Seismic forensics and its importance for early warning

The analysis of a flood disaster in the Himalaya may help establish an early warning system for flash floods

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GFZ GEOFORSCHUNGSZENTRUM POTSDAM, HELMHOLTZ CENTRE

 

VIDEO: THE SEISMIC SIGNALS WERE TRANSFERRED INTO ACOUSTIC WAVES ALLOWING TO LISTEN TO THE DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE FLOOD DISASTER. view more 

CREDIT: MICHA DIETZE/GFZ

The scientific description of the catastrophic rockslide of February 7, 2021, in India’s Dhauli Ganga Valley reads like a forensic report. A rockslide and the subsequent flood had killed at least a hundred people and destroyed two hydroelectric power plants. In the scientific journal Science (issue of 1 Oct., 2021), researchers from the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) together with colleagues from the National Geophysical Research Institute of India (NGRI), trace the disaster minute by minute using data from a network of seismometers. The team posits that seismic networks could be used to establish an early warning system for high mountain regions.

 

Although the ultimate trigger of the massive rockslide that initiated at an altitude of more than 5500 meters remains unresolved, one thing is certain: On Sunday, February 7, 2021, at just before half past ten in the morning, more than 20 million cubic meters of ice and rock began to rush downslope into the valley of the Ronti Gad River. Seismometers recorded the signal at 10:21 am and 14 seconds local time. 54 seconds later, the mass hit the valley floor at 3730 meters elevation, generating an impact equivalent to a magnitude 3.8 earthquake. In the valley, the mix of rock and ice mobilized debris and additional ice, which – mixed with water – rolled through the valleys of the Ronti Gad and Rishi Ganga rivers as a gigantic debris flow and flood. First author Kristen Cook of GFZ estimates that at first, the mass shot downhill at nearly 100 kilometers per hour; after about ten minutes, the movement slowed to just under 40 kilometers per hour. 

 

At 10:58 and 33 seconds, the flood reached a major road bridge near Joshimath. Within seconds the water there rose by 16 meters. Thirty kilometers further down the valley, the Chinka gauge station recorded a jump of 3.6 meters in water level, and another sixty kilometers down, the level still rose by 1 meter.  

 

Based on the ground-shaking signals recorded by the seismic stations, the collective research by partners from GFZ’s sections Geomorphology, Seismic Hazard and Risk Dynamics, and Physics of Earthquakes and Volcanoes, along with NGRI colleagues, identified three distinct phases of the catastrophic flood. Phase 1 was the rockslide and its massive impact on the valley floor. Phase 2 followed, with the mobilization of enormous amounts of material – ice, debris, mud, creating a devastating wall of material rushing through a narrow winding valley, where a great deal of material remained and the energy rapidly decreased with time. This lasted about thirteen minutes. Phase 3 (fifty minutes in duration) was more flood-like, with massive amounts of water that flowed downstream, carrying along large boulders up to 20 m across. 

 

The most important finding: “The data from seismic instruments are suitable as a basis for an early warning system that warns of the arrival of such catastrophic debris flows,” says Niels Hovius, last author of the study and acting scientific director of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. Another key point is the availability of a dense seismic network, operated by Indian colleagues at the Indian National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI). Hovius’ colleague Kristen Cook, first author of the paper, adds, “the available warning time for sites located in valleys depends on the downstream distance and speed of the flow front.” For example, Joshimath, where the river level rose 16 meters during the flood, was 34.6 km downstream from the landslide. Kristen Cook: “That means people in and around Joshimath could have received a warning about half an hour before the flood arrived.” For regions farther upstream, where the wave arrived just a few minutes after the landslide, it might still have been enough to shut down power plants. 

 

So why hasn't such a warning system been in place for a long time? Fabrice Cotton, Head of the Section Seismic Hazard and Risk Dynamics, says: “The problem is the different requirements for seismic measuring stations, which make many stations in our worldwide and regional earthquake networks less suitable for detecting rockfalls, debris flows or major floods. At the same time, stations that aim to monitor floods and debris flows in their immediate vicinity don't help as well in detecting events at a distance.” The solution the GFZ researchers are working on with their colleagues in India and Nepal is a compromise: Stations would have to be set up at strategic locations that would form the backbone of a high-mountain flood early warning system. According to Marco Pilz, “this trade-off, in a sense, is an optimization problem that future studies will have to address and where we have already made systematic progress, for example in the German Lower Rhein Bay region. Further analysis of flash floods and debris flows will help better understand how seismic signals can help with early warning.”

 

The first ideas to establish such an early-warning system based on a seismological approach came up well before the disaster as an outcome of a joint workshop of Helmholtz researchers and Indian colleagues in Bangalore in the spring of 2019. The current project of the study was initiated by Virendra Tiwari of NGRI and Niels Hovius. It made use of a collocation of the flood and a regional seismic network already set up by the Indian National Geophysical Research Institute. Hovius says: “Early warning is becoming ever more urgent, as mountain rivers are increasingly used for generation of hydropower, seen as an engine for economic development of some of the world's poorest mountain regions.  Given that catastrophic floods are also likely to become more frequent under a warming climate, driving rapid glacier retreat and precarious ponding of melt water in high locations, future risks will grow even further.”

  

CAPTION

Different stages of the landslide and the debris flow through the valley can be seen in the seismic signals.

