Feature Article

Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are fundamental to people’s health and survival, to economic development, and to the wellbeing of humanity.

When the social, economic, or ecological conditions under which socio-ecological systems are expected to adapt become untenable, a system may transform into a fundamentally new system. Within agricultural systems, farmers have the option of significantly transforming their practices, or migrating elsewhere in the search for a better lifestyle (and exiting the agricultural socio-ecological system).

The early part of the last deglaciation is characterised by a ~40 ppm atmospheric CO2 rise occurring in two abrupt phases. The underlying mechanisms driving these increases remain a subject of intense debate. Here, we successfully reproduce changes in CO2, δ13C and Δ14C as recorded by paleo-records during Heinrich stadial 1 (HS1). We show that HS1 CO2 increase can be explained by enhanced Southern Ocean upwelling of carbon-rich Pacific deep and intermediate waters, resulting from intensified Southern Ocean convection and Southern Hemisphere (SH) westerlies.

Extensive erosion of high tidal mudflat along the northern parts of Gulf of Khambhat (GoK) was observed from the analysis of time series satellite images during the time period from March 2014 to September 2017. Around 28.66 sq. km area of high tidal mudflat eroded within this time period.

Original Source

There is a high correlation between urbanisation and the emission of greenhouse gases. Landfills and sewers in cities generate 15% of methane emissions; this sector offers immense possibilities for the mitigation of methane emissions in Asian megacities. Capturing methane by efficiency improvements in the working of both sewage treatment plants and sanitary landfills has co-benefits in terms of both public health as well as mitigating climate change.

A study of three villages in Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, reveals that there is an alarming decline in female agricultural wage labour, resulting in de-feminisation, devastating poverty and outmigration of young boys and men in the Terai region. De-agrarianisation in combination with the revived patriarchal “good woman” ideology explains the crises of female wage labour. The Government of West Bengal’s Anandadhara programme seeks to integrate poor women into the financial flow through microcredit/self-helf groups.

Political borders and natural boundaries of wildlife populations seldom coincide, often to the detriment of conservation objectives. Transnational monitoring of endangered carnivores is rare, but is necessary for accurate population monitoring and coordinated conservation policies. We investigate the benefits of collaboratively monitoring the abundance and survival of the critically endangered Amur leopard, which occurs as a single transboundary population across China and Russia.

Recent open-label trials show that psychedelics, such as ayahuasca, hold promise as fast-onset antidepressants in treatment-resistant depression.

Original Source

The Bjerknes compensation (BJC) under global warming is studied using a simple box model and a coupled Earth system model. The BJC states the out-of-phase changes in the meridional atmosphere and ocean heat transports. Results suggest that the BJC can occur during the transient period of global warming. During the transient period, the sea ice melting in the high latitudes can cause a significant weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), resulting in a cooling in the North Atlantic.

Future projections of precipitation at regional scales are vital to inform climate change adaptation activities. Therefore, is it important to quantify projected changes and associated uncertainty, and understand model processes responsible. This paper addresses these challenges for southern Africa and the adjacent Indian Ocean focusing on the local wet season. Precipitation projections for the end of the twenty-first century indicate a pronounced dipole pattern in the CMIP5 multimodel mean.