Undoubtedly the most searched and spoken word of last year is coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), which initially originated in Wuhan, China near the end of 2019. COVID‐19 is a disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2). Albeit almost all countries shut down their borders to prevent rapid spread of the virus. However, the number of cases continues to increase in developing countries at a faster rate due to community and cluster transmission. The severity of this epidemic made it a pandemic as it progressed to over 200 countries. The World Health Organization (WHO), governments, and national disease control and prevention units worked together to break the chain and are working to contain the catastrophic impact of COVID‐19. They formulated and recommended various guidelines like social distancing, frequent hand washing, and social distancing to inhibit the spread of the virus. WHO also advised that the general population and medical personnel wear face masks, face shields, gloves, and aprons. As a result, this waste category has substantially increased and, if not disposed of properly, may cause the infection or help to catalyze COVID‐19. In developing countries, poor solid waste management may aggravate chances of spreading COVID‐19. Sustainable solid waste management is a critical parameter for the health, wellbeing, and development of society. The measures adopted to contain and restrict the spread of the COVID‐19 pandemic and minimize the degrees of freedom in commercial events affected solid waste management considerably. During this crucial time, the services provided by waste management agencies and personnel are invaluable and these services help to prevent the improper disposal of waste, which may lead to health risks due to the spread of COVID. COVID‐19 is a new and novel virus and experts are learning more about it overtime and with evolving science. This review paper provides insight into different types of solid wastes generated during the pandemic, their consequences, and the implication of various policies.
The importance of accurate and timely information describing the nature and extent of land resources and changes over time is increasing, especially in fast-growing urban areas. We have developed a methodology to detect changes in land cover using satellite images for the years 1997, 2002, 2012 and 2017. The categories of five-class classification in the study area were built up area, plantation, waterbody, agricultural land and pastureland. The maps showed that between 1997 and 2017, the amount of urban or developed land increased from 8.12% to 52.4% of the total area, while agriculture land, plantation, waterbody and pastureland decreased from the 91.88% to 47.6% from the entire study area. The results showed that the urban (highly built-up) area increased dramatically. Inversely, pastureland, agricultural land, waterbody, and plantation decreased obviously from the period of 1997 to 2017. The remote sensing and GIS technique used in this study proved to be efficient; the time was shortened for the analysis of the city extension; and it was discovered that it was a useful tool to evaluate the effects of urbanization on the basis of the satellite image of the given years. The results quantify land use, coverage change patterns in Debre Tabor Town and demonstrate the potential of remote sensing, and GIS tools provide an accurate and cost-effective means to track land cover changes along time that can be used as management decisions and guidelines.
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