Population and the environment

Water-born and poor sanitation related diseases still account for much of the morbidity and mortality in India. Out of the 300 million urban dwellers in India 23% live in slums. This paper aims to examine the sanitation conditions of slums in Mumbai. 6.9 million Slum dwellers are residing in almost 2000 slum pockets in Mumbai, which constitutes 54% of the population of the city. Most of the slum households depend on inadequate public toilet facilities of very poor quality. Efforts and investments in sanitation have failed to alleviate the situation, as the local population has not been involved. Only recently a demand driven approach has been applied largely inspired by experiences in rural sanitation programmes. Still supply-driven initiatives by short-term political interests are, to some extent, eroding the resources available for sanitation. However, experiences from the last decade locally and globally, reveal that the demand-driven model is a way forward.

Land use and land cover changes are local and place specific, occurring incrementally in ways that often escape our attention. This study sought to detect changes in land cover in the Tema Metropolis of Ghana from 1990 to 2010. Multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper data sets of 1990, 2000 and 2007 were acquired, pre-processed and enhanced. Unsupervised classification of the images was performed and six land cover classes (water, wetlands, closed vegetation, open vegetation, cropped lands, and built-up) were derived. The post-classification change detection technique was performed to derive the changes in land cover and their corresponding change matrices. Between 1990 and 2010, built-up areas expanded steadily to become the most prevalent land cover type in the metropolis, reducing vegetation cover dramatically. High population growth with its attendant rise in the demand for housing, and increasing commercial activities, were found to have influenced land cover changes over the period.

Effective pro-ecological policies depend on how people act and perceive the environment. This is particularly relevant in areas undergoing a rapid and unplanned urbanization process, such as in Brazil. The international literature suggests that SES and environmental objective conditions are two major forces behind pro-ecological behavior and concern. This paper aims to answer the following questions: Are affluent households more environmentally concerned than low SES households in metropolitan Brazil; Do the objective environmental conditions impact environmental concern; Is the relation between SES, objective environmental conditions, and concern mediated by differences in perception about environmental issues and actors. Using random-effect latent class models and hierarchical regressions applied to a representative survey of urban residents of the metropolitan areas of São Paulo, we show evidence that more wealthy individuals and individuals living in communities with worse environmental conditions are more environmentally concerned. Falsifying the “Objective Problems Subjective Values” hypothesis, we found a significant positive association between environmental conditions and concern among the poor, and a negative association among richer households. We interpret these results as a spatial selection of residential units.

This study utilizes Data Envelopment Analysis to assess the sustainable human development of 115 high and middle income countries which are divided into three groups based on their income, including 44 high income countries, 40 upper middle income countries and 31 lower middle income countries. Human development is measured by four indictors, including gross national income per capita, life expectancy, mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling. In addition, the resources are measured by three indicators, including carbon dioxide emission per capita, electric power consumption per capita and energy use per capita. The findings reveal that Croatia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland can utilize the minimum resources to achieve their current human development level, giving them the highest opportunity to achieve the sustainable human development among high income countries. Among upper middle income countries, Angola, Colombia, Gabon, Panama and Peru have the highest opportunity to achieve the sustainable human development thanks to their 100 percent efficiency in utilizing their resources. Finally Albania, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Philippines, Senegal and Sri Lanka are more likely to achieve the sustainable human development than any other lower middle income countries

The world’s least developed countries that have the world’s highest population growth have contributed least to global greenhouse gas emissions. From this fact it is sometimes deduced that population growth has at best a weak influence on climate change in particular, or environmental degradation in general. This paper argues that this conclusion is hasty. While it is true that population growth has had only a small impact on the climate so far, population growth does have a significant effect on other natural resources. In the least developed countries high population growth is contributing to the highest rate of deforestation, the most significant pressures on natural land and the most serious water shortages, compared with other countries. High population growth paired with efforts to promote human wellbeing will inevitably further exacerbate these pressures on natural resources, including the climate. The paper explains the linkages between population growth and environmental degradation, and on this basis teases out critical policies to promote more sustainable development pathways. It argues that governments must not only promote greener and more inclusive economies but must also address population growth through human-centered and rights-based policies.

