EXTREME ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND HUMAN HEALTH Flashcards
ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE?
Environmental change can be described as any change or disturbance of the environment. Typically this is likely to be caused by either 1) anthropogenic impact (human influences) or 2) natural ecological processes (
A DISASTER?
A disaster is “any occurrence that causes damage, ecological destruction, loss of human lives, or deterioration of health and health services on a scale sufficient to warrant an extraordinary response from outside the affected community area.”
Some disasters are natural whilst others are induced by humans. Some disasters are rapid onset, such as an earthquake, whereas others are slow onset, such as a drought or famine
NATURAL DISASTERS?
There are several types of natural disasters. Some of these are related to the weather, including droughts, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, and heavy rains. However, the biggest relative impact is in low and middle-income countries. The relative impact of natural disasters on the poor, of course, is greater than on the better off because the share of poorer people’s total assets that are lost in these disasters is greater than that lost by higher-income people.
People can die directly as a result of the natural disaster, such as from falling rubble during an earthquake or drowning during a flood. However, they may also die as an indirect result of the disaster because of epidemics linked to the lack of safe water or sanitation, food, or access to health services.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fifth report in 2014 addressed the likely climate change impacts on health. How did they describe he impact climate change has on health?
health may be damaged “directly, due to changes in temperature and precipitation and occurrence of heat waves, floods, droughts and fires. Indirectly, health may be damaged by ecological disruptions brought on by climate change (crop failures, shifting patterns of disease vectors), or social responses to climate change (such as displacement of populations following prolonged drought)
The report’s description of these health risks and its assessment of their likelihood are shown below:
Greater risk of injury, disease and death due to the more intense heat waves and fires (very high confidence)
Increased risk of malnutrition resulting from diminished food production in poor regions (high confidence)
Consequences for health of lost work capacity and reduced labour productivity in vulnerable populations (high confidence)
Increased risk of food- and water-borne diseases (very high confidence) and vector-borne disease (medium confidence)
Modest reductions in cold related mortality and morbidity in some areas due to fewer cold extremes (low confidence)
Geographical shifts in food production and reduced capacity of disease-carrying vectors due to exceedance of thermal thresholds (medium confidence)
These positive effects will be increasingly outweighed, worldwide, by the magnitude and severity of the negative effects of climate change (high confidence)
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL DISASTERS?
Climate change has not been proven to directly cause individual extreme environmental events, but it has been shown to make these events more destructive, and likely happen more frequently, than they normally would be.
J
HURRICANE KATARINA, 2005, IMPACT ON HEALTH
Hurricanes are large, swirling storms that can produce winds of 74mph or higher. They typically start over sea and move in-land. Hurricanes have a destructive capability and can damage trees and buildings. Along with Hurricane Sandy, Katrina in 2005 was one of the costliest hurricanes in US history.
The hurricane caused water from the sea to come in land, causing flooding in many regions. Sewage systems became overwhelmed resulting in sewage water mixing with flood water. This leads to a lack of potable water, increasing risk of dehydration, diarrhoea and microbial infections. Additionally, sewage water contaminating soil would make it less able to bear crops and produce, affecting the mid to long term recovery of agriculture in the region.
In the aftermath of the hurricane, there were hundreds of cases of dehydration and infected wounds as a result of the sewage overflow and flooding. Many of the impoverished survivors had pre-existing chronic health problems (e.g. high blood pressure, diabetes and heart conditions), and lost their essential medication in the disaster. Pregnant women have been transported to hospitals including several who were in labour. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This demonstrates the impact of interacting personal (medical) history factors and the event of a disaster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HEALTH PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH HURRICANES?
