Wetland Management - notes

TERMINOLOGY

The management of wetlands and their use for water quality purposes has resulted in the introduction of a number of terms. Though definitions have not been standardized, recently established definitions for some of these variably applied terms, which we will follow are provided here:

Natural Wetlands - wetlands that do not exist as the result of man's activities.

Wetlands - those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs, and similar areas.

Wetland construction - creation of wetlands built specifically for water quality improvement purposes; this typically involves controlled outflow and a design that maximizes certain treatment functions.

Wetland creation - bringing a wetland into existence, whether by accident or intentional, where none existed previously; this includes creation of wetlands for mitigation, habitat, and water quality purposes.

Wetland enhancement - the modification of a natural or created wetland to enhance one or more functions. Enhancement of some wetland functions may negatively affect other functions.

Wetland restoration - the reestablishment of a disturbed or altered wetland as one with greater function or acreage. This may involve reestablishing original vegetation, hydrology, or other parameters to reestablish original or closer-to-original wetland functions.

OVERVIEW

Wetland management generally involves activities that can be conducted with, in, and around wetlands, both natural and man-made, to protect, restore, manipulate, or provide for their functions and values. This discussion of wetland management is divided into issues associated with: 1) natural wetland protection; 2) activities, involving natural wetlands, that are specifically exempted from regulatory requirements; 3) wetland creation and restoration; and 4) wetland construction for water quality improvement.

The values of wetlands are by now well recognized.  This involves not only buffering wetlands from direct human pressures, but also maintaining important natural processes that operate on wetlands from the outside and that may be altered by human activities. Management toward this goal should emphasize long-term sustenance of historical, natural wetland functions and values.

To support the national "no net loss" goal, many activities affecting natural wetlands must be conducted within the framework of government regulatory and other protection programs. Manipulation of natural wetlands, within regulatory jurisdiction, is typically limited to restoration of degraded habitats. The use of natural wetlands for primary water quality treatment of either point or nonpoint pollution sources is inappropriate.

Effective wetland management requires knowledge on a range of wetland subjects. Some of them are as follows:

Factors to consider in setting the designated use and developing a management strategy for a wetland include:

• wetland type and landscape position
• surrounding land uses
• cumulative impacts on the wetland
• vegetation quality
• presence or absence of rare or endangered species
• surface water quality
• wildlife habitat
• cultural values

It is not important to protect only rural or wilderness area wetlands. Urban wetlands can provide multiple values for suburban and city dwellers. The aesthetic and recreational amenities of urban wetlands, and their value as wildlife habitat, can be significant. The capacity of a functional urban wetland in flood control can also be very important.

The Challenge of Protection

The simple goal of protecting a wetland's existing functions can prove to be incredibly complex in the modern landscape. It involves minimizing the human-induced changes affecting the natural forces that shape and sustain a wetland, such as hydrology, climate, biogeochemical fluxes, fire, and species movement. 

Pressures created by human activities include:

• proposals to fragment wetlands with roads and other linear facility crossings
• impacts from recreational uses, including off-road vehicles, especially in residential settings
• impacts from adjacent property owners, or partial or full wetland owners
• incursion of trampling, soil compaction, intense herbivory, and waste loading by domesticated animals, pest control treatments, in urban settings, pedestrian access, mowing, landscaping, solid waste dumping, and domesticated animal activity

Other pressures that affect wetland functions operate less directly and are less apparent. These include:

hydrologic alterations, such as direct surface drainage by ditch-digging, impoundment, de-watering by redirection of contributing land area inflows, de- watering by consumptive use of surface water inflows, de-watering through drawdown of unconfined aquifer from either groundwater withdrawal or stream channelization, making wetter in wet season and drier in dry season by changing both quantity and timing of inflows through placement of impervious surfaces and ditch- digging, and over-inundating by increasing contributing land area and/or increasing yield from a given land area through earthmoving, ditching, drain-tiling, and/or pumping; 

increased sediment, nutrient, organic matter, metals, pathogen and other water pollutant loadings from stormwater runoff and wastewater discharges; 

changes to physical characteristics of inflows, such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, clarity, and pH resulting from a variety of activities; 

atmospheric deposition of pollutants; 

introduction of nuisance and exotic plant and animal species; 

loss of more sensitive wetland plant and animal species due to changes in adjacent land uses; 

loss of surrounding habitat for wetland-dependent species that also require upland habitat; and 

"edge effect" changes in plant and animal species due to changes in light, temperature, and moisture regimes, and from noise, pesticide drift.

