scholarly journals Effects of Climatic Variability and Non-Climatic Factors on Mopane Worms’ (Gonimbrasia Belina) Distribution and Livelihood Options in North Central Namibia

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
C. Togarepi ◽  
E. Nashidengo ◽  
N. Siyambango

Mopane worms (Gonimbrasia belina) are an important source of food and income for households in Northern Namibia. However, their access and availability in many areas have declined, mainly due to climate change and human activities. This has affected many households’ livelihoods, making them vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity. With these factors in mind, this study sought to identify the extent to which the availability and distribution of mopane worms are influenced in the Tsandi and Okahao constituencies. The study used structured questionnaires to collect information from households in the study area, to interview key informants, and to carry out group discussions. A total of 70 households and 6 key informants were interviewed, along with 4 focus group discussions that were carried out to elicit perceptions, and to obtain views on the availability of mopane worms, and possible causes of the decline in the study area. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, while GIS was used to determine trends in vegetation cover, temperature and rainfall in the area. The rainfall trend indicates variability, with a generally declining trend. A slight increase in temperature has been observed too. Vegetation showed a browning trend in the study area, indicating declining habitats of mopane worms. The results have indicated that more women depend on mopane worms for survival, mainly as a source of income. Thus the decline in their availability greatly affects their food sources and their income diversification opportunities. Trading was found to be an important form of employment for the unemployed rural people, but with the potential to generate higher income levels that can improve their livelihoods. Moreover, despite the climatic factors, human activities seemed to indicate a greater influence on the availability of mopane worms, due to activities such as overharvesting, land clearing for agriculture and household use/fencing. Thus, there is a greater need to control the harvesting of mopane worms and to control tree cutting activities in order to reduce the impacts of climatic and non-climatic factors on their availability.

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-210
Author(s):  
Addiarrahman Addiarrahman ◽  
Illy Yanti

This study seeks to understand the pragmatism of the development of sharia economic law, and its implications for Islamic financial products in Indonesia. The data comes from the results of interviews and focus group discussions with key informants from academics, practitioners, authorities, and the public. This research finds that pragmatism in the development of Islamic economic law is an approach that still dominates the DSN-MUI fatwas. The pragmatism style used is complex-eclectic pragmatism which is represented through makhārij al-fiqhiyyah, which is to choose a mild opinion by sticking to the strongest method or also called "taysīr al-manhajī". The use of this method is intended to ensure that the fatwa is truly able to answer the needs of the business world, as well as being in line with sharia principles. DSN-MUI also does not use maslahah as a legal consideration in a free or liberal way. Rather, it returns maslahah in consideration of the method, so that it is permissible to use the bay’ al-'inān contract only in a forced state (ḍarurah).


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana I. García-Cervigón ◽  
Pedro F. Quintana-Ascencio ◽  
Adrián Escudero ◽  
Merari E. Ferrer-Cervantes ◽  
Ana M. Sánchez ◽  
...  

AbstractPopulation persistence is strongly determined by climatic variability. Changes in the patterns of climatic events linked to global warming may alter population dynamics, but their effects may be strongly modulated by biotic interactions. Plant populations interact with each other in such a way that responses to climate of a single population may impact the dynamics of the whole community. In this study, we assess how climate variability affects persistence and coexistence of two dominant plant species in a semiarid shrub community on gypsum soils. We use 9 years of demographic data to parameterize demographic models and to simulate population dynamics under different climatic and ecological scenarios. We observe that populations of both coexisting species may respond to common climatic fluctuations both similarly and in idiosyncratic ways, depending on the yearly combination of climatic factors. Biotic interactions (both within and among species) modulate some of their vital rates, but their effects on population dynamics highly depend on climatic fluctuations. Our results indicate that increased levels of climatic variability may alter interspecific relationships. These alterations might potentially affect species coexistence, disrupting competitive hierarchies and ultimately leading to abrupt changes in community composition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 32-41
Author(s):  
Netrananda Sahu ◽  
Martand Mani Mishra

