case study on desertification in india

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Land Degradation and Desertification – Action Points for India from UNCCD’s Global Land Outlook Report 2022

Climate change adaptation , climate resilient agriculture , ecosystem-based adaptation , land degradation , land management.

• June 17, 2022
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by  Anagha Gore

Land Degradation and Desertification – A Background

Land resources are vital in supporting physical, social, and economic infrastructure and activities. Functions such as agriculture, watershed management, forestation, mining, transport, and development depend on the quality and certain attributes of the land. The protection and maintenance of land resources is crucial for the continued support of terrestrial ecosystems and the essential services they provide. However, activities such as agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation degrade the productivity and quality of the land. Any of the following three features mark land degradation:

• A reduction or loss of its biological productivity,
• Ecological integrity,
• Value to humans (IPCC, 2019)

Multiple natural factors such as earthquakes, heavy rainfall, volcanic eruptions, and human influences such as overgrazing and deforestation drive the process of land degradation (Appendix, Tables 1 and 2). Moreover, expansion of the land area under cultivation, unsustainable land management practices and the strain of increasing population growth on land are major human drivers of climate change (Mirzabaev & Wu, 2019) . Currently, 38% of the world’s human population inhabits drylands, and desertification adversely affects over 2.7 billion people because they are mostly dependent on agriculture, which is quite susceptible to the effects of climate change. These populations are projected to increase by 43%, up to 4 billion by the year 2050, due to high population growth rates in drylands. Approximately 90% of the human population in drylands are those that live in developing countries (Montanarella et al., 2018) . In India, 32% of the land is considered degraded and 25% of it is undergoing desertification (Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, 2020) .

Desertification is usually a result of a multitude of interconnected drivers that cannot be isolated (Montanarella et al., 2018) . Desertification occurs when anthropogenic activities together with a drying climate lead to a loss of vegetation and biological productivity in dryland areas. Climate change exacerbates this process through extreme temperatures, extreme rainfall and shifting rains, sea-level rise, warming and drying trends, and intensifying cyclones (Barbosa & Olsson, 2019) . Projections of climate change indicate a possibility of increased land degradation and an increase in the number of drought-affected regions (World Meteorological Organization, n.d.) .

Desertification and Climate Change- THE GLOBAL LAND OUTLOOK REPORT

Just as climate change drives desertification, the process of desertification also alters the local climate through feedback pathways such as changes in surface albedo, sand and dust aerosols, changes in vegetation and greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes, surface temperature, and precipitation (Figure 1). Desertification can drive either the cooling or the warming of local and regional climate through GHG emissions, reduction in carbon uptake rate, and a reduction in the carbon storage capacity of ecosystems (Mirzabaev & Wu, 2019) .

Published in 2022 by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Global Land Outlook Report (GLO2) marks the importance of natural capital in terms of its economic valuation at more than half of the world’s GDP. It outlines pathways to be taken urgently to combat land degradation and desertification at the international, national, and subnational levels through case studies and recommendations. It also reiterates the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets which encourages countries to achieve net gain and attain no net loss of land-based natural capital.

ACTION POINTS FOR INDIA from the GLO2

I. Combining all National Action Plans

Integrating similar objectives siloed under various national plans of India into a single strategy would help “achieve economies of scale…while advancing national development priorities” (UNCCD, 2022) .

These plans could include:

• The National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC) and the relevant missions housed within, namely: National Mission for a “Green India” (GIM), National Water Mission, National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, and National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change (Government of India, 2008) .
• The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) is a commitment to the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which includes creating a “carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO 2 equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030” and “enhancing investments in development programmes in sectors vulnerable to climate change” (Government of India, 2016) .
• The National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) (MoEFCC, 2008) , the Addendum 2014 with its 12 National Biodiversity Targets, and the Action Plan of the Programme of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA) (MoEFCC, 2012) involve conservation practices, technological measures, and international cooperation to limit biodiversity loss and improve proliferation.
• The National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (NAP) which is under development as an obligation of India’s endorsement of the United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGPs) on Business and Human Rights adopted in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) ( Ministry of Corporate Affairs, 2019 ). This plan would outline measures of protection for the country against business-related climate change, and mechanisms to hold businesses accountable for “causing, contributing to, or failing to prevent” climate change ( UNHRC ).

Although this strategy appears simple on the surface, combining these plans and streamlining strategies therein for implementation would maximize outcomes and return on investment while limiting the redundancy of repetitive aims and increasing efficacy in meeting goals.

