India's success story with acquaculture..

Aquaculture now dominates the fish people eat, providing 53 per cent of the total recorded by the FAO in 2016, the latest data available (excluding fish not used as human food). Farming also dominates the fishing economy, providing two-thirds of the $362 billion earned from sales at the dockside.

Pothumarru in Andhra Pradesh is credited with spawning commercial aquaculture in the state in 1980. Today, acquaculture contributes more than half to india's fish production.

A farmer could earn around Rs 1 lakh from an acre annually, growing two batches of carps, says B Seshagiri, chief scientist at the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture in Vijayawada.

A whole industry has cropped up around aquaculture. The busiest road in that village is lined with shops selling a range of aquaculture-related products like probiotic pellets and oxygen generators.

However, there are limitations to growth in aquaculture as it is practised in most parts of the country. So the National Fisheries Development Board, set up in 2006, is pushing the culture of growing fish in cages and pens in reservoirs and lakes.

Following Andhra’s success in commercial aquaculture, other states like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha are promoting it as an alternative to crops.

Seshagiri believes farming Indian major carps is stable and sustainable. However, We don’t have the infrastructure to monitor the aquaculture industry.

The poor are suffering deleterious effects of unbearable heat..

A 2017 news report said that over 4000 people died due to heat related injuries over the past four years, in Andhra Pradesh and Telengana alone. The actual heat related injuries and deaths are far more as causes other than the direct reasons like heat stroke and dehydration are seldom accounted for. For instance, dehydration also leads to respiratory and renal failure, especially for those who are prone to heart and kidney ailments. In 2010, Ahemdabad recorded 65 deaths due to heatwave, but in the same period, there were 800 more deaths. Reportedly, various states are developing strategies to minimize deaths.  

A study of deaths during a heatwave in ahmedabad in 2010 found that there had been 43 % more deaths than the reference period in another year. The estimate of additional deaths in the heat wave in france in 2003 also range from 20-50 % for various cities.

Joyashree Roy, an economist at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, found that already, most days in the summer are too hot and humid to be doing heavy physical labor without protection, with wet-bulb temperatures far exceeding the thresholds of most international occupational health standards.

And yet, walk through the city on a stifling hot day in June, and you’ll find people pedaling bicycle rickshaws, hauling goods on their heads, constructing towers of glass and steel. Only a few people, like herself, Dr. Roy pointed out, are protected in air-conditioned homes and offices. “Those who can are doing this. Those who can’t are becoming worse,” she said. “The social cost is high in that sense.”

Given that all cause mortality figures run into 10 million a year in india, increased mortality during the summer season as temperatures climb still higher, could result in hundreds of thousands of extra deaths.

A study said that the chance of a wet-bulb temperature above 34°C occurring in India, China, and the Amazon is greater than 33% and the chance of a wet-bulb temperature above 35°C occurring in those same areas is greater than 15%. Since those areas are very densely populated, the annual exposure to wet-bulb temperatures of 35°C or higher could be approximately one million person-days.

Another study found that 75 percent of the population of South Asia will experience extremely dangerous heat waves by 2100 if no action is taken to fight climate change. Four percent will experience unsurvivable heat — that’s 69 million people at today’s population level.

It's not just about the heat... it's about how many people are poor, how many are old, who has to go outside to work, who has air-conditioning.

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The compiled report of six newspapers of Orissa noted 1470 deaths and 1662 injuries in the year 1998-99 due to severe heat wave. Evidences of heat wave incidences available from different parts of India, e.g., Orissa, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, clearly indicate that most mortality took place outdoor, among those who live at poverty threshold.

Urban and rural poor who can not afford shelters even with minimum living quality, and those living alone and can not afford access to cooling systems are at higher risk of adverse health effects from extreme heat exposures. In rural India, for example, there are evidences of influences of tropical heat on the prevalence of tropical diseases - prevalence of malaria, iron deficiency in sugar cane cutters, anaemia among tea pluckers, farmers, tobacco and coir workers, suggesting that a large working population are already in pathological state.

