25-12-2020

FRIdAY, deCeMBeR 25, 2020
5
Asian countries tap satellite data to fight COVID-19
FAtIMA ArkIN
Asia Pacific countries are
leveraging geospatial
information, digital solutions
and artificial intelligence to
enhance their response to the
ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
and to help meet the
sustainable Development
Goals (sDGs), according to a
new report.
"Data is now a strategic
asset," tiziana Bonapace,
director of the ICt and
disaster risk reduction
division of UN Economic and
social Commission for Asia
and the Pacific (UNEsCAP),
tells sciDev.Net. "With more
use, more value is added."
the report, which is the first
in a series of UNEsCAP
publications to assess
progress
towards
implementing the Asia-Pacific
Plan of Action on space
Applications for sustainable
What can heal an ailing earth?
PrAGAtI PrAVA
Forests provide us with one of
the best defences against
climate change. Increasingly,
however, a perception is
building - at least among a
part of the policy makers
across the world - that forests
are just a combination of trees
that are useful only to bring
down the carbon emissions.
Based on our interactions
with many young generation
folks, we have got this
realisation that "plantation"
or planting trees, which is a
form of environmental
fashion now is considered as
the most favoured for of
environmental activism
among these youth. It's
anyways more difficult to
conserve a forest than
planting trees.
A report published in
science, that made big
headlines last year, claimed
that there is scope of planting
500 billion trees over an area
of 1.7 billion hectares of land,
that's almost the size of the
U.s. this, the study claims,
would suck up some twothirds
of all carbon emissions
released by humans since the
Industrial revolution.
Governments, private
associations and companies
have so far pledged to grow
210 million hectares of trees.
While trees are important to
enrich all forms of
ecosystems, there have been
criticisms from various
Development (2018-2030),
highlights a number of
initiatives throughout the
region.
thailand, for instance, used
space applications to monitor
the local COVID-19 situation
and visualise the impact of
development policies. the
Geo-Informatics and space
technology Development
Agency analysed reduced
night-light images to monitor
the impact of lockdown
measures.
It also used satellite data to
monitor nitrogen dioxide
emissions and found that
since the beginning of the
year, most provinces in
thailand had fewer activities
that caused emissions. All this
data was integrated into a
newly created dashboard that
allows policymakers and
others to monitor the
pandemic, medical capacity,
supplies, consumer goods and
sections of society and experts
to the obsession with planting
trees. scientists and experts
have raised serious concerns
regarding the effectiveness of
such drives. they have said
that the science behind it
could be dangerously
misleading. In the name of
plantation and climate action,
often monoculture is
promoted, our own
experience has found out. In
many places, lands such as
grasslands like savannas,
Pampas, and similar
vegetation, including shrubs
surrounding natural forests
are judged as wasteland and
fast growing tree species are
planted to replace them in
order to meet plantation
targets. there have been
numerous examples of such
forced plantations, of alien
species, inside forest areas as
well. In India, such efforts by
forest departments have also
led to conflicts with the local
and indigenous communities
who protect forests for
generations and emphasise
more on the restoration of
degraded forests with native
biodiversity enriching species
that, to them, are much more
useful than alien species
which are good only for
timber value or carbon sink.
the
indigenous
communities, who make up
only 6 percent of the global
population, protect and cover
of the world. And for them
forestry is much broader a
concept than mere tree
preventive and precautionary
measures.
Last March, the Philippines'
Department of science and
technology - Philippine
Council for Industry, Energy
and Emerging technology
research and Development
(DOst-PCIEErD) solicited
proposals for projects that use
geospatial information in
response to COVID-19.
One of the proposals was
from the University of the
Philippines Diliman for an
online geographic system to
track information on medical
resources in local health
facilities. Dubbed 'tracking
for Allocation of Medical
supplies', the system uses
volunteered
and
crowdsourced data to provide
necessary support to ensure
proper allocation of medical
resources.
