The Alang-Sosiya shipbreaking yards in India highlight the inequalities and opportunities of global waste management. The yards, which recycle retired ships from more economically developed countries, have dramatically altered the ecosystems and social structures of the local area. A study looking at stakeholder perceptions analyses different positions on the social and environmental impacts of the yards.

Policymakers often have to make decisions under great complexity, uncertainty and time pressure. A new study presents a support tool for the first stage of policymaking: identifying and exploring alternatives to solve problems. The software tool, called QUICKScan, increases the speed of this process and combines the input of many stakeholders in participatory workshops. It has been applied 70 times in 20 different countries, for a wide range of environmental policy issues.

Energy production uses large quantities of water and, in turn, water provision requires considerable amounts of energy. A new study has investigated the interconnection between water and energy, the ‘water-energy nexus’, in Spain and found that 5.8% of total electricity consumption is for water-use and 25% of water withdrawals are for energy generation.

The benefits of reusing city wastewater for agricultural purposes can far outweigh the costs involved and reduce overall demand for freshwater, according to a recent study. The researchers calculated that the total benefits to agriculture and a city of a reuse project in Spain outweighed the total costs by €9.5million per year.

Public participation is an essential part of integrated water management. In a recent study, researchers following the development of a UK catchment management plan found greater cooperation between land managers and environmental regulatory bodies as a result of a participatory process.

A pilot cloud-based learning platform that brings together multiple datasets, models and visualisation tools has been developed with the engagement of numerous stakeholders throughout the design process. This tool could lead to informed decisions about flood risk at the local level. These types of tools and frameworks are effective ways of facilitating better decision making.

Marine diesel contains sulphur compounds, which generate sulphur oxide (SOx) pollution and acid rain. Ships can use mitigating technologies to reduce their SOx emissions, but these can also have a negative environmental impact. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) introduced stringent legislation to control these, aspects of which are incorporated into EU policy. This study examined the implications of the IMO’s policy and recommends a number of design solutions to help ships comply.

Throughout Europe and beyond, the delivery of flood risk management (FRM) is increasingly being seen as the shared responsibility of governmental actors and citizens. However, a new study, which explored the viewpoints of stakeholders in a flood-prone part of Belgium, found that citizens see FRM mainly as the government’s responsibility.

Worldwide, programmes have been implemented to protect water quality from human pressures, often using ecological indicators as a method of evaluation. An eight-year study of a Portuguese estuary has found that indicators based on multiple measures of fish communities, such as the number and relative abundance of resident and migrant species, reflect human pressures on these transitional waters and could improve the implementation of water protection programmes.

Low oxygen levels (‘hypoxia’) are a pressing concern for marine and freshwater ecosystems worldwide, and this may deteriorate as ocean temperatures rise. Hypoxia causes stress in organisms, which can cause reproductive impairments that persist across generations — even the offspring that have never been exposed to hypoxia. Previous studies discovered that hypoxia can disrupt sex hormones, resulting in birth defects and affecting reproduction of male fish over several generations. This study shows how hypoxia can also affect female marine medaka (Oryzias melastigma) over multiple generations — and thus may pose a significant threat to the sustainability of natural fish populations worldwide.

The stratospheric rise in phishing and identity attacks since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic is give sleepless nights to CISOs across the world making them the Digital Security Warriors

DDoS attacks during the first three months of this year have seen a significant spike in attacks on educational websites.

​​Companies are seeking to balance freedom of expression with the potential for damage to their business, not for the first time, but more gingerly perhaps, given the level of polarisation. ​​

Maritime ships, which transport around 90 percent of the world’s goods across the seas, generate about 3 percent of global carbon emissions.

For the recent IPL season, Roanuz partnered with various brands and offered their product to run IPL campaigns, key ones being Zomato, RCB, and Book My Show.

Apple has finally rolled out its hardware disconnect feature to its iPad models for improved security.

Taiwan-based electronics contract manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd or Foxconn has reportedly said that the production of the 5G iPhones is likely to start on schedule for the fall launch of the new handsets.

