The unusual suspects? Perception of underlying causes of anthropogenic climate change in coastal communities in Cambodia and Tanzania

Public perception of the underlying causes of anthropogenic climate change is a complex and subjective issue that is critical to effective risk communication. This issue is important to scientists and policymakers because of the role of individual perceptions in influencing their protective behaviour towards risk (e.g., the adoption of climate risk reduction and mitigation strategies). This cross-sectional study elucidated people's perceptions of the underlying causes of human-induced climate change in coastal communities in Cambodia and Tanzania. The multinomial logistic regression model was based on a geographically and demographically stratified national sample of 3,706 individuals conducted between March and September 2013. The distribution of the fundamental causes of anthropogenic climate change in the pooled sample was deforestation (29%), overpopulation – births and immigration (18%), greenhouse gas emissions (12%), illegal resource extraction (14%), and God's will and transgressing cultural norms (26%). Few people in both countries believed that, the usual suspect, greenhouse gas emission was the fundamental cause of anthropogenic climate change. The number of poor rural residents who indicated that deforestation was the major underlying cause of climate change was approximately three times more than members of the same sub-group who noted that greenhouse gas emissions were the underlying cause of climate change. People who had tertiary education were less likely to consider God's will and transgressing cultural norms as the underlying cause of anthropogenic climate change rather than attributing it to greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is imperative to mainstream climate change into educational curricula in both countries.     

Surface and subsurface water quality appraisal for irrigation

Use of irrigation water available from various sources in agriculture is justified on agronomic and economic grounds but care must be taken to minimize its adverse environmental and health impacts. During the study 44 water samples, available from the various resources viz., canal, sewage pipe line, tube wells in confined aquifers, tube wells in unconfined aquifers, and wells in the Chaka block district Allahabad, were chemically analyzed to check its suitability for irrigation and to classify it according to amount of salts present. The analysis reveals that most of the samples were within the lower alkalinity limit (pH 7.17–8.42), except sewage water (pH 7.34–9.04). The electrical conductivity of the samples ranged from 0.26 to 1.37 millimhos/cm. Potassium, sodium, calcium, and phosphorus are all found to be in permissible range except one sample in the village Kuria in which Na percentage was found in doubtful category. The other parameters like sodium adsorption ratio, SAR (1.17–2.74), residual sodium carbonate, RSC (?4.46 to ?1.07), and soluble sodium percentage, SSP (63.97–28.15) were also found below the permissible limit.     

A study on consumer consciousness and behavior to the plastic bag ban in Kenya

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - Single use plastics pose environmental and socioeconomic problems in our life and ecosystems. After a 14 year attempt, Kenya successfully...     

An application of GIS and coastal geomorphology for large scale assessment of coastal erosion and management: a case study of Ghana

Coastal erosion poses serious threat to life and properties along Ghana??s coast. This is because major industries, urban settlements, recreational facilities, heritage and conservation sites are located few metres from the coast. In spite of this threat, management strategies, both past and present, remain an ??ad hoc?? and site specific. Limited attention has been given to large scale assessment and investigation to detect the rate of coastal recession and the size of land lost to the sea to inform integrated management plan and to formulate sustainable management strategies to deal with the problem. This paper provides large scale assessment of coastal recession in Ghana through field investigation, applied coastal geomorphology and GIS techniques to selected case study areas. The assessment covered 203?km out of the 540?km coastline of Ghana. Results of the assessment indicate that coastal erosion is very substantial and wide spread along the coast, but the rate of recession varies across the entire coastline. Significant amounts of losses of settlements have been experienced in some localities in the eastern coast (Keta and Ada) and the central coast (Accra, Shama and Sekondi-Takoradi). In some areas, coastal defences have been built to reduce the impacts, yet many areas are still very vulnerable. Interestingly, the paper identified that the high rates of retreat recorded in many areas have yet to cause major risks in some local communities because of the presence of a buffer of largely undeveloped land that has existed historically between the shoreline and the developments. However, recent increase in coastal tourism in Ghana has led to ??scramble?? for purchase of these buffer lands for development, which increase the risk. Ghana has the opportunity to use education and land use planning to keep the coastline clear of major developments and avoid the temptation of engaging in costly cycle of development-risk-defence experienced in many countries including the UK and the Netherlands. The paper recommends that Ghana should adopt the UK SMP, which has progressively moved away from the traditional re-active and parochial approaches of providing localised hard-engineered coastal defence work to solve what was perceived to be a local problem, to a more pro-active and holistic approach that take full account of coastal dynamics, interrelationships of coastal systems, knock-on effects, environment concerns and developments at the backshore.     

The connection between urbanization and carbon emissions: a panel evidence from West Africa

Environment, Development and Sustainability - This study examined the nexus between urbanization and carbon emissions in West Africa. Second-generation econometric techniques that are robust to...     

Domestic energy usage and its' health implications on residents of the Ese‐Odo and Okitipupa local government areas of Ondo state,Nigeria

This study examined domestic energy usage and its health implication on residents of Ese‐Odo and Okitipupa Local Government Areas (LGA), of Ondo State. Systematic random sampling was used to select 103 and 156 respondents in Ese‐Odo and Okitipupa LGA, respectively. It was established that environmental and socio‐economic related attributes influenced residents' choice of domestic energy type. Similarly, burns, blindness, stroke, cataract and pulmonary diseases were the most prevalent self‐reported ill‐health. A relatively weak correlation between domestic energy usage and ill‐health is experienced by the residents. Therefore, the study concluded that the use of traditional energy types had significant adverse effects on the health of the residents in Okitipupa and Ese‐Odo LGAs of Ondo State.     

Recycling of synthetic waste wig fiber in the production of cement-adobe for building envelope: physio-hydric properties

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Waste wigs are often disposed off in their volume on landfills, thus constituting a nuisance to the environment. Recycling these wigs in masonry...     

A comparative study of an innate immune response in Lamprologine cichlid fishes

Social interactions facilitate pathogen transmission and increase virulence. Therefore, species that live in social groups are predicted to suffer a higher pathogen burden, to invest more heavily in immune defence against pathogens, or both. However, there are few empirical tests of whether social species indeed invest more heavily in immune defence than non-social species. In the current study, we conducted a phylogenetically controlled comparison of innate immune response in Lamprologine cichlid fishes. We focused on three species of highly social cichlids that live in permanent groups and exhibit cooperative breeding (Julidochromis ornatus, Neolamprologus pulcher and Neolamprologus savoryi) and three species of non-social cichlids that exhibit neither grouping nor cooperative behaviour (Telmatochromis temporalis, Neolamprologus tetracanthus and Neolamprologus modestus). We quantified the innate immune response by injecting wild fishes with phytohaemagglutinin (PHA), a lectin that causes a cell-mediated immune response. We predicted that the three highly social species would show a greater immune reaction to the PHA treatment, indicating higher investment in immune defence against parasites relative to the three non-social species. We found significant species-level variation in immune response, but contrary to our prediction, this variation did not correspond to social system. However, we found that immune response was correlated with territory size across the six species. Our results indicate that the common assumption of a positive relationship between social system and investment in immune function may be overly simplistic. We suggest that factors such as rates of both in-group and out-group social interactions are likely to be important mediators of the relationship between sociality and immune function.     

Association between occupational exposure to domestic solid waste and dental caries: a cross-sectional study

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - Studies have shown that domestic waste collectors are exposed to toxicants including infectious pathogens, which may be linked to their oral health...