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Climate change in Bengaluru - Lessons to be learnt

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Climate change in Bengaluru - Lessons to be learnt

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, 27 May 2016 , Citizen Matters

The rocky plateau of Bengaluru was originally a combination of grassland and scrub and thorn forest, with small trees. We don't know have a historical record of the original climate. But was it likely to have been warm and dry, just like the other districts nearby, namely Kolar and Chikballapur, possibly receiving only about 300-400mm of rain, with the temperatures somewhere in the mid-thirties? We don't know, but that's just a wild guess.

Bengaluru's first man-made climate change

Though the city originally had a few tanks as water sources, around which settlements were built, those who ruled Bangalore, including Cholas and Hoysalas, created the tank culture and lake chains to help the growing population with water, thereby also cooling the city.

Did Bengaluru always have trees? The available images from 18th century show very few trees. It is said that the historical archives talk about a massive afforestation drive in mid-18th century because the city was heating up. Hence it can be safely said that there were two different climates were created in Bengaluru, by man.

In 1537, it is said that Kempe Gauda I started to work on his dream - a new fortified city. A regular dream - ambitious ruling class members always dream of expanding territory, erecting victory towers, building a walled city by a river or port. But Kempe Gauda's vision was difficult: to build a city from the scratch. To achieve his dream he had to first create all the resources the city would need.

Lakes as the foundation

A city cannot exist without water, and Bengaluru did not have a river. Kempe Gauda started on his vision by creating a supply of water, a perennial supply.

Kempe Gauda and successors continued to build on this vision. Hundreds of more tanks were built and an incredible network of kaluves (canals) was built to connect them all. Work on this design followed for generations of rulers; the Wodeyars in the last century continued to build kaluves and tanks and a couple of lakes were even added by influential citizens and farming communities. It was India's famous tank culture on steroids. The lakes of Bengaluru have always attracted attention, but it is the kaluves that make them work. Over 800 kilometers of these lake-connectors ensured that not a drop of rain left Bengaluru's three valleys until all tanks were filled.

A water culture was created. Everyone knows water is life, but to conserve and protect it became Bengaluru's religion. For centuries the lakes remained pure and one could drink from them because nobody would let any waste enter the lake system.

But the problem shifted from water storage to water itself - there was not enough rain to satiate a growing population.

The world's first air-conditioned city

How can we attract rain? Kempe Gauda and his successors knew that if Bengaluru grew a forest, it would rain.

And so a major investment into tree planting was made. It was an activity that continued for centuries. As the forest grew, its breath became bigger and started influencing the climate. The water released from the trees as transpiration and from the lakes as evaporation formed low-lying clouds and then came down as gentle showers.

The temperature dropped. Bengaluru became the coolest city in the south and later the coolest in the summer across India.

This attracted more rain from the monsoons that earlier would pass by without interest. Now the monsoon clouds, lightened after crossing the western ghats, dipped lower due to the cooler climate and shed some more of their weight - rainfall more than doubled.

The world's first fully air-conditioned city was born. This AC needed no energy and was almost zero maintenance.

The problem of water scarcity was solved. The Vrishabhāvati started flowing out of the city perenially. Other side-effect such as the creation of a rich layer of topsoil that remained moist and a high water table also created lasting benefits in food security and livelihoods.

Economics for cooling - Kempegaudanomics

Economics is a social creation. We will refer to the economic system used in South India five centuries ago as kempegaudanomics and today's system as smithanomics, just for the sake of this article.

In kempegaudanomics, there was no GDP number to grow, no single number to worship. Thus, kempegaudanomics did not reduce other sacred beliefs, it retained and strengthened the religious beliefs. Land, water - all of nature - had social and spiritual value and connections with them were not broken. Rather relationships with them were nurtured and even revered. A culture that involved sacred relationships with water (all rivers were named after goddesses) and actively demanded conservation could flourish. The commons and the common good had status in kempegaudanomics, and improving both, created value.

A most attractive city (with limits)

The salubrious climate of Bengaluru attracted many rulers and it was exchanged several times. 1n 1806, the British made it their military cantonment - a city-state inside the expanding boundaries. It attracted many Europeans, Anglo-Indians and missionaries.

The sacred water culture gave way to an engineered water culture. There were more tanks to store more water to satisfy rising demand. A demand fueled by a growing population and a new lifestyle of consumption.

Water was brought from new reservoirs farther and farther away as electricity and motors made their way into the planner's hands.

In as early as 1923, planners documented that: "[Bangalore] is unsuitable for development as an industrial center on a large scale."

When the British left, the city still continued to grow, especially in scientific research and aeronautics. While Bangalore's reputation as the Garden City remained intact, sustainability indicators started moving off the charts and some foresaw water issues.

Bangalore's second man-made climate change

While we do not have any solid historical proof for the first man-made climate change in Bengaluru, the second is fact. Experienced palpably by all the residents. In the 1960s Bengaluru started getting transformed. Ironically, it was the reverse transformation of Singapore. Singapore recognised its cesspool conditions and started cleaning up and creating lakes for water security. Bengaluru's lakes were destroyed and the remaining ones converted to sewage-fed cesspools.

The great transformation took off with the complete adoption of smithanomics in the 1990s. It was to transform this cool city back to a warm dry place and, even beyond, into a hothouse.

'Calakes' - the new lakes of Bangalore

To warm up a cool city takes a lot of heat. How do you generate massive amounts of heat?

Bengaluru had two big coolers - trees and lakes.

The groves of trees, hundreds of years old, with trunks as wide as cars were axed. In smithanomics, the value of a living tree is zero, but the activity of cutting down trees and the resources from their chopped-up state both add measurable increase to the economy. With such a system, it is easy to build momentum and about 85% of the vegetation was lost between 1992-2009 as per a study by Dr. T V Ramachandra and Dr. Bharath H Aithal from Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

Cutting trees, that slow down rainwater flow and created moisture both in the root zone and in the air above, is not enough, you have to replace them with heaters. Thousands of 'calakes' - oncrete and sphalt (which include roads, parking lots, malls, and office complexes) come into being at faster and faster rates.

Trees use solar energy to produce oxygen, moisture, and fruits while providing shade and soil and slowing down the rain. In contrast, the 'calakes' use solar energy to only produce heat, perfectly and efficiently. They heat up quickly, stay warm, and release the heat later, both into the ground and the air.

Flyovers take this heat generation to new levels of efficiency. A flyover basks in the sun, is dark in color, and thus can easily become hot enough to cook on.

Lakes of water keep the ground and air cool and moist. So we replace water bodies with ' calakes' too. While it is not possible to own lakes privately in India, by exasperating the normal dry cycles of Bangalore's lake system allowed them to look like unoccupied and unsold land. The conversion (destruction) of lakes created much financial activity for builders, bureaucrats, politicians, and banks. And consumers and investors flocked in to own homes (and offices). In addition, since a quality water supply became absent, tankers and household filters become prominent. Amazing progress when calculated in smithanomics terms.

Kempe Gauda remains Bangalore's hero; his name is kept alive even in creations that dismantle his vision. Bangalore's largest heater, close to Kempe Gauda's hometown, is named after him. Larger than all the remaining lakes of Bangalore combined, this 'calake' is well over 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) in size, much more if you consider the elevated highway to get to it. It is the Kempegowda International Airport.

Heating appliances galore

The second source of heating comes from all our appliances. Cars, trucks, diesel gensets (DGs), refrigerators, outdoor lights, and other big items of course generate the most heat. But millions of smaller appliances such as set-top boxes, microwaves... all the way down to chargers also end up contributing to local heating.

The laws of thermodynamics inform us that all appliances that use the transformation of energy will generate more heat than the actual work performed. So refrigerators generate around four times as much heat as they cool.

We love our cars, which are truly efficient heaters. Modern gasoline engines have a maximum theoretical efficiency of about 25% to 30%. In other words, even when the engine is operating at maximum efficiency (which requires beautiful design, quality construction, good lubrication, and steady operation at high speeds), about 70-75% is sent out as heat - energy not used for turning the crankshaft (note there is further energy loss in turning tires, which also need to be properly inflated, balanced, aligned, etc.). In Bangalore traffic, only a couple of percent of the fuel burnt in the engine goes towards transportation. Heating efficiency is more than 90%. More if the car has an AC.

The particulates in the emissions also impact climate. They coat the leaves of the remaining trees reducing their vital functions. Haze also retains heat compared to clean air.

Air-conditioners have to be highlighted for two reasons. They are the most efficient heating appliances made - well over 90% of energy goes towards heat. For every unit of personal cooling created, around 99 units of heat are sent outside. One way to state is that for very short-term cooling 1% of the population, 99% (actually 100% in the long-term) have to warm up. ACs are also the main reason why state power generation cannot keep up with demand and thus DGs are required: efficient heaters plus airborne particle generators.

Economics of heating - Smithanomics

The head of Harvard's Anthropology department, David Maybury-Lewis, eloquently stated: " The driven economy is accompanied by a restless and driven society. The educational system teaches children to be competitive and tries to instill in them the hunger for personal achievement. Drive is esteemed and required of business executives and even anthropologists if they want to be promoted. "

Smithanomics makes countries measure their economy by a single indicator of increasing financial activity. Personal wealth is made the goal for individuals with the means of acquiring the wealth as unimportant. This breaks all links to religious beliefs and the sacred. Unbridled drive (greed) is unleashed as the necessary driving force of society.

In smithanomics, personal consumption (strongly linked to the term 'personal freedom') drives the economy, so creating more devices for individual is highly valued. In addition to being touted as a solution to commuting problems, private cars have high status. If the side-effects, in heat or pollution, are bad, it actually increases the economy, for example, as more people install personal ACs and start using air filters.

Since the focus is to sell more appliances and, as a result, even more energy will be consumed, our make-in-India heating effect will only increase. New technology like led lights, solar panels, and lithium batteries promise more efficiency but in a smithanomics system of perpetual growth, they can only marginally slow down further heating - they cannot reverse the trend.

A public AC, especially a free one such as old Bengaluru's, would not generate enough economic activity and would be labelled backward, as many of our historically sound personal and social practices.

Man is seen as a one-dimensional being - homo economicus - and as Maybury-Lewis continued: "Other human capabilities - for kindness, generosity, patience, tolerance, cooperation, compassion - all the qualities one might wish for in one's family and friends, are literally undervalued."

The Oven City

Bangalore not only becomes hot, it also becomes dry.

With the removal of cooling lakes and trees and replacing them with highly efficient large heaters - the 'calakes' - and the addition of billions of smaller heaters, a towering pillar of heat emanates from the new city. This ferocious pillar pushes monsoon clouds higher and to the side. So rainfall events start getting reduced.

The monsoon is still mighty. Once in a while it will overpower the pillar of heat and heavy clouds will descend. And it will rain heavily. Intensely. Precipitation that took hours can happen in minutes.

Instead of regular gentle showers we will see a few of these heavy downpours resulting in floods and very little capture into the little left of Kempe Gauda's system.

Now Bangalore is hot and dry and extremely dusty. We have transformed the Garden City into the Oven City. Rapidly. The first climate transformation for Bengaluru started took at least three centuries; the second transformation for Bangalore took only a few decades.

Entirely man-made. Local make-in-Bangalore, no credit given to global warming.

We don't have a visionary for this new Bangalore to give credit to. To work on the common good is being socialist. To work on improving the commons is for NGOs. So current leaders will hesitate in taking credit in these areas. Of course, while it is said that destroying the commons is the price of progress, no leader wants that deed on their record.

What's next for Bangalore?

Current leaders want it to become a 'smart city'. That might mean having lots more sensors to track temperature and then visualise the heat on smartphones (a smart oven!). Great for the smithanomics fans; for the majority of humans, it's like boiling in a cooker.

In cooking, the flame is hot instantly, but a pot of water takes a while to boil. Similarly, while we turned on heaters in Bangalore a couple of decades ago, climate change took a bit of time. That lag is over. Bangalore's climate in 2016 has reached the boiling point. Breaking all its records and showing higher temperatures in April than Chennai, Goa, and Mumbai.

The residents complain helplessly as they see the future snatched out of the present. It is not nostalgia that makes people lament the transformation of the places they call home. It is the conversion of life-affirming visionary cities to something with skin-deep beauty that does not support life. The replacement of a cool home surrounded by lakes with fish and trees with birds and inhabited by a connected community that reveres the space with a hot concrete structure in a cesspool filled with plastic waste and sewage, engulfed by sooty air inhabited by burnt-out, worried, isolated people is bound to make everyone unhappy and angry.

The same fate awaits every Indian city. Even if it has a river going through it.

The folks building the new capital of Andhra Pradesh are visionaries, but of which kind is the question. Riding on the momentum of smithanomics and led by foreign consultants, they are unlikely to see Kempe Gauda as their role model. The result there is likely to be the same as the new Bangalore.

Heat pollution ranks far behind all the other pollutions in people's eyes, until now. In 2016, it has made a noticeable impact, whether it is enough to act on is the question.

There is a movement in Bangalore to stop further destruction of the few remaining lakes and last few meters of kaluves. But there is no movement to reduce the total heat generated. To actually increase cooling. In kempegaudanomics, we would follow Will Rogers' advice: "If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging." In smithanomics, that would be against the system and labelled anti-progress. Instead we dig faster. Maybe we can reach 45℃ in 2017. Why not try to win the gold in the climate change olympics with 50℃?

Of course, we could always choose to move to a new economic system, kempegaudanomics or another modern avatar, where people and nature matter, under which we could create a city with a pleasant and cool climate for the benefit of all.

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Bengaluru's climate change history and lessons to learn: Rajesh S - Citizen Matters, Bangalore News

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27 May 2016 , Citizen Matters The rocky plateau of Bengaluru was originally a combination of grassland and scrub and thorn forest, with small trees. We don't know have a historical record of the original climate.

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As Bengaluru continues to lose its edge in all benchmarks of quality, its fall from the 7th position in the list of clean cities to 38th is an indication of prolonged neglect by the administration.

This dubious distinction follows another failure - of not being considered at all in the top 100 smart cities list, not being even eligible to be counted in the competition.

The fall of Bengaluru is gaining momentum with frustrated citizens wondering whatever happened to its erstwhile titles of "garden city" and "lake-city" given its current popular description being "garbage city" or "potholed city"!

The plunging image of the City is symbolic of a massive trust deficit among citizens who feel betrayed by successive apathetic and corrupt administrations. Corruption and lack of accountability are now synonymous with Bengaluru! Precious lake beds are encroached by unscrupulous builders; potholed roads managed by corrupt contractors across the city; a garbage crisis that refuses to go despite crores of taxpayers' and public money going into funding it; and state agencies operating without transparency and financial audit for years together. The final blow to citizens comes in the form of an ill-conceived Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). The Karnataka Government which made tall promises of a corruption-free administration, has managed to disrupt and undermine the functioning of the LokAyukta by setting up the ACB. The new ACB is a corrupt attempt to weaken the Parliament sanctioned institution of LokAyukta and will only further the rampant corruption and abuse of discretion the people of Karnataka and Bengaluru are witnessing today.

In the 2014-15 budget, the city's civic agency BBMP was allotted Rs. 2160 crore for road infrastructure projects. Accounts show projects worth Rs 1,000 crore were approved, of which no details exist of how Rs. 461 crore was utilized. In 2015-16, BBMP's allocation for roads and storm water drains was Rs 1882 crore; where is the money going as bad roads and open drains continue to take innocent lives? BBMP spends huge amounts on Solid Waste Management; Rs. 415 crore was reportedly allocated in the budget for 2015-16 but as Bengaluru continues to face a garbage crisis, nobody knows where this money has vanished.

Bangalore's citizens face misery on another count. The city's lakes are dying and are in urgent need of rejuvenation. A report by Prof TV Ramachandra of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore - Pathetic Status of Wetlands in Bangalore, reads "Citizens of Bangalore allowed the development in the region with utmost good faith - contaminated air, land and water are the penalty citizens have to pay for exercising tolerance with good faith. Numerous para-state agencies with un-coordinated actions, inefficient regulatory agency and negligent industries have converted the garden city to unlivable city. Clean air, water and environment are the fundamental rights of citizens as per the Constitution of India (Article-21)"

Bellandur Lake, the city's biggest waterbody put Bengaluru in the global news for the worst reason possible - once a lake full of life; it has gradually transformed into a sewage tank. The case of Bellandur Lake is one of fundamental neglect and decay for the last twenty years. While most of the public discourse on Bengaluru is focused on roads and traffic, the silent destruction of this Lake and unabated pollution of other lakes in the city has dangerous consequences for public health and environment, the cost of which will be borne by future generations.

Citizens of Bengaluru and the administration must go beyond transportation issues, for while these cause short term inconveniences of a few hours a day, the lakes getting poisoned and destroyed is a critical environmental problem that will damage the city irreversibly and permanently.

This should not appear as a mere account of the dismal state of our City, but an urgent wakeup call to action that the Government must take seriously. Bengaluru is the fastest growing metropolis after New Delhi where its population has risen by 30 lakhs in 10 years or 47% during 2001-2011 estimated at 10.1 million in 2015, but its social indicators have nosedived. There is no lower the city can fall and it is time the administration rose to perform duties that it is supposed to.

I had earlier reached out to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for putting in place a long term plan for the city. Bengaluru needs a proper statutory long term plan, including a financial plan. The Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) is working on a plan, but that process needs to be made transparent involving citizens and NGOs, and then placed before the Bengaluru Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) where again it must be discussed transparently.

Bengaluru, more than any other city in India, needs to wake up to the looming danger of irreversible damages to its environment and public health ecosystem in addition to its other challenges of mobility and public services.

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Bengaluru - on track to being Unliveable!

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As Bengaluru continues to lose its edge in all benchmarks of quality, its fall from the 7th position in the list of clean cities to 38th is an indication of prolonged neglect by the administration. This dubious distinction follows another failure - of not being considered at all in the top 100 smart cities list, not being even eligible to be counted in the competition.

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Naveen Menezes, Bengaluru, May 2, 2016, DHNS: 1:51 IST

Exponential and unbridled growth in real estate in Bengaluru has a direct bearing on environment and human health. Buildings have come up in places where there were once trees or open spaces. What if this continues to happen even on the periphery of Namma Bengaluru? What are its long-term implications on the ecosystem?
A study conducted by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) presents an alarming picture. It shows 525% growth in built-up area in the last four decades, 78% decline in vegetation 79% decline in water bodies. These are not just figures, but the lakes and trees that surrounded you have quietly disappeared as a result of the urban sprawl.
'Senseless growth'
Prof T V Ramachandra of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the IISc calls it 'senseless growth.

What's the point earning better when the food that you eat is adulterated? As a result of unplanned urbanisation, Bengaluru is going to be an unliveable and dead city in the next five years, he said.

It was not the same case before. Bengaluru was the most sought-after among big cities given its pleasant climate and the easy availability of land, a decent economy and low-key politics.

Urban expert Ashwin Mahesh blames the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for not coming out with a sectoral plan.

"The BDA has become an agency which facilitates land deals for the benefit of corrupt politicians. People feel it should be closed down," he said.

Environmentalist Yellappa Reddy said, "The government is not competent enough to foresee the future implications of the present growth. There is no proper policy on land use and water. Land is being exploited on the whims and fancies of the politicians."

He urged the government to use 40,000 acres of evicted land for community benefits such as creating lung space, water bodies and playgrounds.
How to decongest
Prof Ramachandra said the government must take necessary steps to decongest Bengaluru. Besides banning new industries in the city, the government should make sure other districts get these economic benefits, he added.
'Government must act'
"It's disturbing to see private developers dominate government decisions. The norm to keep at least 15-20 % of the city as open space is ignored, stormwater drains and water bodies have been narrowed. At least now, the government should wake up and get is priorities right to make Bengaluru a sustainable city," he said.

Architect Najeeb Khan is of the opinion that the government should create enough facilities in villages to minimise migration.

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'Bengaluru will be an unliveable, dead city in 5 years'

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Exponential and unbridled growth in real estate in Bengaluru has a direct bearing on environment and human health. Buildings have come up in places where there were once trees or open spaces. What if this continues to happen even on the periphery of Namma Bengaluru? What are its long-term implications on the ecosystem?

