Geographical Perspective on Selected Issues and Problems

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Geography Class XII (India: People and Economy), Chapter 9.

When does a river stop cleaning itself?

A river is never perfectly pure. Even a clean one carries small amounts of suspended particles and organic and inorganic substances, and nature copes by diluting and breaking them down. Trouble starts when the load grows past what the water can handle. This chapter follows that idea through four connected problems: environmental pollution, urban waste, rural to urban migration with slums, and land degradation. Each comes with case studies that CUET likes to turn into source-based questions.

The big picture: four problems, one cause

All four problems come from the same pressure: more people and more industry using the same land, water and air. The table shows how the chapter is organised.

Pollution: what it is and how it is classified

Environmental pollution results from the release of substances and energy from waste products of human activities. The substances that do the damage are the pollutants. Pollution is classified by the medium through which pollutants are carried and spread: air, water, land and noise.

Water pollution: when the load beats self-purification

Water is polluted when its load of suspended particles and organic and inorganic substances rises so high that the water's self-purifying capacity can no longer cope, and the water becomes unfit for use. Pollutants have natural sources (erosion, landslides, decay of plants and animals), but pollutants from human activities are the real concern. People pollute water through industrial, agricultural and cultural activities, and among these industry is the most significant contributor.

In India almost all surface water sources are contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Contaminated water causes diarrhoea, intestinal worms and hepatitis. The World Health Organization data show that about one-fourth of the communicable diseases in India are water-borne.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: fertiliser raises the nitrate content of surface water. In reality: extra nitrate acts as food for algae, which grow in thick mats. When the algae die and rot, bacteria use up the oxygen in the water, and fish and other life suffer. This process is called eutrophication. Why it matters: it explains why farm run-off can kill a lake even though fertiliser is not poisonous in itself.

Polluted stretches of the Ganga and the Yamuna

Pause and predict: the Yamuna's pollution is blamed partly on irrigation canals taking water out of it. How can removing water make pollution worse?

Check your answer: less water means less dilution. The same quantity of pollutants goes into a smaller flow, so the concentration rises and the river's self-purifying capacity is overwhelmed. This is the same idea as the opening of the chapter.

Namami Gange. Because the Ganga flows through one of the most populous regions of India, its condition causes great concern. The Union Government launched the Namami Gange Programme, after the National Mission for Clean Ganga was initiated, with these objectives: sewage treatment systems in towns, monitoring of industrial effluents, development of the river front, afforestation along the banks to increase biodiversity, cleaning of the river surface, development of Ganga Grams in Uttarakhand, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, and public awareness so that pollutants are not added to the river, even through rituals.

Air pollution: smog, acid rain and illness

Air pollution is the addition of contaminants such as dust, fumes, gas, fog, odour, smoke or vapour to the air, in such quantity and for such duration that they harm flora, fauna and property. The more varied the fuels people use, the more toxic gases enter the air. The main sources are combustion of fossil fuels, mining and industries, which release oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead and asbestos. They cause diseases of the respiratory, nervous and circulatory systems.

Smoky fog over cities is called urban smog, and it is very harmful to human health. Air pollution can also cause acid rain. Rainwater analysis in urban environments shows that the first rain after summer always has a lower pH than later rains.

Why the first rain is more acidic. In the long dry spell, pollutant gases and particles build up in the air. The first rain washes a large load of them out at once, so its water is the most acidic. By the later rains the air has been rinsed, and the pH rises. Remember this as "first rain, lowest pH".

Pause and predict: a student measures the pH of rain in a city in June (first rain) and again in August. Which reading will be lower, and why?

Check your answer: June. The pollutants that gathered in the air during the dry months are washed out by the first rain, so it is the most acidic. By August most of that load is gone.

Noise pollution: loud, local and fading with distance

Noise pollution is the state of unbearable and uncomfortable noise caused by different sources. It became a serious concern only in recent years because of technological innovations. The level of steady noise is measured by sound level in decibels (dB).

Of all these, traffic is the biggest nuisance, because its intensity and nature depend on the type of aircraft, vehicle or train and the condition of the road and vehicle. In sea traffic, noise stays confined to the harbour, where loading and unloading happen. Noise is location specific: it falls rapidly with distance from industrial areas, transport arteries and airports. It is hazardous in many metropolitan and big cities.

Urban waste: more waste than cities can collect

Urban areas are marked by overcrowding, congestion, inadequate facilities and poor sanitation. Solid waste is a variety of old and used articles, such as pieces of metal, broken glass, plastic containers, polythene bags, ash, floppies and CDs. They are also called refuse, garbage and rubbish.

Ash and debris from industries, thermal power houses and building construction and demolition cause serious problems. Uncollected waste creates a bad smell and shelters flies and rodents, which carry typhoid, diphtheria, diarrhoea, malaria and cholera. Dumping industrial waste into rivers pollutes water, and untreated sewage causes serious health problems downstream.

The chapter's message is that waste should be treated as a resource and used to generate energy and compost. Untreated waste ferments slowly and releases toxic biogas, including methane, into the atmosphere.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: untreated waste releases methane. In reality: methane is also a powerful greenhouse gas, and the same gas that harms the air from an open dump can be captured from waste and burned for energy, which is exactly the "waste as a resource" idea. Why it matters: the problem and the solution are the same molecule.

