Environment & Ecosystem Science (EES)

Aquatic freshwater fish diversity immensely declines from several native places in West Bengal. Lots of freshwater fish have been extricated and some become endangered or vulnerable in condition as well as in Keleghai river. Aquatic ecosystem meltdown or crisis due to anthropogenic intervention resulted disappearance of eco-sensitive species. Such, appearance of Boal (Wallago attu) fish in this river was very common but now it’s very amazing to see or to catch it. The number of this species decreased radically before some decades. The present study conducts an empirical investigation to find out the reasons are behind it. Lacking of printed information, the work concentrated on knowledge and perception of experienced fisherman for understanding the fact by interviewing method. After qualitative investigation, the study recommends that simplification of food web in this aquatic ecosystem is the major cause of abandonment of Attu fish in this river. Other important causes are advance unethical fishing techniques, habitat loss, and enormous use of chemical pesticide and fertilizer in wetlands.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infectious respiratory disease becomes a global pandemic in few weeks from its start in December 2019 to early 2020. Various countries across the world including China went to lockdown and several caution were implemented to reduce the further spread of this infectious disease. Wuhan (China) was the first city to impose the lockdown for controlling the impact of COVID-19. The lockdown unexpectedly gives the scientific community a chance to investigate the influence of the human activity on air pollution in real world scenario. The present study attempted to investigate the impact of lockdown during the ongoing viral disease on the changes of fine particulate matters and some unhealthy gases i.e. PM2.5, PM10, SO2, CO, O3, AQI and NO2 over Hubei province of China, by using ground station data and TROPOMI satellite data. The air pollutants were compared as, (i) pre COVID-19 period (i.e. October-December 2019), (ii) throughout the lockdown in Hubei province (i.e. January 2020-March 2020) and Post lockdown duration (i.e. April 2020-June 2020). Results clearly showed that air quality was not secured due to high emission of CO, SO2, NO2, O3, PM2.5, and PM10 on Pre COVID-19 times, but under the lockdown continuously decrease in NO2 from (54 mg/cm3 to 26 mg/cm3), SO2 (10.5 mg/cm3 to 7.77 mg/cm3) PM2.5 (49.22 mg/cm3 to 44.34 mg/cm3), PM10 concentrations (80.83 mg/cm3 to 57.04 mg/cm3) and AQI (72.95 mg/cm3 to 49.64 mg/cm3) has been observed. Because lockdown shuts all anthropogenic activities like industrial work, traffic vehicles and various socio-economic activities, which developed a healthy change on air quality. Emission of unhealthy gases and particulates were quite clear during the lockdown but again increase after finishing the lockdown period. However, we don’t support the lockdown as a measure for the betterment of air quality as this has severely posed negative impacts on the socio-economic processes and progress, but changes in human behavior of using industries and vehicles can help us to improve the air quality.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explore the environmental protection agency (EPA) issues and also suggest solutions that will help to solve these issues. Method: We have used an analysis method for our study. We used the environmental protection agency (EPA) website, report, and previously published reports to evaluate issues. Results: Our results show that the environmental protection agency (EPA) has issues in workload and also in information security. We analyze both issues deeply and recommend some changes to the environmental protection agency (EPA) which includes a pilot project, a staffing plan for the entire department, measurements of the security, and tracking of the environmental protection agency (EPA) framework. Conclusion: From the whole analyses we conclude that the environmental protection agency (EPA) and office of inspectors general need to focus on that issue. There is a need for them to improve the problems that occur in such policies that are designed to save the atmosphere and human health.

