Harmful Algal Blooms
Background :- The Ministry of Earth Science has been actively working with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), USA towards strengthening of ocean observations in the Indian Ocean with a view to improve understanding ocean process for better forecasting capabilities including studying the Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB).
The Ministry also has conducted regular surveys along the coastal and oceanic area of India and recorded altogether about 84 algal blooms during the period from 1998 to 2016.
What is a harmful algal bloom?
These blooms are a national concern because they affect not only the health of people and marine ecosystems, but also the “health” of our economy — especially coastal communities dependent on the income of jobs generated through fishing and tourism. With climate change and increasing nutrient pollution potentially causing HABs to occur more often and in locations not previously affected, it’s important for us to learn as much as we can about how and why they form and where they are, so that we can reduce their harmful effects.
Why Do HABS Happen ?
While we know of many factors that contribute to HABs, how these factors come together to create a “bloom” of algae is not well understood. HABs occur naturally, but human activities that disturb ecosystems seem to play a role in their more frequent occurrence and intensity. Increased nutrient loadings and pollution, food web alterations, introduced species, water flow modifications and climate change all play a role.
Studies show that many algal species flourish when wind and water currents are favorable. In other cases, HABs may be linked to “overfeeding.” This occurs when nutrients (mainly phosphorus and nitrogen) from sources such as lawns and agriculture flow into bays, rivers, and the sea, and build up at a rate that “overfeeds” the algae that exist normally in the environment. Some HABs appear in the aftermath of natural phenomena like sluggish water circulation, unusually high water temperatures, and extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods, and drought.
Although all coastal states experience HABs, different organisms live in different places and cause different problems. Other factors, such as the structure of the coast, runoff, oceanography, and other organisms in the water, can also change the scope and severity of HAB impacts.
In the Gulf of Mexico, especially the west coast of Florida and the Texas coast, the most frequent cause of HABs is Karenia brevis. The toxin from this HAB becomes airborne when waves break on the beach, which causes severe respiratory irritation.
In-Detail
Phytoplankton are important constituents of the marine food web and comprise 40 % of the total fixed global primary productivity . Of about 5,000 species of marine hytoplankton that exist in the world, ~ 7 % are responsible for algal blooms (or red tides) which includes diatoms, dinoflagellates, raphidophytes, prymnesiophytes and silicoflagellatesOf this, ~ 2 %of phytoplankton species are harmful or toxic and ~ 75 % are contributed by dinoflagellates.. The occurrence of blooms are spontaneous and remarkable; their growth and persistence are brought about by a combination of physical, chemical and biological factors interacting in ways that are often sudden and unpredictable
Algal blooms that discolour the seawater are commonly referred to as ‘red tide’.
India, being one of the major maritime countries is endowed with a coastline of approximately 7,500 km and embraced by two important seas i.e. the Arabian Sea (AS) on the west and Bay of Bengal (BOB) on the east coast of India. This marine environment embodies diverse habitats such as estuaries, mangrove swamps, brackish water lakes, coral reefs, islands and offshore waters that support a great diversity of flora and fauna. The coastline is dotted with 12 major ports, six each on the west and east coasts of India.In addition, there are 163 minor and intermediate ports along the coastline and sea–islands. These serve as gateways for international and national trade. With increase in shipping traffic, this region is also susceptible to ship–mediated invasion. Bioinvasion is considered is one of the vectors for global expansion of HABs in other parts of the world.
Possible causative factors responsible for algal blooms:-
(a)physical processes such as upwelling, cyclones and eddies
(b) chemical processes such as increased nutrient conditions (eutrophication)
(c) biological processes like competition, grazing and allelopathy
India, Monsoon and Bloom
The seas along the Indian coast – the AS (Arabian Sea) and BOB (Bay of Bengal), are land–locked in the north and forced by seasonally–reversing monsoon winds, making it unique among the world oceans. The monsoon winds reverse twice a year, blowing from south–west (SW) during May–September and from the north–east (NE) during November–January with the transition taking place during the months in between.
Differences between regions of AS and BOB arise because of the following reasons-
Both, the AS and BOB show opposing trends in surface circulation during summer (SW) and winter (NE) monsoons.
The BOB receives larger quantities of fresh water and sediment load from rivers compared to AS.
The AS has salinity usually in the range 35–37 psu due to excess evaporation over rainfall. In contrast, the BOB has much lower salinity (30–33 psu) due to large influx of freshwater from river discharge and high amount of rainfall.
