Drastic Changes to India’s Air Pollution During the Pandemic

While the world faced unprecedented lockdowns amidst the coronavirus outbreak in early 2020, many environmental scientists observed significant beneficial impacts the lack of human activities caused on Earth’s natural systems. Urban areas were inhabited by local wildlife species that had not been seen in decades, water resources began to purify and significantly reduce air pollution. India’s large cities are well known for their environmental pollution, and the lockdowns created the opportunity for numerous improvements for India’s atmospheric status. 

Air pollution is rampant across India because of its enormous population size and concentrated city infrastructure. Air pollution results from too many greenhouse gases like aerosols, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide collecting in the atmosphere. These gases lead to increased temperatures as they capture and hold solar radiation. They also increase cloud retention of particulate matter that can be detrimental to surface resources and human health. 

The World Health Organization’s study of global air pollution indicates it poses a significant health risk, responsible for killing 7 million people a year and impacting many more. The COVID-19 outbreak is only responsible for 2.5 million deaths per year to place that statistic into context. In India, contributing sources of atmospheric pollution include vehicle byproducts, industrial power generation, material kilns, and suspended particulate dust contaminants. A report by IQAir identified the top 10 most polluted cities globally, and 9 of them were in India. 

India’s urban areas previously blanketed in smog and pollution experienced substantial reductions, extending views to the horizon in many places. Indians in Punjab could see the Himalayas more than 100 miles away! India’s Central Pollution Control Board found more than 85 cities across India with significantly reduced air pollution in only the first week of the pandemic. The report also measured New Delhi, the capital of India, with a more than a 44% reduction in only the first day of restrictions! It is estimated that more than 90 percent of road and transportation activities across the country were halted at the start of the pandemic.

Restrictions were lifted as the early pandemic lockdowns concluded, and life in India seemed to go back to the levels of pollution it created before. This is incredibly worrying because high levels of pollution in the air can highly damage a person’s health. If pollution levels do not rescind, ailments like headaches, respiratory issues, and virus susceptibility will become rampant. Toxic pollution also increases susceptibility to contracting COVID-19 because of its involvement in damaging respiratory cells, severely impacting at-risk demographics. 
Parents are forced to keep children home from school many days throughout the year because the overlying smog is too dangerous to breathe in. This saw many schools respond with waning attendance rates even after restrictions were lifted.

Navy’s Accidental Water Contamination Affects Over 400k Hawai’i Residents

Recent water quality tests at containment facilities near Pearl Harbor on Oahu in late November uncovered extreme levels of petroleum fuel contamination, forcing the shutdown of a major well for island residents. The petroleum-contaminated water was recorded with more than 350 times the safe level of possible hydrocarbon contaminants forcing the shutdown on December 3rd.

Hundreds of military families in the impacted area were affected with reported cases of mouth and body sores, pet sickness, stomach issues, and other attributable illnesses. Preliminary concerns were first warranted when residents reported their water smelling and tasting like gasoline, corroborating the recent illnesses. This shocking public health threat has forced the relocation of at least 3,000 Pearl Harbor-Hickam military families and posed risks to several day cares, schools, and hundreds of businesses. 

Investigations into the contamination suggested wells were originally contaminated after jet fuel spilled into access tunnels on November 20th. The spill was immediately cleaned and responded to, but not before contaminants could leach through to underground water wells. 

Residents are rightly upset due to the Navy's knowledge about the spill, potential health threats, and their inability to take necessary preventative steps until a week after the initial fuel accident. Governor David Ige described the contamination as a crisis, and state health officials have since suspended activities at the Red Hill well and ordered the Navy to clean up all impacted water systems. 

The Navy has taken full responsibility for the accident and plans to clean up the petroleum spill by completely flushing the Red Hill well with more than 25 million gallons of clean drinking water before assessing other potentially affected systems. Nevertheless, the event has put a bad taste in many Hawaii residents’ mouths and added extreme caution in regards to the cleanliness and safety of their water. 

Closing the major well near the state’s capital Honolulu has also elicited a response from the state department telling residents to conserve water to mitigate potential future shortages. The Halawa well directly contributes water to more than 400k residents and local businesses, and the cleaning process is expected to take several weeks.

Biden’s $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Could Be a Step Towards Improving America’s Aging Water Infrastructure and Protecting It From Climate Change

In September of 2021, Vox released an article exploring the drinking water crisis impacting millions of people across the country. In this article, Li Zhou performs an in-depth case study on the drinking water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, specifically. The resident that Zhou interviewed has been using bottled water for cooking and drinking for years due to the city’s unsafe and frequently interrupted drinking water service. This past winter, a sudden period of extreme cold caused pipes to burst and left approximately 40,000 Jackson residents without access to water for over two weeks. Many cities around the United States are facing similar consequences of poor water infrastructure. A report from McKinsey found that, on average, anywhere from 14-18% of total daily treated, potable drinking water in the United States is lost due to leaking, with some water systems reporting much higher loss rates of over 60%. 

Water infrastructure in the United States is extremely outdated, with the average US water-network pipe being at least 45 years old and some cast-iron pipes being over 100 years old. Aside from the aging water infrastructure, the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events caused by climate change are expected to further strain drinking water supplies around the country and the world. Replacing water infrastructure is a massive but necessary project that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates will take $839 million/year to replace and monitor. However, the United States has historically been slow to adapt and invest in new technology to improve health, safety, and efficiency. 