II. Implementing Ecological Restoration Projects and Sustainable Land Management Practices

India has successfully implemented nature-based solutions as preventative or curative countermeasures to environmental issues. However, being home to a population diverse in socioeconomic background, language, culture, tradition, gender, and dependence on forest and other natural resources, India must address the issues of inequities in access to land carefully to achieve its equity goals listed in various national plans. Factors to keep in mind are gender-blindness in designing initiatives, potential intergroup conflicts, sociocultural environments, geopolitical dimensions, historical marginalisation of communities, and the usurpation of land rights that add to inequalities (UNCCD, 2022) . Inequalities within the population are being exacerbated further by climate impacts.

Merely restoring land is also not enough as stewardship is an essential part of consistent and continued conservation, as is the fulfillment of community needs. An ideal restoration scenario involves a repaired ecosystem, community governance of land, and the creation of sustainable livelihoods by establishing a mutually beneficial system between the resource and the people. This empowers local community members, encourages them to take ownership of the protection of their land, and engages them in decision-making, planning, and implementation (UNCCD, 2022) .

Being primarily agrarian, 70% of India’s rural population depends on agriculture for livelihood ( FAO ). Agricultural production in India is resource-intensive, limited to regional and seasonal crops, and primarily rainfed, whereas over 20% of the country faces droughts (DTE, 2021) . India’s population stands at approximately 1.3 billion today and is expected to see an estimated 17% increase by 2030 (UN, 2015) . With increasing uncertainty in the intensity and frequency of precipitation events, sustainable and regenerative agriculture is essential to ensuring food security for the territory.

Sustainable land management practices such as managed aquifer recharge, rangeland rehabilitation through reseeding and community-based grazing management, protection of wetlands, reinstating local tribes as primary caretakers of the land, practicing agroforestry, and reducing forest fragmentation through afforestation are some methods known to be successful (UNCCD, 2022) .

The planet has already exceeded four out of nine planetary boundaries, namely, biodiversity loss, land-use change, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, and climate change, which afford humanity a “safe operating space” to ensure continued sustenance. During 2018-2019, 29.7% of India’s total geographical area underwent degradation (Space Applications Center, 2021) .  Actively pursuing ecosystem protection and restoration programmes and adopting approaches such as Ecosystem-based Adaptation will help reverse this degradation.

According to the UN General Assembly, LDN and combating land degradation, desertification, and drought, is an “effective pathway to accelerate progress towards achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals by 2030” (UNCCD, 2022) . By focusing on achieving the SDG Target 15.3 and committing to LDN, India could accomplish multiple goals outlined by the CBD, the UNFCCC as well as the UNCCD in one fell swoop, albeit spanning decades of hard work and sustained efforts into the future.

