The statistical long-term representation of the shortterm weather is called climate. A region’s “climate” is its average long-term weather. Temperature and readiness determine the climate. The variations between the average circumstances at two different times can be used to define changes in the climate. The atmosphere, seas, ice sheets (cryosphere), living things (biosphere), and soils, sediments, and rocks (geosphere) all contribute to and are a part of the global climate system.
When the sun falls on moisture droplets in the earth’s atmosphere, a spectrum of light appears in the sky, creating an optical and meteorological phenomenon known as a rainbow.
A wilderness is an area of the planet’s natural ecosystem that has not seen major alterations from human activities.
The atmosphere, a body of gases or air around the earth, shields it from harm and makes life possible. The planet’s atmosphere is primarily made up of nitrogen, with only 21% being oxygen; the remaining little portion is made up of carbon dioxide and other gases. The earth is divided into five separate layers, ranked from lowest to highest:

12.1 What is Climate Change?
 
The earth receives short-wave radiation from the sun, one-third of which is absorbed by the atmosphere, ocean, ice-land and living organisms. The energy absorbed from solar radiation is balanced, in the long-term, by the outgoing radiation from the earth and atmosphere. While short-wave radiation from the sun can easily pass through the atmosphere, the long-wave radiation emitted by the warm surface of the earth is partially absorbed by trace gases in the atmosphere called greenhouse gases’ (GHGs).

Abstract

Climatic variability with respect to total annual precipitation, mean maximum and mean minimum temperature as well as phytosociological characteristics of various herbaceous plant species of two distinct landscapes, ie, BudhaPushkar (BP) as sandy and Nasirabad Valley (NV) as rocky gravel, of Central Aravalli region was compared over a long period of time (1957-2012). Analysis of climatic data indicates reduction of total precipitation of 50 years by 1226.2 mm. There has been a ‘shift’ in monsoon season. However, a significant increase (36.8%) in precipitation was noticed during the winter season of last five decades. Data on total mean maximum temperature also showed significant variation. A rise of 2.5⁰C was recorded while compared the periods 1971-1990 and 1991-2011. Study showed a notable increase in the mean maximum and mean minimum temperature in the region. An assessment of changes in plant diversity at two landscapes was carried out over a period of 35 years (1976 and 2012). The phytosociological characteristics were compared for these selected years. It was observed that climatic variability have changed the order of dominants and other species with respect to frequency, density and IVI of herbaceous species at both BP and NV landscapes. Total number of species increase for BP landscape while decreased for NV stands, while numbers of invasive species are increased for both the landscapes over a period of 35 years.

Keywords: Climatic variability, Plant diversity, Central Aravalli region, Landscapes, Phytosociological characteristics

Abstract

Women are amoungst one of the most vulnerable groups, being impacted by climate change. Socio- cultural barriers and traditionally ascribed roles make them the key person responsible for arranging primary resources such as fuel, water, food which face a serious threat from environmental stresses such as climate change. Women with the potential in terms of experience and a strong body of indigenous knowledge to combat the increased disaster risks enable their families to cope with climate change. To deal with these stressful situations women both at the local and global level adopt various coping strategies. The coping strategies adopted by them generally involves considerable amount of risk taking as they interfered not only with the household work but also with their income generating activities, education of girls and other opportunities for skill development. This chapter gives a comprehensive view of the gendered impact of climate change, as well as the coping strategies of women. The chapter also highlights the need of developing coping mechanisms into adaptive mechanism and strategies to provide a sustainable solution to deal with the issue of climate change.

Keywords: Coping strategies, Climate change, Gendered impact, Women

Abstract

The area of study extends about 65 km from Gamasa City to Burg El-Burullus. The coastal sand dunes are very near to the shoreline in Baltim and El-Burg and far from the shoreline in Gamasa. It is narrow with relatively steep slope northward near Burg El-Burullus and Baltim, while it increases in width eastward to become wide with gentle slope near Gamasa. The coastal sand dunes are very mobile and move toward the agricultural lands, roads (international coastal road), resorts, and other developmental activities. The sand dunes in the study area are classified into two categories, the old fixed dunes and recent mobile dunes. The main directions of wind blow are N, W, and NW directions. It causes the movement of mobile dunes (Barchan and longitudinal). Several methods have been used for dune fixation like the tar spraying, wind fences and stones. Wind fences are not costly and nonpolluting if compared with stonewall and tar spraying, which prevent the land utilization for agricultural purposes.

Introduction

A solar collector, the special energy exchanger, converts solar irradiation energy either to the thermal energy of the working fluid in solar thermal applications, or to the electric energy directly in Photovoltaic (PV) applications. For solar thermal applications, solar irradiation is absorbed by a solar collector as heat which is then transferred to its working fluid (air, water or oil). The heat carried by the working fluid can be used to either provide domestic hot water/heating, or to charge a thermal energy storage tank from which the heat can be drawn for use later (at night or cloudy days). Solar collectors are usually classified into two categories according to concentration ratios: non-concentrating collectors and concentrating collectors. A non-concentrating collector has the same intercepting area as its absorbing area, whilst a sun-tracking concentrating solar collector usually has concave reflecting surfaces to intercept and focus the solar irradiation to a much smaller receiving area, resulting in an increased heat flux so that the thermodynamic cycle can achieve higher Carnot efficiency when working under higher temperatures.