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BENGALURU: The city has put up a poor show in 'Benchmarking Bangalore City for Sustainability,' a study which looked at how sustainable a rapidly-growing city like it is, and is ranked fourth among five cities. The analysis by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, shows that in the urban sustainability index, where five cities were compared, Bengaluru (0.658) and Mumbai (0.590) have the least sustainable urban system. Singapore (0.773) emerged as the most sustainable urban system, followed by London (0.771) and Shanghai (0.669).

"The expansion of a city devours acres of land and materials for infrastructure like highways, water supply and power. It intensifies traffic problems on commuting roads from a city's central location to suburban areas. So, it's important to study the rapid urban change that is likely to take place in developing countries that are least equipped with the means to invest in basic urban infrastructure, and are unable to provide vital economic opportunities for urban residents," one of the principle researchers of the study, Balachandra Patil from the department of management studies & centre for sustainable technologies at IISc, said.

He further said, "The low score for urban green spaces is one of the contributors for lowering the environmental sustainability index value. Bengaluru has low sustainability scores for water pollution. It has obtained the last position for water pollution. It needs to make targeted interventions with respect to indicator categories where they have got low normalised scores."
Concerns Alarming growth
* Bengaluru has witnessed an alarming growth of built-up area in the last 40 years. The growth has been a phenomenal 525%. The vegetation of the once Green City has seen a decline of 78%.
Disappearing lakes
* The city has lost 79% of its water bodies during the same period because of the urban sprawl.

* 54% of lakes are encroached by illegal buildings. Nearly 66% of lakes are sewage fed, 14% surrounded by slums and 72% showed loss of catchment area.

* There is no proper policy on land use and water. Land is being exploited on the whims and fancies of politicians.

* Dumping of construction debris and sewage, and pollution from vehicular emissions remain the biggest concerns.

* BBMP spends huge amounts on solid waste management; `415 crore was reportedly allocated in the budget for 2015-16 but Bengaluru continues to face a garbage crisis.

* Depleting drainage network is only adding to the problem, making Bangalore more unlivable and prone to floods

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IISc report says Bengaluru has a 'bleak future' - Times of India

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BENGALURU: The city has put up a poor show in 'Benchmarking Bangalore City for Sustainability,' a study which looked at how sustainable a rapidly-growing city like it is, and is ranked fourth among five cities.

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Editor's note: This article was originally published on 13 March, 2016. In light of the Cauvery river water dispute, this piece is being republished to highlight how Bengaluru's water problems stem from the state of its lakes.

In March, the Ulsoor Lake in Bengaluru turned fish graveyard as hundreds of thousands of dead fish surfaced belly up, shocking environmentalists and neighbourhood residents. V Purushottam, president of a local residents' group said that sewage water from many parts of the city was allowed to flow into the lake, thereby depleting oxygen levels in the lake water. He said that authorities have been continuously ignoring pleas to repair a bund that was supposed to keep this from happening.

Following Monday's incident, officials swung into action. Environment minister Prakash Javadekar that he had held two meetings with officials to discuss the incident. "They have given me details on what they are doing to improve the situation. The lakes' system in Bengaluru has been destroyed for the past few decades. Colonies have been discharging their effluents into the lakes, which has led to this situation."

Mamata Saravanan, local corporator of the area also admitted laxity. "The maintenance of the lake has been very poor," she said, adding that the lake's health was worsened by the immersion of idols following festivals and unrestricted fishing activity.

Water samples collected from the lake have been sent for testing. Meanwhile, concerned citizens have started a petition on change.org asking the municipal commissioner to affix responsibility for the loss of aquatic life at Ulsoor lake.

The real tragedy though is that Ulsoor still remains one of the better maintained lakes in Bengaluru. Located in a high-end residential colony, it's a popular destination for walkers and joggers, while rowing and boating activity also draws crowds. And this incident comes just a few years after the government launched a massive clean-up operation here. Until the clean-up, Ulsoor was full of slush and silt left behind after the immersion of Ganesha idols. The lake was found to be full of water hyacinth. Clearly, the action taken by the government wasn't enough.

And Ulsoor is not the only Bengaluru lake to be facing these concerns. Last year, the Varthur, Bellandur and Yamlur lakes were all found to be frothing at their mouths. Soon afterwards, the Yamlur lake burst into flames. In December last year, bird waters and students surveyed 20 lakes in and around Bengaluru to do a census on the waterfowl found here. It was the first time in 19 years that such a census was being conducted. Ulhas P Anand, one of the bird waters, told , "Land use has been one of the biggest changes, which has affected the bird population tremendously, particularly among waders.

A bird census in the mid-90s had found several varieties of migratory birds, numbering over 5,000 in each lake. However, by 2015, these numbers had fallen drastically. According to the bird waters, sewage inflow, debris lining the shore, commercial fishing, unhindered chopping of trees along the shore and disappearance of wetlands had all affected the health of the lakes. Furthermore, some of the lakes had gone dry while some others had been bifurcated by main and arterial roads, while industrial areas surrounded some others.

All these factors contributed in a big way to the reduction of the bird population. Migratory birds, just like fish and other aquatic life, are the best indicators towards the health of a lake. In turn, the lakes are essential water bodies, needed to improve the quality of life of citizens. Disappearance of the lakes could result in rising temperatures, water shortage and reduced rainwater storage basins. Since the lakes have catchment areas for the collection of rain water, an ill maintained lake could mean increased dependence on already depleting underground water resources.

But it wasn't always so. Bengaluru was always known as the city of one thousand lakes. These are lakes dug in the 16th century by the city's founders, the Kempe Gowdas. The Mysuru Wodeyars and the British later developed them further. These wetlands were home to a variety of aquatic life, nurtured water birds and also provided drinking water to the area's residents. By 1960, Bengaluru had only 280 lakes though. This figure dropped alarmingly to 80 by 1993. Currently, the number of healthy lakes in and around the city is a dismal 17.

Horrifying statistics, right? So, what happened to the lovely lakes that Bengaluru was known for?

Many of the lakes were converted to bus stands, golf courses, playgrounds and residential colonies by the government or were leased out. The rest were encroached by slums and builders, while some others dried up or became cesspools of human and toxic waste.

In 2013, DNA reported that the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) would be conducting a survey of lakes in the city to identify encroachments made by the influential land mafia. The ambitious project, costing an estimated Rs 50 crore, was supposed to clear the encroachments and rejuvenate 78 lakes in the city. This was part of a more comprehensive plan which was to revive and conserve 183 lakes in and around the city.

That was over two years ago. In September last year, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had pulled up the Karnataka state government over encroachments on lake beds. The tribunal regretted that a city renowned for its 261 lakes only had 68 as of today. It also slammed the high-powered committee and the Lake Development Authority set up by the government and raised some serious questions.

Among the points the NGT raised were:
- Un-authorised encroachment and possession of wetlands by builders
- Steps to be taken by the officials and the extent of damage done to the ecology and environment, particularly the wetlands, by the builders
- What was the extent of the discharge of sewage and other effluents from the lakes? What remedial measures were being taken to ensure compliance of the law?
- What was the status of the show-cause notice issued by the Pollution Control Board to the builders? What steps are to be taken?

Meanwhile, several environment organisations have, over the past few years, been conducting regular surveys on the lost and disappearing lakes of Bengaluru. They have now joined forces to get the government to take action and save these lakes. Whatever efforts are being made to save the last few remaining lakes and water bodies of Bengaluru, one thing is clear: It cannot be left to the government alone to take action. Like any successful campaign, even this needs to happen with the support of environmentalists and citizen bodies.

These bodies have also got to be extra vigilant to monitor the action taken by the government. It is ultimately up to us to ensure that what happened at Ulsoor lake this week doesn't happen anywhere else.

Published Date: Sep 19, 2016 11:39 am | Updated Date: Sep 19, 2016 11:41 am

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Cauvery issue: The shocking story of Bengaluru's dried up '1,000 lakes'

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Editor's note: This article was originally published on 13 March, 2016. In light of the Cauvery river water dispute, this piece is being republished to highlight how Bengaluru's water problems stem from the state of its lakes. In March, the Ulsoor Lake in Bengaluru turned fish graveyard as hundreds of thousands of dead fish surfaced belly up, shocking environmentalists and neighbourhood residents.

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Both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu view the river as a mechanistic producer of water, not as a dynamic life-giving system that is responsive to local and global triggers of use and abuse.

Two days ago, a journalist asked me if the next World War will be over water. That question was triggered by the recent violence in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu supposedly over Cauvery's waters. There is no doubt that water conflicts are set to increase and intensify. But it would be wrong to suggest that the hooligans that engaged in loot and arson on either side of the border were actually soldiers in any World War. I think they had no agenda beyond their love of violence and the sound of breaking glass.

That is not to say that there is no conflict over Cauvery's waters. The conflict is real, and has been since the princely Mysore state began seeking a role in determining how Cauvery's waters were to be shared. If anything, the conflict is only likely to worsen. This instance of violence may have brought out only the hooligans in our midst; the conflicts to come are likely to bring out the hooligan in each one of us.

The possibilities of a de-escalation of conflicts over Cauvery's water are remote given that two principal stakeholders - the River Cauvery and future generations - are not represented in all the negotiations in the tribunal and the Supreme Court. What is being referred to as a water-sharing formula is little more than a loot-sharing formula for divvying up the booty.
Some history
There is more than a century's history to the problem. From medieval times up until the mid-19th century, Tamil Nadu had undisputed access to Cauvery's waters. Early engineers from the Chola era onwards had carved out irrigation tanks, and diverted Cauvery waters through anicuts and canals to irrigate farmlands. Irrigated agriculture in the Cauvery delta was already well-developed centuries before the East India Company swung by Madras.

The upper riparian stretches of the Cauvery, notably the Mysore principality, were late starters in irrigated agriculture. When it did begin in the 19th century, attempts by the Mysore state to divert Cauvery water even with minor structures were viewed with suspicion and indignation by the lower riparian farmers in the then Madras Presidency. They feared a decrease in their own share of the river's waters. Citing historical use, delta farmers claimed prescriptive rights to the river's water.

The first two agreements, of 1892 and 1924, were aimed at ensuring that the upper riparian's right to develop its agriculture is not hindered by delta farmers, and that the latter's historical use is not infringed upon by the water users in Mysore.
Not about farmers
The bus-burning and stone-pelting in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu happens, they say, only during distress years when the two states vie to retain an adequate share of the meagre spoils from the river. Solidarity is quick to coalesce for the Tamils or Kannadigas depending on whose buses are being burnt that season.

Sadly, though, no one weeps for the Cauvery itself. Regardless of whether it is a distress year or a normal year for the people of the two states, every year is a distress year for the river. From Mercara to the Bay of Bengal, Cauvery's journey is fraught with danger and abuse. If stewardship were a pre-condition to enjoying the waters of the river, neither Tamil Nadu nor Karnataka would qualify for even a drop of the river's water. But stewardship is not on anyone's agenda.

It is surprising that after all that hot-blooded South Indians have done to their river, there is still a river left to fight over.

A casual reading of the Cauvery tribunal's 2007 award reveals how the river is viewed as a mechanistic producer of water, not as a dynamic life-giving system that is responsive to local and global triggers of use and abuse.

Demand for water within the basin has grown multi-fold. Simultaneously, degradation of catchments and sand mining have compromised the river's ability to sustainably produce water. The proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs is sick and calling for help. Everyone seems intent on squeezing out the last egg. What about trying to keep the goose alive?
What ails the goose
The Cauvery originates in the Brahmagiri ranges of the Western Ghats in Kodagu. High-range tributaries like Harangi, Suvarnavathi, Hemavathi, Lakshmanathirtha and Kabini join the Cauvery where the ghats flatten out to become the Mysore plateau. In the plateau, or maidan, the rivers Shimsha and Arkavathi join waters with the east flowing Cauvery. Arkavathi is fed by Vrishabhavathi, which drains half of Bengaluru.

In Tamil Nadu, Moyar, which joins Bhavani, Amaravathi and Orathar, which in turn adds to Noyyal, empty into the Cauvery. Kulithalai in Erode is about where the delta begins and the Akhanda Cauvery (or broad Cauvery) starts its slow plod to the sea through seven distributaries with beds of sand - Nandalar, Nattar, Vanjiyar, Noolar, Arasalar, Thirumalairajanar and Puravadaiyanar. (See here for an excellent account on the Cauvery network of rivers.)

The 19th and 20th centuries witnessed massive interventions in the river's hydrology. All major tributaries - Hemavathi, Kabini, Arkavathi, Amravathy, Bhavani - were dammed. New and large reservoirs like Krishnarajasagar, Bhavanisagar and Stanley Reservoir were created. Minor reservoirs over Orathar-Noyyal and Amaravathi came up. New areas were opened up for water-intensive cash crops in Mandya, Hassan, Erode, Salem and Coimbatore aided by canal- and borewell-based irrigation. And the reservoirs attracted water-intensive industries like flies to honey.

Physiographically, the river flows in three parts: the Western Ghats, the Mysore Plateau and the Delta.
The Ghats
The erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore had two natural landscapes - the malnad, or hill country, and the maidan, or the plateau. It is in the hills that South Indian coffee production took root in the 19th century. From being a peasant crop that was grown in every backyard, coffee became a hot commodity and a mixed plantation crop with the worldwide export of the beans grown in the shaded, stream fed forests of Kodagu gathering steam. Today, Kodagu coffee is grown by 42,000 families over 104,000 hectares. Early planters did alter the landscape but preferred the hardy, shade-giving native evergreens such as rosewood, wild fig and jackfruit. Unlike the tea estates that devastated the countryside, Kodagu coffee planters retained enough of the original habitat to nourish biodiversity and maintain the hydrology.

But that habitat has begun to change particularly rapidly in the latter half of the 20th century and then the 21st century. Responding to global market triggers, the area under coffee has expanded at the cost of forests within private landholdings, and agro-forestry lands under cardamom. An assessment by the Coffee Agro-forestry Network in Kodagu of forest-cover change between 1977 and 1997 indicated that it had declined by 28%, from 2,566 km ² to 1,841 km ². Medium elevation evergreen forest, which decreased by 35%, was the most depleted forest type according to the study.

Climate change too was triggering land-use change. Rainfall over the coffee-growing tracts of Kodagu has been erratic over the last three decades, reports environmental journalist Gopikrishna Warrier. CAFNet's study of 60 years of rainfall data from 116 coffee farms revealed that the rainy season had shrunk by 14 days over the last 35 years. Shade-grown coffee requires predictable blossom showers in the early months of the year. With rains becoming increasingly erratic, farmers are finding shade management tiresome; they are switching to irrigation, intensive open cultivation and substituting the native evergreen shade trees for the more exotic, fast-growing and remunerative Silver Oak.

CAFNet concludes that these changes "may affect ecosystem services like water supply, carbon storage and biodiversity."

High range forests are also being cut down for infrastructure development; this also will have a bearing on Cauvery's headwaters. In July 2014, the National Green Tribunal dismissed a petition by the Coorg Wildlife Society challenging a 55-km high-tension electricity transmission corridor that cut a swathe through the womb of the Cauvery in the Brahmagiri ranges. At least 20,000 evergreens were to be sacrificed just in the Brahmagiri and Pushpagiri ranges. The case was dismissed not on merits but on a technical ground that the petitioners did not show sufficient reason for condonation of delay in filing the petition within the period of statutory limitation.
The Mysore plateau and the Maidans
In 1934, construction of the Krishnarajasagar dam was completed; subsequently, reservoirs came up over Hemavathi, Yagachi, Harangi and Vattehole rivers. This led to the development of intensive irrigated agriculture in the Mandya and Hassan districts of Karnataka. The Cauvery basin reservoirs irrigate more than 100,000 hectares in Mandya and 47,000 hectares in Hassan district. With paddy, banana and sugarcane as key cash crops, the agriculture across the Cauvery basin is not just water-intensive but also fertiliser and pesticide intensive.

The assured supply of reservoir water irrespective of seasons also attracted water-intensive industries. The Nanjangud Industrial Area located on the banks of the Kabini houses 83 large, medium and small industries in a 532 acre plot 25 km from Mysore. Predictably, the Kabini leaves Nanjangud loaded with contaminants from the industrial area and domestic sewage.

The Mysore side of the river too has seen a spurt of water-intensive industries. A study by the Karnataka Engineering Research Station at Krishnarajasagara found that polluted wastewater from three industries -a paper mill, a distillery and a fertiliser manufacturer - had rendered stretches of Cauvery near the once-famed Ranganathittoo Bird Sanctuary "unsuitable for drinking, bathing and fish culture."

The once sacred Vrishabhavathi River that runs through south Bengaluru is now a carrier of sewage and industrial effluents from the Peenya Industrial Estate. The city has one of the highest rates of water wastage in the country. According to a 2013 study by the Bengaluru-based Institute of Social and Economic Change, the city wastes 48% of the 1,400 MLD water pumped to the city.

Bengaluru's rise from a sleepy little garrison town to an IT hub has destroyed everything that made the city a paradise. The city's water needs were once met by the large network of lakes, whose spillover would feed the Vrishabhavathi. From 261 in 1961, the number of lakes in this garden city has fallen to just 85 in 2016. Now, the city sends sewage to the Cauvery through the Vrishabhavathi, and pumps up water from the Cauvery 500 feet below.

A study by the Ashoka Trust for Environment and Ecology found high levels of toxic heavy metals, including nickel, copper, chromium and lead in soil and groundwater, and milk and vegetables from the nearby farms. The Vrishabhavathi Sewage Treatment plant that was designed to handle 180 MLD of raw sewage only receives 130 MLD. Of this, only 26 MLD arrives through underground sewers. The remainder is sewage and industrial effluents that flows in the river's course.

Paraphrasing the 1960s singer Tom Lehrer, what they flush out at breakfast in Bengaluru, we drink for dinner in Tamil Nadu. The Karnataka minor irrigation minister is reported to have revealed in the Assembly that more than 1,400 million litres of sewage is discharged daily into Tamil Nadu. That is nearly 20 TMC from one city in one year - three times the allocation for Pondicherry, and twice the allocation for 'environmental protection'.
Some plateau and the delta
Karnataka had only 316 km of the 800 km river to abuse. They have not done too badly, considering that most of it is in inaccessible, difficult-to-pollute hilly terrain. Tamil Nadu is blessed with 416 km of Cauvery, all in gently sloping ground and plains.

The Stanley reservoir, or Mettur dam, is the barometer of tension between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Within two years of the reservoir's construction, the first industry had come up based on water availability. Mettur Chemical and Industrial Corporation was set up in 1936. Within 15 years, it was already identified as a major polluter of the Cauvery and as the cause of mass fish mortality. Discharge of effluents into Cauvery from this company continued for several years after 2007, when the company's successor Chemplast Sanmar announced zero liquid discharge plans.

On one bank of the Stanley reservoir is a mountain of red mud - a toxic residue from years of alumina production by the Madras Aluminium Company, Ltd. Every passing rain washes a little of the poison into the reservoir.

As if that were not enough, tens of small- and medium-scale chemical industries in the SIDCO industrial estate continue to discharge their effluents through natural drains and engineered canals into the Cauvery. Beneath the reservoir, on the banks of the original river course, sits a 1,240-MW water-guzzling coal-fired thermal power plant operated by TANGEDCO. The Mettur Thermal Power Station has permission to draw 184 MLD (2 TMC annually) of river water. Coal ash from the plant is dumped up on a hill, from where it finds its way back to the river.

Roughly 45 km from here is where the Bhavani joins the Cauvery in Erode district. By the time it reaches the Cauvery, the Bhavani carries the effluents from dyeing industries, leather tanneries and pulp and paper mills - all heavy water-users and heavier polluters. The industrial town of Salem discharges about 35 MLD of untreated sewage into the Cauvery through the Thirumanimuthar. This sub-tributary was converted from a river to a concrete lined drain with money borrowed from the World Bank.

The Lower Bhavani river stretch receives about 38,000 cubic meters of effluents and wastewater from the industrial cluster around Mettupalayam town. Additionally, untreated sewage from Mettupalayam, Sathyamangalam, Gobichettipalayam and Bhavani are also discharged into the Bhavani. Pesticide-laden waters from the coffee and tea plantations of the Nilgiris contribute their bit to the Bhavani.