Natural hazards such as agricultural droughts impact negatively on crop yields and economic activities. Characterization of agricultural droughts provides precise and accurate information for decision making processes during agricultural drought events. Planning and responding to the hazards by government, and non-governmental organizations in the Sudano-Sahelian belt has been limited in the past due to knowledge gap on the nature and impact of the hazard. This study seeks to characterize historical agricultural droughts, assess their impact on crop yields and people’s susceptibility to undernourishment and through forecasting, unravel what the future holds. Annual effective reconnaissance drought index values are computed using mean monthly potential evapotranspiration and effective precipitation data. To assess the impact of agricultural drought, the index’s values are compared to crop yields and prevalence to undernourishment data. Results show that agricultural drought events of 1983 and 2008 are mild and ephemeral while the 1999 – 2006 event is severe and protracted. While there is 26% chance of materialization of an agricultural drought in Gourma, the chance of being ephemeral and of moderate category is the highest (8%). It has been determined that an ephemeral and moderate agricultural drought would trigger below average yields for maize, sorghum and millet. Mild, moderate and severe events increase prevalence to undernourishment by 2.9 %, 4.3 % and 5.8 % respectively. From 2020 to 2030, a continued materialization of agricultural droughts is expected

Landslide issues in Malaysia is successfully attract the interest and attention of stakeholders and the community of scientists to reduce the risk. Landslides are influenced by many factors that range from the intensity, duration and extent of a triggering factor (e.g. earthquake and rainfall) to the local physical conditions such as landform, morphological, geological materials and structures, hydrological and land uses. In this paper, we present the results of the Landslide Vulnerability Assessment (LVAs). Vulnerability is defined as the degree of losses of a given element at risk of being exposed to the occurrence of a landslides of a given magnitude or intensity, and often expressed on a scale of 0 (no loss) to 1 (total loss). The selection of the best LVAs depends on the exposed elements, landslide types and the scale of analysis. The concept of LVAs also refers to the feasibility of elements at risks on engineering structures, infrastructure facilities, communication systems, commercial (including insurance disclosures) and social. The vulnerability parameters include in assessing LVAs in this study are 1) physical implication (building structures, internal materials, property damage, infrastructural facilities and stabilization actions), social status (injury, fatalities, safety, loss of accommodation and public awareness) and interference on environment (affected period, daily operation & diversity). LVAs for study area produced by combining or overlaid of all Physical Vulnerability (Vp), Social Vulnerability (Vs) and Environmental Vulnerability (Ve) maps. The results for the Total of LVAs indicates that 30% (0.90 sq.m) of the study area classified as Very Low, 8% (0.24 sq.m) as Low, 8% (0.24 sq.m) as Moderate, 28% (0.84 sq.m) as High, 8% (0.24 sq.m) as Very High and 18% (0.54 sq.m) as Extremely High. Landslide Vulnerability level at a “high” to “very high” degree can leave an impact on individuals and society. This study found that residential, commercial, public and industrial infrastructure has higher vulnerability rather than the agricultural and forestry areas. This LVAs approach is suitable as a guideline for preliminary development planning, control and manage the landslide hazard / risk in the study area and potentially to be extended with different background environments.

This study was conducted to monitor the population dynamics of major insect pest of agriculture ecosystem through light trap at the agriculture farm of GAASC ,Baitadi,during the winter of 2018.The main aim of this study was to determine the status of phototatics insects pest of the farm locality.. Light trap with a 100Watt filament bulb was installed at the site at college boundary, vegetable field and wheat field for trapping purpose. The observation was done every day and data was weekly record their status and occurrences. Overall nine insect species were observed and among them click beetle(Agriotes spp.) population was observed maximum compared to other species.Insects occurrence in vegetable field is dominated by click beetle followed by moths(Pieris canidia)and cabbage semi looper(Trichoplusia spp).The total 289 of 6 different species were found from vegetable fields. Trap installed on Agronomy farm contributes clickbeetle (Agriotes spp.)The most followed by Greenleaf hopper(Nephotettix spp)., Pink borer(Chilo partellus), wasp(Vespa spp.) and grasshopper(Hieroglyphus banian),total 152 of 5 different species were found until 15 week of monitoring. Similarly, trap installed in open field obtained total 176 out of which 68 were click beetle (Agriotes spp.),47 pink borer (Chilo partellus),40 moths (Pieris canidia) and 21 wasps (Vespa spp.).

