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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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.