Social
Issues and the Environment
Ghanashyam Deka
Dept. Geography
Q.1. The concept of Sustainable Development.
Ans. Sustainable Development is defined as “Meeting the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their
own needs.” The definition was given by Norway ’s Prime Minister Brundtland,
who was the director of the WHO.
# The key aspects for Sustainable
Development are (a) Inter-generational equity (b) Intra-generational equity.
# Measures of Sustainable
Development: Some of the important measures for Sustainable Development are as
follows: (a) Using appropriate technology.
(b) Reduce, Reuse, Recycling
approach.
(c) Environmental Education and
Awareness.
(d) Resource Utilization as per
Carrying Capacity.
Q.2. The Indian Concept of Sustainable Development.
Ans. India
has still to go a long way in implementing the concept of Sustainable
Development. It is needed to lay emphasis on framing a well-planned strategy
for our developmental activity while increasing our economic growth. We have
tremendous natural diversity as well as a huge population which makes planning
for Sustainable growth all the more important and complex. The National Council
of Environmental Planning and Coordination (NCPC) set up 1972 was the focal
agency in this regard. The Ministry of Environment and Forests, set up in 1985
has formulated guidelines for various developmental activities keeping in view
the sustainability principles.
Q.3. Strategies for Water Conservation.
Ans. a. Decreasing run-off: huge
water-loss occurs due to run-off on most of the soils, which can be reduced by
allowing most of the water to infiltrate into the soil. This can be achieved by
using contour cultivation, terrace farming, water spreading, chemical treatment
or improved water-storage system.
b. Reducing Evaporation losses: This is more relevant in humid
regions. Horizontal barriers of asphalt placed below the soil surface increase
water availability and increase crop yield by 35% -- 40%. This is more
effective on sandy soil but less effective on loamy sandy soils.
c. Storing Water in Soil: Storage of water takes place in the soil
root zone in humid regions when the soil is wetted to field capacity. By
leaving the soil fallow for one season water can be made available for the crop
grown in next season.
d. Increasing Block Pricing: The consumer has to pay a proportionately
higher bill with higher use of water. This helps in economic use of water by
the consumers.
Q.4. Rainwater Harvesting.
Ans. Rainwater Harvesting is a technique of increasing the recharge
of groundwater by capturing and storing rainwater. This is done by constructing
special water-harvesting structures like dug wells, percolation pits, lagoons,
check dams etc. Rainwater, wherever it falls, is captured and pollution of this
water is prevented. Rainwater harvesting is not only proving useful for poor
and scanty rainfall regions, but also for the rich ones.
Rainwater
harvesting has the following objective:
i.
to reduce run off loss
ii.
to avoid flooding of roads
iii.
to meet the increasing demand of water
iv.
to raise the water table by recharging ground water
v.
to reduce groundwater contamination
vi.
to supplement groundwater supplies during lean season.
Rainwater can be
mainly harvested by any one of the following methods:
i.
by storing in tanks or reservoirs above or below
ground.
ii.
by constructing pits, dug-wells, lagoons, trench or
check dams on small rivulets
iii.
by recharging the groundwater
Before adopting
a rainwater harvesting system, the soil characteristics, topography, rainfall
pattern and climatic conditions should be understood.
Q.5. Rainwater Harvesting System in India
Ans. In India ,
it is an old practice in high rainfall areas to collect rainwater from
roof-tops into storage tanks. In foot hills, water following from springs is
collected by embankment type water storage. In Himalayan foot hills people use
the hollow bamboo as pipelines to transport the water for long distance.
Rajasthan is known for its ‘Tankas’ and
‘Khadins’ for harvesting rainwater.
In our ancient times we had adequate ‘Talaab,
baawaris, johars, hauz etc. in every village and capital cities of every kings
and lords, which were used to collect rainwater and ensured adequate water supply
in dry periods.
Q.6. Concept of Watershed Management.
Ans. The watershed is defined as the land area from which water
drains under gravity to a common drainage channel. Thus, watershed is a
delineated area with a well defined topographic boundary and one water outlet.