In a study in 2009, during the month of May and June, people in most Gujarat districts were limited by the prevailing climatic conditions to tolerating70 to 90 min or less for habitual exposures. Tolerance time of people in the districts of Ahmedabad, Anand, Banaskantha, Gandhinagar, Kheda, Mehasana, Patan, Rajkot and Surendranagar appeared to be markedly less during the summer months. Relatively, however, Surat, Amreli and Kachch were more comfortable regions to live in.

Acknowledgement : This section is sourced entirely from this study. 

India learnt lessons on disaster management..

'October 12, 2013 saw a dramatic shift in the way India perceived and handled natural calamities, like Super Cyclone Phailin. Merely three months after devastating floods in Uttarakhand state left over 15,000 people dead, Indian government acted swiftly and decisively.

Massive rescue operation ensured that every single soul, in direct line of the storm, was evacuated safely or forcefully. As Indian Meteorological Department issued a timely warning, Odisha government set a target of 'zero casualty'.

Cyclone Phailin was nearly the size of hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,200 people in 2005 and caused devastating flooding in New Orleans. It also had the wind power of 1992's hurricane Andrew, which packed 265 kph winds at landfall.

The Collectors of all seven districts like Ganjam, Gajapati, Puri, Jagatsingpur, Kendrapara, Nayagarh and Khurda were directed to start evacuation and ensure 100 per cent evacuation of people to cyclone and flood shelters and other safe places in a single day. Till the time Phailin made landfall, around 10,00,000 people had been evacuated from various districts and villages of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.

Teams were constituted and made ready with relief and rehabilitation material. Road clearing teams were instructed to clear roads within 12 hours of the cyclone striking. Police forces were deployed in heavy numbers to ensure quick and safe passage of relief material to the affected areas. Food packets for one lakh people were arranged that could be air dropped to the most severely affected areas. Several teams of Indian Army and Navy were on the standby across the region to begin massive relief and rescue operation. 

A crucial role was played by National Disaster Relief Force - formulated under National Disaster Management Act (NDMA) of 2005. The force is gradually emerging as the most visible and vibrant multi-disciplinary, multi-skilled, high-tech force of the NDMA capable of dealing with all types of natural and man-made disasters. It appeared India had learnt its lessons well.

Block Development Officers were instructed to check all the multipurpose cyclone shelters that had been constructed, for readiness with all equipment like generators, power saws, tower lights, megaphones and utensils. Steps were taken to keep the communication systems operational. Satellite phones were issued to the District Collectors. Identification of additional schools, colleges and other public buildings that could be used as cyclone shelters and all arrangements for electricity, drinking water and temporary toilets were made. Assistance from defence forces and helicopters for rescue operation and airdropping of food packets was requested. Boats for rescue and relief operation, vehicles for evacuation and transportation of relief materials were kept in readiness. Pre-positioning of sufficient stock of fuel for vehicles was ensured.

The World Bank, appreciating the effort of the state government said that, “Successfully evacuating a million people is not a small task. This cannot be merely achieved by kicking the entire state machinery into top gear for three to four days following a cyclone warning. This has taken years of planning, construction of disaster risk mitigation infrastructure, setting up of evacuation protocols, identification of potential safe buildings and most importantly, working with communities and local organizations in setting up volunteer teams who knew exactly what needed to be done.”

The State of India's Water Resources..

I hope you continue to find newer and newer ways to save water. For myself, I have been practicing, on a neighbour's guidance, to use a glass now stationed at our bathroom sink for brushing and washing my face rather than use water directly from the tap. The water saving is substantial. 

The news of 5th June says : Water levels in India’s major reservoirs are 10 per cent lower than normal whereas these are 50 per cent deficient in Himachal Pradesh. Extreme rainfall is becoming more common in much of the country leading to floods and loss of agriculture.

River Mithi, Mumbai / Nicholas / CC-By-SA 3.0

Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand all saw major reservoirs running dry in early 2018 and drought and severe water shortages in many parts of these states.

