The Impact of Urbanization on Environment

Submitted by

Muhammad Yasir Anwar

Department of Economics

Pakistan Institute of Development Economics

Islamabad

Urbanization and Environment

Table of Contents

•Introduction

•Case Study

•Literature Review

•Methodology

•Impact of Urbanization

•Graphical Analysis

•Conclusion

Introduction:

Urbanization refers to general increase in population of cities orexpansion of the cities either through migration from rural areas tourban center or the increase in population of urban centers

The last two centuries observed a rapid rise in the size of cities, in1800 a very small portion of world masses lived in urban areaswhich was approximately 2% but now this percentage is about 50%.

The UN estimates showed that the increase in urbanization in termsof rising number of megacities with population of 10 million ormore, in 1975 there were only four megacities in the world, thenumber rise to 18 in 2000 while it will be 22 in 2015.

It is estimated that by 2050 about 64% of the developing world and86% of the developed world will be urbanized

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The level and growth of urban centers differ considerably by region

to region; the east and south Asia will have the highest growing

rates in coming decades.

In future most of the world masses will grow in towns and cities and

this redistribution of the world population will likely to further

affect the natural system of the earth.

Due to the high population influx to urban centers cause many

problems to the environment in terms of deforestation, environment

degradation due to more vehicles and industrialization, poor water

quality, food insecurity, land insecurity, air pollution, noise pollution

and excessive solid waste material.

The phenomenon is very closely related to the environment because

the problems are very complex and very difficult to observe the

overall/net impact of urbanization on environment.

Case Study

We will focus on the point that how the redistribution of world

population in the recent centuries have changed the global

environment and how this replacement and migration of the

population along with high birth rate change the whole dynamics of

the long run growth.

We will also observe the advantages and disadvantages of the

process of urbanization to the environment.

How can policymakers suggest an environment friendly way

forward for the long run sustainability of this globe with prosperious

and balanced growth and development.

Literature Review

Sarasvati and Mukherjee (2011) the study evaluated impact of different

population related variables by regressing the data from different states of

India and found that the effect of URBANIZATION is significantly

negative (among all variables) on environment.

Zaozo (2008) develop a framework to analyze the relationship between

urbanization and CO2 emission for different set of countries and found

that effects of urbanization is higher in developing countries.

Nyambod (2010) in this paper author selected the some urban areas and

evaluated the effect of urbanization on lifestyle and environment. He

found that human settlement conditions in the world particularly in

developing countries are deteriorating.

The rural people moving to urban areas for better living standards, and

urban areas are overcrowded and have more inhabitants than capacity.

This situation often causes loss of property or life by accidents or diseases.

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Vakkilainen and Varis (1999) study evaluated that with increase in urbanization, the

demand for different goods will also rise. The production process will increase the

use of water and emit more pollutants. But in many developing countries due to poor

mechanism of check and balance waste water is not being treated effectively.

Many multinational companies launch their production plants in developing

countries because of flexible environmental laws and poor control systems.

HABITAT (1996) study describes that with the increase in air pollution level the

disease rate increases, this pollution comes from fossil fuels, industry, motor

vehicles, heating and electricity generation which are the main causes of greenhouse

gas emission.

In another study the author found that most of the cities in subject areas have

improper sewerage handling system. In that regions untreated garbage and toxic

water is dumped to the rivers and seas. This severely affects the marine life and

fisheries as well as the touring in beach areas.

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Ogu (2000) study found that with increase in population in cities amount of solid waste

also raises. He also found that in most of developing countries normally less than one

half of solid waste is collected, while in some poor countries (Africa) only 10% solid

waste is collected.

World Water Development Report 2012, indicated that urbanization is the main cause of

point source pollution. Particularly the condition become severe when urban wastewater

is combined with untreated industrial water. The study shows that in many fast growing

cities waste water infrastructure is non-existent, inadequate or outdated.

According to the estimates of WHO about 70 to 80% beds in hospitals are occupied by

patient suffered from waterborne diseases in urban centres of developing countries which

shows that water supply and sanitation system have strong impact on living conditions.

Methodology

We will follow the descriptive approach in which we will discuss the post

urbanization impacts on environment and graphically analyze the

redistribution of the world populations over the time.

We will focus on the impacts of urbanization on environment which are

negative and apparently there are no positive impacts on the environment.

Urbanization and its Impacts on nature:

Urbanization will leads to overpopulation and major cause of mostenvironmental problems is the rapidly growing human population. About90 million babies are born each year and at this rate, by the year 2050,global population will reach 10 billion.

The population growth takes place mostly in developing countries andthese countries are the cause of 90 percent of current population growth. Ithas been estimated that by the year 2025 even 84 percent of the world’speople will live in developing regions

Growing urbanization means more consumption and need of differentproducts, and as a result of growing population demand for water, food,housing, heat, energy, clothing, and consumer goods will increasedramatically.

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At this moment world’s population is 7 billion people, and half of theworld population is living in urban centers means urbanization is about 50percent and remaining is living in the rural areas.

The population living in the rural area have to produce food for the urbanmasses and most of the population growth takes place in urban areas,which means more pressure to the rural people to produce food for thegrowing amount of urban people.

In order to meet the increasing demand for the civic amenities, we have tosetup new industries, institutions and factories for the production of goodsand serviecs which means higher level of emission in the air and moregeneration of industrial waste took place.

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Increased number of vehicles in urban cities has increased the use of fossils fuelsand greenhouse gas emission and such type of growth in road vehicles is a bigproblem to urban cities and also to the environment.

The pollution is high due to constant traffic jams and rising number ofautomobiles which causes respiratory diseases to city habitants.

Industrial, hospital and institutional wastes are more problematic than householdwastes because household wastes are less hazardous as compared to industrialwaste which contains hazardous and toxic chemicals.

The garbage combustion creates yet another environmental problem. People wantto get rid of the wastes and they burn them in their backyards. The gasesproduced by burning can cause different respiratory diseases also effects ourenvironment.

Graphical Analysis

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Conclusion

Both theoretically and graphically it is found that, though urbanizationleads to economic growth through industrialization. But urbanizationseverely effected the natural living environment of human beings as wellas ecological framework of the globe.

The damages of urbanization founded at large scale in developingcountries because of poor urban planning and infrastructure issubstandard, this is due to rapid urbanization in subjected regions.

the developed countries have build the infrastructure of high quality whichis able to overcome the negative environmental impacts of risingurbanization; So impacts of urbanization varies from developed todeveloping region.

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One of the most important implication of urbanization is that it badly

affect those regions which heavy depends upon the agriculture economy in

terms of decrease in area of cultivation and rapidly convert into housing

societies.

Way Forward

With proper planning and careful long run management the impacts of

urbanization could be tackled and the strong urban planning can lead to

the growth.

The public private partnership also help to reduce the effects of

urbanization on environment by setting the priorities in way to make the

environment friendly development for the people living in large cities.

Q & A