The watershed can range from a few square km. to few thousand square km. in
size.
A
watershed affects us as it is directly involved in sustained food production,
water supply, for irrigation, power generation, and transportation as well as
for influencing sedimentation and erosion, vegetation growth, floods and
droughts. Thus, management of watersheds, treating them as a basic functional
unit, is extremely important.
The
watersheds are very often found to be degraded due to uncontrolled, unplanned
and unscientific landuse activities. Overgrazing, deforestation, mining,
construction activities, industrialization, shifting cultivation, natural and
artificial fires, soil erosion and ignorance of local people have been
responsible for degradation of watersheds.
Objectives of watershed management: Rational utilization of land
and water resources for optimum production causing minimum damage to the
natural resources is known as watershed management. The objectives of watershed
management are as follows:
i.
to rehabilitate the watershed through proper landuse
adopting conservation strategies for minimizing soil erosion and moisture
retention so as to ensure good productivity of the land for the farmers.
ii.
to manage the
watershed for beneficial developmental activities like domestic water supply,
irrigation, hydropower generation etc.
iii.
to minimize the risks of floods, droughts and
landslides
iv.
to develop rural areas in the regions with clear plans
for improving the economy of the region.
Remedies: The practices of
conservation and development of land and water are taken up with respect to
their sustainability for people’s benefit as well as sustainability. Various
measures taken up for management include the following:
i. Water harvesting ii. Aforestation
& Agroforestry iii. Mechanical measures for reducing soil erosion and run
off loss iv. Scientific mining and quarrying v. Public participation etc.
Resettlement and Rehabilitation Issues:
Problems and Concern:
Economic development raises the quality and standard of living of the people of
a country. Developmental projects are planned to bring benefits of the society.
However, in the process of development, very often there is overexploitation of
natural resources and degradation of the environment. Besides this, quite
often, the native people of the project site are directly affected. These
native people are generally the poor and underprivileged tribal people (Kaushik
& Kaushik, 2004). Various types of projects result in the displacement of
the native people who undergo tremendous economic and psychological distress,
as the socio-economic and ecological base of the local community is disturbed.
The various causes of displacement are as follows.
a) Displacement due to dams: The big dams
and multipurpose projects are the most serious socio-economic threat having a
large scale of displacement. For example, in last 50 years more than 20 million
people are estimated to have been affected by the construction of dams in India . Only
Hirakud Dam in India
has displaced more than 20,000 people.
b) Displacement due to mining: Mining is
another developmental activity, has a serious impact and affect that displaced
a large number of people. Generally, in case of mining, large area of land is
occupied for this operation and the result is again displacement of the native
people.
c) Displacement due to creation of National
Park: At the time of National Park declaration, a major portion of the
forest is declared as the core area. Though the process of forest conservation
is most well come step, but it is sometimes create indirect affect and
displacement problems to the native villagers. For example, the Wayanad
Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala has caused displacement of 53,472 tribal
families.
Rehabilitation Issues: The United Nations Declaration on Human
Rights has declared that Right to
Housing is a Basic Human Right. In India most of the displacements have
resulted due to land acquisition by the Govt. for various reasons. For this
purpose, the Govt. to the people to vacate their lands if there is a need as
per Govt. Planning. Provision of cash compensation in lieu of the land vacated
exists in Section 16 of the Act. The major issues related to displacement and
rehabilitation are as follows:
i.
Tribals are usually the most affected amongst the
displaced who are already poor. Displacement further increase their poverty due
to loss of land, home, jobs, food insecurity, loss of access to common property
assets, increased morbidity and mortality and the social isolation.
ii.
Break up of families is an important social issue
arising due to displacement in which the women are the worst affected and they
are not even given cash/ land compensation.
iii.
The tribals are not familiar with the market policies
and trend even if they get cash compensation, they get alienated in the modern
economic set up.
iv.
The land acquisition laws ignored the communal
ownership of property, which is inbuilt system amongst the tribal. Thus the
tribals loss their communitarian bases of economic and cultural existence.
v.