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Desertification In India

Updated on 31 May, 2019

GS3 Disaster Management

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This article will tell about the desertification in India. The data by the Groundwater Surveys and Development Agency had revealed that the water table had witnessed a steep drop in 70 of the 76 talukas in eight districts of Marathwada. Out of which more than 25 talukas had recorded a drop of more than two metres. What is desertification Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. Desertification occurs on all continents except Antarctica and affects the livelihoods of millions of people, including a large proportion of the poor in drylands. June 17 has been observed as the ‘World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD), as United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was adopted in Paris on June 17, 1994, and ratified in December 1996. India became a signatory to UNCCD on October 14, 1994, and ratified it on December 17, 1996. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the nodal Ministry for the Convention. According to a UNCCD report, land degradation due to drought and desertification affects about 1.9 billion hectares of land and 1.5 billion people globally. In terms of severity, North America and Africa are the worst off, because nearly three-quarters of their drylands are affected. Desertification in India Of India's total geographical area of 328.72 million hectares (MHA), 96.4 MHA (32%) is under desertification. In eight states—Rajasthan, Delhi, Goa, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Tripura and Himachal Pradesh—around 40 to 70 per cent of land has undergone desertification. 26 of 29 Indian states have reported an increase in the area undergoing desertification in the past 10 years. Major reasons for desertification in India Unsustainable Agricultural Practices – The cultivation of water-intensive crops and unmindful agro-climatic cropping pattern. Desertification : Forests acts as shelter beds restricting expansion of deserts. Soil Erosion: It is responsible for 10.98?sertification. Soil Erosion is the loss of soil cover mainly due to rainfall and surface runoff water. Water erosion is observed in both hot and cold desert areas, across various land covers and with varying severity levels. Vegetation Degradation: It is responsible for 8.91?sertification. Vegetation degradation is observed mainly as deforestation / forest-blanks / shifting cultivation and degradation in grazing/grassland as well as in scrubland. Destruction of vegetation, most often by humans, accelerates desertification. Wind Erosion: It is responsible for 5.55?sertification. It denotes the spread of sand by various processes, even up to lofty altitudes of Himalayas. Wind erosion removes the topsoil, which is rich in all plant nutrients and bacterial activities. Salinity: It is responsible for 1.12?sertification. It occurs mostly in cultivated lands, especially in the irrigated areas. Soil salinity refers to the water dissolvable salt present in the soil. Salinity can develop naturally, or human-induced. Population Pressure: The general problem of arid areas with large populations is essentially one of human ecology. Human-made settlement: It is responsible for 0.69?sertification. All land degradation processes are induced directly or indirectly by human intervention. It includes activities like mining and human intervention Climate Change: Climate change plays a huge role in desertification. As the days get warmer and periods of drought become more frequent, desertification becomes more and more imminent. Lack of knowledge and awareness: There is inadequate quantitative data on current land use in arid and semi-arid regions of the country. Whatever information is available is scattered across many agencies and institutions and is not readily accessible to researchers, planners, and policymakers, hampering the full assessment of land degradation and desertification problems and the quantification of economic losses to the region. Other factors: they include waterlogging, frost shattering, mass movement, barren and rocky land type Causes of desertification in Marathwada 1.   Changes in Cropping pattern: The crop pattern in the region had drastically changed over the past decades. Earlier, the main crops cultivated here used to be cereal and oilseeds. These crops were not only conducive to Marathwada’s arid climate but were drought-resistant and led to moisture harvesting. But now, the predominant crops here are soybean and Bt Cotton, which dominate more than 80% of Marathwada’s 50 lakh hectares of cultivable land. 2.   Cultivation of sugarcane: Sugarcane, which is only grown in 4% of the total cultivable land, guzzles 80% of the water resources. As a result, a slight change in the meteorological cycle is enough to cause a full-blown water crisis. 3.   Government neglect: Under Maharashtra Irrigation Act of 1976, the government can notify people in the command area not to go in for water-intensive crops like sugarcane in the case of acute water scarcity. But there have been no efforts from the government side.   Impact of desertification Vegetation is damaged or destroyed Soil becomes infertile Soil erosion gets worse Increased vulnerability to natural disasters Polluted sources of drinking water Rise of famine, poverty and social conflicts Forcing mass migrations Caused historical collapses of civilizations Extinction of species Steps were taken India became a signatory to the UNCCD on 14th October 1994 and it came into effect on 17th March 1997. One of the obligations of all developing country Parties to the Convention, including India, is to prepare the National Action Programme to Combat Desertification and to mitigate the effects of drought. National Action Programme (NAP) to combat desertification: The objectives are: A community-based approach to development Strengthening self-governance leading to empowerment of local communities. Steps to be taken In order to prevent and reverse desertification, major policy interventions and changes in management approaches are needed. Such interventions should be implemented at local to global scales, with the active engagement of stakeholders and local communities. To prevent desertification steps to be taken are: Land and water management: Sustainable land use can fix issues such as overgrazing, overexploitation of plants, trampling of soils and irrigation practices that cause and worsen desertification. Protection of vegetative cover: Protecting soil from wind and water erosion helps to prevent the loss of ecosystem services during droughts. Alternative Farming and Industrial Techniques: Encourage agro-forestry, organic farming , environmentally sustainable cropping patterns and adoption of efficient irrigation techniques . Establish economic opportunities outside drylands: Unpacking new possibilities for people to earn a living, such as urban growth and infrastructure, could relieve and shift pressures underlying the desertification processes. Adoption of science-based and traditional sustainable land use practices: Applying a combination of traditional techniques with the selective transfer of locally acceptable technology is a major way to prevent desertification. Also read : All out at sea: on India’s engagements in the Indian Ocean New Version of Akash Missile Test-Fired Successfully

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What are the causes of desertification in India? There is an urgent need for sustainable land management for combating desertification and land degradation. Analyse.

4. What are the causes of desertification in India? There is an urgent need for sustainable land management for combating desertification and land degradation. Analyse. (150 words)

Reference: Insights on India

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Here are 3 solutions to get blood to folks in 'blood deserts.' One is often illegal

Simar Bajaj

A worker separates bags of donated blood at a campaign organized by the Rotary Blood Bank in New Delhi, India. Money Sharma/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A worker separates bags of donated blood at a campaign organized by the Rotary Blood Bank in New Delhi, India.

When Caroline Wangamati was touring a rural Kenyan hospital in 2018, the doctors shared that two young mothers would likely be dead within hours.

Their hemoglobin levels were catastrophically low — a sign of life-threatening anemia. The typical response would be a blood transfusion, but the local blood bank was empty.