Further east, the Noyyal, with its notorious effluent-filled Orathupalayam dam, joins the Cauvery. This river, once a lifeline for farmers, is now biologically dead, killed by the exports of the dyeing and bleaching industries from western countries to the hosiery town of Tirupur on its banks. In 1980, there were just 26 bleaching and dyeing units in Tirupur. In 2001, there were 700.

Water withdrawals from the Noyyal sub-basin were 4.4 MLD in 1980; one study projected it to increase to more than 115 MLD in 2005. Growth, development and the pursuit of the good life depleted local water sources and polluted what remained. Now, Tirupur draws water from Bhavani's confluence with Cauvery, about 55 km away. A public-private partnership - the New Tirupur Area Development Corporation, Ltd. -was set up to supply 185 MLD (2 TMC) water of which 125 MLD was reserved for the textile industry. About 120 MLD of effluent is released in the basin.

All along the Cauvery's route, it picks up not just industrial effluents but also municipal solid waste and untreated or partially treated urban sewage.

The post-liberalisation construction boom has birthed a new mafia in Tamil Nadu: the sand mafia. Cubic metre for cubic metre, sand has proven to be even more valuable than water. From Kulithalai in Erode, where the Cauvery expands to a breadth of 1.5 km, the river bed is largely sand. The sand is a spongelike storehouse of freshwater that feeds riverside wells and keeps the farmers happy. About 60% of the state's sand requirement is met by sand mined from the Cauvery basin. Legal or illegal, the quantum of sand that is being removed has harmed the ability of the river to remain a river. And sand-mining operators are a ruthless lot with friends in the district administration, assembly and the police.
Root cause is demand
It is surprising that after all that hot-blooded South Indians have done to their river, there is still a river left to fight over.

The scale of abuse is evident. Yet, it has escaped the attention of the members of the tribunal and the Supreme Court. The complexity of river systems, the hydrological dynamics that determine their ebb and flow, and other anthropogenic confounders such as land-use change and climate change have had no influence on the tribunal order.

The 2007 award that was 16 years in the making is meaningless drivel. From its declaration that a "Normal year" will be a year in which the Cauvery yields 740 TMC to divvying up this yield with an arbitrary 10 TMC to spare for "environmental protection", the Tribunal's award exposes its hurry to deploy reductionist arithmetic hydrology rather than confront the confounding elephants in the room - ever-increasing demand, climate change and land-use change.

The inimitable Ramasamy Iyer says it best in his article already cited above:

Finally, interstate or inter-country river-water disputes often arise because the combined water demand of all the co-riparian states or countries exceeds the water that is there in the river in the lean season. The "development" that we have embarked on involves a heavy draft on natural resources as well as the infliction of heavy damage on those resources and on nature itself. In the context of water, this leads to inter-use, inter-sector, inter-area and interstate conflicts. There is ever a demand for more water and still more water; we are asking for water that does not exist. Unless we abandon this competitive, unsustainable demand for water, and learn to use prudently, effectively and harmoniously the water that is available, there will be no end to conflicts. The notions of "development" and "growth" that lead to that kind of demand need to be re-examined.

If tensions rise only in times of scarcity, it is the notion of scarcity and the scarcity itself that need to be addressed. Scarcity is a function of demand and supply. It can be reduced by increasing supply and reducing demand. In the case of the Cauvery, the same policies that increase demand (and trigger growth) - construction boom, infrastructure development, intensification of agriculture - also harm the river system and its ability to produce and carry water. For the Cauvery, and most of India's rivers, available supplies can be enhanced by preventing pollution and safeguarding the river's catchments, banks and riverbeds. Replacing water-intensive agriculture and industrial practices can free up more water than we currently need. Rather than find new uses for it, this water should be reserved for the river. The 10 TMC of water allocated for "environmental protection" by the tribunal is meaningless considering that just one city - Bengaluru - dumps 20 TMC sewage into the Cauvery.

Today's planners try to spare water for ecological flows, not realising that ecological flows are what keep the river a river.

Nityanand Jayaraman is a Chennai-based writer and social activist.

Categories: Environment

Tagged as: Cauvery River, Chemplast, climate change, coffee plantations, ecological flows, Harangi, Hemavathi, hydrology, Kabini, Karnataka, Kodagu, Krishnarajasagar dam, Lakshmanathirtha, MALCO, Mettur dam, Moyar, Nityanand Jayaraman, Noyyal, Orathar, Orathupalayam dam, sand mafia, Sand Mining, silver oak, Stanley Reservoir, Suvarnavathi, Tamil Nadu, untreated sewage, urban sewage, Western Ghats, Yagachi Vattehole

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Soon, We May Not Have a Cauvery River to Fight Over

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Two days ago, a journalist asked me if the next World War will be over water. That question was triggered by the recent violence in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu supposedly over Cauvery's waters. There is no doubt that water conflicts are set to increase and intensify.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu view the river as a mechanistic producer of water, not as a dynamic life-giving system that is responsive to local and global triggers of use and abuse.

Two days ago, a journalist asked me if the next World War will be over water. That question was triggered by the recent violence in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu supposedly over Cauvery's waters. There is no doubt that water conflicts are set to increase and intensify. But it would be wrong to suggest that the hooligans that engaged in loot and arson on either side of the border were actually soldiers in any World War. I think they had no agenda beyond their love of violence and the sound of breaking glass.

That is not to say that there is no conflict over Cauvery's waters. The conflict is real, and has been since the princely Mysore state began seeking a role in determining how Cauvery's waters were to be shared. If anything, the conflict is only likely to worsen. This instance of violence may have brought out only the hooligans in our midst; the conflicts to come are likely to bring out the hooligan in each one of us.

The possibilities of a de-escalation of conflicts over Cauvery's water are remote given that two principal stakeholders - the River Cauvery and future generations - are not represented in all the negotiations in the tribunal and the Supreme Court. What is being referred to as a water-sharing formula is little more than a loot-sharing formula for divvying up the booty.
Some history
There is more than a century's history to the problem. From medieval times up until the mid-19th century, Tamil Nadu had undisputed access to Cauvery's waters. Early engineers from the Chola era onwards had carved out irrigation tanks, and diverted Cauvery waters through anicuts and canals to irrigate farmlands. Irrigated agriculture in the Cauvery delta was already well-developed centuries before the East India Company swung by Madras.

The upper riparian stretches of the Cauvery, notably the Mysore principality, were late starters in irrigated agriculture. When it did begin in the 19th century, attempts by the Mysore state to divert Cauvery water even with minor structures were viewed with suspicion and indignation by the lower riparian farmers in the then Madras Presidency. They feared a decrease in their own share of the river's waters. Citing historical use, delta farmers claimed prescriptive rights to the river's water.

The first two agreements, of 1892 and 1924, were aimed at ensuring that the upper riparian's right to develop its agriculture is not hindered by delta farmers, and that the latter's historical use is not infringed upon by the water users in Mysore.
Not about farmers
The bus-burning and stone-pelting in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu happens, they say, only during distress years when the two states vie to retain an adequate share of the meagre spoils from the river. Solidarity is quick to coalesce for the Tamils or Kannadigas depending on whose buses are being burnt that season.

Sadly, though, no one weeps for the Cauvery itself. Regardless of whether it is a distress year or a normal year for the people of the two states, every year is a distress year for the river. From Mercara to the Bay of Bengal, Cauvery's journey is fraught with danger and abuse. If stewardship were a pre-condition to enjoying the waters of the river, neither Tamil Nadu nor Karnataka would qualify for even a drop of the river's water. But stewardship is not on anyone's agenda.

It is surprising that after all that hot-blooded South Indians have done to their river, there is still a river left to fight over.

A casual reading of the Cauvery tribunal's 2007 award reveals how the river is viewed as a mechanistic producer of water, not as a dynamic life-giving system that is responsive to local and global triggers of use and abuse.

Demand for water within the basin has grown multi-fold. Simultaneously, degradation of catchments and sand mining have compromised the river's ability to sustainably produce water. The proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs is sick and calling for help. Everyone seems intent on squeezing out the last egg. What about trying to keep the goose alive?
What ails the goose
The Cauvery originates in the Brahmagiri ranges of the Western Ghats in Kodagu. High-range tributaries like Harangi, Suvarnavathi, Hemavathi, Lakshmanathirtha and Kabini join the Cauvery where the ghats flatten out to become the Mysore plateau. In the plateau, or maidan, the rivers Shimsha and Arkavathi join waters with the east flowing Cauvery. Arkavathi is fed by Vrishabhavathi, which drains half of Bengaluru.

In Tamil Nadu, Moyar, which joins Bhavani, Amaravathi and Orathar, which in turn adds to Noyyal, empty into the Cauvery. Kulithalai in Erode is about where the delta begins and the Akhanda Cauvery (or broad Cauvery) starts its slow plod to the sea through seven distributaries with beds of sand - Nandalar, Nattar, Vanjiyar, Noolar, Arasalar, Thirumalairajanar and Puravadaiyanar. (See here for an excellent account on the Cauvery network of rivers.)

The 19th and 20th centuries witnessed massive interventions in the river's hydrology. All major tributaries - Hemavathi, Kabini, Arkavathi, Amravathy, Bhavani - were dammed. New and large reservoirs like Krishnarajasagar, Bhavanisagar and Stanley Reservoir were created. Minor reservoirs over Orathar-Noyyal and Amaravathi came up. New areas were opened up for water-intensive cash crops in Mandya, Hassan, Erode, Salem and Coimbatore aided by canal- and borewell-based irrigation. And the reservoirs attracted water-intensive industries like flies to honey.

Physiographically, the river flows in three parts: the Western Ghats, the Mysore Plateau and the Delta.
The Ghats
The erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore had two natural landscapes - the malnad, or hill country, and the maidan, or the plateau. It is in the hills that South Indian coffee production took root in the 19th century. From being a peasant crop that was grown in every backyard, coffee became a hot commodity and a mixed plantation crop with the worldwide export of the beans grown in the shaded, stream fed forests of Kodagu gathering steam. Today, Kodagu coffee is grown by 42,000 families over 104,000 hectares. Early planters did alter the landscape but preferred the hardy, shade-giving native evergreens such as rosewood, wild fig and jackfruit. Unlike the tea estates that devastated the countryside, Kodagu coffee planters retained enough of the original habitat to nourish biodiversity and maintain the hydrology.

But that habitat has begun to change particularly rapidly in the latter half of the 20th century and then the 21st century. Responding to global market triggers, the area under coffee has expanded at the cost of forests within private landholdings, and agro-forestry lands under cardamom. An assessment by the Coffee Agro-forestry Network in Kodagu of forest-cover change between 1977 and 1997 indicated that it had declined by 28%, from 2,566 km ² to 1,841 km ². Medium elevation evergreen forest, which decreased by 35%, was the most depleted forest type according to the study.

Climate change too was triggering land-use change. Rainfall over the coffee-growing tracts of Kodagu has been erratic over the last three decades, reports environmental journalist Gopikrishna Warrier. CAFNet's study of 60 years of rainfall data from 116 coffee farms revealed that the rainy season had shrunk by 14 days over the last 35 years. Shade-grown coffee requires predictable blossom showers in the early months of the year. With rains becoming increasingly erratic, farmers are finding shade management tiresome; they are switching to irrigation, intensive open cultivation and substituting the native evergreen shade trees for the more exotic, fast-growing and remunerative Silver Oak.

CAFNet concludes that these changes "may affect ecosystem services like water supply, carbon storage and biodiversity."

High range forests are also being cut down for infrastructure development; this also will have a bearing on Cauvery's headwaters. In July 2014, the National Green Tribunal dismissed a petition by the Coorg Wildlife Society challenging a 55-km high-tension electricity transmission corridor that cut a swathe through the womb of the Cauvery in the Brahmagiri ranges. At least 20,000 evergreens were to be sacrificed just in the Brahmagiri and Pushpagiri ranges. The case was dismissed not on merits but on a technical ground that the petitioners did not show sufficient reason for condonation of delay in filing the petition within the period of statutory limitation.
The Mysore plateau and the Maidans
In 1934, construction of the Krishnarajasagar dam was completed; subsequently, reservoirs came up over Hemavathi, Yagachi, Harangi and Vattehole rivers. This led to the development of intensive irrigated agriculture in the Mandya and Hassan districts of Karnataka. The Cauvery basin reservoirs irrigate more than 100,000 hectares in Mandya and 47,000 hectares in Hassan district. With paddy, banana and sugarcane as key cash crops, the agriculture across the Cauvery basin is not just water-intensive but also fertiliser and pesticide intensive.

The assured supply of reservoir water irrespective of seasons also attracted water-intensive industries. The Nanjangud Industrial Area located on the banks of the Kabini houses 83 large, medium and small industries in a 532 acre plot 25 km from Mysore. Predictably, the Kabini leaves Nanjangud loaded with contaminants from the industrial area and domestic sewage.

The Mysore side of the river too has seen a spurt of water-intensive industries. A study by the Karnataka Engineering Research Station at Krishnarajasagara found that polluted wastewater from three industries -a paper mill, a distillery and a fertiliser manufacturer - had rendered stretches of Cauvery near the once-famed Ranganathittoo Bird Sanctuary "unsuitable for drinking, bathing and fish culture."

The once sacred Vrishabhavathi River that runs through south Bengaluru is now a carrier of sewage and industrial effluents from the Peenya Industrial Estate. The city has one of the highest rates of water wastage in the country. According to a 2013 study by the Bengaluru-based Institute of Social and Economic Change, the city wastes 48% of the 1,400 MLD water pumped to the city.

Bengaluru's rise from a sleepy little garrison town to an IT hub has destroyed everything that made the city a paradise. The city's water needs were once met by the large network of lakes, whose spillover would feed the Vrishabhavathi. From 261 in 1961, the number of lakes in this garden city has fallen to just 85 in 2016. Now, the city sends sewage to the Cauvery through the Vrishabhavathi, and pumps up water from the Cauvery 500 feet below.

A study by the Ashoka Trust for Environment and Ecology found high levels of toxic heavy metals, including nickel, copper, chromium and lead in soil and groundwater, and milk and vegetables from the nearby farms. The Vrishabhavathi Sewage Treatment plant that was designed to handle 180 MLD of raw sewage only receives 130 MLD. Of this, only 26 MLD arrives through underground sewers. The remainder is sewage and industrial effluents that flows in the river's course.

Paraphrasing the 1960s singer Tom Lehrer, what they flush out at breakfast in Bengaluru, we drink for dinner in Tamil Nadu. The Karnataka minor irrigation minister is reported to have revealed in the Assembly that more than 1,400 million litres of sewage is discharged daily into Tamil Nadu. That is nearly 20 TMC from one city in one year - three times the allocation for Pondicherry, and twice the allocation for 'environmental protection'.
Some plateau and the delta
Karnataka had only 316 km of the 800 km river to abuse. They have not done too badly, considering that most of it is in inaccessible, difficult-to-pollute hilly terrain. Tamil Nadu is blessed with 416 km of Cauvery, all in gently sloping ground and plains.

The Stanley reservoir, or Mettur dam, is the barometer of tension between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Within two years of the reservoir's construction, the first industry had come up based on water availability. Mettur Chemical and Industrial Corporation was set up in 1936. Within 15 years, it was already identified as a major polluter of the Cauvery and as the cause of mass fish mortality. Discharge of effluents into Cauvery from this company continued for several years after 2007, when the company's successor Chemplast Sanmar announced zero liquid discharge plans.

On one bank of the Stanley reservoir is a mountain of red mud - a toxic residue from years of alumina production by the Madras Aluminium Company, Ltd. Every passing rain washes a little of the poison into the reservoir.

As if that were not enough, tens of small- and medium-scale chemical industries in the SIDCO industrial estate continue to discharge their effluents through natural drains and engineered canals into the Cauvery. Beneath the reservoir, on the banks of the original river course, sits a 1,240-MW water-guzzling coal-fired thermal power plant operated by TANGEDCO. The Mettur Thermal Power Station has permission to draw 184 MLD (2 TMC annually) of river water. Coal ash from the plant is dumped up on a hill, from where it finds its way back to the river.

Roughly 45 km from here is where the Bhavani joins the Cauvery in Erode district. By the time it reaches the Cauvery, the Bhavani carries the effluents from dyeing industries, leather tanneries and pulp and paper mills - all heavy water-users and heavier polluters. The industrial town of Salem discharges about 35 MLD of untreated sewage into the Cauvery through the Thirumanimuthar. This sub-tributary was converted from a river to a concrete lined drain with money borrowed from the World Bank.

The Lower Bhavani river stretch receives about 38,000 cubic meters of effluents and wastewater from the industrial cluster around Mettupalayam town. Additionally, untreated sewage from Mettupalayam, Sathyamangalam, Gobichettipalayam and Bhavani are also discharged into the Bhavani. Pesticide-laden waters from the coffee and tea plantations of the Nilgiris contribute their bit to the Bhavani.

Further east, the Noyyal, with its notorious effluent-filled Orathupalayam dam, joins the Cauvery. This river, once a lifeline for farmers, is now biologically dead, killed by the exports of the dyeing and bleaching industries from western countries to the hosiery town of Tirupur on its banks. In 1980, there were just 26 bleaching and dyeing units in Tirupur. In 2001, there were 700.

Water withdrawals from the Noyyal sub-basin were 4.4 MLD in 1980; one study projected it to increase to more than 115 MLD in 2005. Growth, development and the pursuit of the good life depleted local water sources and polluted what remained. Now, Tirupur draws water from Bhavani's confluence with Cauvery, about 55 km away. A public-private partnership - the New Tirupur Area Development Corporation, Ltd. -was set up to supply 185 MLD (2 TMC) water of which 125 MLD was reserved for the textile industry. About 120 MLD of effluent is released in the basin.

All along the Cauvery's route, it picks up not just industrial effluents but also municipal solid waste and untreated or partially treated urban sewage.

The post-liberalisation construction boom has birthed a new mafia in Tamil Nadu: the sand mafia. Cubic metre for cubic metre, sand has proven to be even more valuable than water. From Kulithalai in Erode, where the Cauvery expands to a breadth of 1.5 km, the river bed is largely sand. The sand is a spongelike storehouse of freshwater that feeds riverside wells and keeps the farmers happy. About 60% of the state's sand requirement is met by sand mined from the Cauvery basin. Legal or illegal, the quantum of sand that is being removed has harmed the ability of the river to remain a river. And sand-mining operators are a ruthless lot with friends in the district administration, assembly and the police.
Root cause is demand
It is surprising that after all that hot-blooded South Indians have done to their river, there is still a river left to fight over.

The scale of abuse is evident. Yet, it has escaped the attention of the members of the tribunal and the Supreme Court. The complexity of river systems, the hydrological dynamics that determine their ebb and flow, and other anthropogenic confounders such as land-use change and climate change have had no influence on the tribunal order.

The 2007 award that was 16 years in the making is meaningless drivel. From its declaration that a "Normal year" will be a year in which the Cauvery yields 740 TMC to divvying up this yield with an arbitrary 10 TMC to spare for "environmental protection", the Tribunal's award exposes its hurry to deploy reductionist arithmetic hydrology rather than confront the confounding elephants in the room - ever-increasing demand, climate change and land-use change.

The inimitable Ramasamy Iyer says it best in his article already cited above:

Finally, interstate or inter-country river-water disputes often arise because the combined water demand of all the co-riparian states or countries exceeds the water that is there in the river in the lean season. The "development" that we have embarked on involves a heavy draft on natural resources as well as the infliction of heavy damage on those resources and on nature itself. In the context of water, this leads to inter-use, inter-sector, inter-area and interstate conflicts. There is ever a demand for more water and still more water; we are asking for water that does not exist. Unless we abandon this competitive, unsustainable demand for water, and learn to use prudently, effectively and harmoniously the water that is available, there will be no end to conflicts. The notions of "development" and "growth" that lead to that kind of demand need to be re-examined.

