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Important Topics
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Details
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Environmental Pollution
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- Environmental pollution results from „the release of substances and energy from waste products of human activities.
They are classified on the basis of medium through which pollutants are transported and diffused.
Pollution can be classified into
- Air pollution,
- Water pollution,
- Land pollution and
- Noise pollution
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Urban Waste Disposal
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- Environmental pollution by solid wastes has now got significance because of enormous growth in the quantity of wastes generated from various sources.
- These discarded materials are also termed as refuse, garbage and rubbish, etc. and are disposed of from two sources-
- Household or domestic establishments, and
- Industrial or commercial establishments.
- The household wastes is disposed off either on public lands or on private contractors? sites, whereas the solid wastes of industrial units are collected and disposed off through public (municipal) facilities at low lying public grounds (landfill areas).
- Solid wastes cause health hazard through creation of obnoxious smell , and harbouring of flies and rodents, which act as carriers of diseases like typhoid, diphtheria, diarrhoea, malaria and cholera, etc
- Urban waste disposal is a serious problem in India. In metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, etc.
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Problems of Slums
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- The concept “Urban or Urban Centre” is defined in settlement geography to differentiate it from the “Rural slums”, jhuggi-jhopari” clusters and colonies of shanty structures.
- These are inhabited by those people who were forced to migrate from the rural areas to these urban centres in search of livelihood but could not afford proper housing due to high rent and high costs of land.
- Slums are residential areas of the least choice, dilapidated houses, poor hygienic conditions, poor ventilation, lack of basic amenities like drinking water, light and toilet facilities, etc.
- These areas are overcrowded having narrow street pattern prone to serious hazards from fire.
- Most of the slum population works in low paid, high risk-prone, unorganized sectors of the urban economy.
- Consequently, they are the undernourished, prone to different types of diseases and illness and can ill afford to give proper education to their children.
- Result- drug abuse, alcoholism, crime, vandalism, escapism, apathy and ultimately social exclusion.
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Land Degradation
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- The pressure on agricultural land increases not only due to the limited availability but also by deterioration of quality of agricultural land.
- Soil erosion, water-logging, salinization and alkalinisation of land lead to land degradation.
- Land is degraded and productivity declines.
- There are two processes that induce land degradation. These are natural and created by human beings.
- National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) has classified wastelands by using remote sensing techniques and it is possible to categorize these wastelands according to the processes that have created them.
- There are a few types of wastelands such as gullied /ravenous land, desertic or coastal sands, barren rocky areas, steep sloping land, and glacial areas, which are primarily caused by natural agents.
- There are other types of degraded lands such as waterlogged and marshy areas, land affected by salinity and alkalinity and land with or without scrub, which have largely been caused by natural as well as human factors
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