Kinship systems, marriages, social and cultural
function, their folk songs, dances and activities finished with their
displacement. Even when they are resettled, it is individual based
resettlement, which totally ignores communal settlement.
vi.
Loss of identity and loss of the intimate link between
the people and the environment is one of the biggest lost. The age long
indigenous knowledge, which has been inhabitate and experienced by them about
the flora, fauna, their uses etc. gets lost.
Q.8. Global Warming and its causes:
Ans. In a simple way global warming means the increasing of
temperature of our globe. Troposphere, the lowermost layer of the atmosphere,
traps heat by a natural process due to the presence of certain gases. This
effect is called Green House Effect as
it is similar to the warming effect observed in the horticultural greenhouse
made of glass. The amount of “heat trapping” or “green house” gases and the
length of time they stay in the atmosphere. The major green house gases are CO2,
O3, CH4, Nitrous Oxide, CFCs and water vapour. The
average global temperature is 150C in the absence of green house
gases this temperature would have been -180C. Therefore green house
effect contributes a temperature rise to the tune of 330C. Heat
trapped by green house gases in the atmosphere keeps in planet warm enough to
allow us and other species to exist. The two predominant green house gases are
water vapours and CO2. While the levels of water vapour in the
troposphere have relatively remained constant, the levels of CO2
have increased. Other gases whose levels have increased due to human activities
are CH4, Nitrous Oxide; CFCs. Deforestation has further resulted in
elevated levels of CO2 due to non-removal of CO2 by
plants through photosynthesis.
Warming
or cooling by more than 20C over the past few decades may prove to
be disastrous for various ecosystems on the earth including humans, as it would
alter the conditions faster than some species could adapt or migrate. Some
areas will become inhabitable because of drought or floods following a rise in
average sea level.
The Green House Gases: The phenomenon that worries the
environmental scientists is that due to anthropogenic activities there is an
increase in the concentration of the green house gases in the air that absorb
infrared light containing heat and results in the re-radiation of even more of
the outgoing thermal infrared energy, thereby increasing the average surface
temperature beyond 150C. The phenomenon is referred to as the Enhanced Green House Effect to
distinguish its effect from the one that has been operating naturally for
millennium. The green house gases are CO2, CFCs, CH4, N2O,
O3 etc.
Impacts of enhanced Green House Effect: The enhanced green house
effect will not only cause global warming but will also affect various other
climatic and natural processes. These are i.
Global Temperature Increase, ii. Rise in Sea Level, iii. Effects on Human
Health, iv. Effects on Agriculture, etc.
Measures to Check Global Warming: To slow down enhanced global
warming the following steps are important. These are
i.
Cut down the current rate of use of CFCs and Fossil
fuel
ii.
Use energy more efficiently
iii.
Shift to renewable energy resources
iv.
Increase Nuclear Power Plants for electricity production
v.
Shift from coal to natural gas
vi.
Trap and use methane as a fuel
vii.
Reduce beef production
viii.
Adopt sustainable agriculture
ix.
Stabilize population growth
x.
Efficiently remove Carbon Dioxide from smoke stacks
xi.
Plant more trees
xii.
Remove atmospheric Carbon Dioxide by utilizing photosynthetic
algae
Q.9. Environmental Legislations in India
Ans. India is the first
country in the world to have made provisions for the protection and
conservation to environment in its constitution. On 5th June , 1972,
environment was first discussed as an item of international agenda in the UN
Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm, and thereafter 5th
June is celebrate all over the world as World Environmental Day.
Thus
our constitution includes environmental protection and conservation as one of
our fundamental duties. Some of the important Acts passed by the Government of
India are as follows
1. Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972:
2. Forest
(Conservation) Act, 1980
3. Water (Prevention and Control of
Pollution) Act, 1974
4. The Air (Prevention and Control of
Pollution) Act, 1981
5. The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986
Source: Perspectives in Environmental Studies, by Kaushik & Kaushik
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