If tensions rise only in times of scarcity, it is the notion of scarcity and the scarcity itself that need to be addressed. Scarcity is a function of demand and supply. It can be reduced by increasing supply and reducing demand. In the case of the Cauvery, the same policies that increase demand (and trigger growth) - construction boom, infrastructure development, intensification of agriculture - also harm the river system and its ability to produce and carry water. For the Cauvery, and most of India's rivers, available supplies can be enhanced by preventing pollution and safeguarding the river's catchments, banks and riverbeds. Replacing water-intensive agriculture and industrial practices can free up more water than we currently need. Rather than find new uses for it, this water should be reserved for the river. The 10 TMC of water allocated for "environmental protection" by the tribunal is meaningless considering that just one city - Bengaluru - dumps 20 TMC sewage into the Cauvery.

Today's planners try to spare water for ecological flows, not realising that ecological flows are what keep the river a river.

Nityanand Jayaraman is a Chennai-based writer and social activist.

Categories: Environment

Tagged as: Cauvery River, Chemplast, climate change, coffee plantations, ecological flows, Harangi, Hemavathi, hydrology, Kabini, Karnataka, Kodagu, Krishnarajasagar dam, Lakshmanathirtha, MALCO, Mettur dam, Moyar, Nityanand Jayaraman, Noyyal, Orathar, Orathupalayam dam, sand mafia, Sand Mining, silver oak, Stanley Reservoir, Suvarnavathi, Tamil Nadu, untreated sewage, urban sewage, Western Ghats, Yagachi Vattehole

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Soon, We May Not Have a Cauvery River to Fight Over

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Two days ago, a journalist asked me if the next World War will be over water. That question was triggered by the recent violence in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu supposedly over Cauvery's waters. There is no doubt that water conflicts are set to increase and intensify.

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The city of Bangalore (or Bengaluru), in the Indian state of Karnataka, is known as the Silicon Valley of India. Some of India's brightest tech minds go to unwind near the city's Ulsoor lake via picnics and boating. But this past Monday, there was an alarming scene that was anything but relaxing: thousands of dead fish floating on the shores of the Ulsoor lake in a massive die-off. According to locals, there isn't anything fishy about the scene-they know the problems and they're demanding that local authorities fix them now.
Bangalore's Toxic Lakes
The Ulsoor Lake Welfare society president weighed in on the environmental tragedy and explained the disaster as: "The entire sewage has got into the lake and oxygen levels have depleted, as a result of which fish have died," reports The Indian Express. But there's more to the story.

According to locals, the dam that kept toxic sewage water from flowing into the lake has been broken for two whole years. Like one resident tells The Indian Express, "We are not surprised...we have been warning authorities from the last two years..sewage water is getting mixed with the lake water due to a breach in a bund." You'd think that India's greatest IT minds could fix a broken dam, but it hasn't happened in two years.

TV Ramachandra, professor at Bengaluru's Indian Institute of Science, explains to Mashable how the thousands of fish died: "This occurred because of a high amount of organic content in the lake due to untreated sewage. With temperatures rising in the city, there is more biological activity and a reduction of oxygen levels in the water, which caused the deaths."

The professor is quick to add that stagnant lake water is also a factor, as Professor Ramachandra tells Mashable, "Bengaluru's lakes were originally inter-connected. Since all the channels have now been blocked, Ulsoor is a stagnant water body." You see, at one point, Bangalore was rich in lakes and water bodies that were all connected-at its peak, there were 280-285 lakes. Today, because of rampant encroachment, there are more like 17-20 lakes.

Many of these lakes are just as-if not more-toxic than Ulsoor lake. For instance, last year, Bangalore lake made headlines when its toxic foam, which looks like a snowy froth but is filled with chemicals and sewage that stink and irritate the skin- caught on fire...twice. As you'd imagine, this isn't the first massive die-off in the city.

And it won't be the last unless local authorities do something. Sadly, the only plans that the local government announced last year was to build a floating restaurant on Ulsoor lake (priorities, you know), which will probably "further damage the lake's ecological balance," says Mashable.
Take Action!
No matter how nice a floating restaurant is, thousands of dead fish will make any meal unappetizing. Local officials need to get their priorities straight (e.g. fixing a broken dam). Sign and share this petition urging the government of Karnataka to clean up the city's toxic lakes for people and the planet.
Photo Credit: Hobvias Sudoneighm

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Pollution Linked To Fish Die-Off In Bangalore's Ulsoor Lake | Care2 Causes

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The city of Bangalore (or Bengaluru), in the Indian state of Karnataka, is known as the Silicon Valley of India. Some of India's brightest tech minds go to unwind near the city's Ulsoor lake via picnics and boating.

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International Business Times, India Edition

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Even as monsoon has just arrived in South India, the fear of dengue is already looming large with 380 cases reported in May in Karnataka, the State Health Department reportedly said.

Hospitals in Bangalore have stepped up surveillance systems as they are witnessing an increase in the patient admissions due to dengue.

"We are seeing a rise in cases of dengue, with at least a couple of cases in the OPD daily. There are several cases of suspected dengue and viral fever cases are also on the rise. Many patients are referred to BMCRI from other hospitals across Karnataka and other States as well. As the monsoon has been late, it will take another two weeks for the gravity of the situation to be understood," KR Ravindra, associate professor at Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI), told the Hindu.
What is Dengue?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral infection which causes flu-like illness, and rarely develops into a potentially lethal complication.

Dengue virus is transmitted by female mosquitoes mainly of the species Aedes aegypti . This mosquito also transmits chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika infection. Dengue is widespread throughout the tropics,

The number of dengue cases has risen dramatically over past several decades. Nearly half of the world's population is now at risk.

Dengue is more prevalent in crowded urban and semi-urban areas with tropical and sub-tropical climates.

Although there is no specific treatment for dengue/ severe dengue, but early detection and proper treatment significantly lowers the fatality due to the disease.

A vaccine for dengue licensed by the regulatory authorities in several countries may help prevent dengue in people in the age group of 9-45 years living in high-risk areas.

How is Dengue transmitted?
The virus is transmitted to humans through the bites of infected female Aedes aegypti mosquito.

After a person is bitten by the mosquito, he or she can transmit the infection for a maximum period of 12 days. The humans become a source of virus for uninfected mosquitoes and thereby spread the disease.
Dengue Symptoms
Dengue usually persists in the form of flu-like symptoms a severe, flu-like illness that affects infants, young children and adults, but is rarely fatal.

A high fever (40Â°C/104Â°F) accompanied by severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pains, nausea, vomiting, swollen glands or rash are the most common symptoms of dengue. These symptoms last anywhere between 2 to 7 days.

The symptoms of severe dengue according to WHO could be plasma leaking, fluid accumulation, respiratory distress, severe bleeding, or organ impairment.

The dangerous signs could appear along with the common symptoms or even after that. A sudden decrease in body temperature (below 38Â°C/100Â°F), severe abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, rapid breathing, bleeding gums, fatigue, restlessness and blood in vomit are alarming signals. The patient needs to be admitted to the hospital in the next 24 to 48 hours to avoid further complications and risk of death.
Treatment, Prevention and Control
Although currently there is no specific treatment for dengue yet, but adequate care by physicians and nurses can help reduce the mortality from 20 percent to 1 percent. Here are WHO recommended guidelines for effective dengue control:

disposing of solid waste properly and removing artificial man-made habitats;

covering, emptying and cleaning of domestic water storage containers on a weekly basis;

applying appropriate insecticides to water storage outdoor containers;

using of personal household protection such as window screens, long-sleeved clothes, insecticide treated materials, coils and vaporizers;

improving community participation and mobilisation for sustained vector control;

applying insecticides as space spraying during outbreaks as one of the emergency vector-control measures;

active monitoring and surveillance of vectors should be carried out to determine effectiveness of control interventions.

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Dengue crisis in Karnataka: Here's how you can protect yourself from the disease

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Even as monsoon has just arrived in South India, the fear of dengue is already looming large with 380 cases reported in May in Karnataka, the State Health Department reportedly said. Hospitals in Bangalore have stepped up surveillance systems as they are witnessing an increase in the patient admissions due to dengue.

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Biodiversity in peril; birds to lose nests

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Biodiversity in peril; birds to lose nests

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BENGALURU: Ever since the government made its intentions on building the steel flyover from Chalukya Circle to Hebbal public, the one detail that has left the citizens of Bengaluru perturbed is the possible loss of a whopping 812 trees along this stretch. Apart from playing a vital role in checking temperature and air pollution, a multitude of birds, insects and animals call these leafy trees their home, and the proposed flyover could sound the death knell to the thriving biodiversity on Ballari Road. The 60,000 ornamental plants promised by the government as compensation for the trees that will be felled cannot undo the colossal damage, opine environmentalists.

Head of partnerships and projects with SayTrees, which has been creating mini-forests in the city, Durgesh Agrahari said, "If 800-odd trees are cut, the temperature is surely going to increase, but that is not all. What about the innumerable birds, squirrels and other insects? How are they going to compensate for that? They will replace the trees with landscape grass and bushes or ornamental plants, which will take a long time to grow."

The gigantic heritage trees that line Ballari Road play a vital role in checking air pollution. "The small shrubs that will be planted will only compensate for the dust particles. Let's just admit it. The steel flyover has more drawbacks than benefits," he added.

Birdwatchers in the city are horrified at the prospect of a steel flyover replacing trees such as sandalwood, tamarind, In ose nests dian oak, mulberry , neem, etc, many of which date back to more than a hundred years.

Birdwatcher and naturalist TS Srinivasa observed that birds were short of trees to nest and roost. "The loss will be in terms of roosting, nesting and food habits. On that road, the birds we find are chick barbet, bulbul, white eye among others. We also spot migratory birds on this stretch such as oriole and greenish warbler. If these trees are replaced with exotic ones, food will be hard to come by for them. In the long term, birds are going to find it hard to survive here," he said.

Abhisheka Krishnagopal, a naturalist who studies migratory bird patterns, said, "Have they considered the wildlife residing here? This is the migratory season, and birds such as rosy starling will be visiting these trees soon. Even tiny insects will lose their habitat. The loss of flowering trees means no honey bees.None of the saplings they plant will be able to compensate for the loss."

An avid bird watcher, Shubha Navakanta Bhat said, "Birds depend on the dew drops on the leaves in the winter. They don't venture into the lakes, since some of them would be too deep for the birds. We cannot afford to lose more trees."

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Biodiversity in peril; birds to lose nests - Times of India

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BENGALURU: Ever since the government made its intentions on building the steel flyover from Chalukya Circle to Hebbal public, the one detail that has left the citizens of Bengaluru perturbed is the possible loss of a whopping 812 trees along this stretch.

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Some 270m people there live below the poverty line, many of them without running water or proper shelter, and thus unable to protect themselves from the heat, says Gulrez Shah Azhar.

A vendor sells marigold flower garlands at a wholesale flower market in Kolkata. Heat-related suffering will be particularly acute in India, where about 270m people live below the World Bank's poverty line of €1.90 a day. Picture: AP Photo/Bikas Das

THE record-setting heat that blanketed the planet this summer was a sticky reminder that, as global temperatures increase, people on the margins of society - the sick, the elderly, and the poor - will suffer disproportionately. And, nowhere will this suffering be more acute than in India.

Poverty entraps more people in India than in any other country. With 270m Indians living below the World Bank's poverty line of €1.90 a day, escaping the elements has never been easy. Now, climate change and extreme weather are making it impossible.

In cities, the poor must contend with the effects of "heat islands", developed areas that trap the sun's warmth and make temperatures significantly hotter than in rural regions.

During heat waves, urban temperatures in India can be extreme even at night, making sleeping agonising for those without proper shelter or modern cooling methods.

But life is no easier for India's rural poor, who are more vulnerable to extreme heat, because they often lack water, electricity, and health care. Based on research that I conducted with colleagues at the RAND Corporation, Emory University, and health departments in India, impoverished communities in central India are at the highest risk, as are populations that are less-educated and have fewer amenities.

Our country-wide index shows a strong correlation between low-income status in rural areas and heat vulnerability.

Unfortunately, the perils for the region's poor are mounting. According to a recent report by the World Bank, 800m people in South Asia reside in areas where rising temperatures and erratic rainfall are threatening livelihoods and reducing living standards.

If these trends continue, the goal of ending extreme poverty - one of the top objectives of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development - will remain elusive.

Many rural Indians, withering under the heat, now see urban migration as their best option. But this, too, will fail to bring lasting relief. Although jobs may be more plentiful in cities, India's largest metropolitan areas are already bursting; adding millions of climate refugees to underdeveloped slums and shantytowns would be catastrophic.

To avert this new crisis, the Indian authorities must recognise that with heat risks rising, the country's poor - urban and rural alike - are in desperate need of climate-adaptation strategies.

To be sure, there are no easy solutions. When heatwaves hit developed countries, the authorities advise people to stay indoors, shower often, drink plenty of fluids, and keep cool with fans and air conditioning.

But such guidance is of little use for people whose homes lack running water or power. The World Bank estimates that one in five Indians is poor, while only 61% of poor households have reliable electricity and just 6% have tap water.

Moreover, most of India's working poor toil as farmers or in small-scale urban manufacturing; for them, escaping the heat means forgoing a paycheck.

But this is an impossible choice; while the science of heat-related health damage is in its infancy, studies have linked exposure to extreme temperatures with kidney disease, micronutrient deficiencies, and even cognitive damage.

Still, there are things that Indian authorities can do to protect the poor during heat-waves. For example, community showering centres have been proposed as a way to lower heat-related deaths.

While this option would be difficult to implement in areas with chronic water shortages, government-led distribution programmes have worked elsewhere.

Technological solutions are also worth exploring.

For example, medical researchers in Bangalore have created a battery-operated cooling jacket to protect people who work in the heat.

Of course, with a €23 price tag, the device is beyond the means of most of India's poor. But other solutions - including installation of solar panels to power cooling systems, and wider use of "green" roofs to help deflect heat - would be easier to scale up.

But the most consequential change would be to give India's poorest a greater voice. Too often, people working to end poverty are unfamiliar with the conditions in which the poor live. For climate-resiliency programmes to be effective, the target audience must become part of the solution.

Despite years of dire forecasts, the international community has been unable to halt the steady climb in global temperatures, and it is the world's poorest who are paying the heaviest toll. As heat-related risks intensify, those living on the margins - in India and elsewhere - will need more than pity to cope.
Gulrez Shah Azhar is an assistant policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and a doctoral candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2018.

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Effects of climate change at boiling point for India's poor

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Some 270m people there live below the poverty line, many of them without running water or proper shelter, and thus unable to protect themselves from the heat, says Gulrez Shah Azhar. THE record-setting heat that blanketed the planet this summer was a sticky reminder that, as global temperatures increase, people on the margins of society - the sick, the elderly, and the poor - will suffer disproportionately.

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The rocky plateau of Bengaluru was originally a combination of grassland and scrub and thorn forest, with small trees. We don't know have a historical record of the original climate. But was it likely to have been warm and dry, just like the other districts nearby, namely Kolar and Chikballapur, possibly receiving only about 300-400mm of rain, with the temperatures somewhere in the mid-thirties? We don't know, but that's just a wild guess.

Bengaluru's first man-made climate change

Though the city originally had a few tanks as water sources, around which settlements were built, those who ruled Bangalore, including Cholas and Hoysalas, created the tank culture and lake chains to help the growing population with water, thereby also cooling the city.

Did Bengaluru always have trees? The available images from 18th century show very few trees. It is said that the historical archives talk about a massive afforestation drive in mid-18th century because the city was heating up. Hence it can be safely said that there were two different climates were created in Bengaluru, by man.

In 1537, it is said that Kempe Gauda I started to work on his dream - a new fortified city. A regular dream - ambitious ruling class members always dream of expanding territory, erecting victory towers, building a walled city by a river or port. But Kempe Gauda's vision was difficult: to build a city from the scratch. To achieve his dream he had to first create all the resources the city would need.

Lakes as the foundation

A city cannot exist without water, and Bengaluru did not have a river. Kempe Gauda started on his vision by creating a supply of water, a perennial supply.

Kempe Gauda and successors continued to build on this vision. Hundreds of more tanks were built and an incredible network of kaluves (canals) was built to connect them all. Work on this design followed for generations of rulers; the Wodeyars in the last century continued to build kaluves and tanks and a couple of lakes were even added by influential citizens and farming communities. It was India's famous tank culture on steroids. The lakes of Bengaluru have always attracted attention, but it is the kaluves that make them work. Over 800 kilometers of these lake-connectors ensured that not a drop of rain left Bengaluru's three valleys until all tanks were filled.

A water culture was created. Everyone knows water is life, but to conserve and protect it became Bengaluru's religion. For centuries the lakes remained pure and one could drink from them because nobody would let any waste enter the lake system.

But the problem shifted from water storage to water itself - there was not enough rain to satiate a growing population.

The world's first air-conditioned city

How can we attract rain? Kempe Gauda and his successors knew that if Bengaluru grew a forest, it would rain.

And so a major investment into tree planting was made. It was an activity that continued for centuries. As the forest grew, its breath became bigger and started influencing the climate. The water released from the trees as transpiration and from the lakes as evaporation formed low-lying clouds and then came down as gentle showers.

The temperature dropped. Bengaluru became the coolest city in the south and later the coolest in the summer across India.

This attracted more rain from the monsoons that earlier would pass by without interest. Now the monsoon clouds, lightened after crossing the western ghats, dipped lower due to the cooler climate and shed some more of their weight - rainfall more than doubled.

The world's first fully air-conditioned city was born. This AC needed no energy and was almost zero maintenance.

The problem of water scarcity was solved. The Vrishabhāvati started flowing out of the city perenially. Other side-effect such as the creation of a rich layer of topsoil that remained moist and a high water table also created lasting benefits in food security and livelihoods.

Economics for cooling - Kempegaudanomics

Economics is a social creation. We will refer to the economic system used in South India five centuries ago as kempegaudanomics and today's system as smithanomics, just for the sake of this article.

In kempegaudanomics, there was no GDP number to grow, no single number to worship. Thus, kempegaudanomics did not reduce other sacred beliefs, it retained and strengthened the religious beliefs. Land, water - all of nature - had social and spiritual value and connections with them were not broken. Rather relationships with them were nurtured and even revered. A culture that involved sacred relationships with water (all rivers were named after goddesses) and actively demanded conservation could flourish. The commons and the common good had status in kempegaudanomics, and improving both, created value.

A most attractive city (with limits)

The salubrious climate of Bengaluru attracted many rulers and it was exchanged several times. 1n 1806, the British made it their military cantonment - a city-state inside the expanding boundaries. It attracted many Europeans, Anglo-Indians and missionaries.

The sacred water culture gave way to an engineered water culture. There were more tanks to store more water to satisfy rising demand. A demand fueled by a growing population and a new lifestyle of consumption.

Water was brought from new reservoirs farther and farther away as electricity and motors made their way into the planner's hands.

In as early as 1923, planners documented that: "[Bangalore] is unsuitable for development as an industrial center on a large scale."

When the British left, the city still continued to grow, especially in scientific research and aeronautics. While Bangalore's reputation as the Garden City remained intact, sustainability indicators started moving off the charts and some foresaw water issues.

Bangalore's second man-made climate change

While we do not have any solid historical proof for the first man-made climate change in Bengaluru, the second is fact. Experienced palpably by all the residents. In the 1960s Bengaluru started getting transformed. Ironically, it was the reverse transformation of Singapore. Singapore recognised its cesspool conditions and started cleaning up and creating lakes for water security. Bengaluru's lakes were destroyed and the remaining ones converted to sewage-fed cesspools.

The great transformation took off with the complete adoption of smithanomics in the 1990s. It was to transform this cool city back to a warm dry place and, even beyond, into a hothouse.

'Calakes' - the new lakes of Bangalore

To warm up a cool city takes a lot of heat. How do you generate massive amounts of heat?

Bengaluru had two big coolers - trees and lakes.

