1. ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION BY POPULATION IN INDIA
KOUSHIK SARKAR
M.SC.(MATHEMATICS)

2. Population growth in India
India is the second most popular country after china.
According to the census of India 2001, the population of India on 1st march was 1027 million.
At the time of Independence the population was 342 million.
The rural population of India has increased by million to million during 1951 – 2001.
Urban population grown from 62.4 million to million during the same period.
Increase in population has been due to improvement in health & control of disease.
The growth of population depends upon fertility mortality & migration according to 2011cencus the population 1.21 billion.

4. Environmental Challenge :-
Population growth & economic development are contributing to many serious environmental problems on in India. Such as pressure on lands, soil degradation, forest, water pollution, air pollution, global worming, climate change etc.

5. Pressure on land
(i) India faces most acute pressure agricultural land.
(ii) Today every million hectors of land supports 7.27 million people land.
(iii) % of land in India is under cultivation , one of the highest in this world.
(iv) Over the past fifty years while Indian’s population increased about 3 times, the total area of land under cultivation increased by only 20.27%.
(v) Most of the expansion has taken place at the expense of forest & grazing land.

6. Land and soil degradation
Out of the total geographical area million hectares 175 million hectares are considered to be land degraded area.
Soil erosion, land salination & loss of nutrients .
Extensive use of fertilizers & pesticides polluted water land & air.
Extensive irrigation contribute to land degradation particularly salination, alkalization & water logging.

7. Declining per capita forest land and agricultural land
Year
Per capita Availability of
Forest Land (in hectare)
Agricultural land in rural
areas (in hectare)
0.113
0.638
0.124
0.503
0.115
0.410
0.099
0.356
0.081
0.315
0.071
0.271

8. Net availability of food grains in India
Year
N.A of food grains per day(Grams)
Per annum availability of
Cereals
Pulses
Edible oil
(kilograms)
Sugar
Cotton cloth
431.5
41.1
5.3
12.3
14.6
468.5
41.6
5.5
12.7
15.1
434.5
34.3
5.4
13.0
13.7
427.9
36.2
5.8
15.6
434.0
37.2
6.1
12.5
15.9
457.6
37.8
6.3
13.2
15.2
443.4
32.8
7.0
14.1
16.3
468.2
37.3
8.2
16.2
417.3
33.0
7.6
14.5
433.5
36.9 NA
426.6
31.9

9. Air pollution India cities are among the most polluted in the world.
In India largest cities Mumbai & Delhi about one half of children under age 3 signs harmful exposure to land.
The main causes for air pollution in urban areas are growing industrialization & increasing vehicular pollution, Industrial emissions.
Some of the most important air pollutant are SPM, RSPM, NO2, Co, So2 etc.
According to the world bank sponsored study estimated environmental damage in the year 1992 amounted to 34000erores.

11. Water scarcity and water pollution
Out of the total annual fresh water withdrawals – 92% goes to agriculture, 3% goes to industrial use & 5% domestic use.
Unscientific use of fertilizeres & pesticides in agricultural purposes also caused water pollution & various total diseases.
Water age from factories & our drainage system released through drains to river.

15. Global warming and climate change
The country large population & rapidly increasing energy use plays an important role in global warming resulting major physical & environmental & socio economic consequences.
Due to global warming ice caps are melting & sea water level is rising gradually.
Due to heat rising agricultural production is badly effected.
health problems are seen in new pattern.

17. Rising demand for energy
The environmental effects due to increasing consumption levels of fuels like coal, lignite, oil etc are of growing concern to various researches. The Combustion of these fuels in industries has been a major source of pollution.
Emission of green house gases, the burning of fossil fuels has lead to several ecological problems & associated with heath problems.
The production of electricity has increased from 5 billion KWH in to about 500 billion KWH

19. Loss of bio- diversity
Bio-diversity has direct consumptive value in food agriculture, medicine, industry ect.
Destruction of plants and animals.
Population growth leads to expanding human settlements and increasing demand for food full & building materials.
Moralization of agriculture also threatens potentially valuable local crops.
1000 animal species and sub species are threatened with extinction rate one thought to at risk.