Strict lockdown measures around the world has caused severe delays and logistical issues leading to worldwide PC shipments falling by 8%, technology market analyst firm Canalys said.

The updated iPhone SE will start at $399, or less than half the price of its leading flagship devices and be available as of Friday.

While the coronavirus lockdown is set to be lifted to May 3, you can now buy mobile phones on Flipkart.

With the help of VoIP calling facility, call centres can continue to serve their customers efficiently and not leave them stranded waiting for service.

Egham (UK)In 2020, worldwide shipments of Internet of Things (IoT) enterprise drones (defined as flying drones) will total 526,000 units, an increase of 50% from 2019, Gartner Inc. said on Thursday.

NITES, said that this went against the government guidelines of not firing people or cutting salaries during the pandemic.

DDoS attacks during the first three months of this year have seen a significant spike in attacks on educational websites.

With close to 450 million Internet users, India is already the largest market for companies like Facebook in terms of users.

“We are serving 97% of the pin code across the country, without any delivery charge. We are helping farmers at their doorsteps, just the way urban people benefit from e-commerce shopping”, asserts AK Gupta, Head-IT at IFFCO.

The success of policy to maintain urban green areas depends on an adequate level of public participation, according to new research. The study compared two twinned European cities with different styles of green space management and found that public involvement may help maintain urban biodiversity.

Researchers have recommended new, improved ways of increasing the ecological value of European grasslands. Plant diversity ??? or species richness ??? can be increased by a factor of three through sowing grass and wildflower seed mixtures, together with a carefully controlled plan for animal grazing.

Planting trees and maintaining a well-balanced mix of vegetation in urban 'green spaces' can enhance the species diversity of birds and compensate for the negative effect of building, according to new research. Scientists recommend that increasing tree cover rather than limiting new development is the most effective long-term strategy to improve bird diversity in cities.

Constructed wetlands can regulate stormwater flows and improve water quality, helping humans to adapt to a changing climate. New research has now shown that, if carefully designed, they can also be used for climate change mitigation by storing carbon, while also providing biodiversity and cultural ecosystem services.

Conservation partnerships that span geographic, biological and administrative boundaries are needed to deal with many global environmental problems. However, there are challenges to managing these complex, large-scale programmes that involve many partners and stakeholders. A new study examines the nature of these challenges and identifies the factors that lead to partnership success.

The importance of seagrass meadows in supporting fisheries has been highlighted by a new study in San Simón Bay, a Natura 2000 site in Spain. The research also demonstrates the benefits of stakeholder involvement in developing management plans to balance conservation with the use of natural resources.

Biodiversity’s contribution to ecosystem services in grasslands — at different levels of the food chain (known as trophic levels1) — has been assessed in a new study. Higher species diversity across trophic levels — particularly for plants, insects and soil microbial decomposers — is important for the provision of multiple ecosystem services related to food production, recreational benefits, or climate regulation. Species diversity across different trophic groups was also found to be just as important in controlling ecosystem functioning as the management intensity of grasslands and environmental factors, such as climate or soil type.

Isolating specific reasons for involvement in agri-environment schemes (AES) is a key step in the formulation of schemes that are more appealing to Europe’s farming community. Through a comprehensive exploration of the literature on AES across the EU, this study contributes to a better understanding of what drives farmers’ participation in such initiatives, revealing important factors, such as previous experience with schemes and flexibility in management.

Assessing the cumulative human health risk caused by multiple toxic substances is a major challenge. New research has reported on developments in the US, where the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is creating a tool that will provide maps and other information to depict exposure data and risks at both a national and a local level.

Neonicotinoid and fipronil insecticides have a range of impacts on birds, mammals and fish, a new review of scientific literature has found. A house sparrow would need to eat just one and a half beet seeds treated with a common neonicotinoid to receive a lethal dose, for instance. The insecticides may also have equally important effects on vertebrate wildlife, such as reducing insect prey and hence food supply.