The groves of trees, hundreds of years old, with trunks as wide as cars were axed. In smithanomics, the value of a living tree is zero, but the activity of cutting down trees and the resources from their chopped-up state both add measurable increase to the economy. With such a system, it is easy to build momentum and about 85% of the vegetation was lost between 1992-2009 as per a study by Dr. T V Ramachandra and Dr. Bharath H Aithal from Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

Cutting trees, that slow down rainwater flow and created moisture both in the root zone and in the air above, is not enough, you have to replace them with heaters. Thousands of 'calakes' - oncrete and sphalt (which include roads, parking lots, malls, and office complexes) come into being at faster and faster rates.

Trees use solar energy to produce oxygen, moisture, and fruits while providing shade and soil and slowing down the rain. In contrast, the 'calakes' use solar energy to only produce heat, perfectly and efficiently. They heat up quickly, stay warm, and release the heat later, both into the ground and the air.

Flyovers take this heat generation to new levels of efficiency. A flyover basks in the sun, is dark in color, and thus can easily become hot enough to cook on.

Lakes of water keep the ground and air cool and moist. So we replace water bodies with ' calakes' too. While it is not possible to own lakes privately in India, by exasperating the normal dry cycles of Bangalore's lake system allowed them to look like unoccupied and unsold land. The conversion (destruction) of lakes created much financial activity for builders, bureaucrats, politicians, and banks. And consumers and investors flocked in to own homes (and offices). In addition, since a quality water supply became absent, tankers and household filters become prominent. Amazing progress when calculated in smithanomics terms.

Kempe Gauda remains Bangalore's hero; his name is kept alive even in creations that dismantle his vision. Bangalore's largest heater, close to Kempe Gauda's hometown, is named after him. Larger than all the remaining lakes of Bangalore combined, this 'calake' is well over 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) in size, much more if you consider the elevated highway to get to it. It is the Kempegowda International Airport.

Heating appliances galore

The second source of heating comes from all our appliances. Cars, trucks, diesel gensets (DGs), refrigerators, outdoor lights, and other big items of course generate the most heat. But millions of smaller appliances such as set-top boxes, microwaves... all the way down to chargers also end up contributing to local heating.

The laws of thermodynamics inform us that all appliances that use the transformation of energy will generate more heat than the actual work performed. So refrigerators generate around four times as much heat as they cool.

We love our cars, which are truly efficient heaters. Modern gasoline engines have a maximum theoretical efficiency of about 25% to 30%. In other words, even when the engine is operating at maximum efficiency (which requires beautiful design, quality construction, good lubrication, and steady operation at high speeds), about 70-75% is sent out as heat - energy not used for turning the crankshaft (note there is further energy loss in turning tires, which also need to be properly inflated, balanced, aligned, etc.). In Bangalore traffic, only a couple of percent of the fuel burnt in the engine goes towards transportation. Heating efficiency is more than 90%. More if the car has an AC.

The particulates in the emissions also impact climate. They coat the leaves of the remaining trees reducing their vital functions. Haze also retains heat compared to clean air.

Air-conditioners have to be highlighted for two reasons. They are the most efficient heating appliances made - well over 90% of energy goes towards heat. For every unit of personal cooling created, around 99 units of heat are sent outside. One way to state is that for very short-term cooling 1% of the population, 99% (actually 100% in the long-term) have to warm up. ACs are also the main reason why state power generation cannot keep up with demand and thus DGs are required: efficient heaters plus airborne particle generators.

Economics of heating - Smithanomics

The head of Harvard's Anthropology department, David Maybury-Lewis, eloquently stated: " The driven economy is accompanied by a restless and driven society. The educational system teaches children to be competitive and tries to instill in them the hunger for personal achievement. Drive is esteemed and required of business executives and even anthropologists if they want to be promoted. "

Smithanomics makes countries measure their economy by a single indicator of increasing financial activity. Personal wealth is made the goal for individuals with the means of acquiring the wealth as unimportant. This breaks all links to religious beliefs and the sacred. Unbridled drive (greed) is unleashed as the necessary driving force of society.

In smithanomics, personal consumption (strongly linked to the term 'personal freedom') drives the economy, so creating more devices for individual is highly valued. In addition to being touted as a solution to commuting problems, private cars have high status. If the side-effects, in heat or pollution, are bad, it actually increases the economy, for example, as more people install personal ACs and start using air filters.

Since the focus is to sell more appliances and, as a result, even more energy will be consumed, our make-in-India heating effect will only increase. New technology like led lights, solar panels, and lithium batteries promise more efficiency but in a smithanomics system of perpetual growth, they can only marginally slow down further heating - they cannot reverse the trend.

A public AC, especially a free one such as old Bengaluru's, would not generate enough economic activity and would be labelled backward, as many of our historically sound personal and social practices.

Man is seen as a one-dimensional being - homo economicus - and as Maybury-Lewis continued: "Other human capabilities - for kindness, generosity, patience, tolerance, cooperation, compassion - all the qualities one might wish for in one's family and friends, are literally undervalued."

The Oven City

Bangalore not only becomes hot, it also becomes dry.

With the removal of cooling lakes and trees and replacing them with highly efficient large heaters - the 'calakes' - and the addition of billions of smaller heaters, a towering pillar of heat emanates from the new city. This ferocious pillar pushes monsoon clouds higher and to the side. So rainfall events start getting reduced.

The monsoon is still mighty. Once in a while it will overpower the pillar of heat and heavy clouds will descend. And it will rain heavily. Intensely. Precipitation that took hours can happen in minutes.

Instead of regular gentle showers we will see a few of these heavy downpours resulting in floods and very little capture into the little left of Kempe Gauda's system.

Now Bangalore is hot and dry and extremely dusty. We have transformed the Garden City into the Oven City. Rapidly. The first climate transformation for Bengaluru started took at least three centuries; the second transformation for Bangalore took only a few decades.

Entirely man-made. Local make-in-Bangalore, no credit given to global warming.

We don't have a visionary for this new Bangalore to give credit to. To work on the common good is being socialist. To work on improving the commons is for NGOs. So current leaders will hesitate in taking credit in these areas. Of course, while it is said that destroying the commons is the price of progress, no leader wants that deed on their record.

What's next for Bangalore?

Current leaders want it to become a 'smart city'. That might mean having lots more sensors to track temperature and then visualise the heat on smartphones (a smart oven!). Great for the smithanomics fans; for the majority of humans, it's like boiling in a cooker.

In cooking, the flame is hot instantly, but a pot of water takes a while to boil. Similarly, while we turned on heaters in Bangalore a couple of decades ago, climate change took a bit of time. That lag is over. Bangalore's climate in 2016 has reached the boiling point. Breaking all its records and showing higher temperatures in April than Chennai, Goa, and Mumbai.

The residents complain helplessly as they see the future snatched out of the present. It is not nostalgia that makes people lament the transformation of the places they call home. It is the conversion of life-affirming visionary cities to something with skin-deep beauty that does not support life. The replacement of a cool home surrounded by lakes with fish and trees with birds and inhabited by a connected community that reveres the space with a hot concrete structure in a cesspool filled with plastic waste and sewage, engulfed by sooty air inhabited by burnt-out, worried, isolated people is bound to make everyone unhappy and angry.

The same fate awaits every Indian city. Even if it has a river going through it.

The folks building the new capital of Andhra Pradesh are visionaries, but of which kind is the question. Riding on the momentum of smithanomics and led by foreign consultants, they are unlikely to see Kempe Gauda as their role model. The result there is likely to be the same as the new Bangalore.

Heat pollution ranks far behind all the other pollutions in people's eyes, until now. In 2016, it has made a noticeable impact, whether it is enough to act on is the question.

There is a movement in Bangalore to stop further destruction of the few remaining lakes and last few meters of kaluves. But there is no movement to reduce the total heat generated. To actually increase cooling. In kempegaudanomics, we would follow Will Rogers' advice: "If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging." In smithanomics, that would be against the system and labelled anti-progress. Instead we dig faster. Maybe we can reach 45℃ in 2017. Why not try to win the gold in the climate change olympics with 50℃?

Of course, we could always choose to move to a new economic system, kempegaudanomics or another modern avatar, where people and nature matter, under which we could create a city with a pleasant and cool climate for the benefit of all.

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Bengaluru's climate change history and lessons to learn |

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The rocky plateau of Bengaluru was originally a combination of grassland and scrub and thorn forest, with small trees. We don't know have a historical record of the original climate. But was it likely to have been warm and dry, just like the other districts nearby, namely Kolar and Chikballapur, possibly receiving only about 300-400mm of rain, with the temperatures somewhere in the mid-thirties?

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The travails of city dwellers in India due to flooding and waterlogging will only increase unless town planners account for climate change effects while designing storm water drains
In a typically Indian paradox, large parts of the country remain water-stressed for a greater part of the year, but reel under devastating floods or severe waterlogging after heavy monsoon downpours. Adding to the concerns are new research findings that short-duration rainfall - for about three hours or so - will intensify and worsen, with implications for urban storm water design.

A study from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, which analysed short-duration rainfall over three hours, has been published in the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL) journal.

The grim tidings come at a time when several regions in India are reeling under heavy rainfall and floods. This monsoon season - and it is only halfway through - floods and heavy rainfall have claimed 537 lives already. In the southern state of Kerala, for instance, excessive rainfall has led to widespread floods that have already claimed 22 lives in rain-related incidents.

In July, Bhubaneswar in eastern India was knee-deep in water. This week, Delhi citizens are bracing themselves for a Yamuna overflow. Mumbai faces flash floods routinely. In 2017, it was Bangalore, and before that Chennai in 2015 and Srinagar in 2014.
Short but intense
The IIT scientists say that urban areas in India face frequent flooding due to increase in short‐duration rainfall extremes. But researchers do not yet know how these events, which are relevant to urban storm water designs to prevent flooding, change under conditions of 1.5-degree Celsius rise and 2.0-degree rise in temperature, widely predicted due to global warming.

The scientists, who studied data from widely used climate models (Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project or CMIP5) and observations from satellites over the period 1979-2005, report that three‐hourly rainfall peaks are projected to increase by 20% and 25% if the global mean temperature rises above 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees, respectively, from the pre-industrial level. "Our findings provide new insights for urban storm water designs in India," the report says.

This increase in short-duration rainfall extremes poses challenges for storm water design in rapidly urbanising India, they add. "Sub-daily precipitation extremes are more relevant to urban areas than daily precipitation extremes," Vimal Mishra, associate professor at IIT Gandhinagar and lead author of the GRL paper, told indiaclimatedialogue.net. "These short-duration and intense precipitation events cause urban flooding within a very short time."

"Moreover, sub-daily precipitation extremes are more sensitive to warming compared with daily precipitation extremes. Therefore, it is more important to consider sub-daily storm water infrastructure design, especially in the urban areas of India," Mishra said.

Urban flooding may be result of two factors, he added - permeable soil surfaces being replaced by impermeable concrete floors due to rapid urbanisation, and the strong linkage between increase in urban rainfall extremes and temperature as shown in his team's latest study.

"The urban heat island effect (UHI) can also modify the rainfall within urban areas. Therefore, urban flooding events in recent years are mainly due to the failure of current urban storm water infrastructures, which are not sufficient to handle the excess runoff over the concrete floors."
No-change design, inaccurate models
Urban storm water drains and other infrastructure designs are based on calculations of the intensity, duration and frequency of rainfall in an area and plotting intensity-duration-frequency graphs, which scientists describe as IDF curves.

The curves assume that the rainfall occurrence patterns and distributions are spatially similar within a particular drainage area and remain unchanged or stationary throughout the lifespan of the drains. But with climate change projected to alter the rainfall patterns, such assumptions are no longer valid and could lead to inaccuracies.

"In the present scenario, we cannot assume stationary (unchanged) conditions," Mishra's colleague Haider Ali told indiaclimatedialogue.net. "If we still consider stationary design, our urban storm water infrastructure will not be efficient to handle excess runoff, leading to flooding."

"Our study highlights the importance of redesigning the existing urban drainage system considering non-stationary atmospheric conditions," added Mishra.
Higher resolution needed
India also needs to improve the resolution of its rainfall and temperature data for use in design. Scientists generally use the widely used climate models called the General Circulation Models (GCMs) to analyse projected rainfall under various global warming scenarios. But the models are of "very coarse spatial resolution and they use simplified physics," said Mishra.

For example, he says, they miss out on several important physical processes such as air convection, one of the major causes of rainfall in the tropics where warm moist air, a result of ground heating, rises, cools and becomes saturated, forming clouds.

Another factor to consider in rainfall analysis is the so-called return period - the likelihood that the event will recur. Bhupendra Nath Goswami, currently with the department of physics at Cotton University at Guwahati in Assam, and former director of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, says that while "the need for estimating the return period of short duration precipitation extremes is certainly important, estimating it from the CMIP5 model projections (used in the study) may not be reliable," which even the authors note.

The models severely underestimate the intensity and frequency of these precipitation extremes, he says. With the model's best horizontal resolution being about 100 square km, it cannot resolve the small-scale precipitation extremes. "As a result, they all overestimate the light rain rates and underestimate the heavy rain rates," he told indiaclimatedialogue.net.

The GRL paper follows Mishra and colleagues' paper in Weather and Climate Extremes journal in June 2018, which looked at extreme rainfall events. The scientists used a combination of grid observations and simulations from two key climate models - CMIP5 and Climate of 20th century plus (C20Cþ) detection and attribution (D&A) project.
Increase in extreme rainfall events
They found that the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events have increased in India during the last few decades. From 1979 to 2015, so did the dew point temperature - temperature at which water droplets begin to form. A higher dew point means more moisture in the air, which leads to more humidity and discomfort at one level, and increases the possibility of cloud formation and rains at another.

The study also shows that the frequency of rainfall extremes is projected to rise more prominently in southern and central India in the middle and end of the 21st century, and that warming due to human activities contributes significantly to the rise of the frequency of extreme precipitation (rainfall and snowfall).

The paper says this has implications for infrastructure, agriculture, and water resources in India.

"At present, urban storm water designs are focused on flood engineering, on control and civil structures. There is need for flood management, flood to be also seen as a resource," Suresh Rohilla, programme director, water programme centre at Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based think tank, told indiaclimatedialogue.net.

The current and future urban development needs to provide for maximum possible flood management and moderation; as well as a run-off plan for flood engineering and control. "Flood water runoff needs to be also seen a major resource for a water stressed country like India, and there is a need is to store and moderate the rainwater runoff before letting it go to river, lake or ocean," he said.
Urban floods
The increasing urban floods in India can be attributed to several factors, including increase peak runoff with increasing intensity of peak rainfall; rampant and uncontrolled increase in built up areas; and encroachments or systematically filing up of existing lakes, ponds, wetlands and floodplains for urban development such as housing and infrastructure, said Rohilla. See: Disappearing ponds destroying Bihar

India needs more water-sensitive urban design and planning; an integrated urban water management that takes into account water, sanitation, storm water, and integrated land and water management in its towns and cities. "All drains are sewage drains and used for dumping solid waste, mainly construction and demolition waste," he pointed out.

India also suffers from lack of modern flood forecasting, shortage of monitoring stations and lack of capacity and skills in institutions and officials responsible for addressing flooding problems, Rohilla said.

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Cities flooded as climate change leads to short bursts of intense rain

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The travails of city dwellers in India due to flooding and waterlogging will only increase unless town planners account for climate change effects while designing storm water drains In a typically Indian paradox, large parts of the country remain water-stressed for a greater part of the year, but reel under devastating floods or severe waterlogging after heavy monsoon downpours.

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Delhiwallas may have learnt to live with 43 degree heat, but Europe is wilting in the heat as a record heatwave continues to sweep across the northern hemisphere, causing forest fires, droughts and people to suffocate. Climate change is impacting what farmers can grow and what fishing boats can catch. As the planet gets warmer, some colder, northern regions in the world are benefiting from these changes, but the tropical and equatorial regions will be the worst hit

Image by : Mats Andersson/TT News Agency via Reuters

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Into the fire: The alarming effects of climate change | Forbes India

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Delhiwallas may have learnt to live with 43 degree heat, but Europe is wilting in the heat as a record heatwave continues to sweep across the northern hemisphere, causing forest fires, droughts and people to suffocate. Climate change is impacting what farmers can grow and what fishing boats can catch.

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New study points to their decline; only 3,000 Nilgiri Thars left in India

A new study published has said most of the existing habitats of the Nilgiri Tahr in the Western Ghats will not be suitable due to global warming effects. There are only 3,000 Nilgiri Thars left in the country.

The study, which published in Ecological Engineering, looked into climate scenarios over a course of three time-frames (2030s (2021-2050), 2050s (2040-2069) and 2080s (2070-2099)). The study looked at 10 Tahr habitats during 2010-2011.

The Nilgiri Tahr is an endangered, hoofed mammal endemic to the Western Ghats. The Nilgiri Tahr is the only mountain ungulate in the country among 12 other similar species. Historically, the Nilgiri Tahr has been found everywhere in the Western Ghats, but currently only 3,000 exist and their habitat is restricted to one tenth of their original range. Currently, they are found only in southern Western Ghats in an altitude range of 1100 mt to 2600 mt.

The study comes at a significant time as there has been a continuous decline in Tahr population, owing to hunting, conflict with livestock, grazing and habitat loss over the years and no study till date has looked into the likely effect of climate change on Nilgiri Tahrs.
The study, authored by R K Sony and Sandeep Sen of Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment and co-authored by Sunil Kumar, Monalisa Sen and KM Jayahari, is the first-of-its kind to use the ecological niche model to predict the species distribution of Tahr in varying climate scenarios. The model uses the relationship between a species and its habitat to identify potential species distribution.

The future climate projections in the study were based on two scenarios, the first scenario represented an optimistic emission rate, with peaking of emissions by 2040, while the second scenario represented continuous rise in emissions all through the 21st century. The study predicted a maximum habitat loss of 61.2 per cent, 61.4 per cent and 63 per cent for 2030, 2050 and 2080 respectively if emissions did not reduce.

"The present study has to be observed against the backdrop of this identified vulnerability of the species to local extinction. In the absence of the data on the movements of these animals between the high-altitude forest grasslands separated by thick forest barriers, the possible impacts on the habitat suitability are increasing the chances of local extinction since the animals may then not be able to move to suitable habitats from the existing ones," said, Jayahari KM, principal investigator of the study.

According to the study, the protected areas are expected to experience a drastic habitat loss owing to climate change. While the protected area network within the Western Ghats is suitable for the Nilgiri Tahr in the current scenario, the study predicted that over 60 per cent of this network will become unsuitable due to warming.

RK Sony, one of the authors of the study, said, "Conservation and management of suitable habitats outside the existing protected area network will be helpful to curb the effect of climate change on Tahr as well as its associated species."

"The outcomes are extremely warning in nature even though GIS-based modelling studies are not conclusive. Our study unearths the possibilities of severe threat to the natural habitats of these species, which demands a comprehensive species management plan.

Detailed habitat based ecological observations and Genetics studies are inevitable for development of such management strategies," said, Sandeep Sen, co-author of the paper. The study also forewarns that the existing protected area network might not be effective in conserving the Tahr if climate mitigation measures are not adopted in management plans of protected areas.

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Karnataka: Changing climate has left Tahrs on the brink

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New study points to their decline; only 3,000 Nilgiri Thars left in India A new study published has said most of the existing habitats of the Nilgiri Tahr in the Western Ghats will not be suitable due to global warming effects. There are only 3,000 Nilgiri Thars left in the country.

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By Disha Shetty

As the effects of climate change on livelihoods become more pronounced, especially for people involved in agriculture and fishing in South and South-East Asia, support for rebel groups and the Naxalite movement is likely to shoot up, according to a new report.

There is evidence that climate change will worsen socio-economic and political disparity in the region as those in power will get to decide who gets the limited resources and how much, the report, co-authored by researchers Pernilla Nordqvist and Florian Krampe while working for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), has said.

"The climate-conflict linkage primarily plays out in contexts that are already vulnerable to climate change and violence, and where income is highly dependent on agriculture and fishing," Nordqvist told IndiaSpend in an email.

Human activities have already caused warming of 1 degree Celsius as compared to pre-industrial times, according to the latest report of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). By 2030, or latest by mid-century, global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Close to 2.5 billion people live in South and South-East Asia, where poverty rates have been declining substantially, thanks to years of strong economic growth in countries such as India. However, the region is also prone to the fallouts of climate change, with glaciers in the Himalayas melting and several island-countries facing rising sea levels. Floods, cyclones, heat waves and droughts are now a frequent occurrence and are expected to intensify in the coming years.