CREDIT

Cook et al./Science

K. Cook et al.: „Detection, Tracking, and Potential for Early Warning of Catastrophic Flow Events Using Regional Seismic Networks“, Science; DOI: 10.1126/science.abj1227

---

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abj1227 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Detection, Tracking, and Potential for Early Warning of Catastrophic Flow Events Using Regional Seismic Networks

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Oct-2021

COI STATEMENT

none declared

 

Income inequality can harm children’s achievement in maths – but not reading, 27-year study suggests

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

Inequalities in income affect how well children do in maths – but not reading, the most comprehensive study of its kind has found.

Looking at data stretching from 1992 to 2019, the analysis, published in the journal Educational Review, revealed that 10-year-olds in US states with bigger gaps in income did less well in maths than those living in areas of America where earnings were more evenly distributed.

With income inequality in the US the highest in the developed world, researcher Professor Joseph Workman argues that addressing social inequality may do more to boost academic achievement than reforming schools or curricula – favoured methods of policymakers.

Income inequality – a measure of how unevenly income is distributed through a population – has long been associated with a host of health and social problems including mental health issues, lack of trust, higher rates of imprisonment and lower rates of social mobility.

It may also affect academic achievement, through various routes.

For instance, income inequality is linked to higher rates of divorce, substance abuse and child maltreatment, the stresses of which may affect a child’s development.  It is also associated with higher odds of babies being of a low weight a birth – something which can raise their risk of developmental delays as they grow up.

Income inequality may also lead to some schools having a high concentration of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, making it more difficult for them meet each child’s needs.

Professor Workman, a sociologist at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, compared almost three decades of fourth graders’ maths and reading results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) with data on income inequality from all 50 states.

Also known as the Nation’s Report Card, the NAEP measures student achievement nationally, using a representative sample of youngsters from each state.

Income inequality in the US has followed a U-shaped pattern over the past century. Levels were high in the 1910s to 1930s before falling off between the 1940s and 1970s and then rising again.  Today, the income gap is the highest in the developed world.

The analysis showed that scores in maths were lower, on average, in states with higher levels of income inequality.

It also revealed that that income inequality didn’t just affect the poorer students but was associated with lower achievement for both poor and non-poor students alike.

The results couldn’t be explained away solely by poorer areas having more social problems and educational issues. Instead, it seemed that the concentration of income among top earners was driving down academic achievement.

Further analysis showed that the states that experienced the biggest rises in income inequality over time also recorded the smallest increases in maths results.

Scores in these states rose by an average of 17.5 points – compared to an increase of 24.3 points in states in which the income divide didn’t widen as quickly.

Reading grades were, however, not linked to income inequality overall.

Professor Workman explains: “For maths, income inequality was associated with lower achievement for both poor and non-poor students alike.

“But for reading, income inequality benefited non-poor students and harmed poor students. So, for reading the benefits and harms cancel out to no association overall.”
With preliminary evidence suggesting the same patterns apply to other age groups, Professor Workman believes his findings have important implications for policymakers.

He says: “Assessments of the No Child Left Behind Act, which attempted to raise achievement and reduce achievement disparity by reforming schools, have provided scant evidence of the policy being effective in achieving its goals.

“An effective strategy to raise achievement may be to reduce income inequality. Policies such as progressive tax rates, wealth tax, inheritance tax and annual wealth tax can effectively reduce inequality.

“Higher tax revenues could be used on programmes that support child development, such as universal pre-kindergarten or summer learning programmes.”

It isn’t known, however, if a similar pattern exists in other developed nations with high levels of income inequality, such as the UK.

Professor Workman concludes that while it has been argued that income inequality provides motivation for success, rates in the US have “perhaps reached levels that are dysfunctional for society”.

---

JOURNAL

Educational Review

DOI

10.1080/00131911.2021.1974349 

A model that can generate humorous versions of existing headlines

by Ingrid Fadelli , Tech Xplore

Diagram summarizing the process through which the model generates humorous headlines. Credit: Alnajjar & Hämäläinen.

Over the past decade or so, computer scientists have developed a growing number of computational models that can generate, edit and analyze texts. While some of these models have achieved remarkable results, some aspects of human language and communication have proved particularly difficult to replicate computationally.

One of these aspects is humor, the human ability to say or write things that are funny. Humor is a subtle and inherently human quality; thus, reproducing it in machines is far from an easy task.

Researchers at University of Helsinki have recently attempted to artificially replicate humor in machines, by developing a framework that can turn existing news headlines into humorous ones. This model, first introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv and presented at the 12th International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC 2021), was trained to analyze headlines in an existing dataset and replace words in them to give them comical or amusing qualities.

"Automated news generation has become a major interest for news agencies," Khalid Alnajjar and Mika Hämäläinen, the two researchers who conducted the study, wrote in their paper. "Oftentimes, headlines for such automatically generated news articles are unimaginative, as they have been generated with ready-made templates. We present a computationally creative approach for headline generation that can generate humorous versions of existing headlines."

The recent paper by Alnajjar and Hämäläinen draws inspiration from a previous work by three researchers at University of Rochester and Microsoft Research AI, who introduced Humicroedit, a dataset containing over 15,000 annotated news headlines. In this study, the researchers identified strategies for making headlines funny that are commonly used by humans, which they found to be aligned with existing theories of humor.

The team at University of Helsinki devised a model that uses some of these strategies to change non-humorous headlines and make them more amusing for readers. To do this, it tries to find funny substitutes for some of the words in existing headlines.

Two examples of the headlines generated by the researchers' model are: "Trump eats the wrong Lee Greenwood on Twitter" and "U.S. says Turkey is helping ISIS by combing Kurds in Syria."

Credit: Alnajjar & Hämäläinen.

