Environmental degradation

Topic: Environment and Sustainable Development · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 1 "Development"; Class 11, Ch 7 "Environment and Sustainable Development"

Meaning

Environmental degradation means the environment gets worse in quality, mainly because of pollution, deforestation and soil erosion. It matters because a damaged environment cannot do its main jobs well. When air, water and soil get worse, people fall sick more often, and society has to spend money that could have gone to schools, roads or jobs.

Explanation

What the environment does, and what degradation damages

• Environment: Class 11 NCERT calls it "the total planetary inheritance and the totality of all resources".
• It has biotic parts (living things: plants, animals, forests, fisheries).
• It has abiotic parts (non-living things: air, water, land, rocks, sunlight).

• The two parts keep affecting each other. For example, forests (biotic) hold the soil and recharge groundwater (abiotic).

• The environment does four jobs: 1. It supplies resources. 2. It takes in and breaks down waste. 3. It sustains life, through genetic diversity (variety of genes within one species) and biodiversity (variety of species). 4. It gives aesthetic services (beauty, like mountains and rivers).

• How degradation hurts these jobs:

• Pollution puts too much load on job 2, the waste-absorbing job.
• Deforestation and soil erosion weaken job 1 (supply) and job 3 (sustaining life).
• If job 1 is overused or job 2 is overloaded, job 3 fails. NCERT calls this failure the environmental crisis.

The limits that degradation crosses

• Carrying capacity (the limit within which the environment can keep doing its jobs). Two conditions must both hold: 1. Resource extraction ≤ rate of regeneration (how fast the resource grows back) 2. Waste generated ≤ assimilating capacity (how much waste the environment can break down)

• Absorptive capacity (the environment's ability to absorb damage). Example: a river can break down only a limited amount of sewage.

• Worked example: a forest that regrows 100 trees a year
• Cut 80 trees a year → the stock stays healthy.
• Cut 120 trees a year → the forest loses 20 trees every year.

• Over 5 years, the forest loses 20 × 5 = 100 trees. This is use beyond carrying capacity, and it leads to deforestation and then soil erosion.

• Trap (Class 10): renewable does not mean unlimited.

• Groundwater is renewable.
• But if we pump out more than rain puts back, the water table falls.

Why degradation rose: the supply-demand reversal

• Before industrialisation:
• People demanded less from the environment than it could supply.
• Pollution stayed within absorptive capacity.

• So the environment worked like a "free good" (so plentiful that nobody had to pay for it).

• After the population explosion and the Industrial Revolution:

• Demand went beyond the rate of regeneration.
• Supply shrank because of overuse and misuse. This trend continues today.

• Environmental resources became scarce economic goods, with a price and an opportunity cost.

• Two drivers (NCERT):

• Rising population in developing countries, so more people need resources.
• Affluent consumption and production in developed countries, so each person uses more resources and creates more waste.

What degradation costs society

• Opportunity cost (the value of the next-best thing you give up when you make a choice).
• Chain of cost:
• A river gets polluted → people get water-borne diseases.
• Families and the government spend on treatment.

• Less money is left for schools, roads or jobs.

• Other costs (NCERT):

• Water has become an economic good, because rivers and aquifers (underground rock layers that hold water) are polluted or dried up.
• Governments spend heavily on research and on finding new resources.

• Global problems like global warming and ozone depletion create international commitments that cost money.

• NCERT concludes that the opportunity cost of environmental damage is "high".

In India

• Water pollution:
• NCERT says about 70% of India's water is polluted. This raises respiratory and water-borne diseases.
• NITI Aayog's Composite Water Management Index (CWMI, 2018) supports this. Nearly 70% of water is contaminated, and India ranks 120th out of 122 countries on the water quality index [7].

• The same report says about 600 million (60 crore) Indians face high to extreme water stress [7].

• Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB):

• It was set up in 1974 under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 [2][3].
• Its main job is to promote cleanliness of streams and wells in different areas of the States [2][3].
• It was later also given the job of improving air quality and controlling air pollution [3].
• It advises the Central Government, plans a nation-wide programme against pollution, and coordinates State Pollution Control Boards [3].

• Link to degradation: the CPCB protects the waste-absorbing job of the environment. It tries to keep waste below absorptive capacity.

• Oil dependence: India imports most of its oil. So when world oil prices rise, everyone pays more for fuel, transport and goods.

Don't confuse with

• Resource depletion: this is about the quantity of resources falling, for example oil running out. Degradation is about the quality of the environment falling, for example polluted water.
• Environmental crisis: this is the result. It happens when carrying capacity is crossed and the environment fails at its third job, sustaining life. Degradation is one of the paths that leads to it.
• Carrying capacity vs absorptive capacity: carrying capacity needs two conditions (extraction ≤ regeneration and waste ≤ assimilating capacity). Absorptive capacity is only about the environment's ability to absorb damage, like a river breaking down sewage.
• Pollution: pollution is only one cause of degradation. NCERT lists three causes: pollution, deforestation and soil erosion.

Prelims Hooks

• NCERT: environmental degradation = the quality of the environment falls because of pollution, deforestation and soil erosion. Depletion = the quantity of resources falls.
• The environmental crisis is the failure of the environment's third function, sustaining life.
• Carrying capacity needs both: extraction ≤ regeneration and waste ≤ assimilating capacity.
• CPCB: set up in 1974 under the Water Act, 1974, not under the Environment Protection Act, 1986 [2][3].
• CWMI (NITI Aayog, 2018): about 70% of water is contaminated, India ranks 120th out of 122 on water quality, and about 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress [7].
• Trap: groundwater is renewable but can still be overused (Class 10).

Mains Points

• Protecting the environment is an investment in growth, not a cost on it
• About 70% of India's water is contaminated [7] → more disease → higher health spending and lower productivity.

• So cleaning up the environment frees money and labour for growth. This is useful for GS-III answers on growth versus environment.

• Pricing environmental goods vs fairness to the poor

• The supply-demand reversal turned "free goods" into scarce goods. This supports ideas like the polluter-pays principle and the Dublin principle that water is an economic good [5].

• But treating water as a commodity is a policy choice with legal and regulatory effects. This is why the Dublin principle led to a long, contentious debate [6]. It must be balanced against the right to water.

• Shared but different responsibility

• Population pressure in developing countries and affluent consumption in developed countries both cause degradation.
• This supports differentiated responsibility in global climate talks, in line with sustainable development as defined in the Brundtland Report (1987): "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [4].

Related concepts

• Environment
• Biotic and abiotic components
• Functions of the environment
• Renewable resources
• Non-renewable resources
• Reserves-to-production life
• Hotelling rule
• Carrying capacity
• Absorptive capacity
• Environmental crisis

Read more

• The environment, its functions and the supply-demand reversal