It has become evident that the global climate is changing rapidly over the past few decades. The variation and change in the global climatic factors have a notable impact on the local climate of a region. The changing climate is widely regarded as one of the most serious global health threats of the 21st century. Among various kinds of diseases, the most vulnerable to these changes are vector-borne diseases. In the Indian context, particularly Delhi city is the most vulnerable to dengue, a kind of vector-borne disease having its highest impact. We sought to identify and explore the correlation and influence of the global climatic phenomena and local climatic factors with the reported number of dengue cases in Delhi. The temporal expansions of reported dengue cases in Delhi have a variation from its first major outbreak in the city during the year 1996 to 2015. A statistical tool like Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) is used in this study to establish the interrelationship and the level of impact and local climatic variation on dengue. An exceptional negative correlation value of r = -0.82 between the monsoon index and the dengue incidences was reported during the positive years and also maintains a very high positive correlation with other global climatic indices. The study here finds that there is a strong correlation of climatic variation which further influences the epidemiology of dengue in Delhi.


2011 ◽  
pp. 83-91
Author(s):  
Shiba Prasad Rijal

This paper aims at analyzing livelihoods of people of rural mountain areas highlighting the case of Yari village located in the north-western part of Humla district in Mid-western development region, Nepal. The study has been based on primary data collected through group discussions and key informant’s interview during May 2007. As in other mountainous areas of Nepal, people of Yari village perform a number of different activities for their livelihoods. Agriculture, forest product collection, homemade production activities, hotel/catering and wage laboring are the main livelihood options and survival strategies adapted by local people. However, people’s livelihood in this area is hard and insecure due to various adversities. The shortage of facilities and services, adverse climate, food deficiency, remoteness, lack of awareness, poor access to market and water stress are the main adversities faced by local people.The Geographical Journal of Nepal, Vol. 8-9, 2010-2011: 83-91


Author(s):  
Manisha KC ◽  
Nanda Bahadur Singh

In the context of depleting indigenous knowledge and their values in the Kisan Community, they seem unaware of their culturally rich traditional practices of using animals and plants for medicinal purpose. It has been essential to document those knowledge of practices for future references. The paper tried to explore and document those knowledge and practices by the Kisan community of Mechinagar 9 and 11 of Jhapa, Nepal. For this purpose, the data were collected through interviews with key informants including conjurer (Dhami/Jhakri), elders of the society and also focal group discussions with the local people. Analysis of the data has shown that 29 animal species belonging to 24 families are used to treat 29 ailments and 57 plant species belonging to 37 families are used for treating 39 different ailments. The commonly treated ailments were common cold, cuts, wounds, diarrhoea, dysentery, etc.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (ICON-Suppl) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fivzia Herekar ◽  
Sundus Iftikhar ◽  
Ahsana Nazish ◽  
Sabeen Rehman

Background and Objective: Malaria is an arthropod-borne infectious disease transmitted by the mosquito Anopheles and claims millions of lives globally every year. Reasons for failure to eradicate this disease are multifactorial. The seasonality of the malaria is principally determined by climatic factors conducive for breeding of the vector. We aimed to study the relationship between climatic variability and the seasonality of malaria over an eight-year duration. Methods: This was a retrospective medical chart review of 8,844 confirmed cases of malaria which presented to The Indus Hospital, Karachi from January 2008 to November 2015. Cases were plotted against meteorological data for Karachi to elicit monthly variation. Results: A secular incline and seasonality in malaria cases over the duration of 8 years was seen. More cases were reported in the summer, rainy season compared with the other three seasons in each year. There was significant association with specific climate variables such as temperature, moisture, and humidity. Conclusion: There is a marked seasonal variation of malaria in Karachi, influenced by various environmental factors. Identification of the ‘the concentrated period’ of malaria can be helpful for policymakers to deploy malaria control interventions. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.ICON-Suppl.1712 How to cite this:Herekar F, Iftikhar S, Nazish A, Rehman S. Malaria and the climate in Karachi: An eight year review. Pak J Med Sci. Special Supplement ICON 2020. 2020;36(1):S33-S37. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.ICON-Suppl.1712 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meterfi Baroudi ◽  
Wael El Zerey ◽  
Salaheddine Bachir Bouiadjra