To evaluate the effectiveness of their model, Alnajjar and Hämäläinen used it to change 83 headlines randomly selected from the Humicroedit dataset and make them more humorous. Subsequently, they asked reviewers on a crowd-sourcing platform to provide their feedback on whether they found the headlines generated by the model funny or not.

Overall, the researchers found that the humorous headlines produced by their model were comparable to those generated by humans on several levels. In addition, on average, they found that human evaluators sourced online considered the headlines produced by their system funny 36% of the time. If the model is improved further, it could eventually help media agencies and journalists to come up with new funny headlines for news articles.

"As the best headlines produced by our system for each original headline can, on average, reach to a human level in terms of most of the factors measured in our evaluation, an immediate future direction for our research is to develop a better ranking mechanism to reach the maximum capacity of our system," Alnajjar and Hämäläinen concluded in their paper. "Perhaps such ranking could be learned by training a long short term memory (LSTM) classifier on humor annotated corpora."Studies suggest finding automatic ways to spot fake news may be more complicated than anticipated

More information: When a computer cracks a joke: automated generation of humorous headlines. arXiv:2109.08702 [cs.CL]. arxiv.org/abs/2109.08702

"President vows to cut hair": dataset and analysis of creative text editng for humorous headlines. Proceedings of the 2019 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies(2019). DOI: 10.18653/v1/N19-1012

© 2021 Science X Network

'The Rescue' unearths rare footage of Thai cave saga

Issued on: 05/10/2021 

Filmmakers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin teamed with National Geographic to tell the inside story of the 2018 Thai cave extraction in "The Rescue" 

VALERIE MACON AFP

Los Angeles (AFP)

After their Oscar-winning movie "Free Solo," about a daredevil rock climber, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin found an even more remarkable true story for their next film -- the rescue of a boys' soccer team from a Thai cave in 2018.

The husband-and-wife team had watched transfixed with the rest of the world as amateur divers, Navy SEALS and hundreds of volunteers pulled off a seemingly impossible rescue through miles of dark, perilous, flooded caves.

Once the 12 boys and their coach had been plucked miraculously from their subterranean prison, the documentary makers teamed with National Geographic to tell the inside story in "The Rescue," out in theaters October 8.

"It moved us as humans, as Asian parents and as storytellers. I think that this really is one of the great stories of the last 10 years," Vasarhelyi told AFP.

The mission to rescue a young Thai football team who had become trapped in a cave captivated the world 

Handout ROYAL THAI NAVY/AFP/File

The directors sifted through 87 hours of never-before-seen footage -- obtained from the Thai Navy Seals after two years' of negotiations during which military chiefs "said no in every possible form of 'no'," Chin recalled.

"For me it wasn't fair -- if it existed the world needed to see it," said Vasarhelyi.

The behind-the-scenes footage shows the euphoric moment two British divers returned to the cave's entrance with news they had located the children, and the precarious pulley contraption used to transfer them on stretchers out of the final cavern.

It was days into the 2018 Thai cave rescue operation before divers made contact with the trapped children 

Handout ROYAL THAI NAVY/AFP/File

But the film focuses mainly on the personalities and back stories of the rescue's unlikely heroes.

The rag-tag group of middle-aged hobbyists' unique skillsets and homemade equipment enabled them to reach sections of the cave that military divers could not begin to fathom.

"Here are these weekend warriors -- one's a retired fireman, one's a meteorologist, an IT consultant, an electrician," said Vasarhelyi.

"They're kind of misfits, they feel awkward, they have found purpose in this very strange subculture of cave diving on the weekends, which has allowed them to become the best in the world."

The divers not only appear in interviews, but re-enacted key moments of the rescue on camera for the movie.

Families kept vigil as the painstaking operation unfolded, and celebrated when contact was made with the 12 missing boys and their football coach 

LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA AFP/File

"This is the first film that we've made that we weren't present for the principal action," Vasarhelyi.

"The only way to really understand the gravity of tying a kid's arms together behind their back and putting their head underwater is when you see it."

- 'Risk everything' -

The interviews reveal hair-raising details about the rescue, for which the children were injected with a cocktail of drugs to sedate then.

One diver bringing out a child became disoriented and ended up swimming backwards to the previous cave -- following an electrical cable -- after losing his dive rope.

Royal Thai Navy divers and caving hobbyists joined forces to rescue the young boys Handout ROYAL THAI NAVY/AFP

Another accidentally stabbed himself with a ketamine syringe while underwater with a child who was recovering consciousness. Thankfully, it was empty at the time.

For Vasarhelyi, one of the rescue's most compelling features was the personal risk shouldered by the amateur divers, who were warned by embassies they could land in Thai jail if any of the children died, and given extraction plans in case it failed.

"If you're the only person in the world who can save these kids, are you going to risk everything to try to do it? And can we be our best selves? And what is the consequence of that?" she said.

The 12 boys rescued from a Thai cave were passed "sleeping" on stretchers through the treacherous passageways 

Handout Thai government public relations department (PRD)/AFP/File

"I think that even going to Thai prison would probably pale to what it would have been like to live with yourself, knowing that you participated in the death of 13 people," she added.

"And I don't think we can really ever overstate -- they really considered that saving one child would be a success."

Notably absent from the film is Elon Musk, who infamously traveled to Thailand with a prototype mini-submarine which was rejected as unusable by the divers -- triggering a bizarre spat.

Factfile on the 2018 Thai cave rescue Gal ROMA AFP

"This is such a rich story, and that particular incident really had no impact on the rescue itself," said Vasarhelyi.