So Wangamati, the first lady of Bungoma County at the time, frantically called the regional blood center — 85 miles away — to have them send some units.

The delivery arrived a few hours later. "I was very proud of myself," Wangamati tells NPR. "After the blood came in and we transfused the women, I went to see the medical superintendent and was saying, 'I'm so glad we got them this blood because these two women would have died.'"

"He told me, 'But Ma'am, you didn't go to the pediatric ward. We had more than nine patients that needed blood.'"

Across the world, hundreds of millions, if not billions , of people live in areas where there's not enough blood in at least 75% of medical cases. Last month, a coalition of 27 doctors, researchers, and patient advocates coined the term "blood desert" in a Lancet Global Health paper last month, hoping to build awareness and share solutions.

In a blood desert, what are normally highly treatable conditions — trauma, sickle cell anemia or postpartum bleeding — often become deadly. "Blood is a life-saving drug; it's considered essential medicine," says Dr. Nobhojit Roy , a retired rural surgeon from India. But nearly every country in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia is struggling with deficits , according to a 2019 Lancet Haematology study.

Given such shortages, physicians often have only two choices when their patients suffer major bleeding, according to Dr. Nakul Raykar , a trauma surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "One is to attempt to do something, knowing full well you're not going to succeed without blood transfusion," he says. "And your second option is to tell the patient, 'Nope, sorry, we can't treat you here. But you can go to the district hospital, which is two to four hours away,' knowing full well they're not going to make it."

Global health agencies have long championed blood banks as the solution. But that assumes there's money to build high-quality storage facilities and reliable enough electricity to maintain refrigeration, not to mention the logistical expertise to recruit donors, screen blood and distribute units on time. So while there are dozens of blood banks in big cities like New Delhi or Nairobi, there are essentially none in rural Bihar or Turkana County, says Raykar. "We've waited decades for enough blood banks to be built, and we're going to be waiting several decades more."

Raykar and his team identified the three most innovative solutions for the world's blood deserts in the Lancet Global Health . Whether there's the political will to address this crisis, however, remains uncertain, given the rigidity of HIV-era regulations and the invisibility of patients at risk.

Walking Blood Banks and HIV Controversy

There's a controversial — often illegal — workaround: "walking blood banks," where doctors don't store blood in fridges but count on drawing blood from community members.

Health-care workers identify these people and, during times of crisis, mobilize them to donate their blood. After the donated blood is tested for HIV, syphilis and other transmissible diseases on the spot, it is directly transfused to the patient — no blood bank required.

In especially dire circumstances, health-care workers sometimes roll up their own sleeves. "This mother was dying, and her doctors gave three pints of their own blood. And they watched the mother literally come back from death," recounts Wangamati, who is also one of Kenya's four apponted "Blood Ambassadors," raising public awareness around the issue. "This practice is done in almost every hospital in the country; it's just that they can't shout about it — because it's illegal," she says.

Indeed, Kenya is one of many low- and middle-income countries that banned walking blood banks in the 1990s and 2000s — the result of HIV activists calling for zero tolerance for blood-transmitted cases and corresponding pressure from the World Health Organization and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, according to Raykar and several other global health experts.

In India, for example, the National AIDS Control Organization took over blood transfusion responsibilities from the Ministry of Health in 1996 . Three years later, the government banned walking blood banks in the name of safety.

"Their sole mission is zero transmission of HIV," says Raykar about the National AIDS Control Organization. "They have to report the metrics of how many transfusion infections happened per year, not the number of people who died because of lack of blood — that's completely ignored." Dr. Shobini Rajan, chief medical officer of India's National AIDS Control Organization, declined to comment.

"There's a constant tension between access and safety," Raykar continues. At local clinics, rapid diagnostic tests could screen walking blood bank donations for HIV and other transmissible diseases with 98-99% accuracy. But in its latest guidance from April 2023, WHO strongly recommends against these tests and walking blood banks — outside of an "acute emergency." A WHO spokesperson explained in a statement to NPR: "While the transfusion of blood collected from donors to patients can save lives, it involves risks itself and could cause serious consequences, even death of patients." PEPFAR did not respond to a request for comment.

What frustrates Roy is that, by framing walking blood banks as an exception, WHO's guidance leaves their utility "rather vague, rather open to interpretation" — without acknowledgement that blood deserts themselves are in a state of emergency .

"Extreme blood scarcity in much of the world is not an impending, catastrophic event, but the current status quo," says Roy. But enforcing federal laws, police will punish doctors for turning to walking blood banks in emergency situations, when patients may be on the brink of death.