A May 7 report of this year refers to the battle over the Yamuna between Delhi and Haryana. The Yamuna’s lack of water for all the demands placed over it highlights the profound — but scarcely acknowledged — crisis now confronting India: it is slowly running dry. Signs of severe water stress are everywhere. Yet there is little action from the government or public awareness of the impending crisis. Any sense of the importance of water conservation among affluent city dwellers seems minimal.

Water conservationist Rajendra Singh said that Shimla is not alone. A water crisis is likely to hit metro cities within the next few years. “At least 12 metro cities will face severe water crisis in the next five to six years, and in the next ten years there will be a crisis in almost all parts of the country,” he said .

The water storage level across 91 major hydro reservoirs in India has plummeted to 17 per cent, lower than the 21 per cent storage recorded last year at the same time. As a result, electricity generation from hydropower was down by a quarter in March 2018.

Reports are showing how not treating our waste water properly and re-using it responsibly, is leading to overall water shortages. Sludge from a treatment plant at Malyana, which had a faulty sewage treatment system, was flowing into the Ashwani Khad -- a spring from where Shimla used to get its largest share of water. When unclean water from the sewage treatment plant contaminated streams, there was an outbreak of jaundice that affected more than 500 people in Shimla between December 2015 and March 2016. The Himachal Pradesh High Court then put a blanket ban on use of water from springs around Shimla after this. But the administration did little to compensate for the loss of reservoir water since 2016.

India is one of the most water-challenged nations in the world, with at least 54% of the country being recognised as highly or extremely water stressed, according to a 2015-World Resources Institute report.

Calculations based on some estimates of the amount of water lost to the atmosphere by evapo-transpiration suggest that water that can be put to use in India in future will be about 654 billion cubic metres (BCM), very close to the current actual water use estimate of 634 BCM. These estimates suggest there is little scope to meet any additional demand. 

So please focus every day on how you can save more and more water.

Indian agriculture faces threats from irresponsible shrimp (& prawn) farming..

I am beginning to catch up with photos and videos sent me by friends in India on whatsapp while I was away.

Saw a terrible news item sent by a friend – in a large no. of villages, shrimp farms near chennai have turned barren the agriculture lands surrounding them. The untreated effluent from shrimp farms, full of toxic chemicals, is let out into lakes, rivulets and surrounding lands. It has ruined all groundwater sources and is destroying Kaliveli lake that hosts vast numbers of migratory birds and is a spawning ground for many fish varieties. Worse, the shrimp farmers, politically connected and rich, have broken the nearby dam which housed fresh water, which otherwise could have supplied fresh water to Chennai. Farmers are ruined and migrating as labourers.

Giant Tiger Prawn / CC-By-SA 3.0

I read more widely and found a large no. of news items that report on the devastation in Tamil Nadu. This is the story too in Andhra Pradesh (see here too), Orissa (also see here, here and here) and Gujarat (also see here and here). This has gone on for decades.

The shrimp farms are not registered or monitored by the authorities despite persistent protests by those surrounding them. Sometimes after largescale protests some shrimp farms are closed down, only to re-open again shortly. The shrimp farms are so toxic that they can use a particular piece of land only for a few years and then abandon it to move to new pieces of land. This degraded land cannot be turned back to farming for another 30 years as it is full of salinity and chemicals. The rich in our lawless land can monopolise environmental resources for great profits while more and more farmers and fish workers leave their generations old vocations to become labourers in cities.

The Indian governments, past and present have done nothing – even as other governments have recognized the dangers and have more effectively regulated shrimp farming. Most countries completely ban inland shrimp farming. Mexico runs the industry via highly regulated cooperatives. America has pioneered closed loop shrimp farming where the waste products are eaten by other acquatic animals. The value of protecting mangroves is being recognized even by shrimp farmers as the mangroves filter out toxic chemicals and restore water quality. But Indian governments are not bothered as they only seek to make more money to win the next election.

I can see news of only one large scale action - but we will have to see if it lasts.. in the Chilika Lake of Odisha. 

Surely Congress would have done something Right ?