"It felt like a diversion -- it just took away from the principal action. So we thought as it wasn't a big deal to the rescue itself, it shouldn't be a big deal in our film."

© 2021 AFP

Hypersonic missiles: the alarming must-have in military tech

Issued on: 05/10/2021

A US unarmed prototype hypersonic missile launches from Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii 

Oscar Sosa US NAVY/AFP



Washington (AFP)

North Korea's test of a hypersonic missile last week sparked new concerns about the race to acquire the alarming technology that is hard to defend against and could unsettle the global nuclear balance.

Russia, which said Monday it had test-launched a hypersonic missile from a submerged submarine for the first time, leads the race, followed by China and the United States, and at least five other countries are working on the technology.

Why do countries want hypersonics?

Hypersonic missiles, like traditional ballistic missiles which can deliver nuclear weapons, can fly more than five times the speed of sound.

But ballistic missiles fly high into space in an arc to reach their target, while a hypersonic flies on a trajectory low in the atmosphere, potentially reaching a target more quickly.

Crucially, a hypersonic missile is maneuverable (like the much slower, often subsonic cruise missile), making it harder to track and defend against.

While countries like the United States have developed systems designed to defend against cruise and ballistic missiles, the ability to track and take down a hypersonic missile remains a question.

Hypersonic missiles can be used to deliver conventional warheads, more rapidly and precisely than other missiles.

But their capacity to deliver nuclear weapons could add to a country's threat, increasing the danger of a nuclear conflict.

Is the hypersonic threat here now?

Russia, China, the United States and now North Korea have all test-launched hypersonic missiles.

France, Germany, Australia, India and Japan are working on hypersonics, and Iran, Israel and South Korea have conducted basic research on the technology, according to a recent report by the US Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Russia is the most advanced. Moscow announced Monday that it had fired two Zircon hypersonic missiles from the Severodvinsk nuclear submarine.

The first, while the sub was on the surface, successfully struck a test target in the Barents Sea. The second was launched while the vessel was submerged 40 meters (131 feet) below the surface.

China is also aggressively developing the technology, seeing it as crucial to defend against US gains in hypersonic and other technologies, according to the CRS report.

Both China and Russia have "likely fielded an operational capability" with hypersonic glide vehicles, said the report.

The US Defense Department has an aggressive development program, planning up to 40 tests over the next five years, according to a government report.

The Pentagon tested a scramjet-powered hypersonic last week, calling it "a successful demonstration of the capabilities that will make hypersonic cruise missiles a highly effective tool for our warfighters."

North Korea's test announcement suggested they had much further to go, that the test focused on "maneuverability" and "flight characteristics."

"Based on an assessment of its characteristics such as speed, it is at an initial phase of development and will take a considerable time to be deployed," the South Korean and US militaries said in a statement.

Are hypersonics nuclear game-changers?

Experts say hypersonics do not necessarily upend the global nuclear balance, but instead add a potent new delivery method to the traditional triad of bombers, ground-launched ICBMs, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

A central risk is not knowing whether an adversary's hypersonic missile has a conventional or nuclear warhead.

And, underscoring the attractiveness of hypersonics, the CRS report says that the US missile defense system is inadequate to detect, track and respond in time to hypersonics.

Cameron Tracy, an arms control expert at Stanford University, called hypersonics an "evolutionary" advance.

It's "definitely not a game-changer," he said. "It's an arms race ... In large part, it's to show that any weapon that anyone else can develop, you will have first."

The solution, according to Tracy, is to include hypersonics in nuclear arms control negotiations -- though currently North Korea and China are not part of any pacts.

"The development of these weapons, this hypersonic arms race, is probably not the most stable situation. So it would be good to act as quickly as possible," said Tracy.

© 2021 AFP

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LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Youth in Iraq protest hub vow to boycott 'rigged' polls

Issued on: 05/10/2021 -

In the southern city of Nasiriyah, simmering public anger is still palpable two years after anti-government protests erupted

 Asaad NIAZI AFP/File

Nasiriyah (Iraq) (AFP)

Iraq will hold early elections Sunday as a concession to a youth-led protest movement, but in Nasiriyah, the city at the heart of the revolt, most young people won't vote.

Ahead of the parliamentary polls, the mood in Nasiriyah and much of Iraq is sombre with little hope the election will bring much-needed change to the war-scarred country.

"Elections in Iraq are rigged," said 21-year-old Anas, echoing a common sentiment among young adults in the impoverished southern city.

"They are corrupted by arms and money, and I can't be made to vote with a gun to my head."

Anas, who declined to give his full name, is an economics graduate but, like 40 percent of Iraqi youths, he is unemployed.

In October 2019, anti-government protests erupted in Baghdad and cities in the mainly Shiite south like Nasiriyah against corruption, unemployment, poor public services and neighbouring Iran's influence over Iraq.

Two years on, the protests have died down across much of the country. But in Nasiriyah, simmering public anger is still palpable.

From time to time, young demonstrators still take to the streets, which are filled with posters of "martyrs" killed in clashes with security forces.

- 'Voice being heard' -

Anas said the protests changed his life and opened his eyes to the problems facing his country.

"Before, I was a normal person who went to university. I studied or texted my girlfriend," he said.

"But after the October revolution, I felt I had a responsibility to assume, a place to fill within society, and that my voice was being heard."