"The region is highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change and also has a recent history of political violence," Krampe told IndiaSpend.

Nordqvist and Krame examined 2,000 peer-reviewed studies on the relationship between climate change and conflict and narrowed down on 21 of the most authoritative works for their report, which was published in September 2018.

Their findings from India show that rebel groups and government forces both find recruitment easier when drought is around the corner.

The IPCC report also adds that climate-related risks to livelihoods, food security, health, water supply and human security are projected to increase as the planet warms by 1.5 degrees. With a 2-degree rise, the risks will intensify.

In some areas affected by the Naxalite conflict, the worsening of livelihood conditions has been related to the increased intensity of ongoing civil conflicts. During a drought, or a potential drought, there is an increased risk that rebels and government actors recruit or cooperate with civilians in exchange for livelihood and provision of food.

Naxalites could use climate-related events to gain power in an ongoing conflict, and rebel groups more generally could increase their use of violence against civilians to ensure their groups' food security, according to the report.

"They violently remove local farmers from their land to ensure enough cropland and agricultural supplies for their own use. The risk of violence seems especially high in rural areas, where government control is scarce and the local population is dependent on the support or protection of rebels or other armed actors," Nordqvist said.

As climate change pushes up migration, it introduces the possibility of riots in urban areas over resources, the report said. Highlighting the case of riots in Tripura in northeastern India, it said the effects will be most felt in areas where there are already low levels of socio-political stability.

"Many of the climate change problems are trans-national. The Brahmaputra, for example, flows through three countries and is seeing frequent flooding. There is no question that countries will need to cooperate and tensions like the ones between countries India and Pakistan will make this difficult," Krampe said.

There is some research on the relationship between climate change and conflict in countries such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, the report said, adding that there is little understanding of how climate change could be driving conflict in places such as Afghanistan and Myanmar.

Elsewhere in South-East Asia, in some coastal areas of Indonesia the reduced income opportunities from fishing have been linked to a rise in piracy-related activities.

But the impact does not end there.

In Pakistan, for instance, the Islamist group Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) was able to increase its stronghold in Sindh province after the group participated in relief activities following extreme floods.

The IPCC report also warns that those living along coasts and populations dependent on agriculture will be the worst hit by climate change, which will push up poverty rates in coastal areas and in developing countries.

However, "Not everyone affected by climate change will join a rebel group but this also relates to the failure of the governments to respond to disasters," Krampe said.

At the same time, not all areas will see conflict in the face of climate change. Some might even see a greater cooperation in the aftermath of a natural disaster. These regional dynamics are evolving, however, and their contours will only become clearer with time.

(Disha Shetty is a Columbia Journalism School-IndiaSpend reporting fellow. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend)

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Climate change will worsen disparities, may increase support for Naxals: Report

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By Disha Shetty As the effects of climate change on livelihoods become more pronounced, especially for people involved in agriculture and fishing in South and South-East Asia, support for rebel groups and the Naxalite movement is likely to shoot up, according to a new report.

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Sensitive regions of the world would remain at risk of the dangerous and potentially irreversible effects of climate change, even if we meet the target of not increasing global temperature above 1.5 degree Celsius over the next 100 years, a study has found.

The research, led by Open University and University of Sheffield in the UK, reviewed the targets set in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and concluded that regions of the world, such as the Arctic and South-East Asian monsoon region, could be damaged irreversibly as they are particularly sensitive to changes to global temperatures.

The researchers developed a 3D climate-carbon cycle model, and simulated the different climate futures.

"The regional uncertainties associated with the Paris Climate Agreement have not been explored before. This is because, until now, researchers have used either very simple models or models that were too complex to investigate the range of possibilities," said Philip Holden, from The Open University.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that meeting the target set by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement of limiting the increase in global average temperatures to well below two degrees Celsius does not depend on future generations to remove vast amounts of carbon from the Earth's atmosphere.

Instead, governments can achieve the goals through emission reductions, but only if they act now to promote a range of policies to fully support the existing pace of technological change.

"Our models show that it is possible to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement, but only if governments take decisive and urgent action through strengthening climate change policies to encourage rapid divestment from fossil fuels," said Holden.

"By accounting for climate-carbon cycle uncertainties we have been able to show that there is an approximate 50 per cent probability that we can limit peak post-industrial peak global warming to less than 1.6 degrees Celsius," said Professor Richard Wilkinson, from the University of Sheffield.

"This has been made possible by using Gaussian process emulation to find plausible climate trajectories at a fraction of the computational cost," said Wilkinson.

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Climate change will lead to dangerous effects: Study

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Sensitive regions of the world would remain at risk of the dangerous and potentially irreversible effects of climate change, even if we meet the target of not increasing global temperature above 1.5 degree Celsius over the next 100 years, a study has found.

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The Aravalis, one of the oldest ranges which start in Gujarat, pass through Rajasthan and Haryana and terminate in Delhi, cover a length of around 682 kilometres and act as a green barrier between the Thar desert and the Gangetic plains of India. The mountain range has always been a source of water and minerals.
There has been a considerable decrease in green cover in the Aravalis in the recent times, which can most importantly be attributed to construction activities that are rampant in the region. Other causes are anthropogenic activities such as unplanned mining, overgrazing, extraction of fodders and other forest resources by growing inhabited human population, various tourism activities and shortfall of proper forest management.

A Forest Survey of India report reveals a significant decrease in forest cover and density of Sariska National Park located in the Aravalis over the years. In Delhi too, the remnants of Aravalis which are called the Ridge are receding every year. The State Forest Report in 2017 revealed that both "very dense forest" cover and "medium dense forest" have reduced by more than 1 sq km in the past two years in Delhi. The report says that Delhi's addition of green area is mostly through open forest cover achieved because of plantation and conservation activities, while decrease in dense forest cover has been attributed to civil construction.

An increasing trend of ambient temperatures is one of the most visible climate change-related impacts in the Aravali region. There is an unprecedented exploitation of land in the northern Aravali range around the Delhi-Gurugram region, which extends further with industrial growth of places like Manesar, Bhiwadi, Alwar and other areas in the NCR, for constructing new buildings and expanding the urban area. This urbanisation process increases temperature owing to changes in land surface characteristics, resulting from increased pavings, rooftops, buildings and other urban infrastructures. Especially, night-time temperatures are greatly influenced by urbanisation. The built-up areas in cities experience higher temperatures than green, open or other non-urban areas. This phenomenon, which is also called urban heat island effect, is intensifying as more regions of the Aravalis are being converted into concrete towns. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) fifth assessment report highlighted that such changes could lead to an increase of 2-4° C in ambient temperatures in cities and expanding urban areas.

Delhi and nearby cities are also hit by the loss of natural Aravalis. The major urban areas around Aravali range viz., Jaipur, Alwar, Delhi and Gurugram have reported an increase in temperatures in the recent years. Studies have shown that due to urban heat island effect in Delhi, dense built-up areas have been experiencing overall 2-5°C higher temperature than green areas, especially during night. This rise in temperatures in the cities leads to increased energy demands owing to air-conditioning and refrigeration, and resulting in heat generation from vehicular traffic, air-conditioners, refrigerators, industries etc.

This is likely to further aggravate the cities' cooling energy demand. The rampant urbanisation is expected to exacerbate the climate-change impacts on rainfall, heat stress and other weather events by modifying the local climate.

Warmer climate and construction activities have also led to loss of precious water resources. Various water bodies in the Aravalis - Ajabgarh lake, Pankot lake, Dumduma lake, Jaisamand lake, Kotla lake in Mewat district, smaller ponds and water bodies in Asola wild life sanctuary - have either completely depleted or have been encroached upon. Moreover, a report by the state's agriculture department shows that the groundwater has depleted by almost 8 metres in various districts of Haryana surrounding Delhi in last 40 years.

Aravalis have long been touted as lungs for NCR, and by degrading them we are leading the human population of the region to suffocation.

(The author is professor, Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, India Institute of Technology, New Delhi)

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Degradation of Aravalis is leading to climate change in the region - Times of India

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The Aravalis, one of the oldest ranges which start in Gujarat, pass through Rajasthan and Haryana and terminate in Delhi, cover a length of around 682 kilometres and act as a green barrier between the Thar desert and the Gangetic plains of India.

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The core forests across the country, including those that are protected, are turning from green to brown, a worrying phenomenon that scientists say is due to more than seasonal variations
As much as 4.6 million hectares of forests in India are browning, according to a new study by the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation.

The NRSC measured these changes in colour in 14 types of forest - from wet evergreen to thorn - between 2001 and 2014. It employed the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index ( NDVI), a simple graphical indicator that can be used to analyse remote sensing measurements from a space platform, and assess whether the target being observed contains live green vegetation or not.

"Significant negative changes in the seasonal greenness were found to be highest over tropical moist deciduous forest (20,67,350 ha) followed by tropical dry deciduous (14,07,730 ha) and tropical wet evergreen (5,77,430 ha)," the study says. The seasonal greenness of mangrove cover has also declined by 15%, mainly in the Sundarbans in West Bengal.

For the first time, the NRSC used satellite data to monitor such changes. The study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena in relation to climate and plant life can throw light on the process of forest growth and decline.
Hotspots in danger
Worryingly, the study also found that among the hotspots where forests have been turning brown were wildlife sanctuaries, which are better protected. The Simlipal wildlife sanctuary in Odisha was the worst off, with 48,600 ha, followed by the Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand and Achanakmar sanctuary in Chhattisgarh.

"The present study demonstrated the capability of satellite observations to find out persistent changes in the highly dynamic parameter like forest greenness over decadal scale," it said. "The study also reported large protected areas experiencing spatially coherent significant negative change of seasonal greenness. Hence, the results of the present study could be useful in prioritisation and planning of conservation measures of forests of India."

The NRSC study follows others. In 2017, three scholars of South Asian origin in the US and Israel, including Kamal S. Bawa, published a study titled Widespread Climate Changes in the Himalayas and Associated Changes in Local Ecosystems. They studied the Himalayas across Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and north-western and north-eastern India, a 3,000 km arc, which covered 750,000 sq. km. The mountain chain provides water to 1.4 billion people.

They pointed out that despite the ecological significance of this chain, not much was known about actual changes in the two most critical climatic variables: temperature and rainfall. Nor was it known how changes in these parameters might impact ecosystems, including how periodic plant life cycle events are influenced by seasonal and inter-annual variations in climate.

By analysing temperature and rainfall data, and NDVI values from remotely sensed imagery, they reported significant changes in temperature, rainfall, and vegetation changes across the Himalayas between 1982 and 2006.

It was the first time that large-scale climatic and vegetation changes at the landscape level had been documented for the Himalayas. "The rate of warming in the Himalayas is greater than the global average, confirming that the Himalayas are among the regions most vulnerable to climate change," they concluded.
Implications not discussed
Commenting on the NRSC study, Bawa from the University of Massachusetts, Boston and the Bangalore-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment ( ATREE), told indiaclimatedialogue.net, "I do think it is a significant piece of work but not a path-breaker. I am surprised that although the results are very important, the authors do not fully discuss the implications of their work."

"There is no mention of the possible causes of the trends they observed. Nor do they mention the implications of their findings. I was surprised that the landmark work of Jagdish Krishnaswamy on the browning of the montane forest is not mentioned," he said. "Since the authors do not tell us the possible causes of the trends they observed, I cannot say if the results are comparable to Krishnaswamy's or to our work in the Himalayas."

Bawa was awarded the Linnean Medal in Botany in London this May. He was recognised for his pioneering research on the evolution of tropical plants, tropical deforestation and for work on the biodiversity of forests in Central America, the Western Ghats and the Eastern Himalaya.

"It is apparent from the NRSC's work along with various other recent studies that parts of South Asian forests have been drying up during the recent decade which is alarming from the forest conservation point of view," Sangeeta Sarmah, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told indiaclimatedialogue.net. "However, this work has not discussed the factors causing the browning of the Indian forests, which would have been more interesting to learn about. The study exposed substantial negative changes in forest core areas, which should be backed up by some ground observations, as it is a significant revelation. The authors also did not discuss the implications of their work. Some more in-depth researches are needed regarding vegetation dynamics and various drivers, specifically for this region, as many issues are poorly understood in this region."

This February, Sarmah and two Chinese colleagues published a study titled " Satellite view of seasonal greenness trends and controls in South Asia. They chose South Asia because it was "one of the most remarkable regions for changing vegetation greenness, accompanying its major expansion of agricultural activities, especially irrigated farming. The influence of the monsoon climate on the seasonal trends and anomalies of vegetation greenness is poorly understood in this area."
Vegetation activity
They used NDVI to investigate various changes in vegetation activity during the summer and winter monsoon seasons and among irrigated croplands, rain-fed croplands and natural vegetation areas between 1982 and 2013. Their most interesting findings were the striking differences of the greening/browning between seasons and among the land use and land cover changes. They also explored the climate and land use cover change as the drivers of the seasonal and long term NDVI variations over the study area.

"The winter monsoon contributed larger variability to the overall vegetation changes in South Asia, which is the major finding of this study," they concluded. "The increased productivity over irrigated croplands contributed to the greening of South Asia during the winter monsoon season. Meanwhile, significant browning occurred in the Western Ghats, northeastern India and the Himalayan foothills since 2000, and changes were observed during the same season."

In 2013, Jagdish Krishnaswamy, also from ATREE, was the lead author of a paper titled Consistent response of vegetation dynamics to recent climate change in tropical mountain regions, which found that global climate change has emerged as a major driver of ecosystem change. The authors chose 47 Protected Areas (PAs) with elevations 1,000 metres above mean sea level in five continental regions in Africa, Central America, South America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

They analysed decadal-scale trends and seasonal cycles of vegetation greenness, using monthly time series of satellite greenness (NDVI) and climate data between 1982 and 2006 for these mountain protected areas in five biodiversity hotspots.
Strong browning trends
These showed mild greening trends, followed by a reversal to stronger browning trends around the mid-1990s. They found that temperatures were rising, but there was only a marginal change in rainfall.

"We found residual browning and greening trends in all regions, which indicate that factors other than temperature and precipitation also influence vegetation dynamics. Browning rates became progressively weaker with increase in elevation," the study said. "Tropical mountain vegetation is considered sensitive to climatic changes, so these consistent vegetation responses across widespread regions indicate persistent global-scale effects of climate warming and associated moisture stresses."

"The biggest weakness of the NRSC study is that the greening and browning are not analysed in relation to climate or other drivers; the attribution to any of these factors is difficult," Krishnaswamy told indiaclimatedialogue.net. "Changes inside protected areas are assumed to be due to drivers such as climate variability or climate change, but in some protected areas, management practices or changes in fire regime have been known to influence greening and browning trends. The analyses of browning in some areas cannot be delimited from greening in other areas."

"The role of climate change on browning is completely missing," he said. "Over 30-40 years, for instance, the El Niño effect on vegetation in a specific area has to be examined."

In 2010, B.R. Ramesh from the French Institute in Pondicherry, with other authors from France and India, published a study on Soil carbon stocks, deforestation and land-cover changes in the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot. Habitat loss and organic carbon stock in soil variations linked to land-cover change were estimated over two decades in the most densely populated biodiversity hotspot in the world, to assess the possible influence of conservation practices on the protection of soil organic carbon (SOC).

For a study area of 88,484 sq. km, 70% of which lay inside the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot, land-cover maps for 1977 and 1999 were built from various data sources, including remote sensing images and ecological forest maps.

Unexpectedly, their results showed that despite on-going deforestation at the rate of 29 sq. km a year, overall SOC stock was maintained. "But a closer examination of spatial differences showed that soil carbon losses in deforested areas were compensated by sequestration elsewhere, mainly in recent plantations and newly irrigated croplands," the study said. "This suggests that more carbon sequestration in soils could be achieved in the future through appropriate wasteland management. It is also expected that increasing concerns about biodiversity loss will favour more conservation and reinforce the already prevailing protective measures, thus further maintaining carbon stocks."

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The core forests across the country, including those that are protected, are turning from green to brown, a worrying phenomenon that scientists say is due to more than seasonal variations As much as 4.6 million hectares of forests in India are browning, according to a new study by the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation.

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Apr 02, 2018, 12.18 PM IST

Warming is expected to lead to wetter conditions on average , but agriculture could also be harmed by more frequent and prolonged droughts in some areas, researchers said.

LONDON: Weather extremes caused by climate change could raise the risk of food shortage globally, a study that looked at data from 122 countries suggests.

Researchers led by the University of Exeter in the UK examined how climate change could affect the vulnerability of different countries to food insecurity - when people lack access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.

The study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, looked at 122 developing and least-developed countries, mostly in Asia, Africa and South America.

"Climate change is expected to lead to more extremes of both heavy rainfall and drought, with different effects in different parts of the world," said Richard Betts, a professor at the University of Exeter.

"Such weather extremes can increase vulnerability to food insecurity," said Betts.

"Some change is already unavoidable, but if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, this vulnerability is projected to remain smaller than at 2 degrees Celsius in approximately 76 per cent of developing countries," he said.

Warming is expected to lead to wetter conditions on average - with floods putting food production at risk - but agriculture could also be harmed by more frequent and prolonged droughts in some areas, researchers said.

Wetter conditions are expected to have the biggest impact in South and East Asia, with the most extreme projections suggesting the flow of the River Ganges could more than double at 2 degrees Celsius global warming, they said.

The areas worst affected by droughts are expected to be southern Africa and South America - where flows in the Amazon are projected to decline by up to 25 per cent, according to the researchers.

They examined projected changes in weather extremes and their implications for freshwater availability and vulnerability to food insecurity. PTI SAR SAR SAR 04021122 NNNN

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Climate change could raise food shortage globally: Study

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Apr 02, 2018, 12.18 PM IST LONDON: Weather extremes caused by climate change could raise the risk of food shortage globally, a study that looked at data from 122 countries suggests. Researchers led by the University of Exeter in the UK examined how climate change could affect the vulnerability of different countries to food insecurity - when people lack access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.

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NEW DELHI: Unchecked climate change will dent India's GDP by 2.8 per cent and depress the living standards of nearly half the population by 2050, with people living in the severe "hotspot" districts of central India, particularly Vidarbha, staring at the prospect of an over 10 per cent dip in economic consumption.

These are the findings of a first-of-its-kind World Bank study that quantifies the economic impacts of rising temperatures and changes in rainfall in different parts of the country due to global warming.

The study, South Asia's Hotspots, released on Thursday, projects a 2 per cent fall in the country's GDP - in terms of per capita consumption expenditures - even if the 2015 Paris Agreement goals of containing global warming to 2 degrees C is achieved.

A 2.8 per cent drop in GDP, as projected in the business-as-usual scenario, will cost India $1.1 trillion by 2050. The loss in the severe hotspot districts, with an average 9.8 per cent drop in consumption, will amount to over $400 billion, the study says.

What is a climate hotspot?
It's a location where gradual changes in average temperature and rainfall patterns will have negative impacts on living standards in future

The report finds that inland regions are at far higher risk of economic losses due to rising temperatures than coastal or hilly areas, with the maximum impact likely to be felt in central and north India. Among states, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are projected to witness over 9 per cent dip in living standards by 2050 in the "carbon-intensive" or business-as-usual scenario.

The Vidarbha region, a ground-zero of farm distress in the country, is projected to be in the centre of climate-related misery as well. Seven of the 10 major "hotspot" districts mentioned in the report, are in Vidarbha. In each of these districts, unchecked climate change could led to over 11 per cent dip in living standards by 2050.

"Temperature rise is a slow-moving disaster that's not talked about much," said economist Muthukumara Mani, the lead author of the study. "A lot of focus of climate change studies is on extreme events so people tend to ignore these gradual changes happening for the last 50-60 years."

The effects of temperature rise could be substantial, with implications for agricultural productivity, health, migration and other factors, says the report. By 2050, annual average temperatures in India are estimated to increase 1-2 degrees C under the climate-sensitive scenario (where action is taken to curb emissions) and 1.5-3 degrees C under the carbon-intensive scenario.

