The global cost of disasters is growing: The economic burden of disasters is intensifying. While the direct costs of disasters averaged $70–80 billion a year between 1970 and 2000, between 2001 and 2020 these annual costs grew significantly to $180–200 billion. But the real cost is far higher. Disaster costs …
Margot Roosevelt IN the scrum of 9,000 negotiators gathered in Cancun to wrangle over a global climate treaty, Ronny Jumeau has no patience for diplomatic niceties.
Frequent dust storms and scarce rains are stifling Iraq's efforts to revive a farming sector hit by decades of war, sanctions and isolation. Wheat and rice production has suffered from a severe drought in the past two years, due in part to rising temperatures, along with a dearth of water …
COME winters, farmers in 50 districts of the country will be covered by an experimental crop insurance scheme by the Centre. The new scheme is a modified version of the current programme with new features like providing indemnity and advance relief to farmers. The unit area for the new insurance …
States that ask the Centre for relief to cope with natural disasters or other calamities rarely get the amounts they ask for. Highly placed sources in the government say that bureaucrats in Delhi believe the claim figures are highly exaggerated. In the past six years, Andhra Pradesh has posted a …
This is a brief response to Sunita Narain's thought-provoking piece on the role of monsoon in our lives. As scientists actively involved in understanding the Indian monsoon and its prediction, we have attempted to elucidate what we know about this intriguing phenomenon, which is a tantalizing mixture of order and …
This report focuses on preventing death and destruction from "natural" disasters, and concludes that governments can appreciably increase prevention. It looks at disasters primarily through an economic lens and shows that growing cities will increase exposure to hazards, but that vulnerability will not rise if cities are better managed. The …
Oct. 6: Irked at a series of objections including legal tangles coming in the way for execution of the Indira Sagar (Polavaram) project, the local MP, Mr Vundavalli Arunkumar, warned of an imminent food crisis and transformation of the Godavari and Krishna delta areas into dry areas. The MP said …
This publication by Indian Meteorological Department, Pune contains studies with latest data on various aspects of important weather / climate systems viz. Monsoons, Cyclone, Drought, Floods and observational weather / climate mechanism in India. Normal climatic pattern and long term trends over India during last more than 100 years have …
Countries in the Asia-Pacific are more prone to natural disasters than those in other parts of the world says this first of its kind regional disaster report launched at 4th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in South Korea. People in the Asia-Pacific region are four times more likely …
This report highlights how better legislation can help to significantly reduce the human suffering caused by the growing number of natural disasters. It highlights three areas where IFRC expects law to make a key difference in Asia Pacific and where the Red Cross and Red Crescent is supporting governments to …
JAIPUR: The Rajasthan Government may consider fixing a share for the Keoladeo National Park near Bharatpur from the Panchana dam in Karauli district so that the world famous bird sanctuary may get assured supply of water every year. After a gap of many years, water was released to the park, …
Forecasting the effects of global changes on high altitude ecosystems requires an understanding of the long-term relationships between biota and forcing factors to identify resilience thresholds. Fire is a crucial forcing factor: both fuel build-up from land-abandonment in European mountains, and more droughts linked to global warming are likely to …
More than 500 years after Spanish priests brought wheat seeds to Mexico to make wafers for the Catholic Mass, those seeds may bring a new kind of salvation to farmers hit by global warming. Scientists working in the farming hills outside Mexico City found the ancient wheat varieties have particular …
Gargi Parsai NEW DELHI: The drought in Russia and the floods in Pakistan that have affected wheat production will impact food prices as in 2007-08, says a senior official of the World Food Programme. WFP Deputy Executive Director Ramiro Lopes da Silva says:
Federal Minister for Environment Hameed Ullah Jan Afridi has said that the continues process of global warming and climate change can bring major abnormalities in weather conditions which could cause further damages in different areas of the country. He expressed these views during his media chat here on Friday. The …
Cereal stocks are up, the harvest for wheat is the most plentiful in years, and fuel prices are low - yet food prices have been climbing. Although food prices are less than half of the historical peaks of 2007-2008, some governments and traders are leading the charge to hedge against …
Surinder Sud / New Delhi September 13, 2010, 1:13 IST The delay in the withdrawal of the monsoon is not an unmixed blessing though its overall impact on the output prospects for the current kharif and the subsequent rabi is deemed positive. Besides causing floods in the country
New Delhi: To help farmers in eastern India tide over the drought, the National Seed Corporation (NSC) has distributed tonnes of short-duration crop seeds to state government of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.
New York City just had its hottest June-to-August stretch on record. Moscow, suffering from a once-in-a-millennium heat wave, tallied thousands of deaths, a toll that included hundreds of inebriated, overheated citizens who stumbled into rivers and lakes and didn
