Strategies for Environmental Oversight

Strategies for Environmental Oversight

Strategies for Environmental Oversight

Chandrakin Pillai

Strategies for Environmental Oversight

Chandrakin Pillai

ISBN - 9789361529375

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Preface

This text deals with a subject of pivotal significance on a global level. The study of the environment and our ecology is what makes one resourceful as to the utilization of social and economic resources in an efficient manner. The environment requires a balance, and we humans benefit from the ecological balance, to say the least, survival and development of every species on earth depends on the balance. Nature is something humans cannot control completely but can manage to keep the agents of the ecosystem, losing its balance. Change in environmental entities is a web of cause and effect. Environmental management is needed to optimize the benefit of such changes and minimize the damage caused due to natural and human factors. It also preaches the ethical values behind the system of operations along with economies of it.

This book aims to help understand the environmental agents and their biology whose understanding will lend a hand in environmental management, importance and scope of it. It presents an informative and systematic collection of management methods for biodiversity across the globe. It covers various insights and philosophical views on environmental ethics. The theory of sustainable development that later expands with forest management techniques. A detailed section deals with the modern evil of pollution and, therefore, its management and some of the known techniques. Waste management being an essential part of environmental management as our modern-day city life environment comprises more waste than it contains plants. The natural hazard management section highlights the risk and resource management when any disaster strikes.

This book is engineered for students to understand complex relationships existing in environment and management methods of differing states of biodiversity with an understanding of ethical viewpoints that guides the relationship between humans and nature.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Introduction to Environmental Management 2

