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The decay of rivers coupled with its escalated pollution is a concern worldwide. The present study intends to assess the agony of the riverine people due to the contamination of the Churni River and the transformation of their grievance into environmental activism at individual and community levels for rejuvenating the river and for a secured livelihood. The study observed an enriched concentration of biological oxygen demand, nitrate, and phosphate and a reduced concentration of dissolved oxygen during 2011–2020 due to the release of untreated industrial wastewater, sewage from urban areas, and agricultural runoff into the river. A systematic investigation reveals pollution-induced socio-psychological trauma and community awareness leading to the active involvement of the people in the environmental awareness movement, which was mediated by self-efficacy, self-responsibility, self-identity, and community value. A parallel multiple mediator model was employed, which included 29 parameters for exploring the key-mediated factors for the environmental movement. The model-based results identified that self-responsibility and community-value for upper stretch villages and self-efficacy and community-value for the lower stretch villages are significant mediators of environmental activism. A canonical component analysis predicted socio-demographic factors (e.g. age, dependency ratio female-male ratio, etc.) as intrinsically linked to environmental activism. This study is significant because it reveals how pollution and river degradation affect riverine people. It also clarifies how local grievances turned into environmental activism as a result of the documented socio-psychological trauma and growing community awareness. This study would thus play a pivotal role in understanding the human-nature complex to better planning and river restoration.
Sarkar et al. (Wed,) studied this question.