Wetland Management

Power Point Presentations links:

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=wetland+management+ppt&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CD0QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.doe-bd.org%2Fcwbmp%2Finception_report%2Fgrp3_nishat_wetl_use.ppt&ei=pzYbUdjPE8mqrAeKiIGQCg&usg=AFQjCNGdg-RXhccg1d0YNmgD97YxBrPIdA

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=wetland+management+ppt&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&ved=0CEMQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmpaenvironment.ei.columbia.edu%2Fnews%2Fprojects%2Fsummer06%2FwetlandsPres.ppt&ei=pzYbUdjPE8mqrAeKiIGQCg&usg=AFQjCNGPY27DFC9cKU4PcNHJTLAHEnK1fA

Ramsar handbooks for the wise use of wetlands, 4th edition:

http://www.ramsar.org/pdf/lib/hbk4-18.pdf

Watershed Management - Major Areas

Watershed is defined as a geohydrological unit draining to a common point by a system of drains. All lands on earth are part of one watershed or other. Watershed is thus the land and water area, which contributes runoff to a common point.

A watershed is an area of land and water bounded by a drainage divide within which the surface runoff collects and flows out of the watershed through a single outlet into a lager river ( or ) lake.

TYPES OF WATERSHED

Watersheds is classified depending upon the size, drainage, shape and land use pattern.
1) Macro watershed (> 50,000 Hect)
2) Sub-watershed (10,000 to 50,000 Hect)
3) Milli-watershed (1000 to10000 Hect)
4) Micro watershed (100 to 1000 Hect)
5) Mini watershed (1-100 Hect)

Objectives of watershed management

The different objectives of watershed management programmes are:

1. To control damaging runoff and degradation and thereby conservation of soil and water.
2. To manage and utilize the runoff water for useful purpose.
3. To protect, conserve and improve the land of watershed for more efficient and
sustained production.
4. To protect and enhance the water resource originating in the watershed.
5. To check soil erosion and to reduce the effect of sediment yield on the watershed.
6. To rehabilitate the deteriorating lands.
7. To moderate the floods peaks at down stream areas.
8. To increase infiltration of rainwater.
9. To improve and increase the production of timbers, fodder and wild life resource.
10. To enhance the ground water recharge, wherever applicable.

Factors affecting watershed management

a) Watershed characters

i) Size and shape
ii) Topography
iii) Soils
iv) Relief

b) Climatic characteristic

i. Precipitation
ii. Amount and intensity of rainfall

c) Watershed operation

d) Land use pattern

i. Vegetative cover
ii. Density

e) Social status of inhability

f) Water resource and their capabilities.

Watershed management practices
1. Interms of purpose
1. To increase infiltration
2. To increase water holding capacity
3. To prevent soil erosion
2. Method and accomplishment

In brief various control measures are:
1. Vegetative measures ( Agronomical measures)
1. Strip cropping
2. Pasture cropping
3. Grass land farming
4. Wood lands
2. Engineering measures ( Structural practices 0
1. Contour bunding
2. Terracing
3. Construction of earthern embankment
4. Construction of check dams
5. Construction of farm ponds
6. Construction of diversion
7. Gully controlling structure
1. Rock dam
2. Establishment of permanent grass and vegetation
8. Providing vegetative and stone barriers
9. Construction of silt tanks dentension
Influence of soil conservation measures and vegetation cover on erosion, Runoff and Nutrient loss.

      
Rainwater harvesting is the main component of watershed management. Some of the watershed management structures are as follows.

Watershed Management - Overview

What is a Watershed?

Every body of water (e.g., rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, and estuaries) has a watershed. The watershed is the area of land that drains or sheds water into a specific receiving waterbody, such as a lake or a river. As rainwater or melted snow runs downhill in the watershed, it collects and transports sediment and other materials and deposits them into the receiving waterbody.

What is Watershed Management?

Watershed management is a term used to describe the process of implementing land use practices and water management practices to protect and improve the quality of the water and other natural resources within a watershed by managing the use of those land and water resources in a comprehensive manner.

What is Watershed Management Planning?

Watershed management planning is a process that results in a plan or a blueprint of how to best protect and improve the water quality and other natural resources in a watershed. Very often, watershed boundaries extend over political boundaries into adjacent municipalities and/or states. That is why a comprehensive planning process that involves all affected municipalities located in the watershed is essential to successful watershed management.

Why is watershed management important?

Runoff from rainwater or snowmelt can contribute significant amounts of pollution into the lake or river. Watershed management helps to control pollution of the water and other natural resources in the watershed by identifying the different kinds of pollution present in the watershed and how those pollutants are transported, and recommending ways to reduce or eliminate those pollution sources.

All activities that occur within a watershed will somehow affect that watershed’s natural resources and water quality. New land development, runoff from already-developed areas, agricultural activities, and household activities such as gardening/lawn care, septic system use/maintenance, water diversion and car maintenance all can affect the quality of the resources within a watershed. Watershed management planning comprehensively identifies those activities that affect the health of the watershed and makes recommendations to properly address them so that adverse impacts from pollution are reduced.