Daurala: a model of "Polluter Pays". Daurala is a village near Meerut with about twelve thousand residents. In 2003 its poor condition drew the attention of civil society. Untreated wastewater from the Daurala industries was leaching down to the groundwater table, and the groundwater was contaminated with heavy metals. A Meerut-based NGO did a door to door health survey, and then the NGO, the village community, people's representatives and the industrialists worked out a solution based on the universal law of "polluter pays".

Rural to urban migration: why people move

People move from rural to urban areas because of three linked reasons: high demand for labour in urban areas, low job opportunities in rural areas, and unbalanced development between urban and rural areas. With few opportunities in small and medium cities, poor people often bypass them and head straight to the mega cities.

Reading the case study. Ramesh, from a village family of debt and little land, stopped studying after the ninth standard. Impressed by successful out-migrants who sent money home from Ludhiana, he went there and earned very little (Rs 20 a day in 1988), found it hard to adjust to the new culture, and moved on to Surat, where he learned welding. He now works as a contract welder and sends about Rs 20,000 a year to his father. The money pays for daily needs, health care and schooling, and is partly used for farming, land and houses, so the family's living standard improved.

Why the stream is male dominated. Rural poor, semi-illiterate and unskilled migrants usually end up in low-wage informal jobs. The wage is too low to support a family in the city, so the spouse stays in the village to look after children and the elderly. Ramesh's job is temporary and transferable, so he cannot move his family.

About 55 per cent of the world's population lives in cities, and the share is estimated to reach 68 per cent by 2050. Urban populations grow through natural increase, net in-migration and, sometimes, the reclassification of rural settlements as urban. In India, natural increase accounts for the largest part (around 60 per cent) of urban growth after 1961, and rural to urban migration for about 29 per cent.

Slums: the places of least choice

India is largely rural (approximately 69 per cent of the population in 2011), yet its urban centres are far from uniform. At one end are well-planned high income localities with wide roads, streetlights, water, sanitation, parks and security. At the other end are slums, jhuggi-jhopari clusters and shanty colonies, where people who left villages for livelihood could not afford proper housing because of high rent and land costs. They occupy environmentally unsuitable and degraded areas.

Slums are residential areas of least choice, with dilapidated houses, poor hygiene and ventilation, and a lack of drinking water, light and toilets. Open defecation, unregulated drainage and overcrowded narrow streets are serious health and socio-environmental hazards. Most slum residents work in low-paid, risky, unorganised jobs, so they are undernourished, prone to disease and unable to give their children proper education. Poverty also makes them vulnerable to drug abuse, alcoholism, crime, vandalism, escapism, apathy and ultimately social exclusion.

The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is part of the urban renewal mission launched by the Government of India to improve the quality of life in urban slums.

Dharavi, Asia's largest slum, is in Mumbai. The textbook extract shows a place of narrow lanes, rented single rooms shared by large families, uncollected garbage and foul water. Yet the same neighbourhood produces ceramics and pottery, embroidery and zari work, leather goods, garments, metalwork, jewellery settings and furniture that reach rich homes in India and abroad.

Two views. For the exam: a slum is a residential area of least choice with poor housing, sanitation and services, and the aim is to improve quality of life. Another reading: urban scholars also point out that slum residents supply cheap labour and run small workshops on which the wider city depends, so a slum can be both a place of hardship and a part of the city's economy. The Dharavi extract in the textbook reflects both sides.

Land degradation: when land loses its power

Pressure on farmland grows not only because there is a limited amount of it but because its quality falls. Soil erosion, waterlogging, salinisation and alkalinisation lead to land degradation. Land degradation is a temporary or permanent decline in the productive capacity of land. Not all degraded land is wasteland, but unchecked degradation can turn it into wasteland.

Two processes cause degradation: natural and human. The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) classified wastelands using remote sensing, and the types fall into three groups.

The textbook's conclusion is that wastelands caused by man-made processes are more important than those caused by natural processes.

Pause and predict: a farmer irrigates heavily without drainage, and the field turns white with salt. In which NRSC group does this land fall?

Check your answer: the group caused by both natural and human factors. Land affected by salinity and alkalinity, and waterlogged land, are listed there because the soil and climate set the stage and human irrigation practice triggers the damage.

Jhabua: regenerating land with the community. Jhabua district lies in the westernmost agro-climatic zone of Madhya Pradesh and has a high concentration of tribal population, mostly Bhils. Poverty there was made worse by the degradation of forests and land. Watershed management programmes funded by the ministries of Rural Development and Agriculture of the Government of India acknowledge the link between land, water and vegetation and try to improve livelihoods through natural resource management and community participation. In the past five years, programmes funded by the Ministry of Rural Development alone, implemented by the Rajiv Gandhi Mission for Watershed Management, treated 20 per cent of the district's area.

In Petlawad block (the northernmost part of the district), the Bhils of Sat Rundi hamlet in Karravat village revitalised large parts of their common property resources (CPRs) by their own effort. Each household planted and kept one tree on the common land, fodder grass was planted on pastures, and the pastures were protected by social fencing for at least two years. Afterwards, they plan stall feeding of cattle instead of open grazing.

When a villager from a neighbouring village encroached on the pasture, the villagers called the tehsildar to establish the rights of the common land and settled the conflict by offering the encroacher membership of their user group, sharing the benefits of the greened land.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Land and water: Land Resources and Agriculture covers common property resources and land use, and Water Resources covers the supply that pollution threatens.
• Cities: Human Settlements explains urban and rural settlements, the background to slums and migration.
• People: Human Development connects poverty, health and education to the living conditions described here.
• Solutions: Planning and Sustainable Development in Indian Context shows how planning tries to prevent such problems.