7.1. Summary

The present research had been carried out to study the social ecology of arsenic contamination in groundwater; factors, perception and impact on life and livelihood of the selected village of West Bengal and in the end the comparison is made. The study had been conducted at village Mitrapur in the Haringhata block of West Bengal. A pilot study was conducted to understand the area, its people, institution, communication and extension system of these states.

An exhaustive list of respondents was prepared critically with the help of some villagers. From the list, 70 respondents from the village were selected for the study through a non-random snowball sampling method. The primary data were collected with the help of a structured interview schedule by following the personal interview method. The secondary data were collected from our departmental library, internet, Department of Agriculture, West Bengal, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya etc. for establishing the conceptual framework of the study.

Three types of Issues are Covered in this Study

• The influence of social, cultural, and/or economic variables on how drinking water poisoned with arsenic affects people’s life, notably their health (for example socio-economic patterns of illness and social),

• Social factors influencing people’s response: especially in relation to other priorities, perceptions of arsenic, and social roles and relationships.

There is widespread belief now that forests can be used to reduce the costs of slowing climate change. While the role of forests in the global carbon cycle has long been acknowledged, recent discussions within the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as efforts to write climate change legislation in the United States, have emphasized the role forests might play. The most recent policy efforts have focused on near-term actions to reduce deforestation in tropical countries. The rationale for considering forests at all in the policy mix stems partly from the physical components of the issue. The world’s forest estate is exceedingly large:

Introduction
The richness of a country can be measured by its biological diversity. It is essential to both human existence and financial security. The most basic concept of biodiversity is expressed by the diversity of creatures. Biodiversity is represented by the supplies of food, clothing, shelter, and medicines provided by plants; by the sources of food, assistance, wild life, and human resource efficiency provided by animals; and by the patterns of variation seen in the microbiological world. More than 20,000 kinds of ants, 3,000,000 species of beetles, 28,000 species of fish, and almost 20,000 species of orchids would be hard for the average person to believe.
Definitions
• The collection and interplay of genes, species, and ecological diversity in a specific location and time is known as biodiversity. Different genes, species, habitats, and their relative abundance are all included in the phrase biodiversity.
• The portion of nature known as biodiversity comprises the genetic variations between individuals of the same species as well as the variety and richness of all plant and animal species at various spatial dimensions, such as a region, a nation, and the entire planet.
• “The diversity of life, which encompasses ecosystem or community diversity, species diversity, and genetic diversity, and includes the entire range of variety and variability within and among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur,” is another definition for it.

Continental drift is the theory that continents move slowly about the earth’s surface, changing their positions relative to one another and to the poles of the earth. It includes the idea that former continents may have broken apart and that the fragments have recombined in different patterns (Fig. 15.1). Some authorities have considered that this happened only once, beginning within the past 200 million years; others believe that it has long been a continuous process, so that all existing continents are mosaics. Those who accept the theory believe that the rates of motion have been only a few inches a year. Earlier, it was considered that the continents moved like ships through a slightly plastic ocean floor. Today some consider that the continents are frozen into the earth’s surface like rafts in ice, and that the motions are the result of growth of the sea floor along certain midocean ridges and reabsorption of the sea floor elsewhere beneath deep ocean trenches and young mountains. The continents are carried passively about embedded in moving plates of the surface. Some authorities  now  agree  that  there  is  a  deformable  layer,  called  the asthenosphere, at depths of from about 50 to 400 kilometers within the earth. It is white hot, and slightly viscous, and many believe that the surface can break into plates which slide over it.

Abstract

Amongst various oilseed crops grown across the world, soybean (Glycine max L. Merrill) is globally important as a high source of protein and oil for human consumption and is also being used as potential feed for animals. Soybean is grown under rain-fed conditions in the tropics and subtropics in the marginal lands with less amount of external application of chemical fertilizers. The frequent climate variations have created a number of biotic and abiotic stresses, drought being a major abiotic stress which adversely affects the soybean productivity. Thus, to enhance the productivity of soybean, besides managing the nutrients, stress management is of utmost importance. There is a great opportunity of application of microbes especially arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) where its application alone or in combination with plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) can help in nutrient mobilization and remediation of plant stresses.

Large quantities of crop residues are produced and if properly used, they can provide cost effective means for supplying organic matter, plant nutrients and improved soil health. The highly lignocellulosic nature of crop residues indicate their potential role in maintaining soil organic matter and enriching the soils with N-rich microbial biomass resulting from decompositions. However, their indiscriminate handling often burning leads to decline in soil health, air pollution and overall loss. Since most crop residues find use as feed and fuel, efficient recycling of the remaining amount can have very significant and positive effect.