With humanity altering the planet in many detrimental ways, from the warming of climate to the ever-diminishing wildernesses on land and in the sea, theUNEP has come up with its “Frontiers Report” helps to understand how learning from ecosystem and how to live within them in harmony are objectives that need to be adopted.
Frontiers 2022: Noise, Blazes and Mismatches identifies three issues:
1) Listening to Cities: From Noisy Environments to Positive Soundscapes
2) Wildfires Under Climate Change: A Burning Issue
3) Phenology: Climate Change Is Shifting the Rhythm of Nature
UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen in the Foreword said “We cannot have a healthy society without a healthy environment. And we need good science to inform responsible policies that back a healthy environment, which the Frontiers Report provides.”
LISTENING TO CITIES: FROM NOISY ENVIRONMENTS TO POSITIVE SOUNDSCAPES
• Long-term exposure to noise pollution is a major, growing environmental issue that affects mental and physical health of all age groups. It causes sleep disturbance, annoyance and headaches. It can also lead to the development of hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes and irreversible hearing damage.
• In Europe alone, long-term exposure to noise contributes to 12,000 premature deaths and 48,000 new cases of ischemic heart disease.
• Residents of cities around the world such as Barcelona, Cairo and New York are exposed to high levels of noise.
• In New York, 90 per cent of mass transit users are exposed to noise levels exceeding the recommended 70 dB limit.
• In Ho Chi Minh City, cyclists are exposed to noise levels above 78 dB, which can cause irreversible hearing loss.
• High noise levels also disrupt the acoustic communication that urban animals such as birds, frogs and insects rely on for survival
SOLUTIONS
• Vegetation in urban environments absorbs acoustic energy and diffuses noise. Tree belts, shrubs, green walls and green roofs help amplify natural sounds by attracting wildlife, and they improve the visual streetscape as well.
• Trees can help reduce urban noise pollution. For example, customized placement of trees in rows behind traditional highway noise barriers can reduce noise levels by 12 dB.
• Green spaces, courtyards and quiet urban parks offer relief from noisy places and benefit our mental well-being.
• increasing the number of cycle lanes can reduce road traffic noise. Also, low-emission zones encourage electric mobility, which reduces noise and improves air quality.
The report states that City planners should consider public and personal health benefits of positive soundscapes when designing cities.
WILDFIRES UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE: A BURNING ISSUE
- Wildfires are a natural part of earth’s systems, but they are becoming much more large, dangerous and likely to occur as a result of climate change and human influence.
- Human alterations of landscapes through land clearing, deforestation, agricultural expansion, introduction of invasive species, urban and rural development, and inappropriate fire management have interfered with natural fire regimes.
- As a result of deforestation and forest fragmentation, wildfires now burn through areas such as humid tropical forests, where they seldom spread in the past.
- Extreme weather events such as hotter temperatures and more droughts lead to longer fire seasons and increase the likelihood of fire weather conditions.
- The frequency of lightning strikes is projected to increase with a changing climate.
- Fire-generated thunderstorms have become more frequently reported in Australia, Europe and North America in recent decades. These thunderstorms contribute to more dangerous conditions for fires on the ground.
- Wildfires emit substantial amounts of pollutants, such as black carbon, particulate matter and greenhouse gases.
- Wildfires also lead to water pollution, erosion, ocean fertilization and significant biodiversity loss.
SOLUTION
- Improved planning, policies, and practices, increased fire-fighting capabilities, and
- community resilience-building programmes;
- Greater long-term cooperation among different regions and countries to share resources;
- Involvement of vulnerable groups in all stages of preparedness and response;
- More appreciation and uptake of indigenous fire management techniques such as prescribed burning; and
- Modern tools such as long-range weather forecasting, remote-sensing capabilities – satellites, ground-based radar, lightning detection – and data handling that improve the monitoring and management of wildfires.
PHENOLOGY: CLIMATE CHANGE IS SHIFTING THE RHYTHM OF NATURE
- Phenology refers to periodic events in biological life cycles.
- Decades of global warming cause shifts in the timing of life stages of interacting species, sometimes resulting in ecosystem-disrupting phenological mismatches. For example, some birds now have their nestlings in the nest when food supply is already waning, so late-breeding pairs have lower success than early-breeding ones.
- Phenological shifts due to anthropogenic climate change have been detected in many life cycle events from reproduction to migration, or from leafing, flowering to fruiting. Phenological mismatches are becoming more common.
- Over 1,200 years of observations track the blooming date of cherry blossom in Japan as the beginning of spring, usually within April. Since 1900, the blooming has advanced progressively to earlier dates in late March.
- The great tit population in the Netherlands has advanced its egg-laying in response to warming trends
- Eastern South Pacific humpback whales have advanced their arrival to Colombia’s Gorgona National Natural Park by up to one month earlier over the last three decades. This is likely due to changes in krill availability in Antarctic feeding grounds.
- Shortened day length and lower temperature in autumn usually prompt the eastern monarch butterfly of North America to fly south. An analysis of migration over 29 years shows that they have delayed migration by six days per decade due to warmer than normal temperatures.
RESULT OF THESE SHIFTS
- If too rapid, these shifts can lead to phenological mismatches with significant consequences for individuals and potentially for populations, communities and whole ecosystems.
- The current rate of anthropogenic climate change is accelerating too quickly for many plant and animal species to adapt through their phenological capacity to shift the timing of life cycle stages.
- Phenological shifts in crops in response to seasonal variations will be challenging for food production in the face of climate change. Shifts in the phenology of commercially important marine species and their prey have significant consequences for fisheries productivity.
SOLUTION
- Restoring habitats, conserving biodiversity, building corridors to enhance ecological connectivity and genetic diversity and adjusting protected-area boundaries as species’ ranges shift help strengthen their adaptive capacity.
- Conservation and ecosystem management measures must be taken to encourage micro-evolution, where species evolve and adapt to new conditions. A critical example of this is promoting genetic diversity within populations, as this is the crucial prerequisite for micro-evolution and eventual natural selection.
- The more genetic diversity a species has, the greater the chance it can successfully adapt to the changing climate. The maintenance of ecological integrity and habitat connectivity is vital to species’ survival.