No abstract

Billions of people living in developing countries lack access to safe drinking water, not to mention water for handwashing, one of the most effective ways to contain the fast spreading novel coronavirus (COVID -19). The recent global spread of COVID-19 has fostered diverse initiatives such as the ‘Safe Hands’ challenge led by the World Health Organization. Individuals are encouraged to regularly wash their hands for 40–60 s under running water with soap. This call for ‘Safe Hands’ comes at a time when water insecurity and limited access to handwashing facilities in Africa is heightened. In this article, Chitungwiza city in Zimbabwe is used as a case study to assess the implications of the ‘Safe Hands’ challenge for poor municipalities in developing countries and characterize the challenges they face. To do so, interviews were conducted at water points/boreholes used by residents during Zimbabwe’s COVID-19 national lockdown. The calculation of water requirements for proper hand hygiene determined the capacity for water-stressed regions to effectively implement ‘Safe Hands’. On average, it was established that one person consumes an extra 4.5 L per day of water when they practice WHO ‘Safe Hands’ in the context of COVID-19. This increases domestic water demand in Chitungwiza by 9%. Due to water scarcity, people in Chitungwiza were experiencing challenges with practicing ‘Safe Hands’. With their ‘dry taps’ woes, they might not be able to meet the standards of this WHO challenge. Lack of soap also reduced the effectiveness of the ‘Safe Hands’ challenge. This paper proposes short- and long-term measures that would allow effective implementation of the ‘Safe Hands’ by means of sustainable potable water supply. These measures include extensive social awareness and temporary change of household water use behavior. Municipalities are recommended to establish public private partnerships (PPPs) to create immediate and long-term water investments. Structural and transformational reforms would enhance, through flexible planning, investments for both water infrastructure and governance. This narrative has the potential to improve the urban water systems resiliency against future pandemics.

Abstract:In a context of climate change, precipitation patterns show substantial disturbances and the occurrence of precipitation anomalies has tended to increase in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin. These anomalies are likely influencing vegetation dynamics and ecosystem stability. This paper aims to have a comprehensive understanding of vegetation growth response towards the precipitation pattern in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin. The study used NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) data and mapped precipitation datasets from 1982 to 2011. NDVI and precipitation show a similar spatial distribution: they decrease from the southeast coast to the northwest inland. Regions with sparse vegetation are mainly distributed in arid and semi-arid areas or densely-populated areas. Vegetation coverage and the regular precipitation pattern show a positive correlation (61.6% of the whole region), while the correlation between vegetation coverage and precipitation anomalies is negative (62.7% for rainless days and 60.3% for rainstorm days). The clustering result shows that abundant vegetation is mainly situated in high precipitation or low anomaly areas. On the contrary, the degraded regions are mainly distributed in low precipitation or high anomaly areas. However, some special regions, mainly located in the Three North Shelterbelt Program region, the Tibetan Plateau, and other regions along the rivers, present improved vegetation cover when precipitation decreases or extreme events occur.

Abstract:In recent years, land subsidence in the plain areas of Hebei Province has caused a tremendous potential safety hazard, and has seriously hindered the social and economic development of Hebei Province. Therefore, the relevant ministries and commissions of China decided to implement comprehensive treatments to restore and protect groundwater in Hebei Province from 2014. This paper evaluates the effect of the comprehensive treatments implemented at Quzhou County in 2014 and 2015. Based on socio-economic and surface and groundwater data, the study converted "electricity to water amount" to obtain the actual amount of agricultural groundwater exploitation, and then drew the effective precipitation and agricultural groundwater exploitation amount (P-W) curve. Finally, the study calculated the restriction amount of agricultural groundwater exploitation and validated the groundwater exploitation restriction effect by the variation of groundwater depth. The restriction amounts of agricultural groundwater exploitation of the projects (including water conservancy projects, agricultural projects, and forestry projects) implemented in 2014 and 2015 were 10.54 million m 3 and 5.65 million m 3 , respectively. The target completion ratios were 79.1% in 2014 and 100.8% in 2015, respectively. The groundwater depths of the project regions and the county have restored to some extent. Therefore, this study illustrated that the comprehensive treatments have played an effective role in groundwater recovery and the restriction of groundwater exploitation has not caused the reduction of grain production. The results of this study can also provide effective references and technical supports of the comprehensive treatments of groundwater overdraft for other similar regions.

A catchment is the basic unit for studying hydrologic cycle processes and associated climate change impacts. Accurate catchment delineation is essential in the field of hydrology, environment, and meteorology. Traditionally, catchment delineation is most easily carried out where the outflow area can be easily determined because of a well-defined outlet. The obstacle of the current study is to determine accurately the catchment boundary of lakes that are internally draining and, therefore, lack a well-defined outflow (i.e. inland lakes). This study describes a catchment delineation method which demarcated all the catchments of the lakes in the Qiangtang Plateau, especially for the inland lakes and their closed catchments. Lake catchment boundaries determined for the Qiangtang Plateau provide a significant advancement for water resource and climate change evaluation and agriculture production in the area.