In fact, four physicians interviewed for this story described how fellow health-care workers have been arrested for using walking blood banks. "They put their jobs on the line to save a life," says Wangamati, who trained in health policy at the London School of Economics. "Can we have the boldness to look at walking blood banks as a solution for those times when blood is not there?"

Yetmgeta Abdella , a transfusion medicine doctor and the immediate past medical officer for blood at the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, defends the global health agency's position. He emphasizes that it's not so simple to turn to walking blood banks given accuracy issues with rapid diagnostic tests. "In countries in Africa and Asia, the environmental conditions are so diverse and sometimes hostile, so if you don't have the right storage conditions for the test kit, you will not have the correct result," says Abdella.

Then comes the issue of deploying these tests in rural settings where laboratory personnel do not necessarily have the experience of technicians in larger regional centers. Abdella points to a study he published in the Journal of Laboratory Physicians , where across ten rapid diagnostic tests used in Pakistan, accuracy for hepatitis B and C detection ranged from 65-85%.

A former WHO technical officer himself, Roy agrees that safety is important and that more research is needed to validate performance in blood deserts. However, he also worries that safety concerns have been overly sensationalized to the neglect of access, pointing to how the U.S. military has adopted walking blood banks as a safe, effective transfusion strategy in war zones. "What we live through every day in these blood deserts is nothing short of that," Roy says. "How many people need to die before you say that this is war?"

Blood delivery by drone

Given the controversy around walking blood banks and the extent of the shortage, global health experts have explored other strategies to further expand access to blood.

A Zipline drone drops off a blood bag at a hospital near Kigali, Rwanda this month. The drone medical delivery service first developed in Rwanda and Ghana, now primarily operates in the U.S. Guillem Sartorio/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

A Zipline drone drops off a blood bag at a hospital near Kigali, Rwanda this month. The drone medical delivery service first developed in Rwanda and Ghana, now primarily operates in the U.S.

Perhaps the most flashy innovation has been drone-based delivery: flying blood to hard-to-access rural areas. Ambulances could make these deliveries in some circumstances, says Roy, but they're often too slow in emergency situations, struggling to navigate poor roads and difficult terrain.

These drones have thus been piloted in places like Meghalaya, a state in northeastern India tucked into the Himalayas, and Rwanda, where over 80% of the population is rural. Blood that used to take 2-3 days to arrive in remote Meghalaya can now reach those clinics within four hours , according to Raykar.

In this hub-and-spoke model, the drones are launched from a handful of blood banks in major cities, zooming through the skies at 75 miles per hour . "It's pretty much like Amazon," says Roy. "You stop trying to have retail stores everywhere; you just have a big hub and a highly efficient delivery system."

While Raykar is excited about all strategies to get blood to providers, he acknowledges that drone-based deliveries aren't a magic bullet since they cannot address a lack of supply. Already, WHO recommends a minimum of 10 units of blood donated for every 1,000 community members, but low-income countries don't even reach half that amount. And then there's the potentially prohibitive start-up investments for any drone-based delivery program — over $4 million in the Rwanda example.

"These companies are flying blood from places designed for blood collection, but ultimately, we still need more blood locally," Raykar says.

A solution during surgery

Beyond drones, some global health experts have turned to autotransfusion, where surgeons collect blood pooling inside patients' bodies, use a device to clean it up and then return their blood.

"Instead of throwing it away and running around looking for a replacement, we can easily just pick that blood and give it back," says Dr. Asma Awadh , an infectious disease physician from Kenya who's been working on autotransfusion since 2018.

Since this blood comes from patients themselves, doctors don't need to screen for transmissible diseases or check for matching types. That saves time and money . There's an indirect benefit as well: If doctors recycle blood of surgical patients, they can allocate more donor supplies to patients with leukemia, sickle cell and other non-surgical conditions requiring transfusions.

The idea behind autotransfusion isn't new, with the first documented case in 1914 . A German doctor took blood from women suffering miscarriages, filtered it through gauze and transfused it back. While commonly used today in the U.S. with the $20,000 Cell Saver device, autotransfusion hasn't taken off in low- and middle-income countries, Awadh says, because of the high cost of most autotransfusion devices, limited training in these techniques and concerns over patients' blood being contaminated during an operation.

But there are ways to get around the price barrier. Awadh works as a trainer for the medical equipment company Sisu Global Health, whose Hemafuse autotransfusion device costs only $120 . Even lower-cost options may be on the horizon, including one being developed at Christian Medical College Vellore that is housed inside a cardboard box and uses gravity to help suction out blood from the patient, says Raykar. The device would not require electricity to operate and would be completely disposable.

