The sudden surge in demand to use plastic products due to COVID-19 pandemic has increased plastic pollution. It has resulted into degradation of a broad range of habitats and ecosystems by destroying natural functions, water quality, and environmental sustainability. However, the government agencies, scientific communities, and the public, have started to give attention to this issue. So, in the present study, we used the correlation methods to check the relationship between COVID-19 affected population with the medical plastic waste (MPW) that has developed a conceptual model of the inter-linkages between the preventive measures of COVID-19 pandemic problems and the reduction challenges of plastic waste during and after pandemic scenarios. Emerging issues in the waste management during and after the COVID-19 are established by reviewing the literature, reports, policy briefs, and information from the website concerning COVID-19. Considering MPW management issues, we selected India as a case study to analyse the plastic waste footprint (PWF) due to COVID-19 pandemic. The correlation results showed COVID-19 affected population and MPW; COVID-19 affected population and PWF have a significant relationship (R
2
= 0.60; Area under ROC curve 81.4%). It suggests an urgent need for plastic waste management initiatives. Moreover, substantial plastic products, human awareness, strict government regulations, and inclusive research can check plastic waste footprints in India and worldwide. Then discuss the specific pathways through which the immediate and long-term impacts operate and highlight the issues of hampering the sustainable development goals (SDGs) progress in India and beyond. Finally, call for coordinated assessment, support and appropriate short- and long-term mitigation and the policy measures of plastic waste problems during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Groundwater resource management in the urban area is one of the important aspects because of growing population demand and having inadequate water supply. So, proper information is needed to manage the future urban planning for such kinds of areas. This study emphasizes groundwater potentiality zone (GPZ) assessment in the Asansol urban agglomeration (AUA) region, West Bengal, India. For this purpose, we have incorporated eight conditioning factors namely LULC, lithology, slope, elevation, rainfall, drainage density, lineaments density, and soil map using conventional and remote sensing data in GIS software. All these conditioning factors have been reclassified in ArcGIS and processed by the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP), frequency ratio (FR), and Bayesian weights of evidence (BWOE) statistical methods. Then, the groundwater potential index has been formulated, and finally, GPZ maps are generated based on of selected three models. The result shows that very high area of GPZ, e.g. 9.13%, 11.62% and 7.43% are under BWOE, FR and FAHP models, respectively. The receiver operating characteristic validation curves show that FR method (AUC = 96.4%) is well obtained for GPZ in comparison with both BWOE (AUC = 83.8%) and FAHP methods (AUC = 82.9%). Therefore, this statistical method is highly recommended for the study of groundwater potential assessment and this outcome is very suitable for the groundwater resources management in future land use planning. Precautionary works in low potential areas should be given priority for long-term planning. Thus, this study can be considered as a good document for decision support in water exploitation planning and sustainable groundwater management in AUA region.
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