Feature Article

Global Circulation Models (GCMs) are a major tool used for future projections of climate change using different emission scenarios. However, for assessing the hydrological impacts of climate change at regional scale, the GCM outputs cannot be used directly due to the mismatch in the spatial resolution between the GCMs and hydrological models. In order to use the output of a GCM for conducting hydrological impact studies, downscaling is used.

Anthropogenic activity is affecting the global climate through the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs) e.g. CO2 and CH4. About a third of anthropogenic GHGs are produced from agriculture, including livestock farming and horticulture. A large proportion of the UK's horticultural farming takes place on drained lowland peatlands, which are a source of significant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Outbreaks of unexplained illness frequently remain under-investigated. In India, outbreaks of an acute neurological illness with high mortality among children occur annually in Muzaffarpur, the country's largest litchi cultivation region. In 2014, researchers aimed to investigate the cause and risk factors for this illness.

Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus (JEV) causes severe epidemic encephalitis across Asia, for which the live attenuated vaccine SA14-14-2 is being used increasingly. JEV is a flavivirus, and is closely related to dengue virus (DENV), which is co-endemic in many parts of Asia, with clinically relevant interactions. There is no information on the human T cell response to SA14-14-2, or whether responses to SA14-14-2 cross-react with DENV.

The purpose of this article is to show the extreme temperature regime of heat waves across Africa over recent years (1981–2015). Heat waves have been quantified using the Heat Wave Magnitude Index daily (HWMId), which merges the duration and the intensity of extreme temperature events into a single numerical index. The HWMId enables a comparison between heat waves with different timing and location, and it has been applied to maximum and minimum temperature records.

This article provides evidence on the impact of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana on access to healthcare and financial risk protection; its coverage across selected states and whether the targeting is effective. Overall, just about 11% of households were enrolled and almost half of these households actually belonged to the non-poor category.

The Ethiopian approach to planning and development is a unique and bold departure from the cautious and incremental approach that has dominated the rhetoric and practice of development in the cities and regions of the third world since the rise and mainstreaming of participatory, small-scale and upgradation-based development.

Anupam Mishra’s work on how the indigenous water systems of Rajasthan have sustained a water regime not only made it possible for a robust civilisation to thrive in the desert but along with his writings on sustainable use of water, also inspired a college lecturer to find solutions to her domestic water problem.

People with low income often experience higher exposures to air pollutants.We compared the exposure to particulate matter (PM1, PM2.5 and PM10), Black Carbon (BC) and ultrafine particles (PNCs; 0.02–1 μm) for typical commutes by car, bus and underground from 4 London areas with different levels of income deprivation (G1 to G4, from most to least deprived). The highest BC and PM concentrations were found in G1 while the highest PNC in G3. Lowest concentrations for all pollutants were observed in G2.

Ongoing ocean acidification is widely reported to reduce the ability of calcifying marine organisms to produce their shells and skeletons. Whereas increased dissolution due to acidification is a largely inorganic process, strong organismal control over biomineralization influences calcification and hence complicates predicting the response of marine calcifyers. Here we show that calcification is driven by rapid transformation of bicarbonate into carbonate inside the cytoplasm, achieved by active outward proton pumping.