Ahead of the October 10 parliamentary polls, the mood in Nasiriyah and much of Iraq is sombre with little hope the election will bring change

 Ahmad AL-RUBAYE AFP

Nearly 600 people died across Iraq and tens of thousands were wounded in violence related to the protests. More activists have been murdered since, kidnapped or intimidated, but there has been no accountability.

Activists have blamed pro-Iran armed groups, part of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition that helped defeat the Islamic State jihadist group.

Aside from insecurity, Iraq is grappling with an economic crisis exacerbated by diminished oil revenues and the coronavirus pandemic, as well as infrastructure dilapidated by decades of conflict and neglect.

Nasiriyah reflects it all: poverty is rampant, there are severe power and water cuts, and investment in infrastructure is sorely lacking.

- 'Awash with weapons' -

The country is emerging from almost two decades of war and insurgency since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

But promises of a new beginning for the oil-rich country have remained elusive, with many blaming corrupt politicians for Iraq's ills.

Haider Jaafar, 23, said that two years ago he thought elections "were the only means to change things".

In Nasiriya, poverty is rampant, there are severe power and water cuts, and investment in infrastructure is sorely lacking 

Ahmad AL-RUBAYE AFP

Like Anas and other young graduates in Nasiriyah he is now disillusioned.

"How can we hold polls when the country is awash with weapons... when political parties wield a lot of influence and control big money?" he asked.

With so much anger bubbling, candidates hoping to be elected to the 329-seat parliament have kept a low profile in Nasiriyah.

Instead of canvassing the streets of the city of half a million inhabitants, they have taken their campaign to social media.

- After the massacre -

The few who put up campaign posters in Nasiriyah have had them torn down.

"It's difficult for a candidate to campaign in Nasiriyah, especially after October (2019) and the massacres that took place," said Jaafar.

"Some people believe that every candidate is linked to the death of a friend."

Jaafar said that some of the 85 demonstrators killed on a single day in November 2019 in clashes with security forces were friends of his.

"At our age, we should not see friends die, lie in a pool of blood," he said.

Iraqi graduate Haider Jaafar, 23, speaks during an interview at Al-Haboubi Square in the southern city of Nasiriyah

 Ahmad AL-RUBAYE AFP

The government had vowed to bring those responsible for the deaths to justice "but nothing has happened", said Jafaar.

On a cautiously optimistic note, Muntazer, a medical student, said independent candidates with no links to traditional political parties could make a difference.

"If one or even 10 independents win seats in the election, they could exert pressure (in parliament) and form the nucleus of a real opposition," he said.

© 2021 AFP

Climate change threatens the Everglades, Florida's gem

Issued on: 05/10/2021 

A hovering airboat is seen in Everglades National Park, Florida -- the largest wetland in the United States -- September 30, 2021 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP


Miami (AFP)

Umberto Gimenez loves alligators. He gives them nicknames such as "Smile" and "Momma Gator" and laughs when he thinks of their antics.

Gimenez, an airboat captain, has found his paradise in Florida's Everglades National Park, a natural gem in the southeastern US state at risk from climate change.

"It's an amazing place and there's only one in the world," he says.

The largest wetland in the United States is under threat, and has become a battleground for one of the most sweeping ecological conservation efforts on Earth.

Gimenez hopes the efforts will help preserve the park.

But time is running short, and global warming is sabotaging a subtropical wilderness that is home to more than 2,000 species of animals and plants.

The primary threat comes from the sea.

The Everglades, like all of south Florida, is almost flat, which makes the ecosystem extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels, one of the biggest consequences of temperature increases.

A alligator lays on grass near a canal in Everglades National Park, Florida on September 30, 2021 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

The passage of salt water into the freshwater wetlands can have disastrous effects.

The region stores and filters the water that nine million of Florida's population of nearly 21 million depends on.

Once salt penetrates subterranean aquifers, they can be ruined.

In addition, salt water risks destroying the habitat for much of the rare fauna and flora in the area.

Intensifying droughts and reduced rainfall, other consequences of climate change, are also causes for concern.

"As a massive peatland that builds up organic soils over time, this ecosystem has sequestered huge amounts of carbon that are locked in the soils that contribute to the formation of habitats," explains Steve Davis, chief science officer at the Everglades Foundation, a non-governmental organization.

Small fish swim near water vegetation under the water in Everglades National Park, Florida -- which is at risk from rising sea levels due to climate change -- on September 30, 2021

 CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

A lack of fresh water not only ends carbon sequestration, it also causes the release into the air of what was stored in the soil.

A double climate disaster.

- Multi-billion-dollar project -

Gimenez puts on sunglasses, ties a bandanna around his head, and jumps barefoot into his airboat along with Davis.

The boat starts up and speeds through a carpet of green with the water hidden below the vegetation.

Chief Science Officer of the Everglades Foundation Steve Davis collects weeds and algae from Everglades National Park, Florida on September 30, 2021 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

It feels like floating on grass.

For thousands of years, water accumulated north of the Everglades in the rainy season, shaping the landscape by moving very slowly as it followed the slight slope of the terrain.

In the last century, however, the natural flow was diverted to allow for urban and agricultural growth in south Florida.

In doing so, it altered the ecosystem of the 1.5-million-acre (607,000-hectare) wetlands, weakening it in the face of climate change.

In 2000, Congress approved a project, funded equally by Florida and the federal government, to protect the area, which whs declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1976.

A bird flies holding its kill in Everglades National Park, Florida on September 30, 2021 as the largets wetland in the United States faces myriad threats from climate change CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

Its initial cost was $7.8 billion.

The goal was "to store water, to clean it and to flow that water in the most natural way back to the national park," according to Davis.