“Study on Assessment of Food Safety and Hygiene Practices among Street Food Vendors in Delhi, India”

Chander Pal Thakur

BPT, PGDHHM, PHFI, New Delhi, India

Introduction:A study was done to assess food safety and hygiene practices among street food vendors in Delhi,India.
Methods:Practices and hygiene status of 200 street food vendors were studied by questionnaire based findings and observations of vending site.Data was entered and analyzed with the help of statistical tools.
Findings and Discussion:It was found that majority of the respondents (33%) were in the age group of 25+ years i.e. 25 to 34 years and 24% were illiterate.Around 36% of the vendors were permanent resident of Delhi and from rest of the respondents 55% were from Uttar Pradesh only.Ninety percent (90%) of the vendors were operating full time and 40% were earning more than Rs. 10,000 and above per month.None of the respondents were registered or licensed.Seventy percent were disposing garbage in open lid bins and 16% were throwing it on the road.With regard to personal hygiene, only 3% of the vendors were using hand gloves and from rest of the respondents only 2% were washing hands before and after handling raw or cooked food.Majority of respondents (72%) had short clean nails and few (4%) had open wounds pr

Urbanization is the process by which human habitations like cities and towns develop and grow into larger areas, which includes the movement of people from rural to urban areas as well as movements across towns and cities (UN-HABITAT 2002). Urbanization is the principal process among the five main processes integral to demographic transition; the others being mortality decline, population growth, fertility decline and population aging. Currently, different parts of the world are at different stages of urbanization. However, historically, the process of urbanization in India was very slow during the period of per-independence; but it was more progressive in the post independence period. Hence this particular aspect has been over exploited the natural resource and further it has resulted for several environmental problems in India. Increasing urbanization and related activities such as trade and commerce, construction boom and infrastructure development have been posed several challenges to the governments in order conserve environment. In this background the present paper tried to examine the overall status of urbanization in India at various levels by using census data. The issue of urbanization, resource degradation and its ultimate consequence on environment is highlighted for the study. Summary and Policy implications have be

The effects of climate change are being felt disproportionately in the world’s poorest countries and among those groups of people least able to cope. The Philippines, a storm-lashed nation, is one country having high climate change vulnerability and low resilience. A number of researches have suggested investments on adaptation which place strong emphasis on reducing vulnerability to climate change. Focusing on climate risk vulnerability in the Philippines, this study examines the effect of one particular type of government intervention: increasing the level of education. In this study, the effect of education on vulnerability to climate change is examined using official Philippine statistics from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), Labor Force Survey (LFS), National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB). Using a panel data model assuming fixed cross-sectional effects, the study establishes that at the community level, the proportion of household heads with at least secondary education is a significant factor that reduces climate risk vulnerability (measured by a transformation of number of deaths), controlling for other factors such as number of disasters, gross regional domestic product (GRDP), population growth and population density.

Background and Object: The degradation area of grassland was severe in the end of 20th century, this research will evaluate the impact of urbanization on grassland changing. Data and Methods: This study included 87 counties of Inner Mongolia, and three- period images
of autumn-seasonal Landsat Thematic Mapper (T M) data set consisting of 3 images. Descriptive method and multiple linear regression models were used. Results: Amount of rainfall, highway construction and urbanization rate were statistically significant (p<0.05) to CQI in model of 1989 and 1996. GDP per capita, amount of husbandry, and urbanization rate were significant to CQI in model of 2000 (p<0.05). Conclusion: (i) Severe physical geographic and natural environment would keep on affecting grassland changing, especially amount of rainfall; (ii) Economic development would lead to the deterioration of grassland; (iii) Acceleration of urbanization process and development of highway construction had a positive impact on CQI.

In 2001, demographic data were collected from 36 communities, representing five indigenous populations residing in the Northern Ecuadoran Amazon. Results showed high fertility rates (TFR 7.6-8.3) and negligible use of modern contraception. Follow-up data collected in 2012 show continuing high fertility (TFR 7.1-7.5) despite desires to have fewer births and an appreciable increase in the use of modern contraception. This indicates a disconnect between reported use of modern contraception and observed fertility. Meanwhile, with fertility remaining very high while mortality continues to fall due to vaccination campaigns, the virtual disappearance of traditional tribal warfare and other factors, natural increase is rising, increasing pressures on the extraordinarily rich ecosystem. Thus, these fertility results, along with continuing in-migration to the Amazon from the outside, portend medium-term challenges. However, the long-term prospects for ecosystem protection would be better if contraceptive effectiveness could be improved. What are the prospects for such improvements?