Now that the world is on the
threshold of vaccine
Satellite data is now being used in the Asia-Pacific region to monitor the
situation on the ground.
Photo: Pixabay
planting. While for most of
us, sitting in urban areas, far
away from natural forests,
trees are carbon sinks and
forests are picnic spots, for
these dwellers and protectors
of the resources, it is their
source of food, livelihood,
culture and water and much
more. It's a heritage, they feel
they have inherited from their
forefathers, and needs to be
protected not only for humans
but other species too. For this
article, we tried to capture
views from some of the
indigenous women in
Odisha's forested villages who
Inhabitants collect food grains, pulses, vegetables, greens, mushrooms,
tubers, nuts and meaty delicacies from their forests. Photo:L Ranjan Panda
have been leading local
conservation efforts.
"Forest is like my parents'
house. Whenever we feel
stressed, we go inside our
forest and feel like getting
embraced. We return
refreshed with all our
requirements - from food to
fuel - and much more," said
70-year-old shashi Pradhan,
who leads forest protection
initiatives in Dengajhari
village under ranpur block of
Nayagarh district and is
instrumental in protecting
700 hectares of forest in the
area.
Drought is a rare
occurrence in places having
dense forest cover. According
to shashi, who is the
President of Dengajhari
Mahila Jungle suraksha O
Parichalana Committee
(DMJsPC), a federation of
Dengajhari village women to
protect forests, "Earlier
availability, the need for
artificial intelligence
geospatial information
persists as countries plan for a
shift towards a "new normal,"
Enrico Paringit, executive
director of DOst-PCIEErD,
tells.
"this could mean the need
to develop tools to ensure
safety of public transport
systems and offices as the
economy is gradually being
opened for business. We also
need to develop intelligent
systems to monitor places of
commerce - systems that
detect and report compliance
to social distancing rules," he
adds.
Yet, despite notable
advances, significant
challenges remain that
prevent Asia Pacific countries
from taking full advantage of
digital solutions in their
COVID-19 responses.
Bonapace highlights major
issues: persistent and
significant capacity gaps and
limitations regarding the
technology applications and a
lack of guidelines and tools for
integrating geospatial,
statistical and other kinds of
data and information.
For Paringit, openness of
data and sustainability are the
two main challenges he sees in
scaling up digital solutions.
"there are concerns over
sustainability of platforms
developed during the
pandemic since it might die
down after the initial
requirements and needs have
been met and the business
case had not been thought out
in the beginning," he adds.
during 1970s, we used to
suffer from frequent droughts
as the four streams adjoining
our villages used to dry up just
a few weeks after the
monsoon retreated. the
cause, we realized, was the
denuded forests caused by
rampant timber smuggling.
With the forests, the streams
have reappeared. We brought
them back with our
conservation efforts. With
recharged streams, villagers
harvest good crops every
year."
shashi feels that the dense
forest cover has changed the
local climatic condition and
ensured good rainfall. "there
is hardly any instance of croploss
in the last one decade or
so", added shashi who bagged
several awards including the
Devi Award-2019 from the
New Indian Express Group.
"At present when the price
of potato is more than 45
rupees per kg (60 cents per
kg), it has no impact on us.
Besides, during the time when
the supply from West Bengal
got restricted and the price of
potatoes soared, it had no
impact on us. We consume
even more delicious roots
locally called Pichhuli, tunga
and kadaba," said Jamuna
Pradhan, who is 35 and a
member of the DMJsPC. In
1956, when the area faced a
deadly drought, her village
survived on boiled kadaba,
recalled shashi.
she named more than 20
varieties of greens that they
get from their forest.
Adhanga saga, Bhadalia saga,
sunsunia saga and kalama
saga are a few. she also
counted around 15 varieties of
fruits including chironjee,
kendu, dates, mangoes,
jamun that the forest provides
them with.
this variety of food is not
confined to a particular
cluster of forest only. Around
300 kilometers away, in the
similipal Biosphere, forests
provide more than 160 food
varieties to its dwellers. "Even
when during the rainy season,
our streams get flooded and
roads get washed away and
the sanctuary gets cut-off
from the rest of the world, we
don't worry about food. Forest
provides half of our required
edible varieties during rainy
season and ensures that we
focus on cultivation," said
kabita Jerai of Mandam, a
village inside the biosphere
reserve.