- MIXING OF SEWAGE WATER WITH FLOOD WATER, LEADING TO LACK OF DRINKING WATER (DEHYDRATION) AND WATER-BORNE DISEASE + INFECTED WOUNDS
- SEWAGE WATER CAN CONTAMINATE CROPS, AFFECTING AGRICULTURE
- PEOPLE WITH PRE-EXISTING HEALTH PROBLEMS LOSE THEIR ESSENTIAL MEDICATIONS IN THE DISASTER
- PREGNANT WOMEN TRANSPORTED TO HOSPITALS, SOME IN LABOUR
- ADDED RISK OF RABIES AS WILD ANIMALS WILL ALSO BECOME DISPLACED AND HAVE HIGHER LIKELIHOOD TO COME INTO CONTACT WITH HUMANS
- FLOODS DISPLACE WILDLIFE AND BRING MARINE WILDLIFE IN-LAND, THUS SNAKE BITES AND OTHER ANIMAL ATTACKS ARE ALSO MORE LIKELY
- THE WET CONDITIONS ARE FAVOURABLE TO MOSQUITOES (RISK OF INFECTIONS SUCH AS WEST NILE VIRUS, MALARIA…)
- MIXING OF SEWAGE AND CLEAN WTAER INCREASES RISKS OF DIARRHOEA, HEP A AND E. COLI
- PTSD AND OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES ARE LIKELY TO ARISE
INDIAN OCEAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI, 2004
Also known by the scientific community as the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake. The initial earthquake occurred at sea, which caused the ocean floor to suddenly rise by as much as 40 metres, triggering a massive tsunami. Within 20 minutes of the earthquake, the first of several tsunami waves struck coastal areas and killed approximately 100, 000 people. Successive waves killed killing tens of thousands more people.
Indonesia was the worst affected country. Other nations affected included Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and the Maldives. Such was the extent of the earthquake and tsunami that fatalities were recorded in East Africa in Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania. The estimated total mortality was staggering; nearly 230,000 people were killed, making it one of the deadliest disasters in modern history.
Aside from the high number of human mortalities, the earthquake and ensuing tsunami caused a considerable environmental impact that will affect the region in the long term. The spread of (solid and liquid) waste and industrial chemicals, water pollution and the destruction of sewage collectors and treatment plants further threaten the environment in ways that are not yet clearly understood.
The primary problem was caused by poisoning of freshwater supplies and of the soil by saltwater intrusion and a deposit of a salt layer over arable land. An innumerable amount of wells that were the main drinking water source for communities in affected countries were invaded by sea, sand, and earth causing a risk of dehydration or susceptibility to water-borne pathogens.
Salted-over soil (a result of vast quantities of seawater intruding the land) becomes sterile, and is challenging and costly to restore for agriculture. It also causes the death of plants and important soil micro-organisms. Thousands of rice, mango, and banana plantations in Sri Lanka were destroyed and will take years to recover.
La Palma and Mt Semeru volcano eruptions, 2021
focus on impact on health
Volcanoes confer a wide range of hazards. Pyroclastic flows are avalanches containing hot volcanic gases, ash and rock. They are the most deadly event to happen at a volcano. In close proximity to a volcano, ballistic projectiles, lava flows, lahars, thick ashfalls, and gas and aerosol emissions. Further-reaching hazards include volcanic ashfalls, gas and aerosol dispersion, and lahars.
Direct health impacts include trauma, burns, and exacerbation of respiratory diseases. Volcanic ashfalls can affect the habitability of communities that are situated downwind by contaminating water supplies, damaging crops and buildings, and reducing indoor (and outdoor) air quality.
La Palma
A volcanic eruption began in Spetember 2021 and last until late December 2021. Lava spewed from La Palma volcano twice as high as the Eiffel Tower. In the popular imagination, people are thought to die from the lava flows of volcanoes. In fact, this is rarely the case. About 90 percent of the deaths from volcanoes worldwide are due to mud and ash or from floods on denuded hillsides affected by the volcano. Additionally, volcanic eruptions can harm health by displacing people, rendering water supplies unsafe, and causing mental health problems.
The banana industry, one of the island’s strongest economic sectors, lost approximately €100 million ($116 million) within the first week of the eruption, according to the Canary Islands government. The tourism industry also suffered, with La Palma’s airport the only one in Spain that was expected to see a drop in flights in winter 2021. As you have learned from the Illness module (Year 1), loss of income or unexpected unemployment are risk factors for various chronic health problems.
Mount Semeru
On 4th December 2021, Mount Semeru in Java, Indonesia erupted. Fourteen people were killed and dozens more injured in the first few days. Many individuals mistook molten rock for flood water succumbing to fatal injuries.
Hundreds of houses were destroyed and 33 schools damaged. Within days, public kitchens and health facilities were set up for more than 1,000 people who had become displaced from their homes.