Watershed management is also important because the planning process results in a partnership among all affected parties in the watershed. That partnership is essential to the successful management of the land and water resources in the watershed since all partners have a stake in the health of the watershed. It is also an efficient way to prioritize the implementation of watershed management plans in times when resources may be limited.

Because watershed boundaries do not coincide with political boundaries, the actions of adjacent municipalities upstream can have as much of an impact on the downstream municipality’s land and water resources as those actions carried out locally. Impacts from upstream sources can sometimes undermine the efforts of downstream municipalities to control pollution. Comprehensive planning for the resources within the entire watershed, with participation and commitment from all municipalities in the watershed, is critical to protecting the health of the watershed’s resources.

What are some key steps in watershed management?

Comprehensive watershed plans should first identify the characteristics of the watershed and inventory the watershed’s natural resources. It is important to establish a baseline of the overall nature and quality of the watershed in order to plan properly for the improvement of the resources in the watershed and to actually measure those improvements.

The first steps in watershed management planning are to:

• Delineate and map the watershed’s boundaries and the smaller drainage basins within the watershed;
• Inventory and map the resources in the watershed;
• Inventory and map the natural and manmade drainage systems in the watershed;
• Inventory and map land use and land cover;
• Inventory and map soils;
• Identify areas of erosion, including stream banks and construction sites;
• Identify the quality of water resources in the watershed as a baseline; and
• Inventory and map pollution sources, both point sources (such as industrial discharge pipes) and nonpoint sources (such as municipal stormwater systems, failing septic systems, illicit discharges).
• Build Local Partnerships

Watershed planning should also identify and include the partners, or "stakeholders," in the watershed. Development of local partnerships can also lead to greater awareness and support from the general public. Once individuals become aware of and interested in their watershed, they often become more involved in decision-making as well as hands-on protection and restoration efforts. Through such involvement, watershed management builds a sense of community, helps reduce conflicts, increases commitment to the actions necessary to meet environmental goals, and ultimately, improves the likelihood of success for the watershed management plan.

Watershed management planning should also determine what the opportunities are to reduce pollution or address other pressing environmental issues, prioritize those opportunities, and identify a time frame for accomplishing pollution reduction and resource and habitat improvements. Those issues that pose the greatest risk to human health or particular resources, or to desired uses of resources (i.e., swimming beaches), might be given highest priority for control and reduction. Watershed plans should establish clear goals, visions, and actions to be taken.

Some useful links

http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/105101010/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9ceizbuFT7I

http://www.isprs.org/caravan/documents/Watershed_Lao.pdf

Environment and Health - access to safe water

• The adult human body is about 50 to 65 percent water. A child’s body is approximately 75 percent water. The human brain is about 75 percent water.
• While the human body can live for weeks without food, it can only survive a few days without water.
• 220 million urban residents in the developing world lack a source of safe drinking water near their homes.
• Ninety percent of urban sewage in the developing world is discharged into rivers, lakes, and coastal water ways without any treatment.
• Agriculture consumes 60 to 80 percent of the fresh water resources in most countries, and as much as 90 percent in others.

Access to Safe Water

Access to safe water is measured by the number of people who have a reasonable means of getting an adequate amount of water that is safe for drinking, washing, and essential household activities, expressed as a percentage of the total population. It reflects the health of a country’s people and the country’s capacity to collect, clean, and distribute water to consumers.

Water is essential for life, yet in 1995, more than one billion people in low and middle-income countries and an additional 50 million people in high-income countries—lacked access to safe water for drinking, personal hygiene and domestic use. Close to 2 billion people did not have access to adequate sanitation facilities.

What is "safe" water and why is it important?

Safe water includes treated surface water, as well as untreated but uncontaminated water from sources such as natural springs and sanitary wells. On average, a person needs about 20 liters of safe water each day to meet his or her metabolic, hygienic, and domestic needs. Without safe water, people cannot lead healthy, productive lives. For example, an estimated 900 million people suffer—and approximately 2 million die—from water-related diarrheal illnesses each year. Most, but not all, of these people live in low- and middle-income countries, and those at greatest risk are children and the elderly. Millions more people worldwide suffer from other water-related diseases, such as bilharzia, cholera, elephantiasis, and hookworm.

Improvements in water supply and sanitation tend to lead to improvements in people’s health and the quality of their lives. Throughout history, when people have had an adequate supply of safe water and have been able to practice good hygiene, they have been healthier and have had a better chance of living longer.