Ultimately, the challenge for autotransfusion will be ensuring access to this new technology and shifting surgical culture toward its use. "The more you practice something, the more you see it works," says Awadh. "Still more needs to be done for a surgeon to just decide, 'Let me do this,' without being prompted to think about it."

A global health crisis that's overlooked

For Raykar, the biggest challenge is getting people to care about blood deserts. "These are the poorest, socioeconomically most vulnerable patients in the world. They die at high rates, and it's attributed to poverty. But the actual reason why they died is often not recognized."

While HIV activists have benefited from decades of advocacy and robust funding, those who die in blood deserts — due to trauma, anemia or postpartum bleeding — command relatively little attention.

"All of these people are invisible, so they will never reach the policy table to say, 'Hey, if I get the blood of someone with HIV today, I will die maybe ten years from now or never at all because treatment is so good,'" says Roy. "'But if I don't get blood today, I will be dead today.'"

To be clear, none of the physicians and patient advocates I interviewed thought that walking blood banks, drone-based delivery or autotransfusion could supplant the need for traditional blood banks. These strategies are only meant to be stopgap solutions.

Yet in the slow-moving political landscape of many low- and middle-income countries, it's unclear if these measures will ever go from a list of recommendations to widespread implementation.

"Blood is not catchy; it's not sexy. It's not the kind of thing that the cameras are following you," says Wangamati, the former first lady. "So I talk about blood everywhere, to anyone who will listen."

Simar Bajaj is an American journalist who has previously written for The Atlantic , TIME , The Guardian , Washington Post and more . He is the recipient of the Foreign Press Association award for Science Story of the Year and the National Academies award for Excellence in Science Communications.

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What a Terror Attack in Israel Might Reveal About Psychedelics and Trauma

Thousands of Israelis were using mind-altering substances when Hamas-led fighters attacked a desert festival on Oct. 7. Now, scientists are studying the ravers to determine the effects of such drugs at a moment of extreme trauma.

This photo of Yuval Tapuhi was taken at the Tribe of Nova festival on Oct. 7, before the Hamas-led terrorist attack. Credit... Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times

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By Natan Odenheimer ,  Aaron Boxerman and Gal Koplewitz

• April 11, 2024

One Israeli said that being high on LSD during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 prompted a spiritual revelation that helped him escape the carnage at a desert rave. Another is certain the drug MDMA made him more decisive and gave him the strength to carry his girlfriend as they fled the scene. A third said that experiencing the assault during a psychedelic trip has helped him more fully process the trauma.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

Some 4,000 revelers gathered on the night of Oct. 6 at a field in southern Israel, mere miles from the Gaza border, for the Tribe of Nova music festival. At dawn, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed Israel’s defenses under the cover of a rocket barrage.

About 1,200 people were killed that day, the deadliest in Israeli history according to the Israeli authorities, including 360 at the rave alone. Many of the ravers were under the influence of mind-altering substances like LSD, MDMA and ketamine as they witnessed the carnage or fled for their lives.

For a group of Israeli researchers at the University of Haifa, the attack has created a rare opportunity to study the intersection of trauma and psychedelics, a field that has drawn increased interest from scientists in recent years.

The survivors of the Nova festival present a case study that would be impossible to replicate in a lab: a large group of people who endured trauma while under the influence of substances that render the brain more receptive and malleable.

Illegal in most countries, including Israel, these substances are now on the cusp of entering the psychiatric mainstream. Recent research suggests that careful doses of drugs like MDMA and psilocybin , the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” might be useful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder.

The festival participants were under the influence during their trauma, not in a controlled clinical setting, but researchers say studying them could help scientists better understand how psychedelics might be used to treat patients after a traumatic event.

The researchers surveyed more than 650 Nova survivors. Roughly 23 percent said they took hallucinogens like LSD, also known as acid, and about 27 percent used MDMA, a stimulant and psychedelic commonly called molly or ecstasy. Many attendees used more than one substance.

Participants in the survey described a variety of experiences while using drugs on Oct. 7, ranging from hallucinations to extreme clarity, from panic to resolve and from paralysis to action.

“Even though people were dropping on the ground screaming next to me, I felt a growing sense of confidence, that I was invincible,” said Yarin Reichenthal, 26, a judo coach who experienced the attack while on LSD. “I felt enlightened. I felt no fear at all.”

In many instances, according to preliminary results of the researchers’ survey, even festivalgoers using the same drugs experienced the attack in different ways — variances that might have meant the difference between life and death.

The scientists cautioned that the study was not a comprehensive review of how every participant at the rave fared because so many were killed.

