IN A warming world, the call to re-evaluate how we gauge development is gaining traction. Traditional indicators like GDP (Gross Domestic Product) measure output and growth, but they fail to account for the impact of human actions on environmental quality and societal well-being. There is a need for a concept to measure the environmental costs, social inequalities, sustainability implications and the negative externalities of resource use by humans these are crucial to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
To address these shortcomings and measure the growth of the environment along with development, the Uttarakhand government in 2021 announced that it would be the first state to introduce a Gross Environment Product (GEP). This measure aims to assess the growth and health of natural resources, and the positive or negative impact that human activities have on them. The state is currently working on formulating a GEP index.
GEP as a concept was introduced in 2011 by the Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO) in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. The concept rests on gauging the health of four pillars-forest, water, air and soil. "Continuous work has been done worldwide to improve each of these pillars, but an integrated method of measuring these efforts has been lacking; GEP is an attempt to fill this void," says a December 2023 study published in the journal Ecological Indicators. (Anil Prakash Joshi of HESCO, who led the study is one of the authors of this appraisal). The GEP index can be articulated as a sum of the indices of each of its pillars (see 'Formulae for growth').
Each constituent of the GEP index highlights a specific aspect. The Forest-GEP index evaluates status of forest resources, Soil-GEP index gauges soil health, Air-GEP index focuses on air quality improvement and Water-GEP index assesses water quality and quantity.
STATUS OF FORESTS
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 16, 2023 من Down To Earth.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 16, 2023 من Down To Earth.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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CLIMATE SHAPES SPECIES
Gradual changes in a population that lives in a region with environmental shifts give rise to new species
LEAFY GOODNESS
Leaves of the bottle gourd can be a healthy green addition to the plate
'Story of human origin is still not figured out or over'
Fifty years ago, the discovery of a partial skeleton amid the barren desert landscape of northern Ethiopia transformed our understanding of where humans came from, and how we developed into Homo sapiens. \"Lucy\" was first spotted on November 24, 1974, by the American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and his student assistant Tom Gray. Named after the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, a popular song in the their team's camp at the time, it was immediately clear she was a female, because of her small adult size, and that she had walked upright, unlike chimpanzees. Lucy was also very old-at almost 3.2 million years, she was anointed as the then-earliest known (distant) ancestor of modern humans. Over the following decades, rather fittingly given her name, she became a \"paleo-rock star\", going on a US tour from 2006 following a deal with the Ethiopian authorities.
Deadly discharge
Residents of an industrial cluster blame effluent and sewage treatment plants for discharging poorly treated water that contaminates the area, causes skin diseases
US drug regulator faces Trump heat
FAILED REPUBLICAN presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is making more news now than during his doomed attempt to get the party nomination for president. Ramaswamy's decision to throw in the towel and back Donald Trump after his campaign went nowhere showed acumen, the kind he is famous for in the investment world.
Distorted picture
India's groundwater recovery may be misleading, as new assessment methods inflate annual recharge figures and discontinue on-ground verification
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Europe faces Russian natural gas supply cuts
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Non-profit in Madhya Pradesh documents Korku language, makes education accessible for the tribal community
