Energy, industrial development, air pollution and climate change are critical to human security. In Mega cities, urban heat islands phenomena is emerging due to land use change, building materials, industrial development and transport congestions (Singh, 2006, 2007). Much of the urbanisation in India is taking place in metropolitan cities, and is accompanied by major changes in the social, economic and technological arenas. Manyof these global trends are also apparent in India. Delhi metropolitan region has faced even more rapid rate of urbanisation and environmental change than the average for India. Thisaccelerated urbanisation trend has environmental costs. This includes air and water quality problems, waste removal and disposal; and the metropolis and the development corridor (Singh and Singh, 2007) in which it is located have an impact on the surrounding country side through the depletion of resources such as food, portable water, and aggregated building materials. This is causing immense change in land use patterns as well as human response from the surrounding rural areas. The land use change is primarily from agriculture to residential/industry or brick kilns. In this process the region faces severe problems of land degradation (Goel and Singh, 2006; Singh, 2007).
Resource degradation, specifically land and water degradation, in the rural-urban
fringe of Delhi, are the core issues. In this regard, the critical issues are (a) environmentalcriticality (b) environmental endangerment (c) environmental impoverishment and (d)
environmental sustainability. Land mining, quarrying and resulting soil erosion due to
excessive excavation is the major environmental concerns. Apart from agricultural land,
common land used for cattle grazing and pastures have also degraded. Sectoral areas are
moving to non-farm activities such as brick kiln, warehouses, factories, farmhouses and
nurseries.
Urbanisation is a major anthropogenic force in transforming landscape, energyuse, environmental quality and human populations. Inadequate access to urban basicservices and infrastructure facilities pose serious problems to metropolitan resource base.
Keeping these cities functional and sustainable is an environmental challenge in spite ofinvestment requirements and constraints of administrative and regulatory controls. In
spite of higher investments on a per capita basis, even relatively privileged urban
population has not been able to meet its needs. An effective urban planning policy and
practice could help urban planners and decision makers to prioritize environmental
problems and other policy options in order to meet environmental challenges (Jha and
Parihar, 2007).
Certain aspects of the urban planning have received attention in the five-yearplans, such as finance for housing, slum clearance and improvement, water supply and
sewerage, transportation, preparation of city master plans. However, funds allocated areindeed meager and a lions’ share is allocated to a few major projects in some states. Thus,
urban planning and environmental management strategies should ensure how the
problems of urbanisation are to be integrated into the larger issues of regional
development.
The role of the oceans in shaping the global environment needs to be understood
and the key interaction linking ocean process and the climate change needs to be
highlighted. This is further supplemented by incorporating changes in past global
environment. The ice-cores, ocean and lake sediments, tree rings, pollen and coraldeposits are considered as natural archives for understanding past global environment.
Indian Geography is trying to reorient the approaches in above context.
Resource degradation, specifically land and water degradation, in the rural-urban
fringe of Delhi, are the core issues. In this regard, the critical issues are (a) environmentalcriticality (b) environmental endangerment (c) environmental impoverishment and (d)
environmental sustainability. Land mining, quarrying and resulting soil erosion due to
excessive excavation is the major environmental concerns. Apart from agricultural land,
common land used for cattle grazing and pastures have also degraded. Sectoral areas are
moving to non-farm activities such as brick kiln, warehouses, factories, farmhouses and
nurseries.
Urbanisation is a major anthropogenic force in transforming landscape, energyuse, environmental quality and human populations. Inadequate access to urban basicservices and infrastructure facilities pose serious problems to metropolitan resource base.
Keeping these cities functional and sustainable is an environmental challenge in spite ofinvestment requirements and constraints of administrative and regulatory controls. In
spite of higher investments on a per capita basis, even relatively privileged urban
population has not been able to meet its needs. An effective urban planning policy and
practice could help urban planners and decision makers to prioritize environmental
problems and other policy options in order to meet environmental challenges (Jha and
Parihar, 2007).
Certain aspects of the urban planning have received attention in the five-yearplans, such as finance for housing, slum clearance and improvement, water supply and
sewerage, transportation, preparation of city master plans. However, funds allocated areindeed meager and a lions’ share is allocated to a few major projects in some states. Thus,
urban planning and environmental management strategies should ensure how the
problems of urbanisation are to be integrated into the larger issues of regional
development.
The role of the oceans in shaping the global environment needs to be understood
and the key interaction linking ocean process and the climate change needs to be
highlighted. This is further supplemented by incorporating changes in past global
environment. The ice-cores, ocean and lake sediments, tree rings, pollen and coraldeposits are considered as natural archives for understanding past global environment.
Indian Geography is trying to reorient the approaches in above context.
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