1.1 Concept of Environmental Management 2

1.2 Ecological Approach 3

1.3 Human Ecology Approach 3

1.4 Political Ecology Approach 3

1.5 Commercial Approach 4

1.6 The need for Environmental Management 5

1.7 Environmental degradation: ecological need 6

1.7.1 Corporate Social Responsibility 7

1.8 Scope of Environmental Management 8

1.8.1 Components of Environmental Management: 8

1.9 Corporate Environmental Management 9

1.10 Environmental Management System 11

1.10.1 Basic Elements of EMS 11

1.10.2 Cost and Benefits of the EMS 12

1.10.3 EMS under ISO14001 13

1.11 Sustainable Development 15

1.11.1 Sustainable Development Goals 16

1.12 Summary 17

1.13 Exercise 19

2 Environmental Biology 20

2.1 Ecology and Ecosystem 20

2.1.1 Transfer of Energy in an Ecosystem 23

2.1.2 Types of Ecosystem 25

2.1.3 The Loss of Ecosystem 30

2.2 Human and Environment 32

2.2.1 Use of Natural Resources 33

2.3 Technology and Environment 34

2.4 Biodiversity and Related Threats 35

2.4.1 Threats to Biodiversity 36

2.5 Monitoring the environment 39

2.6 Summary 39

2.7 Exercise 41

3 Environmental Ethics 42

3.1 Morality Vs. Ethics 42

3.2 Environmental Ethics 43

3.3 The challenge of Environmental Ethics 45

3.4 Anthropocentric Approach 47

3.4.1 Eco-centric criticisms of Anthropocentrism 49

3.5 Eco Centric Approach 51

3.5.1 Two Eco-centric Approaches 52

3.6 Bio-centrism 54

3.6.1 Historical Roots 54

3.7 Challenges 57

3.8 Deep Ecology 59

3.8.1 Reductionism 62

3.8.2 Individualism 62

3.8.3 Consumerism 62

3.8.4 Bio-centric Equality 63

3.9 Ecofeminism 63

3.9.1 Origin 65

3.9.2 Radical Eco-feminism and Cultural

Eco-feminism 67

3.9.3 Future of Eco-feminism 69

3.10 Summary 70

3.11 Exercise 72

4 Forest and Wildlife Management 73

4.1 Biodiversity 73

4.1.1 Importance of Biodiversity 73

4.1.2 Role of Biodiversity 74

4.1.3 Why should we Conserve Biodiversity? 76

4.1.4 Strategies for Biodiversity Conservation 78

4.1.5 Hot Spots 81

4.2 Forest Management 82

4.2.1 Sustainable Forest Management 82

4.2.2 Principles of Sustainable Forest Management 84

4.2.3 Forest Planning 85

4.2.4 Forest Management Across the Globe 86

4.2.5 Linking Forest and Wildlife 88

4.3 Wildlife Management 89

4.3.1 Importance of Wildlife 89

4.3.2 Conservation of Biological Diversity 92

4.3.3 Managing Human-wildlife Conflicts 93

4.3.4 Wildlife Management Models and Legal Frameworks 94

4.3.5 Keys for Achieving Sustainable Wildlife Management 97

4.4 Summary 97

4.5 Exercise 100

5 Pollution and Waste Management 101

5.1 Air Pollution Management 101

5.1.1 Air Pollution and causes 102

5.2 Sources of Air Pollution 106

5.3 The need for Air Pollution Management 110

5.3.1 Effect of Air Pollution on Humans 110

5.3.2 Effect on Environment 112

5.3.3 Global Warming 113

5.4 Devices to Control Air Pollution 114

5.5 Control on Gases 116

5.5.1 Absorption 117

5.5.2 Adsorption 117

5.6 Wastewater Management 118

5.7 Wastewater Treatment and Disposal 118

5.7.1 Primary Treatment 119

5.7.2 Secondary Treatment 119

5.7.3 Tertiary Treatment 120

5.7.4 Disposal 121

5.7.5 Waste Water Reuse 121

5.8 Solid Waste Management 122

5.8.1 Residential 123

5.8.2 Industrial 124

5.8.3 Commercial 124

5.8.4 Institutional 125

5.8.5 Construction and Demolition Areas 126

5.8.6 Municipal Services 126

5.8.7 Treatment Plants and Sites 127

5.8.8 Agriculture 128

5.9 Collection, Transfer, and Disposal of Solid Waste 128

5.10 Summary 130

5.11 Exercise 132

6 Natural Hazard Management 133

6.1 Disaster 134

6.2 Hazard and its Classification 135

6.3 Vulnerability 137

6.4 Disaster Management Cycle 138

6.4.1 Pre-disaster 139

6.4.2 During Disaster Occurrence 140

6.4.3 After a Disaster (post-disaster) 140

6.5 Disaster Management for the following Disasters 141

6.5.1 Earthquake 141

6.5.2 Tsunami 150

6.5.3 Cyclone 156

6.5.4 Flood 162

6.5.5 Drought 166

6.6 Summary 170

6.7 Exercise 172

Appendix 173

Glossary 174

Index 177

Introduction

This book lingers on the importance of the environment in ecological, biological, and socio-economic aspects. Humans and the environment co-exist through channels of interactions. From this co-existence, they both gain and lose. Humans are sorely dependent on their environment to obtain means of survival, whereas, they also engage in negligent practices that cause degradation of the environment. Evolutions of human society brought industrialization, commercialization, fuel running power, settlements. This metamorphosis of human civilization needed more resources from the environment and caused severe degradation. Now that it has achieved, it needs a supply of resources to function itself, for which resources are needed are increasing by the second. Another issue we face is of increasing population, more population more requirement of space, food, and fuels. Many of the causal factors are inevitable and cannot be prevented. For example, people living in tribes in forests gather their food from hunting, and they cannot be made to starve because of environmental imbalance, and most of them will be ignorant of the potential damage of their actions.

Environmental management is a course that will allow one to estimate the course of damage from actions, their future implications, ways of prevention, and safe alternatives. The path to be followed for environmental gain formulated within constraints of the philosophy of ethics. Also, to understand the cause and effect of environmental damage, one must gain knowledge about its functioning and causal factors of pollution, waste, hazards, etc. The application of knowledge and ethics together is the core of environmental management.

Chapter - 1 Introduction to Environmental Management

1.1 Concept of Environmental Management

The process, environmental management is related to the rational adjustment of a man with nature involving judicious exploitation and utilization of natural resources without disturbing the ecosystem balance and ecosystem equilibrium. It is not merely the process of managing the environment but also the management of various activities that have consequences on the environment with the consideration of ecological factors. Thus, it involves environmental planning, conservation of resources, environmental status evaluation, and environmental legislation and administration.

The focus of environmental management is practical problems and issues of the real world. It involves planning, implementation and monitoring of schemes that are engineered to bring tangible changes in the environment.

To sum up, it is a field of study that understands human-environment interactions and formulates plans and techniques to tackle ecological issues about social, economic, and political aspects.

There are different approaches to the concept of environmental management. Since environmental problems are vast and complex, they are viewed in different dimensions.

1.2 Ecological Approach

The ecosystem concept has become a widely used conceptual tool for research after 1945. Nowadays, ecologists often adopt an ecosystem approach when seeking to understand and monitor a given situation. The ecosystem concept allows environmental managers to look at portions of complex nature as an integrated system. It may be applied to cities or agriculture (urban ecosystems and agro-ecosystems, respectively).

The ecosystem approach allows a holistic view of how components work together; in other words, it can incorporate human dimensions into biosphere functioning. It also helps define the temporal and spatial scale of management, and thus, is a multidisciplinary approach in order to deal with complexities of ecosystem function and usage.

1.3 Human Ecology Approach

Human ecology is the study of relations between humans or society and nature through a multidisciplinary approach. Similar to that of the ecosystem approach, the main emphasis in this approach is on a social relationship with the environment, which is a primary aspect of any management for planning and development. The scale of approach may be local to global, and it