Malaria-infected children with no symptoms are super-spreaders of the disease, a study has revealed.
Copyright: Image by Ian Ingalula from Pixabay
Asymptomatic children could
be super-spreaders of malaria
EsthEr NAkkAzI
What dams in Chinese Bhramaputra means for India
DEVELOPMENt DEsk
At first glance, it looks like
another step towards the
realisation of an old
nightmare for India, and
especially for its Northeast.
On sunday, Chinese state
media reported that the
country's government had
cleared a proposal to begin
"hydropower exploitation in
the downstream of the
Yarlung tsangpo river"
during its next Five-Year Plan
period which commences in
2021. reports spoke of the
largest hydropower dam on
earth.
the Yarlung tsangpo is
generally identified as the
Brahmaputra in India. It
flows into Arunachal Pradesh
after a long journey through
tibet, and there its name
changes to siang. this then
becomes the Brahmaputra
when it reaches the plains of
Assam.
Anxieties abound in the
Brahmaputra Valley of
Assam, and in the siang
Valley of Arunachal, about
China's designs on the river
depriving these areas of their
lifeline. these anxieties have
long found resonance with
politicians, bureaucrats,
engineers and infrastructure
companies in the capital cities
of Dispur, Itanagar and Delhi.
It is a response based on a
misconception about the idea
of a river. the common image
of a river even among
journalists and strategic
affairs wonks is one that we all
drew as children in
kindergarten - one channel of
water flowing between two
banks. After all, if you live in
Delhi, the only river you have
around you is the sewer and
dry river bed that remains of
what was once the Yamuna. If
you live in Ahmedabad, you've
seen the canal that was the
school-age children with no malaria
symptoms could serve as superspreaders
of the disease, an observation
that could open a new chapter on malaria
control, a meeting has heard. the new
findings from a study that was conducted
in Uganda were reported at the virtual
annual meeting of the American society
of tropical Medicine and hygiene last
month.
"It is of great importance to understand
who transmits malaria. this is
particularly important in areas where
malaria control is successful," says teun
Bousema, a co-author of the study and
professor of epidemiology of tropical
infectious diseases specialised in the
biology and epidemiology of Plasmodium
falciparum at radboud University
Medical Center in the Netherlands.
Bousema tells that those running
control programmes need to know
whether malaria may come back and who
in the human community can cause
mosquito infections to help in
determining when disease control can
become less rigorous or when resurgence
is very unlikely.
"In some ways, our study is a blueprint
of what can be expected in other
countries where mosquito control is very
successful. Malaria will not disappear
completely. It will persist in some
populations," adds Chiara Andolina, a coauthor
of the study and a doctoral student
at the radboud University Medical
Center, who presented the findings at the
meeting. "We now have the first direct
evidence that even in places under very
intensive malaria control, a small number
of asymptomatic super spreaders can
quietly sustain transmission - and finding
and treating them could prove very
challenging."
researchers assessed the transmission
of malaria among children showing
symptoms of malaria and those who did
not present symptoms in tororo district,
eastern Uganda. the area has been
targeted with malaria control measures,
including regular distribution of
insecticide-treated bednets, indoor
residual spraying with insecticides and
access to effective malaria drugs.
researchers conducted regular tests for
evidence of malaria parasites on 531
people, including children aged five to 15
years old over a 24-month period.
According to the findings presented at
the meeting, a school-age child who
showed no symptoms despite harbouring
seven different variations of the malaria
parasite Plasmodium falciparum "was
responsible for 24.7 per cent of all
infected mosquitoes infections observed".