To achieve this, scientists devised a complex system of canals, dikes, dams, and pumps.

They also designed artificial marshes to filter the water and rid it of nutrients that damage the wetland.

At the same time, sections of road that blocked water flow to the park were raised.

"Everglades restoration is the model for other ecosystem restoration efforts whether it's wetlands like the Pantanal (in South America) or estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay," Davis says.

Chief Science Officer of The Everglades Foundation Steve Davis, collects weeds and algae from Everglades National Park, Florida on September 30, 2021 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

"We have the same kind of issues here," he adds. "It's about ensuring the proper quantity of clean water moving through the ecosystem."

- Delays -

The effects of rehabilitation are already noticeable. Davis gets off the boat, dips his hands into the clear water and scoops up a dark glob from the bottom.

It is periphyton, a mixture of algae, bacteria and microbes, the presence of which indicates healthy water quality.

Tourist airboat captain Umberto Lazaro Gimenez, hovers over Everglades National Park, Florida on September 30, 2021 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

Despite making some progress, only one of the 68 major projects in the original 2000 plan has been fully completed.

The delays are mainly due to a lack of federal funding.

According to the Everglades Foundation, between $4 billion and $5 billion have been spent so far on the restoration project, with Florida contributing 70 percent and Washington just 30 percent.

The urgency caused by climate change could, however, give a boost to the conservation plan.

President Joe Biden included $350 million for the Everglades in his fiscal 2022 budget, $100 million more than in 2021.

In April, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed an agreement with the US Army Corps of Engineers for the construction of a reservoir west of Palm Beach which will cost $3.4 billion.

Water vegetation is seen growing up over the water in Everglades National Park, Florida on September 30, 2021 

CHANDAN KHANNA AFP

The size of the island of Manhattan, it "will store a lot of water that will go south, rehydrate these wetlands, recharge the aquifer and push back against sea level rise," Davis says.

© 2021 AFP

Global warming kills 14 percent of world's corals in a decade

Issued on: 05/10/2021 

A single so-called bleaching event in 1998 caused by warming waters wiped out eight percent of all corals - Great Barrier Reef Marine Park/AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

Dynamite fishing and pollution -- but mostly global warming -- wiped out 14 percent of the world's coral reefs from 2009 to 2018, leaving graveyards of bleached skeletons where vibrant ecosystems once thrived, according to the largest ever survey of coral health.

Hardest hit were corals in South Asia and the Pacific, around the Arabian Peninsula, and off the coast of Australia, more than 300 scientists in the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network reported.

"Climate change is the biggest threat to the world's reefs," co-author Paul Hardisty, CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, said in a statement.

Oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions, shielding land surfaces but generating huge, long-lasting marine heatwaves that are pushing many species of corals past their limits of tolerance.

A single so-called bleaching event in 1998 caused by warming waters wiped out eight percent of all corals.

Coral reefs cover only a tiny fraction -- 0.2 percent -- of the ocean floor, but they are home to at least a quarter of all marine animals and plants.

Besides anchoring marine ecosystems, they also provide protein, jobs and protection from storms and shoreline erosion for hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

The value of goods and services from coral reefs is about $2.7 trillion per year, including $36 billion in tourism, the report said.

Loss of coral from 2009 to 2018 varied by region, ranging from five percent in East Asia to 95 percent in the eastern tropical Pacific.

- The 'Coral Triangle' -

"Since 2009 we have lost more coral worldwide than all the living coral in Australia," noted UNEP executive director Inger Anderson.

"We can reverse the losses, but we have to act now."

The UN's climate science advisory panel, the IPCC, projects with "high confidence" that global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels will see 70 to 90 percent of all corals disappear.

In a 2C world, less than one percent of global corals would survive.

Earth's average surface temperature has already increased by 1.1C above that benchmark.

The report, titled "Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020", found reasons for cautious optimism.

"Some reefs have shown a remarkable ability to bounce back, which offers some hope for the future recovery of degraded reefs," Hardisty said.

In a 2C world, more than 99 percent of all corals would disappear, according to the IPCC Laurence CHU AFP

East and Southeast Asia's "Coral Triangle" -- which contains nearly 30 percent of the world's coral reefs -- were hit less hard by warming waters over the last decade, and in some cases showed recovery.

This resilience could be due to species unique to the region, potentially offering strategies for boosting coral growth elsewhere, the authors said.

Based on nearly two million data points from 12,000 sites spanning 73 countries and 40 years, the report is the sixth such global survey and the first since 2008.

To measure change over time, the researchers contrasted areas covered by healthy live hard coral with areas taken over by algae, a sign of coral distress.

The report was undertaken with support from UNEP and the International Coral Reef Initiative, a partnership of governments and research organisations focused on preserving corals reefs and related ecosystems.

© 2021 AFP

Science seeks ancient plants to save favourite foods

Issued on: 05/10/2021 

To reintroduce genetic plant diversity scientists are looking for the ancient ancestors of domesticated crops 

E. COUTURON IRD/AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

From a bowl of rice to a cup of coffee, experts say the foods we take for granted could become much scarcer unless we can make them resistant to climate change.

For more than 10,000 years humans have been using selective breeding to adapt fruits and vegetables to specific growing conditions that today are changing at an alarming rate.

And the same breeding that has made crops profitable has also made them vulnerable to rising temperatures, drought, heavy rains, new blights or plagues of insects.

"When you select 'for the best' traits (like higher yields), you lose certain types of genes," Benjamin Kilian, project lead for the Crop Wild Relatives Project at Crop Trust, told AFP.