In the BOB, the surface temperatures range between 27 and 29 ⁰C; except for shallow areas near the coast. The fluctuations are much wider (23–29 ⁰C) along the AS coast of India.
Algal bloom reportings:-
In Indian waters, first observations on algal blooms that caused massive fish mortality was reported by James Hornell in 1908 while cruising along the Malabar coast to Laccadive islands.
A review of algal bloom occurrences in Indian waters from 1908 to 2009 showed a total of 101 bloom incidents
Trichodesmium erythraeum and Noctiluca scintillans were the common blooming species in coastal waters of India.
During the period from 1908 to 1950, the number of blooms was less and it was restricted between the 8 to 12 ⁰N latitudinal margins along the Indian coasts with majority of the blooms recorded from the SW coast of India. From 1950 to 2009, the distribution of bloom incidents has spread from 8 to 20 ⁰N latitude i.e. from southern to northern part along both the coasts of India.
Most of the blooms are generally reported in non-Monsoon times owing to rough weather and low sea vessel movements.Also , the bloom reported till date is higher in AS than BOB.
The positive aspect of diatom blooms is that it may be beneficial to fisheries whereas blooms can negatively affect fisheries and human health.
Notwithstanding the general trend of bloom occurring in non-monsoon times, few condition in AS and BOB trigger bloom in Monsoon times as well.
The west coast of India undergoes periods of strong upwelling during monsoon and delivers cold, nutrient–rich waters from bottom depths. As a result, upwelling coupled with monsoon leads to high nutrient conditions triggering high primary production.Due to high biological productivity, the intermediate water gets depleted of oxygen creating hypoxic conditions during September–October.Therefore, blooms occurring during monsoon can be the result of increased discharge of nutrients by land run–off, precipitation and upwelling.
The Indian summer monsoon has vigorous intra– seasonal oscillations in the form of active and weak (or broken) spells of rainfall within the monsoon season resulting in sudden changes of salinity and water temperatures This might act as a trigger mechanism to induce the blooming of certain species which prefer a particular range of salinity and temperature in the presence of sufficient nutrients in coastal waters.It is evident that the monsoons can provide favourable conditions to trigger bloom formation of several phytoplankton species. Break in monsoon can also provide a window of opportunity for
certain phytoplankton species to bloom.
Although, the conditions are favourable during monsoon, there are lesser occurrence of blooms during this period.This can be also related to non–efficient utilization of nutrients by phytoplankton under low irradiance due to monsoonal cloud cover.
The BOB is known for its unique characteristic features: large volume of freshwater input from river discharge and rainfall, warmer sea surface temperatures, monsoonal clouds and reversal of currents.
BOB is considered to have lower biological productivity than its western counterpart, the AS. The low biological productivity of BOB has been speculated to be due to various seasons such as narrow shelf, cloud cover during summer monsoon, turbidity resulting from sediment influx and fresh water–induced stratification
Along the east coast of India, upwelling does occur but the strongly stratified surface layer of the BOB restricts the transport of nutrients from deeper layers to the surface. The stratification is especially intense during the SW-monsoon period due to enormous influx of freshwater through precipitation and riverine discharges that leads to the formation of low salinity cap at the surface.
Hence number of bloom in eastern coast of India is less than that of western coast of India.
Impact of algal blooms on human health and sustainable fishery:-
- Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP)
- The Indian fisheries economy depends heavily upon the coastal zone for marine products, so it isespecially sensitive to constraints from red tides and toxic microalgae
- So far, there are 7 fish–killing species such as Cochlodinium polykrikoides, Karenia brevis, Karenia mikimotoi, Noctiluca scintillans, Trichodesmium erythraeum, Trichodesmium thiebautii and Chattonella marina that form
algal blooms and are responsible for massive fish mortality in Indian waters
On–going monitoring programmes:-
- For monitoring of HABs along the Indian coasts, a national coordinated multi–institutional research program on “HABs in the Indian EEZ” is being funded by Ministry of Earth Sciences (MOES) with Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE) as the project coordinator and participation of various institutions.
- Ignoring problems caused by ballast water introductions could pose a threat to coastal water bodies.The introduction of harmful aquatic organisms and pathogens to new environments via ships’ ballast water has been considered as an important vector for global expansion of HABs.Ballast Water Management
Programme–India (BAMPI) which is supported by Directorate General of shipping and Ministry of Shipping, India - A phytoplankton–monitoring programme under the Indian Expendable Bathythermographic (XBT) programme funded by Ministry of Earth Sciences is in existence since early 2000
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.