20-Aug-2019: Worsening Water Quality Reducing Economic Growth by a Third in Some Countries: World Bank
The world faces an invisible crisis of water quality that is eliminating one-third of potential economic growth in heavily polluted areas and threatening human and environmental well-being, according to a World Bank report released today.
Quality Unknown: The Invisible Water Crisis shows, with new data and methods, how a combination of bacteria, sewage, chemicals, and plastics can suck oxygen from water supplies and transform water into poison for people and ecosystems. To shed light on the issue, the World Bank assembled the world’s largest database on water quality gathered from monitoring stations, remote sensing technology, and machine learning.
The report finds that a lack of clean water limits economic growth by one-third. It calls for immediate global, national, and local-level attention to these dangers which face both developed and developing countries.
Clean water is a key factor for economic growth. Deteriorating water quality is stalling economic growth, worsening health conditions, reducing food production, and exacerbating poverty in many countries. Governments must take urgent actions to help tackle water pollution so that countries can grow faster in equitable and environmentally sustainable ways.
When Biological Oxygen Demand – a measure of how much organic pollution is in water and a proxy measure of overall water quality – crosses a certain threshold, GDP growth in downstream regions drops by as much as a third because of impacts on health, agriculture, and ecosystems.
A key contributor to poor water quality is nitrogen, which, applied as fertilizer in agriculture, eventually enters rivers, lakes and oceans where it transforms into nitrates. Early exposure of children to nitrates affects their growth and brain development, impacting their health and adult learning potential. The run-off and release into water from every additional kilogram of nitrogen fertilizer per hectare can increase the level of childhood stunting by as much as 19 percent and reduce future adult earnings by as much as 2 percent, compared to those who are not exposed.
The report also finds that as salinity in water and soil increases due to more intense droughts, storm surges and rising water extraction, agricultural yields fall. The world is losing enough food to saline water each year to feed 170 million people.
The report recommends a set of actions that countries can take to improve water quality. These include: environmental policies and standards; accurate monitoring of pollution loads; effective enforcement systems; water treatment infrastructure supported with incentives for private investment; and reliable, accurate information disclosure to households to inspire citizen engagement.
19-Aug-2019: India largest SO2 emitter in the World
According to a new analysis by Greenpeace, India is the largest emitter of SO2 in the world with more than 15% of all the anthropogenic Sulphur dioxide (SO2) hotspots detected by NASA OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) satellite. Almost all of these emissions in India are because of coal burning.
Emissions of Sulphur dioxide (SO2) are a significant contributor to air pollution. The largest source of SO2 in the atmosphere is the burning of fossil fuels in power plants and other industrial facilities. Other sources of SO2 emissions include processes such as extracting metal from ore; running of locomotives, ships and other vehicles that burn fuel with a high sulfur content, along with natural sources such as volcanoes.
During December 2015, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had introduced for the first time SO2 emission limits for coal power plants with an initial deadline to retrofit technology to control SO2 emissions from power generation by December 2017. At the request of the Ministry of Power and power plant operators, this was later extended till December 2019 for power plants in Delhi-NCR and till 2022 for most other power plants across the country through a Supreme Court order.
The Greenpeace study finds that Singrauli, Neyveli, Talcher, Jharsuguda, Korba, Kutch, Chennai, Ramagundam, Chandrapur and Koradi are the major SO2 emission hotspots in India. The report also highlights other hotspots across the globe with the Norilsk smelter complex in Russia as the largest SO2 emission hotspot in the world, followed by Kriel in Mpumalanga province in South Africa and Zagroz in Iran.
This report makes it clear that we cannot give coal power plants a free hand to continue polluting and keep leading to health emergency situation in India due to air pollution. We are facing an air pollution emergency and yet it is far from clear that power plants will meet even the extended deadlines to comply with pollution limits, both in Delhi and around the country. This problem will only get worse if we ignore it – the government must act now and prioritise public health through strict action on polluters that fail to comply with the law.
The analysis drives home the fact that air pollution is a huge public health concern. 91% of the world’s population live in areas where outdoor air pollution exceeds guideline limits by the World Health Organization (WHO) and as a result, 4.2 million people die prematurely every year only due to ambient air pollution.
26-Jul-2019: Ministry of mines organises a workshop on Effective utilization of Red Mud.
In a step towards productive utilisation of bauxite residue, commonly known as the ‘Red Mud’, an interactive workshop called ‘Waste To Wealth’ was organized by Ministry of Mines in New Delhi. The present status regarding the generation of Red Mud and its safe disposal and utilization were discussed. The workshop, which was presided over by Dr K. Rajeswara Rao, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Mines, was organised in association with the Jawaharlal Nehru Aluminum Research Development and Design Centre (JNARDDC) Nagpur.
Red Mud is a solid waste generated during the aluminum production process. This is an environmental concern due to presence of impurities such as caustic soda and others minerals. Global generation of red mud is more than 150 million tons and there exists a global inventory of more than 3 billion tons. Red mud generation in India is around 9 million tons per year.
The meet was widely attended by representatives from organisations like Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, CPCB, Odisha state Pollution Control Board, BARC, Indian Bureau of Mines, Ministry of Road Transport, NHAI and BIS, Engineer-in-Chief of Army, top executives from all three primary aluminum producing companies viz- NALCO, VEDANTA & HINDALCO as well as from user industries like cement and ceramic industry.
The day long deliberations were held to focus all efforts for effective bulk utilization of red mud with necessary government support, which will be a win-win situation for all the stakeholders. Based on the deliberations, a roadmap will be prepared for the productive utilization of red mud.