“We only hear the stories of those who made it out alive,” said Roy Salomon, a cognitive science professor at the University of Haifa and a co-author of the study. “So our understanding is influenced by survivors’ bias.”

Witnesses said that for many attendees, drug use appeared to hamper their ability to flee for safety. Some ravers were too zoned out on psychedelics to realize what was happening and escape. The researchers said that those experiences were also important to their findings.

“There are two main questions,” said Roee Admon, a University of Haifa psychology professor and a co-author of the study. “How is the traumatic event experienced under different psychedelics, and what might the long-term clinical impact be?”

Professor Admon and Professor Salomon, who are leading the survey, are studying the survivors in the hopes of gleaning information about how drug use affected their experience of trauma. They are also studying how the attendees appear to be recovering and coping. A graduate student, Ophir Netzer, also helped write the study.

Of those who made it out alive, some survivors appeared to be recovering well and others reported feeling numb and detached. Some said they had increased their drug use since the attack to cope.

“We were all in such a heightened emotional state, which made us all the more vulnerable when the attack began,” said Tal Avneri, 18, who said he stayed relatively lucid on Oct. 7 after taking MDMA. “And when you’re hurt at your most fragile, you can later become numb.”

For devotees of Israel’s trance scene, a festival like Nova is more than just a way to let loose. Many view the raves — often held in forests and deserts, with pounding electronic beats and mind-altering substances — as spiritual journeys amid a like-minded community.

“The love I felt on the dance floor, the raves, the psychedelics — they helped me cope with my mother’s death,” said Yuval Tapuhi, a 27-year-old Nova survivor from Tel Aviv.

Around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, as the sky turned pink and many revelers were beginning the most intense part of their trips, rockets from Gaza suddenly streaked through the sky. Air-raid sirens and loud explosions cut through the music.

Some people fell to the ground and burst out crying, multiple survivors said. Some attendees scrambled to evade the terrorists by hiding in bushes, behind trees or in riverbeds. Others sprinted through open fields, running for hours before reaching safety.

Still others fled in their cars, creating a huge traffic jam at the rave’s main exit, where they became easy targets for Palestinian gunmen swarming across the border.

Amid the gunfire and rocket barrage, Mr. Reichenthal, the judo coach, had what he describes as a transcendent experience, which he credits with his survival. The LSD trip, he said, made it feel as if his fear had been stripped away, and he murmured Bible verses as he ran to safety.

Many survivors described their initial panic being replaced with a coolheaded resolve — a function, one expert said, of stress counteracting the effects of the drugs.

Sebastian Podzamczer, 28, attributed his survival, at least in part, to a huge rush of energy and clarity he experienced while using MDMA. The drug’s influence, he said, gave him what he believes was the strength to carry his girlfriend, who had been paralyzed by fear.

Mr. Podzamczer, a former combat medic in the Israeli military, had PTSD after his service. Taking psychedelics recreationally, he said, helped him unravel some of that pain, allowing him to speak about his military service without shaking and panicking.

“But I always thought that if I was caught in an extreme situation like that, I’d be paralyzed by panic from my PTSD,” Mr. Podzamczer said. Instead, he found that the MDMA he took at the rave “helped me stay afloat, to act more quickly and decisively.”

High levels of stress can almost “overwhelm” the effects of a drug and jolt people back to reality, said Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit organization in California that finances scientific research but is not involved in the Nova survivor study.

Almog Arad, 28, said that her acid trip kicked in after the attack began but that the circumstances quickly “minimized” the drug’s effects. While she continued to see intense colors and patterns as she fled, her decision-making remained relatively sound, she said.

“Adrenaline was the strongest drug I took that day,” she said.

The University of Haifa researchers plan to follow the survivors for years, tracking their neural activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI.

They have presented their preliminary findings in a preprint paper , a scientific manuscript undergoing peer review.

Compared with survivors who used other substances, attendees who used MDMA are recovering better and showing less severe symptoms of PTSD, according to the study’s preliminary conclusions.

Many MDMA users in particular, the researchers said, believe that using the drug helped them survive. That perception, the scientists added, could have influenced their ability to cope with their trauma.

“The way in which we remember the trauma has a great impact on how we process it,” Professor Admon said. “So even if a victim’s perception is subjective, it will still have a great impact on their recovery.”

The researchers said it was difficult to assess the exact doses that the festivalgoers used, making it hard to analyze how different quantities of drugs affected people.

Mr. Reichental said he witnessed one man at the rave who appeared to be so out of it that as gunfire sounded and another raver tried to help him escape, the man instead began to flirt with her. “How lucky it is that destiny brought us together,” Mr. Reichenthal recalled the man saying. He does not believe the man survived the attack.

