Resource management: ways to sustain the environmental gains of COVID-19 lockdown

Reversing the damage: ecological restoration of polluted water bodies affected by pollutants due to anthropogenic activities

Aquatic ecosystems provide a large number of cultural, regulating, and supporting services to humans and play a pivotal role in sustaining freshwater-dependent ecosystems. However, an increase in human population coupled with economic growth in the last few decades has severely affected their functioning and ecological health. This has led to an increase in concentrations of pollutants originating from anthropogenic activities such as heavy metals, plastics, semi-volatile organic compounds, and endocrine disruptors. These pollutants provoke deleterious impacts on aquatic biodiversity and affect the water quality and functioning. In this paper, we discuss the sources and impacts of such pollutants as well as restoration techniques for reducing their impact on aquatic ecosystems. Several physical and chemical ecological restoration techniques, such as dredging, sediment capping, water diversion, adsorption, aeration, and flushing, can be employed to improve the water quality of water bodies. Additionally, biological techniques such as phytoremediation, phycoremediation, the use of biomembranes, and the construction of ecological floating beds can be employed to increase the population of aquatic organisms and improve the overall ecological health of aquatic ecosystems. Restoration techniques can effectively reduce the concentrations of suspended solids and dissolved phosphorus and increase the levels of dissolved oxygen. The restoration techniques for improving the ecological health of water bodies should not be limited to simply improving the water quality but should also focus on improving the biological processes and ecosystem functioning since it is essential to mitigate the adverse effects of pollutants and restore the vital ecosystem services provided by water bodies for future generations.

Anthropause appreciation, biophilia, and ecophilosophical contemplations amidst a global pandemic

In 2020, COVID-19 mitigation measures, including lockdowns and travel bans to curtail disease transmission, inadvertently led to an "Anthropause" - a unique global pause to anthropogenic activities. While there was a spike in ecological studies measuring Anthropause effects on environmental indicators, people's experiences of the Anthropause or its potential to inspire change were hardly considered. Hence, we aimed to measure people's appreciation of the environmental outcomes of the Anthropause, ecophilosophical contemplations about the pandemic, and experiences of lockdown-triggered biophilia (human's innate love for and draw towards nature) and test the hypothesis that these experiences would be consistently more prominent among the already environmentally inclined. To that end, we developed and tested three measures on a representative sample of 993 New Zealanders. Anthropause Appreciation received the highest overall mean ratings, followed by Lockdown-Biophilia and Eco-Contemplation. Pre-existing pro-environmental dispositions and behaviours did not consistently influence our three measures as expected. Demographic variables had little influence, while experiences of financial and mental health impacts due to COVID-19 had no influence. We interpreted the limited influence of explanatory variables as indicative of a degree of uniformity in people's experiences. High appreciation of Anthropause benefits suggests that the public may be supportive of policies and ways of living that can lead to similar outcomes post-pandemic - offering environmental policymakers and communicators a basis for action. Ecophilosophical contemplations and biophilic draw among the public suggest an awareness of the significance of the human-nature relationship - offering a symbolic global keystone for communicating and advocating conservation and the many values of pauses in life to connect with nature. Building women's environmental leadership capabilities and the ongoing greening of Christianity may be essential steps for global post-pandemic environmental behaviour transformations.