Every lay farmer as well the commercial growers use chemical pesticides to kill pests and weeds and to get rid of diseases in their farm with aim of increasing production. Though the use of pesticides has some advantages of increase in yield, its haphazard and excessive use also create a serious impact on the environmental components and human health. The present scenario of pesticide use doesn’t seem to be satisfactory, so-called safe pesticides are also showing their ill effects in the long run and the problems such as bio-accumulation, bio-magnification are being magnified day after day. Almost all the corners of the earth and organisms living in it and those who are yet to be born have already been affected by so-called boons to pest control. This study attempts to study the present pesticides use scenario of Nepal and also the ill-effects of pesticides on human health as well as on the environment. The relevant data and information were collected from the thorough study of the journal articles, research papers, reports and various literatures. This paper pleads and sensitizes the readers to get directed toward more holistic, sustainable, natural and safe production and management practices.

Food self-sufficiency is being able to produce its food (mainly staples) to meet consumption needs without buying or importing by an individual or a country. This paper was prepared based on interviews, questionnaires, discussions, reviews in different printed materials, books, research papers, reports of different organizations like the Department of Agriculture, LI-Bird, Forest and Soil Conservation Department, and related different websites. The economy of Nepal is predominated by agriculture where 60% of the total population is engaged in agriculture (14th-year plan) and agriculture contributes 27.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The pandemic of COVID-19 has led people to realize the importance of food self-sufficiency. The import of food and agricultural inputs has become difficult due to the lockdown in the boarders and transportation problems. Being rich in biodiversity it is an opportunity for Nepal to focus more on the under-exploited fruits and vegetables to make them globally recognized by commercial cultivation. In this paper, we have emphasized the techniques for the country to be food self-sufficient at this time of crisis.

The purpose of this study was to estimate biomass and soil organic carbon (SOC) stock in coffee based Agroforestry and Cupressus lusitanica plantation. A total of 20 plots of 10 m x 10 m were established systematically in coffee based Agroforestry and Cupressus lusitanica plantation to sample soil and vegetation data. The biomass of shade tree, coffee shrubs and Cupressus lusitanica was estimated by previous allometric equations.Variation in biomass carbon and SOC between the two land use types were tested using analysis of variance. The average amount of biomass carbon stored in coffee based Agroforestry was 109.96 Mg C ha-1. The proportion of total aboveground biomass carbon to the total biomass carbon stock was averaged 61.67% for coffee based Agroforestry.The average total biomass carbon was 74.24 Mg C ha-1 in Cupressus lusitanica plantation. Coffee based Agroforestry had accounted more SOC than Cupressus lusitanica plantation in 0-40 cm soil depth. Our study concluded that coffee based Agroforestry, compared with Cupressus lusitanica plantation, had generally higher biomass carbon and SOC stocks.

Globally, with the application of over 4 billion tons of herbicides yearly to suppress or kill weeds, the uncontrollable / unregulated use and disposal of these sometimes-recalcitrant chemicals could result in deleterious effects on non-target ecological receptors. This evaluation recorded varying degree of toxic effects on the environmental receptors (onions – Allium cepa L) and (snails – Archachatina marginata). The highest effective concentration (EC50) for onions was recorded in Dragon® (0.042 ± 0.008 mg L-1) while the lowest effective concentration was in Uproot® (2.185 ± 0.52 mg L-1). Similarly, the highest EC50 in the snail test was obtained in Cotrazine® (0.41 ± 0.012 mg kg-1) and the lowest in Striker® (9.51 ± 0.94 mg kg-1). The risk level estimated using the Ecotoxicological Risk Assessment Matrix (ERAM) revealed that the least toxic herbicide were rated E 3 (P;A;E;C) or 15 (P;A;E;C) while the most toxic herbicides were rated E 5 (P;A;E;C) or 25 (P;A;E;C), which was considered medium to high risk to plants (P), animal (A), the environment (E) and community (C). The use, handling and disposal of these lethal herbicides should be prudently managed so as to safe guide non-target species in the environment of application.