Psychologists and survivors said those ravers who took ketamine, a psychedelic with an intense tranquilizing and dissociative effect, appeared to be one of the groups hit hardest.

Immediately after the Nova massacre, a group of therapists and experts established a volunteer relief network for survivors, known as Safe Heart, that provided psychological support for more than 2,200 people. The group has collaborated with the University of Haifa researchers as well as with a separate , qualitative study led by Guy Simon, a psychotherapist and doctoral candidate at Bar-Ilan University.

“Most people who undergo a traumatic experience do not develop PTSD,” Professor Admon said. “Identifying those who do and treating them as early as possible is critical to their healing.”

Read by Natan Odenheimer

Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst .

Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporting fellow with a focus on international news. More about Aaron Boxerman

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

Gazans released from Israeli detention described graphic scenes of physical abuse  in testimonies gathered by U.N. workers, according to a new report.

Britain, the United States, France and other allies of Israel have voiced their anger over the death toll in Gaza, but when Iran launched a missile barrage at Israel, they set it aside . At least for the moment.

The Israel pavilion at the Venice Biennale is closed this year, since its creative team decided not to exhibit work  until there was a cease-fire and hostage deal in Gaza, but it was nonetheless the site of a large demonstration .

A Surprising Rift: The Israel-Hamas war, which has roiled cultural and political institutions far beyond the Middle East, is causing divisions in a prominent Japanese American group .

Mobilizing the American Left: As the death toll in Gaza climbed, the pro-Palestinian movement grew into a powerful, if disjointed, political force in the United States . Democrats are feeling the pressure.

Riding Rage Over Israel: Jackson Hinkle’s incendiary commentary  has generated over two million new followers on X since October — a surge that some researchers say is aided by inauthentic accounts by the online celebrity.

Psychedelics and Trauma: Thousands of festival-goers were using mind-altering substances when Hamas-led fighters attacked on Oct 7. Now, scientists are studying the effects of such drugs at a moment of trauma .

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Land Degradation: Indian Scenario

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Total land degradation areas in India have been recorded over the areas of 4,67,021 km 2 in 2008–2009, while it has increased in 2006 with the srea of 4,72,262 km 2 under degraded land. 14.75% of total geographical areas are under different types of land degradation in 2008–2009. Similarly, the area under desertification in India has been increased by 1.16 million ha from 2003–2005 to 2011–2013. This chapter has tried to look into spatial and temporal understanding of land degradation types to get a glimpse of gravity of problems in the Indian scenario as India is not only a major agricultural dominating nation; however, it has witnessed stagnation in agricultural productivity in different regions like Punjab. The chapter has tried to understand land degradation through using methods like principal component analysis (PCA).

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Friday, 19 April 2024

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Xlri wins 2023 emcs & tlc@mdi india compact case award.

XLRI, Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur won 1st place in the first edition of the EMCS & TLC@MDI India compact case competition 2023. A case study from XLRI Case Research and Simulation Development Center (XL-CRSDC) titled “Should Agastya Inventions Accept the Joint Venture Offer from SergeFerrari?” written by Prof. Trilochan Tripathy, Benudhar Sahu and Ms. Neeti Madhok, was selected by the judging panel with highest recognition. 

The compact case competition was conducted by the Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies (EMCS) in partnership with the Teaching and Learning Centre at Management Development Institute (TLC@MDI), Gurgaon, India. The case was selected for publication in the Scopus-indexed EMCS collection. 

Prof. Trilochan Tripathy, Associate Dean, XLRI-Case Research and Simulation Development Center (XL-CRSDC), said, “XLRI is proud of securing the 1st place in the first edition of EMCS & TLC@MDI India Compact Case Competition and getting an opportunity to publish in the Scopus-ranked EMCS collection.”

Benudhar Sahu, Manager, XL-CRSDC, and Neeti Madhok, Case Writer, XL-CRSDC, felt proud of this achievement for the Centre. They said, “The winning case will be a great motivation for the XLRI case community to contribute towards enriching the Centre’s case repository.”

The Case Research and Simulation Development Centre (XL-CRSDC) was established with the vision to make XLRI a major business case repository in India. Its mission is to facilitate excellence in business pedagogy and research through case studies. The Centre has forged strategic collaboration with several corporates and institutions to develop impactful field-based cases.

XLRI is one of the oldest and most prestigious B-schools in South Asia. The institute nurtures responsible global leaders for the greater common good and sustainable future. XLRI has earned two prestigious international accreditations – Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and Association of MBAs (AMBA). The institute has also earned the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) accreditation.

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