While it is almost impossible to stop rapid migration and urbanization, what can be done is for the Government to strategically distribute migrating population so that there is no lopsided concentration of population in one area
The national capital is currently witnessing the worst air quality in recent times and even though the Indian Meteorological Department predicted rain on November 15, which would have eased the impacts of pollution, the rainy respite has so far remained elusive.
Yearly increase in pollution levels is largely attributed to vehicular pollution, which prompts the Delhi Government to announce the odd-even scheme from time to time but to no avail as pollution levels continue unchanged.
Stubble burning in Haryana and Punjab too has emerged as one of the main contributory factor to the already worsening air quality levels but here too efforts by the authorities to prevent burning activities by farmers has met with little or no successes.
In the meanwhile, as the Government looks in all directions to rein in air pollution levels, migration of people from all over the country to urban centers continues unabated and this, in many ways, is exerting immense pressure on urban infrastructure and resources, and in the process causing considerable rise in pollution levels as the spiralling need for energy resources leads to burgeoning population resorting to accessing all available resources of energy, including those that are highly polluting.
Over the past few decades, the environmental impacts of rapid urbanization of the world’s population has become a growing concern. Rural-urban migration is a particularly important component of the urbanization process in developing countries and can be detrimental to urban environmental conditions.
China is an apt example wherein continuously increasing volume of rural-urban labour migration since the early 1980s has formed the largest population flow in world history, leading to unprecedented pressure on urban resources.
As the world’s population doubles, urban population across the world is all set to triple, thanks to relentless migration, within the next decade, it is expected that more than half the world’s population will be living in urban areas.
The most striking examples of urbanization of the world are the megacities of 10 million or more people. In 1975, only four megacities existed; in 2000, there were 18 and the United Nations estimated that by 2015, there will be 22 cities. This rising urban concentration of population is changing the way people interact with the environment.
Urban communities needs are intensive as compared to their rural counterparts and, hence, difference emerges in their consumption of food, energy, water, and land. For instance, urban population not only consume more food but also more durable goods and consequently more energy. This increased consumption is a function of urban labour markets, wages, and household structure and leads to increased energy consumption for electricity, transportation, cooking, and heating.
For example, urban populations have more cars than rural populations per capita. Almost all of the cars in the world in the 1930s were in the United States. Today, there is a car for every two people in the United States. If this becomes the norm, in 2050, there would be 5.3 billion cars in the world, all using energy.
In China on the other hand, per capita consumption of coal in towns and cities is over three times the consumption in rural areas and India too is not far behind. Relative price of energy per unit domestically has been steadily increasing in urban areas, thanks to the never ending demand that the supply is unable to bridge.
Though advanced forms of energy that are cost effective and less polluting are developed, yet the scale of aggregate use will eventually nullify these advantages, leading to mass consumption of energy and, therefore, have deleterious environmental effects in the form of urban heat islands that can change local weather patterns and weather downwind from the heat islands.
Many places in India are already witnessing the heat island effect, which is being created because cities are radiating heat back into the atmosphere at a rate of 15 per cent to 30 per cent less than the rural areas. This means that cities are warmer than rural areas by about 0.6 to 1.3 C besides trapping atmospheric pollutants. Due to this phenomenon, cloudiness and fog occur with greater frequency.
It is probably impossible to control migration, but the Government must understand the intrinsic cause for migration, which is better opportunities, living and earning conditions coupled with health, educational facilities and infrastructure — all of which combined lead to aspirational conditions for the rural populations.
The Government must emulate these facilities in the rural areas and also undertake strategic distribution of migrating population backed by adequate research studies so that a not lop-sided concentration of population pressure on some select regions and cities do not exist.
Many of the effects of rural-urban population migration on the environment are not necessarily linear. Urban areas, with larger populations, eventually lead to more environmental problems.
Much of what determines the extent of the environmental impacts is how the urban populations behave in the form of consumption and living patterns and this needs to be tuned in order to bring harmony between populated cities and the environment.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)