Current Affair 1:

How light pollution affects plants?

Light pollution is an unwanted consequence of outdoor lighting and usually occurs due to excessive and inappropriate artificial light. There are five overlapping components of light pollution: Urban sky glow, light trespass, glare, uplight and clutter.

Urban sky glow refers to the brightening of the night sky over urban inhabited areas. The falling of light in an area where it is not intended or needed is called light trespass. Glare is the excessive brightness of light, causing visual discomfort and disability. An uplight is directed toward the open sky, causing a very strong, localised form of light pollution. Clutter refers to an excessive grouping of lights, commonly found in over-lit areas.

Poor placement of signage and streetlights, excessive and inappropriate use of light, high population density and a higher road density and traffic density contribute significantly to light pollution.

Impact of light pollution on plants.

Light pollution interferes with living organisms’ biological activities, rather the timing of it. Living beings depend on the Earth’s daily cycle of light and dark that governs behaviours such as reproduction, sleep and migration. Artificial light at night has negative effects on these behaviours.

1. Plants are affected by three characteristics of light: Quantity, quality and duration. Quantity of light refers to the total concentration or intensity of the light.
2. Light quality indicates the wavelength of the light and duration refers to the total period for which light is present. Light pollution has the potential to alter one or more of these characteristics.
3. Light pollution affects plants by interfering with photoperiodism. Based on their sensitivity to light, plants are classified as long-day plants, short-day plants and day-neutral plants. The presence of artificial light, beyond natural light hours, can disturb the photoperiods of these plants.
4. Many plant species (such as night-blooming cacti, for example, Queen of the Night Epiphyllum Oxypetalum) bloom only at night and depend on nocturnal pollinators for pollination. Increasing lighting can prevent flowering and pollination in such plants and hamper reproduction.

Current Affair 2:

Coral Transplantation

Coral transplantation can be defined as the physical relocation of coral from a site of inhospitable conditions to where the coral is more likely to thrive.

Therefore, coral transplantation may be implemented in order to move live coral in danger of destruction or poor conditions at one location to a transplantation site that may provide a more hospitable environment, or it may be implemented in order to assist in rebuilding a damaged or deteriorating site by moving coral from a healthy site to the less healthy one.

The primary objectives of coral transplantation are to improve reef `quality' in terms of live coral cover, biodiversity and topographic complexity. Stated reasons for transplanting corals have been to:

1. accelerate reef recovery after ship groundings
2. replace corals killed by sewage, thermal effluents or other pollutants
3. save coral communities or locally rare species threatened by pollution, land reclamation or pier construction
4. accelerate recovery of reefs after damage by Crown-of-thorns starfish or red tides
5. aid recovery of reefs following dynamite fishing or coral quarrying
6. mitigate damage caused by tourists engaged in water-based recreational activities, and
7. enhance the attractiveness of underwater habitat in tourism areas.

Corals status in India.

Many nations have environmental laws protecting coral reefs. In India, corals are given a Schedule 1 status under the Wildlife Protection Act.

India has five main reef structures, the Gulf of Mannar in Tamil Nadu, Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the coast of Malvan, Sindhudurg in Maharashtra and parts of Goa, and Lakshadweep. Out of these, all except Lakshadweep have fringing reefs. Lakshadweep has an atoll reef, which is a ring-like structure surrounding the island.

Coral transplantation is carried out in all five reef regions in India, in varying capacities. While some have received ample support from the government, others have received funding from corporates and non-profits. The Gulf of Mannar in Tamil Nadu was the first state to experiment with coral transplantation in 2002.

Current Affair 3:

What is Permaculture?

Few important points. Read.

Permaculture is a term used to describe an intentional system of agriculture and settlement that aims to reflect the interrelationships and sustainability of natural ecosystems.

Permaculture can be seen in contrast to intensive agriculture, which eventually leaves land unfit for farming, gradually reducing the amount of land suitable for human habitation.

Permaculture was coined as a term in the 1970s by David Holmren and Bill Mollison, two Australians dedicated to the sustainable use of land.

Permaculture tries to look at a piece of land in a holistic manner, integrating every animal and plant living on it, and combining that with social structures designed to foster long-lasting agriculture as well. Each element of a food cycle is broken down into what it requires and what it contributes, and then each element is pieced together to form a dynamically self-supporting whole.

Here are few principles of permaculture as described by David Holmgren:

Observe and interact – by taking the time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation

Catch and store energy – by developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need

Obtain a yield – ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the working you are doing

Apply self-regulation and accept feedback – we need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well

Use and value renewable resources and services – make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources

Produce no waste – by valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste

Integrate rather than segregate – by putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between those things and they work together to support each other

Use and value diversity – diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides.

 

 

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