"We lost genetic diversity during domestication history... therefore the potential of the elite crops to further adapt to the future -- to climate change and other challenges -- is limited."

The answer, scientists say, may be to reintroduce that genetic diversity by going back to domesticated crops' wild ancestors.

- Disappearing farmlands -

According to a study published in May, global warming risks shifting nearly a third of agricultural production outside its ideal climate for cultivation.

The International Potato Center predicts a 32-percent drop in harvests of potatoes and sweet potatoes by 2060 due to climate change, while some estimates say coffee growers will lose half of adapted lands before 2050.

Rice, the world's most important staple food crop, contributes massively to global warming by releasing methane as it is cultivated. It is also threatened by rising seas that could put too much salt into the water that floods rice paddies.

Older forms of these crops might have had resistance to salt water or high temperatures coded into their genes -- and to get them back, experts are looking for their ancestors in the wild.

"We're going to need to use as much biodiversity as we can... because it reduces risks, it provides options," says agriculture expert Marleni Ramirez of Biodiversity International.

One potential resource is gene banks, like the Kew Millennium Seed Bank which has nearly 40,000 species of wild plants.

"But not all wild relatives are in the gene banks," says Kilian.

Instead, he says it's up to expert botanists to take undertake a time-consuming search throughout the wild, whose success can sometimes rely on luck.

- Race against time -

Between 2013 and 2018 the Global Crop Diversity Trust gathered more than 4,600 samples from 371 wild cousins of 28 priority crops including wheat, rice, sweet potatoes, bananas and apples.

Botanist Aaron Davis works at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens that partners with Crop Trust.

With his colleagues, he discovered a wild species of coffee in Sierra Leone that is more resistant to climate change than the widely harvested arabica.

And he says they found it just in time.

"If we had gone to Sierra Leone in 10 years, it would probably have been extinct," says Davis.

"Of 124 coffee species, 60 percent are threatened with extinction, including the ones we might use for breeding new resilient coffees."

In a survey of four Central American countries, one in four plants analysed was threatened with extinction, including 70 wild species connected to major cultivated crops like corn and squash.

And the race isn't over once they've been harvested.

Wild plants may not be adapted to large-scale agriculture and creating new varieties can take years or even decades -- perhaps too long to provide an answer to an impending food crisis.

Instead, experts say, we may have to find a way to live without certain staples.

According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, while the planet is home to some 50,000 edible plants, just three of them -- rice, maize and wheat -- provide 60 percent of the world's food energy intake.

Their disappearance could leave billions wondering what to eat and millions of farmers looking for a new way to survive.

© 2021 AFP

Severe droughts dry up dreams of Turkish farmers

Issued on: 05/10/2021 -

Severe droughts in Turkey have forced farmers to fill tanks with water 

Adem ALTAN AFP

Akkuzulu (Turkey) (AFP)

Turkish farmer Hava Keles stares inconsolably at withered vines of rotting tomatoes in a field that has been devastated by a series of droughts blamed on climate change.

"My tomatoes, my beans, my peppers are ruined. My watermelons didn't even grow. The cucumbers I planted have shrivelled up on the branches," lamented Keles, 58, standing in an arid Anatolian plot in Akkuzulu, north of Ankara.

Keles is among thousands of farmers across Turkey whose livelihoods have been ravaged as little rain has fallen to nourish their crops for the past two years.

Some experts accuse President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- whose popularity has relied on prosperity driven by fast urban development -- of failing to do enough to address pressing environmental issues in the country.

But Erdogan has promised Turkey would ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement in October before a pivotal UN climate summit next month in Glasgow. Turkey signed the deal in 2016.

Environmental issues had never topped the political agenda in Turkey, but everything changed after a summer of extreme weather events, including forest fires on the Mediterranean coast and devastating floods in the north.

Action cannot come soon enough for indebted farmers like Keles in a country where droughts have spread to more than of the territory.

"My husband says leave the garden. But I can't. I've worked too hard for this. What can I do with it now?" she asks, despite having debts worth thousands of dollars.

This summer, farmers in her neighbourhood were unable to dig deep enough to find groundwater, so they had to fetch it in large tanks pulled by tractors.

- 'Serious events coming' -

Agriculture is a major sector of the Turkish economy, accounting for around six percent of GDP and employing 18 percent of the workforce.

Turkey is self-sufficient in food production and is the world's seventh largest agricultural producer, exporting everything from hazelnuts to tea, olives to figs.

But the country's import of wheat has already risen exponentially in nearly two decades from $150 million to $2.3 billion in 2019, according to the agriculture ministry.

Such figures add to fears Turkey will move from producer to becoming a country reliant on the outside to meet its food needs.

"Turkey has a lot to adapt to, especially in terms of agriculture because serious drought events are coming. What we have seen is nothing," warned Levent Kurnaz, director of Bogazici University's centre for climate change and policy studies in Istanbul.

A fountain in Akkuzulu, Turkey, is left dry by lack of rain

 Adem ALTAN AFP

Drought is forcing some farmers to quit while others opt to grow different crops that demand less water, leaving the consumer out of pocket as food prices rise alongside a weakening Turkish lira.

Food inflation hit 29 percent in August from last year, and in a bid to ease the pain, Erdogan cut import customs duties to zero for basics such as wheat, chickpeas and lentils until the end of the year.

Experts say the government has failed in its water management policies, exacerbating the problem.

Farmers are impacted by significantly reduced water levels in dams across Turkey, which put the water needs of every citizen at risk as well, while lakes are drying up.