I had missed this remarkable story till now - Andhra Pradesh (AP) HALVED the no. of poor people over just two years (from 176 lakh in '09-10 to 80 lakh in '11-'12). They did this by crop diversification on farms, branching out into dairying, and by MGNREGA pushing up wages in rural areas. The agriculture growth rate went up. 

The Congress Reddy Government had been in power in AP from 2004 to 2014 – while I had not thought much of Reddy’s Government earlier, I was forced to think it must have done some things right, after all.

No other Indian State came close to this rate of poverty reduction. Some experts compared Andhra Pradesh’s declining poverty rates to those of China, stated to have lifted more people out of poverty in the last 30 years than any country in history. 

In 1981, a staggering 88 percent of Chinese were extremely poor, but by 2013 that figure had dropped, incredibly, to just 2 percent. India’s figures, though not as drastic, are still impressive: In about the same period of time, India’s poor population declined from 54 to 21 percent.

In the 32 years from 1981 to 2013, BJP ruled India for 6 years, and UF / Janata Dal governments for 3.5 years. However the UF / Janata Dal Governments were still supported from the outside by the Congress. So Congress ruled India for a majority of this period - it must have done something right for poverty levels to drop by over 60 % over the 1981 base figure ?

This time of the severe dust storm..

This time of the severe dust storm is as good as any to look climate change in the face. 125 people have died in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh in the present dust storm - young men celebrating their selection for the Delhi Police.. Four young children who had just finished dinner in the cool breeze on the roof of their house.. 

Three weeks ago also, heavy rains and thunderstorms had claimed 42 lives in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan on April 11-12.

Intense Rainfall

Increasingly intense cycles of droughts and floods are expected as more of a region’s precipitation falls in a single large storm rather than a series of small ones. For example, this year, Alwar district recieved 900 per cent of the normal rain usually received by it in the entire month of April, in a single day - April 11.

Last July, the normally quiet Rel river had overflown, causing havoc in Dhanera in Gujarat. In two days, the region had got twice the seasonal total of rainfall, and the water level in the river had exceeded 50 times the high water mark. 

Researchers have found that one-to-five-day extreme rains, at levels earlier found once in about 500 years, can increase by about 20-30%. On a high emissions pathway, in the latter half of this century, the probability of a once-in-a-century flood increases 1,000 times for a city like Kolkata. The probability of intense once-in-30-year floods in the Ganga basin could increase six fold — that is, it could become once in five years. 

In 2005, Mumbai received 1.5 times its normal rain for the month of July in a single day, killing 450 people in the ensuing floods. Sadly, heedless maldevelopment has continued in Mumbai, increasing the likelihood of similar events. A single day of lost productivity in Mumbai costs Rs 5,000-6,000 crore. Studies say that by 2050, the economic costs to Mumbai from climate change could be 20 % more than its entire current GDP.

Cyclones in the Arabian Sea

More heat and water in the atmosphere and warmer sea surface temperatures could provide more fuel to increase the wind speeds of tropical storms. Rising temperatures can cause more frequent and more severe storms over Indian cities also. 

Due to climate change, cyclonic activity is increasing over the Arabian Sea and decreasing over the Bay of Bengal. Mumbai was found to be the fifth coastal city in the world to be most affected by flooding in the future, measured by economic losses. The first four are Guangzhou, Miami, New York-Newark and New Orleans.

Between 1998 and 2001, three cyclones struck the west coast of the subcontinent, not far from Mumbai, claiming over 17,000 lives. Gujarat was also hit by a severe cyclone in 1998 which caused 10,000 deaths. Then in 2007, the Arabian Sea generated its strongest ever recorded storm: Cyclone Gonu, a Category 5 hurricane, which hit Oman, Iran and Pakistan in June that year, causing widespread damage. Chennai has been hit by cyclones three years running - in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

The probability of a cyclonic storm like Harvey hitting Texas is now once in 16 years, up from once in a 100 years in the 20th century. Since the mid-1970s, the number of hurricanes that reach Categories 4 and 5 in strength has roughly doubled.