Indonesia has suffered many volcanic eruptions previously. This is due to it being situated on the so called ‘Ring of fire’ (also known as the Circum-Pacific Belt)- a series of fault lines spanning east to south-east Asia. Many locals live in close proximity to volcanoes due to the fertile volcanic soil and the shortage of space in Java. This marks a clear interaction between socioeconomic status and extreme environmental change where people with low financial security, out of desperation, forge lives in unpredictable and dangerous territories. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of people live close to active volcanoes which presents challenges for authorities.
Muir et al. (2019): VOLCANO ERUPTION AND MENTAL HEALTH
Mount Merapi and mental health
Muir et al. (2019) conducted an intriguing study investigating the mental health of individuals displaced by the volcanic eruption of Mount Merapi, Indonesia in 2018. In particular, they wanted to view whether return migration i.e. returning ‘home’ when it was safe again resulted in better mental health compared to other options such as deciding to move on. There were different categories of people who had migrated to survive the eruption; those who had moved on and settled in new regions, those who had returned home, and those who were still displaced.
Unsurprisingly those still displaced had the poorest mental health. Those who returned home were more likely to report good mental health as opposed to average or poor mental health. However, those who had settled elsewhere had the best reported mental health. The authors concluded that although ‘returning home’ was an improvement from being displaced, with regards to mental health, it may have been better to move on. This is likely due to the continued destabilisation of the local area’s infrastructure, health services, and agriculture.
INFESTATIONS AND HEALTH - LOCUSTS
Locusts are several specific subspecies of grasshopper. Typically they are solitary and harmless. However, when environmental conditions are right—when there’s a lot of rainfall and moisture— an evolutionary change occurs: They multiply, and sense their increasing numbers. This is what biologists call the “gregarious phase”, they change colouration, size, physiology and behaviour. The ability to change dramatically like this in response to environmental conditions is called phenotypic plasticity and is likely an evolutionary trait to capitalise on food availability. They have the propensity to multiply to hundreds of billions and then vanishing, in irregular booms and busts throughout the decades. A swarm covering one square kilometre can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 humans. They can cause 50-80% of crops to be destroyed, depending on the time of year. Children who grew up during the last large plague (2003-05) were much less likely to go to school, with girls being disproportionately affected.
In late 2019, locusts swarmed in large numbers in dozens of countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia, Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia. When swarms affect several countries at once in very large numbers, it is known as a plague.
Though it is easy to perceive humans as ‘victims’. Human activity entices locusts swarms on to their lands. Gregarious locusts need a carbohydrate-rich diet for their growth in the gregarious phase and their energy-demanding migration. On farmed land, once livestock has overgrazed upon the land, very little will thrive upon it except for grains. Incidentally, grains are a carbohydrate-rich source that favour the needs locusts and humans alike, attracting the swarms. This is why the swarms seem to affect the farmers who struggle the most to yield crop.
TERM USED WHEN SWARMS OF INSECTS (E.G. LOCUSTS) AFFECT SEVERAL COUNTRIES AT ONCE IN LARGE NUMBERS
A PLAGUE
WHICH INDUSTRY ARE LOCUSTS PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS FOR?
AGRICULTURE (THEY CAN DESTROY 50-80% OF CROPS, DEPENDING ON THE TIME OF THE YEAR)
HAVING NIGHTMARES ABOUT A NEGATIVE THING ONE HAS EXPERIENCED IS ONE OF THE SYMPTOMS OF?
PTSD (1 OF 17 SYMPTOMS)
USING PESTICIDES TO DEAL WITH INFESTATIONS?
Pesticides themselves pose complications. Chronic exposure to pesticides at lower levels has been associated with adverse neurological and behavioural conditions in young children. Moreover, many pesticides have constituents that may be carcinogenic, mutagenic or having reproductive toxic effects. Bioaccumulation (PROCESS OF ACCUMULATION OF CHEMICALS IN AN ORGANISM WHICH TAKES PLACE IF THE RATE OF INTAKE EXCEEDS THE RATE OF EXCRETION: LEVELS O A TOXIN INCREASE FURTHER ALONG THE FOOD CHAIN, POSING GREAT RISK TO APEX PREDATORS AND HUMANS) of pesticides is a concern.
Fungus-based pesticides are thought to be harmful to a much narrower range of species than conventional pesticides, thus pose lower risk to the environment and humans. However, some researchers have questioned whether fungal deterrents could still harm other species of insect, such as termites, inevitably affecting the ecosystem.