The study analysed climate data in combination with household surveys to arrive at how changes in average weather are likely to affect living standards. It found that nearly 600 million people in India today live at places that will become moderate or severe hotspots by 2050 under the unchecked climate-change scenario.

"Our methodology has been extensively peer-reviewed, both inside and outside the World Bank. We are very confident of the robustness of the analysis," Mani said.

The study has drawn up hotspot maps of India, 2050, based on both the carbon-intensive and climate-sensitive scenarios. The carbon-intensive scenario shows far more severe hotspots, places likely to see an over 8 per cent dip in living standards, underlining the huge economic losses India stands to avoid if the world takes action on GHGs.

"Our work points the way for policymakers. They can choose to invest in areas that are more impacted by warming and make best use of their resources for climate change," explained Mani.

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Climate change will hit living standards of 600 million Indians: World Bank - Times of India

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NEW DELHI: Unchecked climate change will dent India's GDP by 2.8 per cent and depress the living standards of nearly half the population by 2050, with people living in the severe "hotspot" districts of central India, particularly Vidarbha, staring at the prospect of an over 10 per cent dip in economic consumption.

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As Karnataka roils over the Kaveri water dispute, the underlying cause is lowered climate resilience of the agro-forestry ecosystem in Kodagu's coffee plantations
Coffee planters in the hill district of Kodagu in Karnataka are meticulous in keeping rainfall records in their estates. For some, the data goes back for decades. Their numbers tell the story of changing rainfall patterns, an indicator of climate change. The changing patterns also have an impact on the way they grow coffee, which has an effect on climate resilience in the hills and the plains.

Due to the presence of this decentralised network of rainfall measuring stations, it is easier to obtain a nuanced picture of the precipitation trends for Kodagu, earlier known as Coorg, than in other parts of India. The average annual rainfall varies from above 5,000 mm in the western edge of the district to 1,200 mm in the east.

This data was used as part of the baseline survey by an international collaborative project to study the unique coffee agro-forestry system of Kodagu district. The College of Forestry at Ponnampet in Kodagu, as a participant in the Coffee Agro-forestry Network (CAFNET) project, has analysed the rainfall data of over 60 years from 116 coffee farms.

"Keeping meticulous rainfall data is part of the culture we inherited from the British," said C.G. Kushalappa, university head for forestry and environment sciences at the College of Forestry.

The CAFNET report noted that the length of the rainy season had decreased by 14 days over the past 35 years. It also noticed a strong fluctuation in annual rainfall with an apparent cycle of 12 to 14 years.
Low rainfall in coffee land
Whether it is due to being the lowest point in this cycle or an El Nino changing rainfall patterns, 2015 and 2016 have been years of low rainfall in Kodagu. This is the second year of deficit rainfall in Kodagu. During 2015, it was deficient by 19%. As a result, the storage in the Krishna Raja Sagara dam reservoir, built across the Kaveri River immediately downstream of Kodagu district, has a 31% deficit this year.

On the ground measurements by coffee grower K.K. Naren in Kunda village near Ponnampet confirms this. "Our normal rainfall is 90 to 100 inches (2,200 to 2,500 mm). This year we have got 38 inches, whereas by this time we should have received 70% of the year's rain."

Coffee planters are confused by the erratic rainfall of recent years. "Rain and weather patterns have become increasingly unpredictable in recent years," said M.B. Ganapathy, head of plantations for Tata Coffee. "Even though the quantum does not seem to have changed, the rainfall is not well distributed any longer. There are long dry periods followed by heavy rain and high-velocity winds. This has made farm management difficult for us."
Blossom showers affected
According to coffee farmer B.B. Thammaiah of Kolagadalu village, the erratic rainfall has meant that blossom showers, which usually take place between February and April, are missing in some years. This has an impact on coffee production, since this helps coffee flowers to blossom, ensuring good yields later in the year.

There is an ecological impact of this, according to Kushalappa. When the blossom showers became erratic, coffee farmers started irrigating during these months. For traditional coffee cultivation, it was a combination of mixed-shade trees plus blossom showers that gave a good yield. When the blossom showers were replaced by irrigation, the shade from the trees did not matter. The farmers' dependence on the native trees decreased, resulting in their proclivity for letting the native trees die. These trees are being replaced by silver oak.
See: Bringing coffee back into the shade
There is also an issue of ownership that is leading to the clearing of forests. Thammaiah's farm is in Kolagadalu village, not far from the western crest of the plateau deep in a forested valley. His farm receives more than 5,000 mm of rainfall every year. While in the valley floor he continues to grow rice as his forefathers did, he cultivates coffee in the shade of the forest trees. Though the forest may not be as thick as it was during his grandfather's time, he plans to conserve it.
Economics of silver oak
The landscape of Thammaiah's farm is typical of what the people of Kodagu inherited. While historically joint families cultivated the rice paddies where they owned the land, they used the forest for collecting mulch and firewood and grazing cattle. The families do not have property rights over the trees, which belong to the government.

Silver oak, on the other hand, can be planted, cut and sold. M.C. Cushalappa, a coffee farmer from Siddhapura, said that silver oak yields a two-fold benefit to coffee farmers. One, it can supplement the family's income in times of need. Two, its straight trunk can be used as a support for pepper vines, which bring more additional income. With no ownership and no economic stake on the native trees, farmers do not have an incentive to keep them alive.

Cushalappa's family has paid the price of the native trees to the government and obtained ownership over them. "This encourages me to maintain the native tree species in my farm, unlike most of the other farmers in Kodagu."

The coffee agro-forestry system of Kodagu is of immense importance ecologically; not only does it provide climate resilience to the hill communities but provides water to millions downstream through the Kaveri. The current acrimony over the waters of the Kaveri between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have led to violent protests.

There is a problem though. Unlike in other parts of the country where the forests are fully under the control of the forest department, in Kodagu they are under the combined control of the department and thousands of coffee farmers. It means that it is difficult to give them a protected status. It is not as if the forest department it always the best protector; but uniformity in control has the potential to improve conservation practices.

"The majority of forests in Kodagu are not notified and hence for their upkeep thousands of coffee farmers have to be incentivised," a forest department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "About 90% of the catchment of the Kaveri river before the Krishna Raja Sagara reservoir is in Kodagu. There is need for a mindset change so that the farmers conserve the native trees and biodiversity."
The magic of native trees
Through the CAFNET study, the ecosystem services could be quantified. "We looked at the role of native trees and silver oak to study their hydrological impact. Our team studied how much of the rain was intercepted, how much came through the stem, how much got run off, and how much got recharged," noted Kushalappa.

The study found that increasing the proportion of exotic species such as silver oak in the shade cover composition had little impact on rainfall interception since trees intercept less (1% to 6%) than coffee plants (9% to 22%). Although there are lower quantities of water from native tree plots going to rivers than from the exotic tree plots, the higher contribution of evaporated and transpired water from native trees have a positive impact on the microclimate. Further, large canopy and deep-rooted systems of the native species help in the percolation of water to deeper aquifers, mainly during the monsoon.

Thus, native trees held the rainwater as it fell torrentially, and released it gradually into the rivers. At the same time they created a climate-resilient environment in the farms.

The mixed agro-forestry systems also helped in sequestering carbon. The CAFNET studies showed that Arabica coffee grown under the shade of mixed species sequestered more than the reference forests. Arabica coffee grown under silver oak sequesters marginally less than Robusta grown under native trees. Robusta grown under silver oak sequesters substantially less than the other combinations.

The missing blossom showers could be adding to the reasons for coffee farmers opening their canopies. On the flip side, the farmers' actions could result in more carbon in the atmosphere, making rainfall more erratic in Kodagu.

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As Karnataka roils over the Kaveri water dispute, the underlying cause is lowered climate resilience of the agro-forestry ecosystem in Kodagu's coffee plantations Coffee planters in the hill district of Kodagu in Karnataka are meticulous in keeping rainfall records in their estates. For some, the data goes back for decades.

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A rise in one degree centigrade temperature in the country will reduce wheat production by four to five million tonnes. Any small change in the temperature and rainfall patterns will have a significant effect on the quality of fruits, vegetables, tea, coffee, aromatic and medicinal plants and Basmati rice.

These facts were part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change circulated by the Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD) at a workshop on climate change held in Bangalore on Monday.

Sensitive

The plan was commissioned by the Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change and it says that food production in India is sensitive to climate change such as variability in monsoon, rainfall and temperature.

It adds that studies by the Indian Agriculture Research Institute and other organisations indicate greater loss in rabi crops if there is a rise in temperature and other variations due to climatic change.

Long-term effect

Such changes will also have long-term implications on the quality and quantity of water in the river systems. The changes will also affect the distribution of vector species of insects such as malarial mosquito.

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Minute changes in temperature can affect food on your plate

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A rise in one degree centigrade temperature in the country will reduce wheat production by four to five million tonnes. Any small change in the temperature and rainfall patterns will have a significant effect on the quality of fruits, vegetables, tea, coffee, aromatic and medicinal plants and Basmati rice.

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Six of California’s 10 most destructive wildfires on record have hit in just the past three years. WHY??

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Firefighters are steadily beating back several massive autumn blazes in California, as heavy smoke from the wildfires blankets much of the state, creating unhealthy air quality.

The fierce Camp Fire near Chico has so far torched more than 150,000 acres, taken at least 77 lives, and destroyed 10,300 residences, making it the most destructive and deadliest wildfire in state history.

In Los Angeles and Ventura counties, the Woolsey Fire recently burned more than 96,000 acres and killed three people.

You can see the current fires underway in California in this map from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire):

Nationwide, 8.5 million acres, an area larger than Maryland, have burned this year to date. But California, once again, is taking much of the heat.

It will take some time for the ash to settle and to get an accurate tally of all of the devastation. But given that the number of acres burned is already double what burned last year, 2018 sure to break several records.

The overall trend in California is troubling too. Six of California's 10 most destructive wildfires on record have hit in just the past three years. The 2017 Thomas Fire in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, which burned well into January this year, held the record for largest fire in state history for just eight months before the Mendocino Complex Fire came along in August.

It's important to keep in mind that wildfires are a normal phenomenon across many parts of the US (and the world). They're essential for restoring nutrients to the soil, clearing out decay, and helping plants like the lodgepole pine reproduce.

But fires in 2018 are 30 percent larger than the average over the past decade, making this year far worse than most in recent memory. And the growing massive, destructive, and deadly conflagrations we're seeing now are hardly a force of nature at this point. At almost every step, human activity has exacerbated the risks, the damages, and the harms from fires. These risks are continuing to mount, which means the future holds more dangerous, frequent, and costly blazes for vast swaths of the United States.

Fires are more damaging because we keep building in harm's way

The California fires stretch the definition of "natural disaster" because deliberate decisions and unintended consequences of urban development over decades have turned many parts of the state into a tinderbox.

This year's blazes particularly stand out because of how large they are, how many structures they've burned, how many lives they've taken, and how close they've come to populated areas. They are also creating their own unique weather phenomena, like pyrocumulus clouds, and producing fire whirls with tornado-strength winds reaching 143 miles per hour near neighborhoods:

"When we get wildfires close to residential areas, that's what makes them extraordinary events," said Heath Hockenberry, the fire weather program manager at the National Weather Service. It's also getting increasingly hard to keep peopleat a safe distance from the embers.

Many areas in California are naturally hot, dry, and prone to fires much of the year. But the state's population is growing, leading to a significant overlap between the areas of high fire risk and areas with a growing population density, as you can see in these maps from a 2014 study of population trends in California projecting out to 2050:

The study estimated that by 2050, 645,000 houses in California will be built in "very high" wildfire severity zones.

"Weare definitely seeing [construction in fire-prone regions] happen more and more: 95 percent of the population of the state lives on 6 percent of the land," Lynne Tolmachoff, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, told Vox last year.

Californians are drawn to views of mountains, forests, and grasslands. Their homes are cropping up ever closer to these features, which often have a propensity to burn. And picturesque places like Napa and Sonoma counties, which suffered immense fires in 2017, have some of the fastest-growing property values and highest-priced homes in the United States.

This proximity is part of what's driving the death toll, and the embers haven't discriminated between wealthy and poor Californians. "Where these fires occurred, I think the risk is generalized all around," Tolmachoff said. "They went from the rural areas to very urban areas. ... It affected everyone pretty much evenly."

Building in or near fire-prone forests has also led to fire prevention land management practices that paradoxically increase fire risk. For instance, policies for preventing wildfires have in some areas led to an accumulation of the dry vegetation that would ordinarily burn away in smaller natural blazes.

"The thing that gets missed in all of this is that fires are a natural part of many of these systems," said Matthew Hurteau, an associate professor at the University of New Mexico studying climate impacts on forests. "We have suppressed fires for decades actively. That's caused larger fires."

We keep starting these fires

A study published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, or PNAS, found that 84 percent of wildfires are ignited by humans, whether through downed power lines, careless campfires, or arson.

"Human-started wildfires ... tripled the length of the fire season, dominated an area seven times greater than that affected by lightning fires, and were responsible for nearly half of all area burned," the paper reported.

The Carr Fire near Redding, for example, was ignited by a " mechanical failure of a vehicle," according to fire officials. Transmission lines appear to be the culprit behind the 2017 wine country fires, but officials are still investigating other causes.

The utility serving the region, Pacific Gas and Electric, has previously been billed for firefighting costs for fires stemming from its transmission lines and could have to pay billions of dollars in damages for some of the current blazes.

John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at the University of Idaho who studies wildfires and is an author of the PNAS study, noted that some of the fires in California last year ignited in multiple places around the same time, hinting at arson. "That is a possibility in play here," he said. Whatever the cause, these fires don't seem to be "natural" disasters, he said.

We keep changing the climate, which makes fires more likely

There are some unique weather conditions that are driving the exceptionally swift California fires, like strong winds and high temperatures. But long-term trends linked to global warming also exacerbated this year's fire season across the United States.

"Fuel, wind, and long-term dry conditions: Those are the three facts that are really what's causing this right now," said the National Weather Service's Hockenberry.

This year's weather throughout the West eerily resembles last year's: After years of drought that left behind ample dry vegetation, California saw intense rainfall last year and then a cool, wet winter in early 2017. The increased precipitation led to a sudden growth spurt in combustible grasses, shrubs, and trees.

California was again drenched with heavy rains earlier this year, leading to a similar pattern of vegetation.

What followed again during the summer was a period of intense, dry heat throughout the state, with a heat wave shattering temperature records in several cities.

"When it dried out, it dried out really hard, and it got really hot," Hockenberry said.

According to Abatzoglou, "Big fires typically happen a year after it being quite wet."

A big factor in last year's fires was the dry autumn Santa Ana winds in the southern part of the state and Diablo winds in the north pushing flames through dry kindling.

Though the winds are seasonal, and it's difficult to attribute any individual wind event to climate change, humanity's fingerprints are all over the fuel for forest fires sparking this year.

Abatzoglou was an author of a study last year that found that climate change due to human activity accounted for roughly 55 percent of the aridity in Western US forests between 1979 and 2015. This led to a doubling of the area torched by forest fires than would have occurred in the absence of human-caused factors.

However, many of California's fires are burning through grasses and shrubs, not forests. Signals of changes in the climate are harder to elucidate in these blazes.

Jon Keeley, a research ecologist at the US Geological Survey, agreed. He noted that Southern California already has a hot and dry climate for much of the year, so rising temperatures don't alter the fire risks.

Nonetheless, the California fires do align with what researchers expect to see across the United States as average temperatures rise.

"The length of the fire season is increasing in the Mountain West," said the University of New Mexico's Hurteau. "The mechanism for that is in part because [as] the atmosphere warms up, the air expands and can hold more moisture."

This warming draws moisture out of plants, creating drier conditions earlier in the season. It also causes an earlier snowmelt in the spring, leading to more arid conditions in the summer.

"We could have a lot more fire on these landscapes," Hurteau said.

Wildfires also contribute to global warming: Flames coursing through woodlands and grasses send greenhouse gases and particulates into the air.

"When the plant material in forests combusts, we're putting a lot of emissions of different types into the atmosphere," said Hurteau.

Some kinds of particles trap heat, while other particles have a cooling effect. Both pose a huge health hazard, and when they land on snowcapped mountains and glaciers, they accelerate melting.

All this adds up to a huge increase in the area burned by fires each year. A PLOS One study last year found that 11 states would suffer a surge in scorched area greater than 500 percent over the next 20 years.

The good news: We can take steps to reduce fire risks

Firefighters in the United States have learned from past fire attacks and developed robust methods to keep fires in check, which is why despite the massive fires we're seeing, the death tolls have remained relatively low. At least nine people have died from wildfires this year, including firefighters engaging the flames.

Tactics like cutting fuel breaks - or strips of land where the vegetation has been cut back to block the spread of fires - between combustible vegetation and homes can help reduce risks. Better forecasts, early warning systems for fire risks, and mandatory evacuation can also keep people out of danger (but not damming rivers to keep water from flowing into the Pacific Ocean, as President Trump suggested).

"It doesn't solve the larger problem, but it does reduce the risk to property," Hurteau said.

The tougher challenge will be to change behaviors and incentives so people don't build or rebuild in fire-prone regions. Already, many homeowners harmed by last year's fires are placing their roots back in the same fire-prone regions, either because of insurance payouts or because they have nowhere else to go.

For now, firefighters are bracing for more warm weather and winds in southern California that will spread choking smoke as they continue their battle with fires.

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California's wildfires are hardly "natural" - humans made them worse at every step

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Firefighters are steadily beating back several massive autumn blazes in California, as heavy smoke from the wildfires blankets much of the state, creating unhealthy air quality. The fierce Camp Fire near Chico has so far torched more than 150,000 acres, taken at least 77 lives, and destroyed 10,300 residences, making it the most destructive and deadliest wildfire in state history.

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Orange, NJ - The Affect of Snow in November

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Orange, NJ - The Affect of Snow in November

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- Dylan Brooks

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Orange, NJ - How Snow Can Affect Our Community

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Orange, NJ - How Snow Can Affect Our Community

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-Mark Dhanwa

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-Rose Dieujuste

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The effect of the snowstorn in November 2018 in New Jersey

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According to this article, there are many effects of Climate Change occurring in the U.S. In the Northeast specifically, which is where we live, sea levels are rising, and we receive heavy rainfall which appear as challenges to all forms of life. -Yasheka Smith

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Our Trajectory

Earth Will Continue to Warm and the Effects Will Be Profound

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones. Credit: left - Mike McMillan/USFS, center - Tomas Castelazo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, right - NASA.

Global climate change is not a future problem. Changes to Earth's climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming sooner.

Effects that scientists had long predicted would result from global climate change are now occurring, such as sea ice loss, accelerated sea level rise, and longer, more intense heat waves.

" The magnitude and rate of climate change and associated risks depend strongly on near-term mitigation and adaptation actions, and projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming."

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Some changes (such as droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall) are happening faster than scientists previously assessed. In fact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the United Nations body established to assess the science related to climate change - modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for many decades, mainly due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.

A Degree of Difference

So, the Earth's average temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the 20th century. What's the big deal?

Read more

The IPCC's Sixth Assessment report, published in 2021, found that human emissions of heat-trapping gases have already warmed the climate by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since 1850-1900. The global average temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C (about 3 degrees F) within the next few decades. These changes will affect all regions of Earth.

What's the difference between climate change and global warming?

"Global warming" refers to the long-term warming of the planet. "Climate change" encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet, including rising sea levels; shrinking mountain glaciers; accelerating ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic; and shifts in flower/plant blooming times.

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The severity of effects caused by climate change will depend on the path of future human activities. More greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more climate extremes and widespread damaging effects across our planet. However, those future effects depend on the total amount of carbon dioxide we emit. So, if we can reduce emissions, we may avoid some of the worst effects.

" The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss the brief, rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future." ²

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Future Effects in the U.S.

U.S. Regional Effects

U.S. Regional Effects

Climate change is bringing different types of challenges to each region of the country. Some of the current and future impacts are summarized below. These findings are from the Third and Fourth National Climate Assessment Reports, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Is it too late to prevent climate change?

Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.

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Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose increasing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Farmers can explore new crop options, but these adaptations are not cost- or risk-free. Moreover, adaptive capacity, which varies throughout the region, could be overwhelmed by a changing climate. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.

Northwest. Changes in the timing of peak flows in rivers and streams are reducing water supplies and worsening competing demands for water. Sea level rise, erosion, flooding, risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire incidence and severity, heat waves, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are causing widespread forest die-off.

Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region's economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.

Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also worsen a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

Southwest. Climate change has caused increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks. In turn, these changes have made wildfires more numerous and severe. The warming climate has also caused a decline in water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, and triggered heat-related health impacts in cities. In coastal areas, flooding and erosion are additional concerns.

References
References
Header image shows cracked mud stretches across sections of the Panamint Valley. Credit: NPS/Kurt Moses; A degree of concern thermometer image credit: Pixabay/geralt

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intergovernmental panel on climate change

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Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Long-term effects of global climate change in the United States.

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How the Snow affected our community in New Jersey 

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How the Snow affected our community in New Jersey 

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-Jeanne Exantus

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West Orange Education Association goes beyond the call of duty

It was late on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 15 when the members of the West Orange Education Association (WOEA) realized that the snow storm predicted to coat the area would be much worse. The rolling hills of West Orange are notoriously difficult to navigate during bouts of severe weather.

With student safety in mind, the West Orange School District made the decision to keep the students overnight; the members of the WOEA didn't think twice about staying to help the children.

As soon as the members of the WOEA knew that the students would be staying overnight, they took action to help the students remain comfortable, calm and safe throughout the unexpectedly long stay at school.

"Our members went from their normal state of nurturing to wiping tears and tucking kids in and making sure that children felt safe not staying at home last night," said Mark Maniscalco, president of the WOEA.

All members of the WOEA joined together to help the children. Children stayed overnight at every district school, with more than 300 students staying at the Liberty Middle School. Because the cafeteria staff had left after lunch for the day and could not return due to the storm, WOEA members cooked dinner for the children in the cafeteria, and they rolled out mats from the gym so children could sleep comfortably.

"It was a complete team effort," said Maniscalco "Teachers, secretaries, instructional aides and security officers all stayed with the children through the night. We had fully-staffed schools for more than 24 hours."

NJEA President Marie Blistan praised the more than 1,000 members of the WOEA for their sacrifice on behalf of their students.

"Last night, the members of the of West Orange Education Association demonstrated the true spirit of public education" said Blistan. "The WOEA stayed with their students through the night without hesitation because that's what educators do: what's best for children. The sheer selflessness displayed by the teachers and educational support professionals of the WOEA is nothing short of inspirational."

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Students snowed in, educators step up " New Jersey Education Association

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West Orange Education Association goes beyond the call of duty It was late on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 15 when the members of the West Orange Education Association (WOEA) realized that the snow storm predicted to coat the area would be much worse. The rolling hills of West Orange are notoriously difficult to navigate ...

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The affect of the rainstorm on October 29, 2017

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The affect of the rainstorm on October 29, 2017

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Horrible snow storm in New Jersey causes a tree to fall down-Jade Mitchell

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Horrible snow storm in New Jersey causes a tree to fall down-Jade Mitchell

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https://patch.com/new-jersey/mendham-chester/latest-nj-noreaster-updates-24-possible-snow-totals-crashes

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Snowstorm in November 2018 Leaves Driver Stranded - Autumn Tarver

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Snowstorm in November 2018 Leaves Driver Stranded - Autumn Tarver

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https://www.lohud.com/story/weather/2018/11/16/dec-police-help-stranded-drivers-snowstorm/2024957002/

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How November Snowstorm affected New Jersey- Jairo Morocho 

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How November Snowstorm affected New Jersey- Jairo Morocho 

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https://www.northjersey.com/story/weather/2018/11/15/how-much-snow-today-nj-and-what-else-we-know-thursday-snow-storm/2009872002/

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For me it affects it a lot. I personally like to play soccer and train my skills but I can't in winter because is too cold or is snowing.

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After reading the article, you can see that rain cause fog and slippery roads which is not safe for drivers. - Sabrina

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How will climate change affect rainfall?

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As the world warms, rainfall will increase overall but changes in distribution will increase droughts as well as floods

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Climate change is a very serious matter and it needs to be addressed. This website gives many examples of climate change and somethings we can do to solve this problem.

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From sea to rising sea: Climate change in America

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From severe storms and catastrophic flooding to record-breaking droughts and deadly wildfires, Americans are living with the consequences of a changing climate every day. Still, the majority of Americans did not believe climate change would harm them personally, according to a Yale University study.

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US Environmental Protection Agency: Effects of Global Warming on Alaska

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US Environmental Protection Agency: Effects of Global Warming on Alaska

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Alaska's temperatures are lowering annually.

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Overview

Alaska is the largest state in the United States, accounting for about 20% of the total area of the United States and more than twice the land area of Texas. Alaska includes lands on both sides of the Arctic Circle, which makes the United States an Arctic nation. The state spans a wide range of climatic and ecological conditions that include rainforests, glaciers, boreal forest, tundra, peatlands, and meadows. Alaska contains 16 national wildlife refuges spanning 76 million acres and hosts 60% of the total area managed by the National Park Service, including the largest U.S. National Park (Wrangell-St. Elias with 13.2 million acres).

Over the past 60 years, the average temperature across Alaska has increased by approximately 3°F. This increase is more than twice the warming seen in the rest of the United States. Warming in the winter has increased by an average of 6°F and has led to changes in ecosystems, such as earlier breakup of river ice in the spring. As the climate continues to warm, average annual temperatures in Alaska are projected to increase an additional 2 to 4°F by the middle of this century.Precipitation in Alaska is projected to increase during all seasons by the end of this century. Despite increased precipitation, the state is likely to become drier due to greater evaporation caused by warming temperatures and longer growing seasons.

Rising temperatures may provide some benefits in Alaska, such as a longer growing season for agricultural crops, increased tourism, and access to natural resources that are currently inaccessible due to ice cover, like offshore oil. However, climate change is also having adverse effects on many ecosystems and species, and is creating new hardships for Native Alaskans.

Permafrost

Permafrost is frozen ground that is typically located a few feet below the soil surface in extremely cold regions. Eighty percent of Alaska's surface lies above permafrost. Permafrost typically remains frozen year-round, but as air temperatures rise, permafrost is thawing in many areas. As permafrost thaws, ice in the permafrost melts and can cause the soil above to sink, resulting in ground subsidence and damage to roads, homes, and other structures. The impacts of melting permafrost on transportation, forests, other ecosystems, and the economy could have widespread implications for Alaskans.

Transportation and Infrastructure Impacts

Climate change leads to more permafrost thaw and disruptions to freeze-thaw cycles that can increase frost heaves and subsidence. This can potentially cause damage to transportation infrastructure in Alaska, including highways, railroads, and airstrips. Uneven sinking of the ground in response to permafrost thaw is likely to add significant costs to the maintenance and repair of transportation infrastructure and buildings. Many of Alaska's highways are built in permafrost areas and are subject to damage if the permafrost thaws. Additionally, warming leads to a shorter period when ice roads are usable and a shorter season during which oil and gas exploration on the tundra can occur.

For more information on climate change impacts on transportation, please visit the Transportation Impacts page.

Ecosystems

Climate change is causing changes in lakes, ponds, wetlands, plant composition, and wildfires that impact human health, wildlife, and ecosystems. Lakes are changing size, with most lakes shrinking in area in the southern portion of the state. Surface waters and wetlands provide breeding habitat for millions of waterfowl and shorebirds that winter in the lower 48 states. These wetland ecosystems and wildlife resources are also important to Alaska Natives who hunt and fish for food.

Lakes get smaller through a combination of increased evaporation caused by warmer temperatures, permafrost thaw which allows lakes to drain more readily, and greater accumulation of decomposing plant material on lake bottoms caused by greater plant growth. In areas where permafrost is discontinuous or fragmented across the landscape, lakes are expected to continue shrinking in area. Some lakes are growing in area because of lateral permafrost thaw, which causes the edges of the lake to collapse inward, thereby increasing the area of the lake. Lake growth is expected to continue in areas underlain with continuous permafrost.

As the climate warms, shrubs are expanding into the tundra. In some areas, shrubs are replacing lichens and other tundra vegetation. Lichens are an important winter food source for caribou, and the loss of lichens can lead to declines in the growth and abundance of these animals. Caribou, in turn, are a critical food source for predators such as bears and wolves, as well as for some Alaska Natives.

Higher temperatures and drier conditions increase the risks of drought, wildfire, and insect infestation. Large wildfires have consumed more boreal forest in Alaska in the last ten years than in any other decade recorded, and the area burned annually is projected to double by 2050. Fires change forest habitat, improving conditions for moose and some plant species, but reducing the lichen that caribou rely on in winter. Warmer temperatures are also expected to worsen insect damage to forests across much of the state, which may increase the area of standing dead, highly flammable trees that are especially vulnerable to wildfire.

Oceans and Coasts

Sea ice is frozen seawater that floats on the surface of the ocean. Some sea ice persists from year to year (known as perennial sea ice), often getting thicker as it piles up against Arctic shorelines. Other sea ice is seasonal, melting during the summer and refreezing in winter.

Over the past several decades, perennial sea ice has declined. This decline is, in part, a result of extended periods of above-freezing air or water temperatures. Ocean currents and wind patterns have also played an important role. September 2012 had the lowest sea ice extent (or area of ocean covered by ice) on record, 49 percent below the 1979-2000 average for that month. The September 2014 sea ice extent was nearly 700,000 square miles less than the historical 1979-2000 average for that month - a difference more than twice the size of Texas. The thickness and age of sea ice is also declining throughout the Arctic, with recent measurements indicating a loss of 50% of sea ice since 1979. Climate models project that sea ice will continue to decrease and indicate that the Arctic could be nearly ice free during the late summer by the 2030s.

Diminishing sea ice is opening new opportunities for shipping, oil and gas exploration, tourism, and other economic activities. However, it also creates a pathway for invasive species and habitat loss for a variety of ice-dependent species, including walruses and polar bears. Changes in sea ice can also affect the timing and location of plankton blooms, which can in turn affect the areas where commercial fisheries can thrive. Sea ice along the shoreline and permafrost in coastal areas help to protect human settlements from flooding and erosion. As coast erosion increases due to declining sea ice, residents are becoming more vulnerable.

For more information on climate change impacts on coasts, please visit the Coastal Impacts page.

Alaska Natives

Alaska is home to 229 federally recognized tribes that are already experiencing the impacts of climate change in their everyday lives. Alaska Native peoples depend economically, nutritionally, and culturally on fishing and hunting animals, including polar bears, walruses, seals, caribou, and fish. As the supply of fish and game decline, they are likely to travel onto thinning ice in search of food and are being forced to seek alternative food sources. Arctic plants and animals, including those harvested as subsistence food, are also at higher risk for diseases in a warming climate, further affecting food availability and human health.

The health of native communities is also threatened by loss of clean water, saltwater intrusion, and sewage contamination from thawing permafrost, as well as by the northward expansion of diseases. Warming also increases exposure to pollutants, such mercury and organic pesticides, that have been transported to Arctic regions and are released from thawing soils.

Thawing permafrost, loss of coastal sea ice, sea level rise, and more intense extreme weather events are also increasing erosion and flooding along Alaska's northwestern coast. More than 30 Native villages are either in the process of or in need of relocating their entire village. In Shishmaref, Kivalina, and Newtok, for example, erosion is causing extensive damage, creating new dangers to residents, and deepening pressure to relocate. However, due to high costs and land constraints, tribal communities in Alaska have been experiencing difficulty relocating to safer areas.

For more information on climate change impacts on society, please visit the Society Impacts page.

References
[1] U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska Region. [2] National Park Service (2014) United States. Alaska Regional Office. U.S. Department of the Interior. [3] USGCRP (2014). Chapin, F.S., S.F.Trainor, P. Cochran, H. Huntington, C. Markon, M. McCammon, A.D. McGuire, and M. Serreze, 2014: Ch. 22: Alaska. Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment, J. M. Melillo, Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and G. W. Yohe, Eds, U.S. Global Change Research Program, 514-536. [4] U.S. Arctic Research Commission Permafrost Task Force (2003). (72 pp, 4.8 MB, Climate Change, Permafrost, and Impacts on Civil Infrastructure. Special Report 01-03 About PDF), U.S. Arctic Research Commission, Arlington, Virginia. [5] ACIA (2004). Impacts of a Warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Exit Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
(166 pp, 11.3 MB, [6] USGS (2012). Markon, C.J., Trainor, S.F., and Chapin, F.S., III, eds., 2012, The United States National Climate Assessment - Alaska Technical Regional Report: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1379, About PDF) .
[7] National Snow and Ice Data Center: Exit
National Snow and Ice Data Center (3 Oct. 2014).Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis: A better year for the cryosphere. Exit
National Snow and Ice Data Center (7 Oct. 2014).Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis: 2014 melt season in review. Exit [8] USGCRP (2014). Bennett, T. M. B., N. G. Maynard, P. Cochran, R. Gough, K. Lynn, J. Maldonado, G. Voggesser, S. Wotkyns, and K. Cozzetto, 2014: Ch. 12: Indigenous Peoples, Lands, and Resources. Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment, J. M. Melillo, Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and G. W. Yohe, Eds., U.S. Global Change Research Program, 297-317. [9] USGCRP (2009). Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. [10] US EPA (2015). Climate Change Indicators in the United States. [11] GAO (2009). (53 pp, 2.2 MB, Alaska Native Villages: Limited Progress Has Been Made on Relocating Villages Threatened by Flooding and Erosion About PDF).

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Alaska is the largest state in the United States, accounting for about 20% of the total area of the United States and more than twice the land area of Texas. Alaska includes lands on both sides of the Arctic Circle, which makes the United States an Arctic nation.

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-Emely Falcon

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The National Climate Assessment summarizes the impacts of climate change on the United States, now and in the future.

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How Climate Change In New Jersey Affect Our Future - David Mingo

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How Climate Change In New Jersey Affect Our Future - David Mingo

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Here's how climate change will make N.J. deadlier in your lifetime

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A new report from international experts is ringing the alarms of climate change. Here's what it means for New Jersey.

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New Jersey's temperature is rising at an increasing rate.

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New Jersey Real-Time News

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Sunny day flooding in Ocean City during evening high tide on June 12, 2018. Photo courtesy of Suzanne Leary Hornick.

Temperature Change 1988-2017

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Raw video of sunny day flooding in Ocean City, filmed by Suzanne Leary Hornick on June 11, 2018. The weather that day was a high around 70 degrees fahrenheit with no precipitation.

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N.J. is one of the fastest warming states in the U.S. Here's what that means

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New Jersey Real-Time News 35234980_1958366840843096_7861892959078187008_o.jpg Sunny day flooding in Ocean City during evening high tide on June 12, 2018. Photo courtesy of Suzanne Leary Hornick. Loading... Raw video of sunny day flooding in Ocean City, filmed by Suzanne Leary Hornick on June 11, 2018.

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-Wilson Morocho

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CLOSE

NORTH JERSEY - It was a heavy storm that hit harder than expected - a storm that puzzled experts as North Jersey dug out on Friday.

"It will go down in the annals as one of the more notable November snowstorms," said state climatologist David Robinson of Rutgers University.

On Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service changed its Winter Weather Advisory to a Winter Storm Warning for parts of Bergen and Passaic counties as it realized North Jersey was about to get dumped on.

Weather models had predicted just 2 inches of snow and a tenth of an inch of freezing rain as recently as Wednesday night, according to Joe Pollina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

But by 12:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon Pollina said the picture had changed and forecasts called for 4 to 8 inches of snow.

"We had some heavy precipitation move in yesterday afternoon and into the overnight hours as a low-pressure system approached from the southwest," Pollina said Friday. "The precip was a little heavier than forecasted at the time. That was a factor."

Other factors meteorologists take into account include wind strength, ground temperature and air temperature.

"It looked like there was going to be more precipitation at the onset of the storm while the cold air was still in place," said Pollina.

That pushed accumulations closer to the top of the projected range, Pollina said. Hawthorne ended up getting 7 inches of snow. Westwood saw 7.8 inches and Franklin Lakes got a total of 7.2 inches.

Robinson said his numbers are still preliminary, but Tenafly got 6.6 inches. Seven inches of snow landed in Palisades Park and some places, like Randolph in Morris County saw as much as 10 inches, Robinson said.

"The amount of snow that fell this early in the season was definitely atypical," said Pollina.

To put it more bluntly, Robinson said, "to get a plowable snow this time of year, all of the stars have to align."

A look ahead: First snow storm is over, but what will the rest of the winter be like in New Jersey?

Column: New Jersey commuters wanted snow plows, Phil Murphy gave them excuses

Snowstorm NJ 2018: Here's how Thursday's commute turned into complete chaos

A heavy burst of precipitation that came quickly and fiercely was key.

"The snow came with such an intensity that it was self-perpetuating. It kept the air cold all throughout the atmosphere down to the surface," Robinson said.

Pollina said the storm will be studied in the days to come.

"Maybe it was a little too late but we did catch on to what we were seeing," Pollina said.

Other notable storms include one that followed Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and a storm that "gave us a white Thanksgiving in 1989," Robinson said.

Robinson added that having three fall snowstorms in the last decade is an unusual occurrence, but it doesn't indicate a trend.

The National Weather Service likes to "give a heads up to the public 24 to 36 hours beforehand with a winter storm warning" whenever there is more than 6 inches of snow predicted.

Thursday's predictions gave "a little less than 24 hours notice" because most models showed higher temperatures and lower precipitation, according to Pollina.

"It wasn't until Thursday night model runs that they were hinting at how much snow we could see," Pollina said.

Wind gusts in the area were between 30 and 40 mph with the strongest winds peaking at 41 mph at 10:46 p.m. Thursday night. Winds as strong as 61 mph were recorded along the coast.

Meteorologist Melissa Dispigna, also with the National Weather Service, said that outside of power outages in Hudson County, she hasn't received many damage reports from New Jersey. However, as many as 1,500 trees were downed in New York City.

"It was a heavy, wet snow and the trees down are partly due to the wind we had and also the leaves are still on the trees, so that adds to the weight," she said.
Email: myers@northjersey.com
Read or Share this story: https://www.northjersey.com/story/weather/2018/11/16/nj-snowstorm-2018-why-did-hit-so-hard/2023921002/

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7+ inches of snow: Why did the storm hit so hard?

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CLOSE NORTH JERSEY - It was a heavy storm that hit harder than expected - a storm that puzzled experts as North Jersey dug out on Friday. "It will go down in the annals as one of the more notable November snowstorms," said state climatologist David Robinson of Rutgers University.

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Drought in the United States-Cindy Rojas 

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Drought in the United States-Cindy Rojas 

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Around the United States land is becoming dry there are droughts due to climate change

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How climate change is impacting on coastal communities, Ecosystems and Economies, etc.. 

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How climate change is impacting on coastal communities, Ecosystems and Economies, etc.. 

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- Johnny Guaman

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climate and environmental change initiative

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rutgers initiative on climate and society

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Climate Change and the Jersey Shore: Impacts on Coastal Communities, Ecosystems and Economies

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New Jersey Climate Adaptation Alliance, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

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Wyoming - State temperature increases by 3 percent in the last century

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Wyoming - State temperature increases by 3 percent in the last century

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Due to climate change, Wyoming is exposed to increasing heat, melting glaciers, reduced water, and wildfires.

-Xiomara Strata

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Each US state is affected by climate change and has clean energy opportunities.

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What a hurricane can cause because of climate change

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What a hurricane can cause because of climate change

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Brianna Ajawuihe

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How floods affect New Jersey?
- Makaida Samuels

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Hurricanes such as Hurricane Sandy impact us by destroying homes.

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Hurricanes such as Hurricane Sandy impact us by destroying homes.

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by: Carla Plaza

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Flooding has more recently hit New Jersey flooding many business and leaving people without a home.

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Flooding has more recently hit New Jersey flooding many business and leaving people without a home.

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By David Guemes