The combined effects of pollution and rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including CO₂, may have effects on marine ecosystems that are more damaging than expected, warns new research. The study found that bacteria capable of breaking down oil pollution were far less abundant in sediment in acidified waters. Although increased ultraviolet-B (UV-B) light reduced these negative impacts, the researchers caution that deeper waters or other waters with less UV-B, may still suffer.

A new method for mapping the spread of oil released by ships is presented in a recent study, where it is applied to the Adriatic and Ionian Seas of the Mediterranean. The method pulls together a range of data, including information on shipping routes, oil particle behaviour, currents and climate. In this case study, it reveals pollution hotspots in the south-western Adriatic Sea and north-eastern Ionian Sea.

Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution change the relationship between the tropical coral Stylophora pistillata and the algae living inside its tissues, a recent study has found. The researchers say the pollutants, mainly from urban and agricultural discharges, affect algae photosynthesis and the essential transfer of carbon from algae to the coral.

A study of the pollution caused by ship scrapping in Alang, India, shows significantly higher levels of heavy metal and petroleum hydrocarbons in sediment and seawater, compared to a control site. The researchers also found reduced populations of zooplankton — a critical food source for marine biota — and increased numbers of pathogenic bacteria.

Pollutants have been shown to alter the structure of bacterial communities in the coastal waters around the Alang-Sosiya shipbreaking yard in north-west India. The research analysed seawater from two sites near Alang-Sosiya and from pristine sea water taken 10 km from the coast. The results provide a clearer idea of changes to the microbial ecology near a large ship recycling yard.

The Alang shipbreaking yards in India recycle almost half of all end-of-life ships worldwide. The major activity at the yards is plate-cutting, used to recover steel from ships. This process consumes nearly 29 kg of oxygen and 7 kg of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and emits almost 22 kg of CO2 per 1 km-long cut with a 1 mm depth. This study reveals the carbon footprint and resources consumed in the cutting of steel plates. The method used to derive these findings could be adapted to ship dismantling yards worldwide.

Evaluating the level of danger to human health from exposure to multiple chemicals in contaminated sites is a complex task. To address this difficulty, researchers have developed a new screening tool that can be incorporated into public health risk assessment, which may include polluted former industrial plants, waste dumps, or even land where pesticides have been used. This ‘hazard index’ approach indicates when risk to health is high, which organs are most affected, and where further evaluation should be conducted in the context of environmental or occupational exposure at such sites.

EU-supported research has established a new model to calculate air pollution emissions from ships. Its calculations could create a database that lists emissions per ship type and size as well as by country.

To reduce air pollution levels in harbours, EU Directive 2005/33/EC requires all anchored ships to use fuels with low sulphur content. A recent study of air quality in Mediterranean harbours shows that levels of sulphur dioxide have decreased significantly since the Directive was implemented in 2010.

Levels of air pollution significantly increase on the island of Svalbard in the Norwegian Arctic when tourist cruise ships are present, according to a recent study. With shipping levels rising in the region, the researchers recommend that stricter emissions regulations are introduced in order to limit the impact of pollution on the Arctic environment.

The public health impacts of air pollution in Europe remain large, but are falling thanks to regulatory actions to cut emissions, a recent study finds. However, it issues a warning about the public health impacts of emissions from rising levels of international ship traffic.

Strong acids formed from shipping emissions can produce seasonal ‘hot spots’ of ocean acidification, a recent study finds. These hot spots, in ocean areas close to busy shipping lanes, could have negative effects on local marine ecology and commercially farmed seafood species.

Air quality in the Greek city of Thessaloniki has worsened during the recent economic crisis, as residents burn more wood and other types of biomass to keep warm. A recent study has found a 30% increase in the concentration of fine particle (PM_2.5) emissions associated with wood smoke from residential heating in 2012 and 2013, with implications for the health of local residents.

Over 2500 tons of the air pollutants nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) were released by cruise ships across the five busiest Greek cruise ports during 2013, a new study found. The researchers also examined the costs of the potential health impacts of this pollution, finding they could be as high as 24.3 million Euros.