Cornell University. (2019, July 30). To conserve water, Indian farmers fire up air pollution. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 24, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190730125338.htm
A measure to conserve groundwater in northwestern India has led to unexpected consequences: added air pollution in an area already beset by haze and smog. water-use policies require farmers to transplant rice later in the year, which in turn delays harvests and concentrates agricultural burning of crop residues in November — a month when breezes stagnate — leading to increased air pollution. The stormy conditions of November have caused air pollution concentrations to rise by nearly thirty percent.
In two thousand fifteen, almost one point one million Indians died due to air pollution. This added up to costs equaling three percent of the country’s GDP. I find it interesting how one resource depleting (groundwater) can actually cause something like air pollution to increase which also hurts the environment. I liked that this article gave a possible solution to the issue. One solution could be due get the tractor-mounted Happy Seeder which would allow farmers to dig deep into the ground to plant seeds rather than utilizing their burning tactic. By doing this, they also won’t have to farm in the stormy month of November when it is most likely to increase air pollution.
This is a very interesting abstract. I wonder what sort of measure they took that caused all of the added pollution. I will be interested to see if the solution that was proposed in the article will be attempted and whether or not it is successful.
This is very interesting how different imbalances ultimately effect each other. India has some very underdeveloped areas and I think farmers should have a basic education on the environmental issues they can prevent but otherwise cause. How to manage their land sustainably, benefitting the farmer and the environment.