In semi arid region of the South West of the Mediterranean basin, low rainfall, and thermal fluctuations cause water stress situations affecting at different levels, with varying intensities, the development of durum wheat yields. This work aims to study the major climatic factors that determine water environment of durum wheat in its reproductive period and assess their trend related to yields of the grain. Comparing diagrams of Bagnoul and Gaussen, established for two periods (1913-1937 and 1977-2014), highlighted an increase in the duration of the dry season due to rising temperatures, especially summer and a decrease in volume of the seasonal rainfall involving therefore water stress during the reproductive phase of cereal. The analysis of water regime in the past three decades, for the months of March, April and May, through the application of the approach of UNESCO-FAO, highlighted a very large variability in intensity of water stress during grain development period during the last years and also the tendency of the spring season months to be more drought. This reflects the complexity of the selection for yield components in this region. International Journal of Environment Vol. 5 (1) 2016,  pp: 107-120


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 2831-2854 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Montosi ◽  
S. Manzoni ◽  
A. Porporato ◽  
A. Montanari

Abstract. Malaria is a geographically widespread infectious disease that is well known to be affected by climate variability at both seasonal and interannual timescales. In an effort to identify climatic factors that impact malaria dynamics, there has been considerable research focused on the development of appropriate disease models for malaria transmission and their consideration alongside climatic datasets. These analyses have focused largely on variation in temperature and rainfall as direct climatic drivers of malaria dynamics. Here, we further these efforts by considering additionally the role that soil water content may play in driving malaria incidence. Specifically, we hypothesize that hydro-climatic variability should be an important factor in controlling the availability of mosquito habitats, thereby governing mosquito growth rates. To test this hypothesis, we reduce a nonlinear eco-hydrologic model to a simple linear model through a series of consecutive assumptions and apply this model to malaria incidence data from three South African provinces. Despite the assumptions made in the reduction of the model, we show that soil water content can account for a significant portion of malaria's case variability beyond its seasonal patterns, whereas neither temperature nor rainfall alone can do so. Future work should therefore consider soil water content as a simple and computable variable for incorporation into climate-driven disease models of malaria and other vector-borne infectious diseases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 139-146
Author(s):  
Edwin Murmu ◽  
◽  
Bhupendra Singh Adhikari ◽  
Harsh Bardhan Vashistha ◽  
◽  
...  

The study provides insights into the role of an informal institution of the Santhal tribe of India in the conservation of biodiversity. The data has been collected from 124 Santhal key informants from six tribal districts from the states of Jharkhand (Dumka, Pakur and Sahibganj) and West Bengal (Birbhum, Bankura and West Medinipur) through the methods of stratified sampling, chain-referrals, personal interactions, and focussed group discussions. The taboos associated with biodiversity conservation have been categorized into six categories such as segment taboo, specific-species taboo, life-stage taboo, temporal taboo, habitat taboo and method taboo.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 2860
Author(s):  
Mengqi Tian ◽  
Jianzhong Zhou ◽  
Benjun Jia ◽  
Sijing Lou ◽  
Huiling Wu

In recent years, the impact of global climate change and human activities on vegetation has become increasingly prominent. Understanding vegetation change and its response to climate variables and human activities are key tasks in predicting future environmental changes, climate changes and ecosystem evolution. This paper aims to explore the impact of Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) water impoundment on the vegetation–climate response relationship in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region (TGRR) and its surrounding region. Firstly, based on the SPOT/VEGETATION NDVI and ERA5 reanalysis datasets, the correlation between climatic factors (temperature and precipitation) and NDVI was analyzed by using partial correlation coefficient method. Secondly, nonlinear fitting method was used to fit the mapping relationship between NDVI and climatic factors. Then, the residual analysis was conducted to evaluate the impact of TGR impoundment on vegetation–climate response relationship. Finally, sensitivity index (SI), sensitivity variation index (SVI) and difference index (DI) were defined to quantify the variation of vegetation–climate response relationship before and after water impoundment. The results show that water impoundment might have some impacts on the response of vegetation–climate, which gradually reduced with increasing distance from the channel; comparing with the residual analysis method, the SI and DI index methods are more intuitive, and combining these two methods may provide new ideas for the study of the impact of human activities on vegetation.


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