Feature Article

Zika is, and will continue to be, a disease of the urban poor. Slum-defining characteristics—poor water and sanitation infrastructure, crowding, and poor structural quality of housing—offer ample opportunities for mosquitoes to breed and spread the Zika virus. It was recently estimated that 1.6 million childbearing women and 93 million people will be infected in the Americas’ first epidemic wave. From this reservoir of infections, the world is witnessing the largest epidemic ever of a congenital complication—microcephaly.

In this contribution we identify storm time clustering in the Mediterranean Sea through a comprehensive analysis of the Allan factor. This parameter is evaluated from a long time series of wave height provided by oceanographic buoy measurements and hindcast reanalysis of the whole basin, spanning the period 1979–2014 and characterized by a horizontal resolution of about 0.1° in longitude and latitude and a temporal sampling of 1 h Mentaschi et al. (2015). The nature of the processes highlighted by the AF and the spatial distribution of the parameter are both investigated.

Utilising household-level data, this paper investigates the impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme on financial inclusion. Exploiting the staggered timing of the roll-out of the programme across districts, while controlling for its non-random implementation, it is found that MGNREGS improves financial access. This is confirmed in simple univariate tests as well as in multivariate regressions that take into account several district- and household-level controls.

In the Salish Sea, the endangered Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) is a high trophic indicator of ecosystem health. Three major threats have been identified for this population: reduced prey availability, anthropogenic contaminants, and marine vessel disturbances. These perturbations can culminate in significant morbidity and mortality, usually associated with secondary infections that have a predilection to the respiratory system.

A well-managed chemical nitrogen (N) fertilization practice combined with treated swine slurry (TSS) is necessary to improve sustainability and N use efficiency in rice farming. However, little is known about the fate of N derived from chemical N fertilizer with and without TSS in paddy soil-plant systems.

Original Source

Sequences from the DNA barcode region of the mitochondrial COI gene are an effective tool for specimen identification and for the discovery of new species. The Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) (www.boldsystems.org) currently hosts 4.5 million records from animals which have been assigned to more than 490,000 different Barcode Index Numbers (BINs), which serve as a proxy for species.

Coastal flooding in the Yucatan Peninsula is mainly associated with storm surge events triggered by high-pressure cold fronts systems passing through the Gulf of Mexico. To assess coastal flood hazards, this study uses a thirty-year water level hindcast, and considers the contribution of wave setup and the role of tidal hydrodynamics. To diagnose the mechanisms controlling the water levels, extreme sea level occurrence probability at Progreso Port was performed to identify the two worst storms in terms of maximum residual tide (Event A), and maximum water level (Event B).

Although the United States has pursued rapid development of corn ethanol as a matter of national biofuel policy, relatively little is known about this policy's widespread impacts on agricultural land conversion surrounding ethanol refineries. This knowledge gap impedes policy makers' ability to identify and mitigate potentially negative environmental impacts of ethanol production.

Degradation of coastal water quality in the form of low dissolved oxygen levels (hypoxia) can harm biodiversity, ecosystem function, and human wellbeing. Extreme hypoxic conditions along the coast, leading to what are often referred to as “dead zones,” are known primarily from temperate regions. However, little is known about the potential threat of hypoxia in the tropics, even though the known risk factors, including eutrophication and elevated temperatures, are common.

This paper focuses on the use of community-based early warning systems for flood resilience in Nepal. The first part of the work outlines the evolution and current status of these community-based systems, highlighting the limited lead times currently available for early warning. The second part of the paper focuses on the development of a robust operational flood forecasting methodology for use by the Nepal Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) to enhance early warning lead times.