Twin Disasters: Tracking COVID-19 and Cyclone Amphan's Impacts on SDGs in the Indian Sundarbans
Pramanik, M., Szabo, S., Pal, I., Udmale, P., O'Connor, J., Sanyal, M., Roy, S., Sebesvari, Z
Published in ‘Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development’
Abstract
Bordering India and Bangladesh, the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve contains the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest and is a climate change vulnerability hotspot threatened by sea-level rise and frequent extreme weather events. In 2020 COVID-19 spread rapidly across the world, creating the worst global pandemic in recent memory Until vaccines are made much more widely available, most countries have responded by imposing travel restrictions, curfews, quarantines, and closures of facilities and workplaces in an attempt to control transmission of the virus. In many cases, further waves of variant infections have set in. Strict lockdown measures have significantly disrupted the lives and livelihoods for the vast majority in the Sundarbans, particularly the economically weaker (mostly households dependent on daily wages from the informal economy) and otherwise vulnerable groups. The consequences of this pandemic are interacting with existing vulnerabilities and can be exacerbated by additional hazards such as coastal storms and cyclones.