Aside from improvements to the physical infrastructure, researchers have also argued that stronger enforcement of drinking water regulations is essential for improving the overall safety of drinking water in the United States. Many water systems around the country do not comply with requirements outlined in the Clean Water Act. However, they have been allowed to continue to operate due to inadequate enforcement of the Act. Another issue threatening drinking water supplies is the lack of regulations for discharging wastewater. Improper wastewater discharge can result in excessive amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen entering waterways which causes algae blooms.

More recently, the House passed Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, which includes a total of $1 trillion in funding to repair aging infrastructure, fund new climate initiatives, expand access to high-speed internet service, and more. The bill has specifically carved out $48 billion to fund water-related repairs, such as replacing lead pipes and studying emerging water contaminants. Individual states have quite a bit of freedom in determining how such funding will be spent. Still, the passing of this bill is a step in a positive direction towards improving the nation’s drinking water infrastructure. 

Climate Change Projections For 2030 Estimate That Majority Of The World's Population Will Live In Coastal Areas Which Are Exposed To Floods, Storms, and Tsunamis

A publication from Nature demonstrates that satellite observations of floods reveal that the proportion of the population exposed to floods has grown by 24% globally since the turn of the century. That is 10 times more than scientists previously thought, and they estimate that by 2030, climate and demographic change will add 25 new countries to the 32 already experiencing increasing floods and harsh weather conditions. 

The United Nations has chosen to increase international cooperation for developing countries as the theme of this year’s World Tsunami Awareness Day, on November 5th. The UN Secretary-General designated November 5th as World Tsunami Awareness day back in December 2015, and it is meant to call on all countries, international bodies, and civil society to increase understanding of the deadly threat and share innovative approaches to reduce risks. 

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, says that “rising sea levels caused by the climate emergency will further exacerbate the destructive power of tsunamis. We must limit warming to 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial averages and invest at scale in the resilience of coastal communities.” Many regions that experience rapid urbanization and growing tourism are prone to tsunamis, and it puts even more people in harm’s way. 

For World Tsunami Awareness Day in 2021, the theme will be the Sendai Seven Campaign. The Sendai Seven Campaign –"7 targets, 7 years" was launched in 2016 by the United Nations Secretary-General, with the main objective of promoting the seven targets of the Sendai Seven Campaign over seven years, which are the following: 

• 2016 – Target (a): Substantially reduce global disaster mortality by 2030, aiming to lower the average per 100,000 global mortality rate in the decade 2020- 2030 compared to the period 2005-2015

• 2017 – Target (b): Substantially reduce the number of people affected globally by 2030, aiming to lower the average global figure per 100,000 in the decade 2020- 2030 compared to the period 2005-2015;

• 2018 – Target (c): Reduce direct disaster economic loss in relation to global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030;

• 2019 – Target (d): Substantially reduce disaster damage to critical infrastructure and disruption of basic services, among them health and educational facilities, including through developing their resilience by 2030;

• 2020 – Target (e): Substantially increase the number of countries with national and local disaster risk reduction strategies by 2020;

• 2021 – Target (f): Substantially enhance international cooperation to developing countries through adequate and sustainable support to complement their national actions for implementation of the present Framework by 2030;

• 2022 – Target (g): Substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to people by 2030.

Tsunamis are rare events but can be extremely deadly. In the past 100 years, 58 of them have claimed more than 260,000 lives or an average of 4,600 per disaster - more than any other natural hazard.

Climate Change and Population Increase Stimulates the Impending Water Crisis

Improved water management, monitoring, and forecasting are needed in the face of a looming global water crisis, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and partners said in a report published on Tuesday. 

Floods, droughts, and other water-related hazards increase due to climate change, but at the same time, the number of people experiencing “water stress” continues to rise. 3.6 billion people globally had inadequate access to water for one month per year, and this number is expected to surpass 5 billion by 2050. 

Petteri Taalas, the World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General, says that “Increasing temperatures are resulting in global and regional precipitation changes, leading to shifts in rainfall patterns and agricultural seasons, with a major impact on food security and human health and well-being.” This past year alone has seen extreme, water-related events. Across Asia, extreme rainfall caused massive flooding in Japan, China, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, and India. 

Flood-related disasters have risen by 134% compared to the last two decades, and most deaths and economic losses occurred in Asia. The number and duration of droughts also increased by 29% over the past two decades, and most deaths from droughts were in Africa. 

In the past 20 years, terrestrial water storage - the summation of all water on the land surface and subsurface, including soil moisture, snow, and ice - has dropped at a rate of 1 cm per year. Some of the biggest changes are occurring in Antarctica and Greenland, but many areas are experiencing significant water losses in areas that had traditionally provided water supply. 

Overall, the world is behind schedule on the UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 6 (SDG 6) to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. 3.6 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation services, and 2.3 billion people lacked basic hygiene services. Seventy-five countries reported water efficiency levels below average, including 10 with extremely low levels. 

A WMO assessment of 101 countries for which data are available found that:

• There is inadequate interaction among climate services providers and information users in 43% of WMO Members;

• Data is not collected for basic hydrological variables in approximately 40% of them;

• Hydrological data is not made available in 67% of them;

• End-to-end riverine flood forecasting and warning systems are absent or inadequate in 34% of those who provided data;

• End-to-end drought forecasting and warning systems are lacking or inadequate in 54% of them.