Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Reindeer population on the decline

News

• Continued warming of the Arctic is driving broad changes in the environmental system and decline of the reindeer population.

Importance

• Reindeer are important to the Arctic ecosystem as they are a source of food, clothing and livelihood for local people. Massive herds of deer roam the tundra, shaping the vegetation of the region by grazing. They are also a source of food for predators such as wolves.
• Over the past two decades, the population of reindeer has crashed by 56 per cent from about 4.7 million animals to 2.1 million.Population fall has been noted across the reindeer habitat.
• The report says that except two herds, which are at their at historic peak numbers, other have declined.

Causes of  Decline

• Causes of the decline are complex and related to a combination of factors, says NOAA. They include hunting, disease, diminished food availability and climate change.
• Longer, warmer summers mean more vegetation for them to feed on, but they also mean a boom in disease-causing parasites. Heat stress also leads to increased susceptibility to pathogens. Warmer summers have also meant that diseases, long locked in the Arctic permafrost, may thaw and spread among herds.
• Warmer days mean more insects plaguing the animals, who use more energy swatting and shrugging off biting insects or trying to find insect-free pastures.
• An increase in rain can be a problem, too. Wet weather leaves behind a frozen layer on top of the snow, making it harder for the animals to break through the ice to feed on lichen.

Assam most vulnerable to climate change in the Himalayan range.

News

• The Himalayan region supports about 20 percent of the worlds population. But the ecologically fragile region, the storehouse of the third-highest amount of frozen water on Earth, is highly vulnerable to climate change.
• Among the 12 states in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR), Assam is found to be the most vulnerable to the changing climate.

Findings

• The study, to help understand climate change vulnerabilities which could inform development of adaptation strategies and ecosystem management for the Himalayan region.
• The assessment is significant for India as a majority of its population is dependent on agriculture which requires water. The Himalayas are a source of many rivers which supply this water.
• Bordering eight countries, the Himalayan mountain range is the tallest in the world. It covers an area of about 4.3 million square kilometres and nearly 1.5 billion people depend on it for water, food and energy.
• In India, the IHR spans across 12 states Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and (hill districts of) West Bengal.
• The vulnerability assessment was done on the basis of four major factors: Socio-economic, demographic status and health, the sensitivity of agricultural production, forest-dependent livelihoods and access to information services.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

China building ‘advanced’ warships for Pak.: report

News

• China is building the first of four “most advanced” naval warships for Pakistan as part of a major bilateral arms deal to ensure among other things “balance of power” in the strategic Indian Ocean.

Beyond News

• Equipped with modern detection and weapon systems, it will be capable of anti-ship, anti-submarine and air-defence operations.
• The under-construction ship is a version of the Chinese Navy’s most advanced guided missile frigate.
• China, an “all-weather ally” of Islamabad, is the largest supplier of weapon system to Pakistan. Both countries also jointly manufacturing the JF-Thunder, a single engine multi-role combat aircraft.
• Once constructed, the warship “will be one of the largest and technologically advanced platforms of the Pakistani Navy and strengthen the country’s capability to respond to future challenges, maintain peace and stability and the balance of power in the Indian Ocean region.”

It will also support the Pakistani Navy’s initiative of securing sea lanes for international shipping by patrolling distant waters.

India records 377 mine deaths in three years

News

• At a time when multiple agencies are involved in the rescue of 15 miners trapped in a rathole mine in Meghalaya, data tabled in the Lok Sabha earlier this week revealed that 377 workers involved in mining of coal, minerals and oil were killed in accidents between 2015 and 2017.

Beyond News

• Coal mines have accounted for the highest number of casualties due to accidents in mines. Of the 377, more than half, 210, were killed in coal mines.
• Jharkhand, which recorded 69 deaths (11 in 2015, 46 in 2016 and 12 in 2017) in the three years, has accounted for the highest death of coal mine workers in accidents inside mines. Goda in Jharkhand witnessed one of the biggest open cast mine accidents in 2016 when 23 workers died in December that year.
• Telangana recorded 32 deaths in these three years while Madhya Pradesh registered 29.
• During the period, 152 persons died in accidents in metal mines across the country. Rajasthan, one of highest mineral producing States in the country, accounted for 48 deaths (20 in 2015, five in 2016 and 23 in 2017) while Andhra Pradesh recorded 29 deaths. During this period, 15 deaths were reported in oil mines, most of them occurring in Assam and Gujarat.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Small changes in oxygen levels have big implications for ocean life

News

• Even slight levels of ocean oxygen loss, or deoxygenation, have big consequences for tiny marine organisms called zooplankton.

Findings

• Zooplankton are important components of the food web in the expanse of deep, open ocean called the midwater, said researchers.
• Within this slice of ocean below the surface and above the seafloor are oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), large regions of very low oxygen.
• Unlike coastal “dead zones” where oxygen levels can suddenly plummet and kill marine life not acclimated to the conditions, zooplankton in OMZs are specially adapted to live where other organisms especially predators cannot.
• However, OMZs are expanding due to climate change, and even slight changes to the low oxygen levels can push zooplankton beyond their extraordinary physiological limits.
• Although the animals in the ocean’s oxygen minimum zone have adapted over millions of years to the very low oxygen of this extreme and widespread midwater habitat, they are living at the very limits of their physiological capability.

Exotic trees eating up Western Ghat’s grasslands

News

• Over four decades, the country lost almost one-fourth of these grasslands and exotic invasive trees are primarily to blame, find scientists.
• Though grassland afforestation using pine, acacia and eucalyptus ceased in 1996, the exotics still invade these ecosystems.

Beyond News

• The satellite images they accessed reveal that 60% of the shola-grassland landscape has changed; almost 40% (516 km2) of native high-elevation grasslands have disappeared.
• Most of this loss occurred on the mountain tops of the Nilgiri, Palani and Anamalai hill ranges, which comprise more than half of the Ghat’s shola-grassland ecosystems, primarily due to the expansion of exotic trees (pine, acacia and eucalyptus).
• Even though no plantations were established between 2003 and 2017, invasion by existing trees increased areas under exotic plantations by 27% in the Palanis and 17% in the Nilgiris. Broadly, shola-grassland ecosystems in Tamil Nadu showed the highest rates of invasion.

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