DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Sand sedimentation is causing the mudflats of Kadalundi to vanish.

• Kadalundi – A village on the southwest coast in Kozhikode, Kerala that had about 8 hectares of nutrient­ rich inter­tidal mudflats in the early 2000s.

Kadalundi River is the 6^th longest River of Kerala. It originates from the Western Ghats and has 2 tributaries Olipuzha and Veliyar. The Kadalundi River and the Chaliyar River merges with the Arabian Sea at Kadalundi.

• Threat - Today, it has reduced to about 1 hectare.
  • Sedimentation of sand deprives prey to migrant birds.
  • Mangrove proliferation is aggressively invasive and they never attracts migratory birds because of predator’s presence.
  • Kerala floods of 2018 and 2019 hastened the process of degradation in Kadalundi.

The Kadalundi Bird Sanctuary is home to over a 100 species of native birds and about 60 species of migratory birds.

Kadalundi-Vallikunnu Community Reserve (KVCR) is India's 1^st river front community reserve. It spread across the 1.5km2 and endowed with good patches of Mangrove forest.

Mudflats

• They are also known as tidal flats which are coastal wetlands that form when mud is left behind by tides or rivers.
• They’re found in sheltered regions such as bayous, lagoons, estuaries, and bays.
• The majority of the sediment in a mudflat is within the intertidal zone, therefore the flat is submerged and exposed about twice per day and is usually barren (without any vegetation).
• Importance - It is vital in preventing coastal erosion and act as habitat for birds.

Soil contains nearly twice the amount of carbon compared to the combination of the atmosphere, vegetation, and animals.

According to a new study, deforestation in the Maritime Continent (MC) can strengthen subtropical El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) dynamics, causing more Central Pacific and multi-year ENSOs.

ENSO is an important climate phenomenon on Earth due to its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which in turn influences temperature and precipitation across the globe.

• Geography – A region around Southeast Asia between the Indian and Pacific oceans (Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea and 1000’s of islands and many seas).
• Climate – It is the warmest large span of ocean in the world, with an average temperature of about 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
• A lot of water evaporates and carried by tropical breezes, it drifts over the islands.
• Importance - It drives air currents circling around the planet, and also helps drive El Niño and La Niña thereby influencing the climate and weather in much of the world.

• Impact of deforestation – It reduces evapotranspiration and surface albedo which impacts land-atmosphere-ocean interactions such as the land-sea breeze.
• It might lead to 13.8% increase in La Nina events and 44.7% increases in multi-year El Nino events.

According to State of the World’s Forests 2022 by FAO (UN), forests absorbed more carbon than they emitted in 2011–2020 due to conservation efforts and it contain 662 billion tonnes of carbon which is more than half the global carbon stock in soils and vegetation.

FAO also estimated that around 420 million hectares (ha) of forest were lost between 1990 and 2020 and it was at 10 million ha per year in 2015–2020.

Some large industrialised meat and dairy companies promotes a new metric for measuring methane emissions, called GWP* as a more accurate way to calculate emissions from the greenhouse gas (GHG).

• GWP – It tells us how much heat a greenhouse gas (GHG) traps in the atmosphere.
• It measures the energy absorbed by 1 ton of an atmospheric gas over a specific period relative to energy absorbed by 1 ton of Carbon di-oxide (CO2) over the same time.
  • For example, the GWP of methane (CH4) is around 21 times greater than that of CO2.
• Gases with a higher GWP absorb more energy, per pound, than gases with a lower GWP, and thus contribute more to warming Earth
• Factors determining GWP – Atmospheric lifetime, absorption spectrum, and concentration of the GHG in the atmosphere.

The order of most abundant GHGs in the Earth's atmosphere is Water vapor, Carbon dioxide, Methane, Nitrous oxide, Ozone, Chlorofluorocarbons.

• Union ministry of ports, shipping and waterways reinstated the Vadhavan Port project in Maharashtra, after it had been stuck over environmental concerns for over 2 years.
• It is India's 13th major port, developed as a joint venture by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) and the Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB).

It is a Public-private partnership (PPP) project (JNPA - 74% stakes and MMB - 26% stakes).

• It is the world's 1^st ever AI humanoid robot CEO of Polish rum company Dictador.
• It is developed by Dictador and Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based engineering and robotics company which is behind the renowned AI robot Sophia.

Mika is a more advanced version of her sister prototype, Sophia, who was activated in 2015

• Union Minister for Cooperation has recently launched the ‘Bharat Organics’ brand of National Cooperative Organics Ltd (NCOL).
• 6 products under the 'Bharat Organics' brand were tur dal, chana dal, sugar, rajma, basmati rice, and Sonamasoori rice.

About 50% of profits from the sale of organic products through NCOL will be transferred directly to member farmers.