"We need to build our cities in a way that allows underground water levels to rise," said Ceyhun Ozcelik, associate professor in the water resources department at Mugla Sitki Kocman University.

"If we don't take the necessary measures, if the urban infrastructure is not enough, then I can say we face difficult days in the years ahead," he added.

- 'Transform lifestyles' -

In the west of the country on the Aegean coast, green olive groves coat the hills in Milas, famous for its olive oil which gained European Union protected status in December. But the fruit is also at risk.

Ismail Atici, Milas agricultural chamber chief, said rain had not fallen at all in 2021.

"If there is still no rain for one, or two more months, the trees will not be able to nourish the fruits," he added.

Farmers' costs are spiralling.

Ferdun Cetinceviz, 41, who tends to some 200 cows and corn fields among the mountains, said he is losing up to 40,000 lira per month ($4,500, 3,900 euros).

Surrounded by dry, flat land and green mountains in the distance, Cetinceviz estimated up to 50 percent of his crop yield including corn was lost this year due to drought.

Experts accuse President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of failing to do enough to address pressing environmental issues in the country 

Adem ALTAN AFP

Farmers in Milas used to grow cotton, but it requires vast quantities of water, so they switched to corn.

"If I can't water my crops which my animals also need, they will be left hungry," Cetinceviz said.

© 2021 AFP


Dry year leaves Syria wheat farmers facing crop failure


Issued on: 05/10/2021 - 

A farmer ploughs a wheat field in the northeastern Kurdish-held city of Qamishli, part of the Syria's breadbasket region of Hasakeh which has been hit hard by low rainfall 

Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

Tal Shaeer (Syria) (AFP)

After Syrian farmer Abdelbaqi Souleiman lost his last wheat crop to a wildfire, he had hoped for a better harvest this summer. But this spring there was hardly any rain.

"Last year the field I planted was burnt to the ground," said the 48-year-old.

"This year there wasn't enough rain, and we didn't harvest any wheat."

As man-made climate change increases the likelihood of drought and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been hit hard by low rainfall this year, especially in its breadbasket Hasakeh province.

In the Kurdish-run northeastern region, dismal wheat harvests have raised alarm about food security in a war-torn country where 60 percent of people already struggle to buy food.

In Hasakeh, humanitarian agencies estimate crop production to have dropped by more than 95 percent compared to last year in large parts of the province.

Souleiman said the lack of downpour, coupled with the high price of fuel for irrigation, seeds and fertiliser, had made growing the rain-fed cereal a near mission impossible.

Aid agencies estimate that crop production has dropped by 95 percent in parts of Hasakeh region, compared to last year raising alarm about food security in war-torn Syria where 60 percent of people already struggle to buy food 

Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

"At this rate, we'll have to stop growing wheat," he said in the village of Tal Shaeer.

"Farmers are going to have to start planting herbs like coriander and cumin because it's cheaper and they sell for more."

- 'Selling our women's gold' -

Outside the town of Qahtaniyah in the same province, Hajji Mohammed, 71, said he and his neighbours had also fallen on rough times.

"Farming has become a loss-making business," said the agricultural worker of 45 years in the village of Kardeem Haleema.

"If there's no rain this year, most people will move away."

After years of losses, the family had next to no resources left with which to launch into another season.

Syrian farmer Dakhil Mohammed says 'farming has become a loss-making business' and warns his family is already selling their women's gold and furnishings to buy seeds for next year

 Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

"We're trying to sell our women's gold or furnishings so we can buy the seeds," he said.

Before the war erupted in 2011, Syria produced up to 4 million tonnes of wheat a year -- enough to feed its entire population, but harvests have since plunged to record lows, increasing dependence on imports.

The agriculture minister in Damascus said last month the country produced 900,000 tonnes of the grain this year, less than half of the two million tonnes needed.

Salman Barodo, co-president of the economy and agriculture commission with the Kurdish authorities, said this year's harvest had fallen far short of demand for the region's bakeries.

Drought risk worldwide Gal ROMA AFP

"In previous years, we'd reap more than 600,000 tonnes of wheat," he said. It was enough for flour, seeds for the following season, and a little left over in reserve.

"But this year it was just 184,000 to 185,000."

- Harvest 'very low' -

The poor harvest comes as the whole of northeast Syria is already facing a humanitarian disaster this year, aid agencies have warned, as low rainfall has also drastically depleted water levels along the Euphrates river.

This has threatened electricity production and drinking water supplies, and complicated access to the river for irrigation.

In the neighbouring province of Raqa, 42-year-old wheat farmer Ahmed al-Humaidi said he had briefly considered switching to irrigation to save his crop.

Depleted water levels along the Euphrates due to lower rainfalls have also threatened water supplies for irrigation, and grain silos in Syria's northeastern city of Hasakeh are already running low Delil SOULEIMAN AFP

"We thought of drawing water from the Euphrates... but we were not able to because of the high cost" of equipment and fuel, he said in the village of Salhabiyah.

Mike Robson, the representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Syria, said the rainy season ended unusually early in March this year.

High temperatures the following month then prevented the grains from filling out properly.

"We don't yet have the full final numbers for the harvest for this year, but we're expecting it to be very low -- possibly about half the figure for last year," he said.

This would likely mean more price hikes, and more families struggling to feed themselves.

Already, the World Food Programme said in February that a staggering 12.4 million people in Syria -- out of an estimated population of 20 million -- were food insecure.

"We're expecting a further increase," Robson said.

© 2021 AFP