"In this unique longitudinal study, we
find that asymptomatic infections in
school-age children are responsible for
the majority of onward transmission
sabarmati. If you live in
Mumbai, there's only the
Mithi, nearly as mythical as
the saraswati. Guwahati has
the Brahmaputra itself, a
powerful channel of water
between two banks around 1.5
km apart, a perfect illustration
of the common idea of the
river, and of why that idea is
misleading.
seeing the Brahmaputra
almost anywhere else other
than Guwahati is a whole
other experience. In Upper
Assam, around the Dibru
saikhowa national park where
it takes the name
Brahmaputra with the
merging of the Lohit, Dibang
and siang, innumerable
braids and streams of water
flow into one another. the
river there is not a single
channel between two banks -
it is a shape-shifting network
of water that stretches for
miles. In monsoon, it can
easily expand to over 15 km in
width. If you stand on one
bank, you cannot see the
other.
this river is vastly different
from the Yarlung tsangpo in
tibet, known as the siang in
Arunachal Pradesh, which is
merely the longest among its
countless tributaries. We can
list the big ones - from the
Lohit, Dibang and Noa Dihing
at the foothills of eastern
Arunachal to the teesta in
northern Bangladesh - that
flow into the river of many
rivers that is the
Brahmaputra. however, any
such count too is misleading.
It's not only these big
tributaries that constitute the
Brahmaputra. the true
measure of the river's extent is
the "basin", which is the area
of land from which the water
flows into a particular river.
Every little stream and rivulet
in the Brahmaputra basin,
from tibet to Bhutan, Assam,
Arunachal Pradesh,
Nagaland, Meghalaya and
sikkim, eventually finds its
way into the Brahmaputra.
they are all part of it.
A mapmaking convention
developed to designate the
longest tributary of a river as
the river itself. thus, the
Yarlung tsangpo came to be
identified with the
Brahmaputra in British
colonial times, when
Northeast India's first maps
were drawn. But the tsangpo
is not the Brahmaputra; it has
barely 1/20th of the water of
China plans to build a dam on its side of Bhramputra.
events," the study adds. Bousema
explains: "they are very prone to
infection and keep their infections longer
because they have some level of
immunity that prevents symptoms but
not infection."
"Malaria-free school initiatives can
have an important impact. Not only for
school children but, as we show, also for
the wider community since they are
important transmitters of the infection,"
she adds. Andolina tells sciDev.Net that
such children can be easily targeted with
interventions such as medicines that can
prevent them from acquiring parasites at
all as they are easily accessible in their
schools. Lauren Cohee, a paediatric
infectious disease specialist at the
University of Maryland school of
Medicine in the United states, says that
the findings offer insights into malaria
control. "the extent to which
transmission may be driven by a small
number of highly infectious individuals is
surprising and may open a new chapter
for malaria control," adds Cohee.
But Cohee explains that the yardstick
used to measure malaria control
interventions has traditionally been how
many lives are saved or how many deaths
are averted. "While this is clearly an
essential metric, policymakers should
consider the impact of control
interventions on transmission," Cohee
adds.
the Brahmaputra measured
after the Brahmaputra
receives the teesta's waters.
the Chinese cannot steal
the whole Brahmaputra even
if they wish, for the simple
reason that it does not flow
there. the myriad channels
that feed it are mostly streams
that flow on the southern,
Indian side of the himalayan
watershed. the McMahon
Line that forms the disputed
boundary between India and
China in Arunachal Pradesh
largely follows this watershed.
It is the natural dividing line
in the high mountains where
the waters part, with all the
water on the southern slopes
flowing south, and all of that
on the northern side flowing
north.
Chinese plans of exploiting
the hydropower potential of
the tsangpo are not new.
they have been in the public
domain for a decade at least.
Engineers there have long
viewed the river's "Grand
Canyon" area around what is
called the "Great Bend" with
greedy eyes. In that area, the
tsangpo rapidly descends two
kilometers through a narrow
gorge in the remote east of
tibet.
Photo: Collected