Feature Article

The Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) is generating important and often nonintuitive information about the prevalence, incidence, morbidity, and mortality of the world’s major communicable and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). An emerging narrative from the GBD is the gradual ascendency of the NCDs, especially among the world’s large low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). But with regards to the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), we have also seen how these chronic and debilitating infections of poverty might also account for a high percentage of the global disease burden.

India has witnessed some of the most devastating extreme precipitation events, which have affected urban transportation, agriculture, and infrastructure. Despite the profound implications and damage due to extreme precipitation events, the influence of anthropogenic warming on the intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation events over India remains poorly constrained.

Deforestation and draining of the peatlands in equatorial SE Asia has greatly increased their flammability, and in September–October 2015 a strong El Niño-related drought led to further drying and to widespread burning across parts of Indonesia, primarily on Kalimantan and Sumatra. These fires resulted in some of the worst sustained outdoor air pollution ever recorded, with atmospheric particulate matter (PM) concentrations exceeding those considered “extremely hazardous to health” by up to an order of magnitude.

The West Liaohe River Basin (WLRB) is one of the most sensitive areas to climate change in China and an important grain production base in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. Groundwater depletion in this region is becoming a critical issue. Here, we used the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data and in situ well observations to estimate groundwater storage (GWS) variations and discussed the driving factors of GWS changes in the WLRB.

Original Source

Societal risks increase as Earth warms, and increase further for emissions trajectories accepting relatively high levels of near-term emissions while assuming future negative emissions will compensate, even if they lead to identical warming as trajectories with reduced near-term emissions. Accelerating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reductions, including as a substitute for negative emissions, hence reduces long-term risks but requires dramatic near-term societal transformations.

Considering the health effects of fluoride, the present study was undertaken to assess the concentration of fluoride in groundwater, and urine of school children in Bass region of Haryana state.

Original Source

Following a decade of unprecedented investment, China now has the world's largest installed base of wind power capacity. Yet, despite siting most wind farms in the wind-rich Northern and Western provinces, electricity generation from Chinese wind farms has not reached the performance benchmarks of the United States and many other advanced economies. This has resulted in lower environmental, economic, and health benefits than anticipated. We develop a framework to explain the performance of the Chinese and US wind sectors, accounting for a comprehensive set of driving factors.

The tsunami catalogues of the Atlantic include two transatlantic tsunamis in the 18th century the extensively studied 1st November 1755, and 31st March 1761. The latest event struck Portugal, Spain, and Morocco around noontime. Several sources report a tsunami following the earthquake as far as Cornwall (United Kingdom), Cork (Ireland) and Barbados (Caribbean).

As urban overheating is increasing, there is a strong public interest towards mitigation strategies to enhance comfortable urban spaces, for their role in supporting urban metabolism and social life. The study presents an assessment of the existing thermal comfort and usage of San Silvestro Square in Rome during the summer, and performs the simulation of cooling strategies scenarios, to understand their mitigation potential for renovation projects.

Health programmes that are using mobile phones to improve maternal health in rural India are examined. Presented by its promoters as a universal, accessible and “smart” empowering technology, how mobile devices transform gender inequalities on the ground is analysed. By using empirical data collected on a global mHealth programme deployed in Bihar, how mHealth devices negate the multifactorial dimension of gender and health inequalities is explained, and also how these devices can reinforce inequalities on the ground is examined.