Access to safe water is critical to economies and ecosystems, too, and a scarcity of safe water can directly affect long-term prospects for sustainable development. Without an adequate water supply, factories that depend on water may have to close temporarily; crop yields may decline; sick workers may be unproductive; fisheries may be destroyed. The destruction of aquatic life not only cuts into the economy, but also damages the ecosystem. In addition, lack of a reliable system of piped water can prompt people to sink their own wells and deplete the fresh water supply. Air quality can also be affected by shortages of safe water. When people boil household water to kill dangerous bacteria, the fuel they burn can pollute the air. And when they use wood or charcoal as their source of fuel, forests can be destroyed causing additional environmental problems, including erosion and loss of top soil.

Safe water is becoming scarce

Aside from the fact that some regions of the world are naturally arid, the increasing, often competing demands for water are cutting into the global supply. Many rivers and watersheds are polluted by industrial, agricultural, and human waste products, while others are drying up because people are using the water faster than nature can replenish it. In areas with heavy rainfall or irrigation systems, people may waste water because it seems plentiful or cheap, ignoring how much it costs to treat the water after it is used.

Getting water is more difficult—and often more expensive—for the poorest people. In rural areas of developing countries, many women and children spend hours in extreme cases up to six to eight hours each day hauling water from rivers or wells. In cities, the poor often do not have water piped to their property; instead, they must buy or take water from other sources. People buying water from other sources may have to pay three to ten times what piped water costs in an area.

Moreover, the rapid growth of cities throughout the world can strain the capacity of governments to provide adequate sanitary facilities, leaving inhabitants, especially the poor, to live amid unhealthy open sewage ditches. Untreated sewage also tends to contaminate the water reserves closest to the cities, forcing communities to pipe water from further and further away as cities expand.

Industrial countries also are increasingly concerned about water quality and availability. Although these countries have stronger economies and greater capacity to collect, clean, and deliver water to citizens, per capita water consumption can be high as people wash cars, water lawns, and turn deserts into farmland, towns, and cities. They spend enormous amounts of money cleaning up water polluted by industrial waste, energy production, agriculture, and households.

The realities of supply and demand

Ensuring that people have an adequate supply of safe water involves an often complex mixture of social, economic, and environmental issues. In recent years, people, industries, farmers, and governments have begun to acknowledge that water is an economic good, not a "free" limitless resource. And as an economic good, there is a wide range in the quality and level of water delivery and sanitation services that people want and are willing to pay for.

Experience from around the globe shows that when people, even the poorest, have a choice in the quality of their water supply and sanitation services, they often are willing to pay a higher price to get higher quality. For example, people who are unwilling to pay for operating and maintaining low quality handpumps and pit latrines may be willing to pay more to get a basic system of piped water and sewers that works fairly and efficiently.

On the other hand, households and industries are not always willing to pay for higher quality services if they feel that what they are receiving is already good enough. For example,some coastal communities in the United States have refused to pay for what they perceive to be unnecessary and expensive sewage treatment even though it is required by federal law for environmental protection. In the end, it appears that when members of a community—households, factories, farmers, and businesses, together with scientists and policy makers—all participate in making decisions about the most feasible system of supplying safe water and sanitation, everyone tends to be more satisfied with the quality and price of these services.

Access to Safe Water Highlights

• More than one billion people lack access to safe water. Close to two billion people lack access to sanitation. Most of these people live in low- and middle- income countries.
• Each year, nearly a billion people suffer from diarrheal illnesses caused by unsafe water. Millions more suffer from other water-related diseases. Poor people, especially the very young and the elderly, tend to be the most at risk.
• Safe water is scarce because it is often undervalued and used inefficiently.
• As a country’s economy becomes stronger—as its GNP per capita rises—a larger percentage of its people tend to have access to safe water and sanitation.
• Thoughtful decisionmaking by all user groups generally leads to improvements in the supply of safe water for all people at affordable prices.

Population Growth and Implications

• In low-income countries more than a third of the population is under age 15, while in high-income countries less than a fifth is.
• The world’s population is growing by 200,000 people a day.
• Between 1980 and 2030, the population of low- and middle-income countries will more than double -- to 7.0 billion, compared with 1 billion for high-income countries.
• In the next 35 years, 2.5 billion people will be added to the current population of 6 billion.

Population Growth Rate

Population growth rate (PGR) is the increase in a country’s population during a period of time, usually one year, expressed as a percentage of the population at the start of that period. It reflects the number of births and deaths during the period and the number of people migrating to and from a country.

Between 1980 and 2000 total world population grew from 4.4 billion to 6 billion. By 2015, at least another billion people will be added for a total of more than 7 billion. Most of this growth has been, and will continue to be, in the developing world. In 1998, 85 percent of the world’s people—more than 4 out of 5—lived in low- and middle-income countries; by 2015, it will be 6 out of 7.

Global trends in population growth rates

Death and birth rates have declined over the past several decades. People are living longer in both industrial and developing countries because of increased access to immunization, primary health care, and disease eradication programs. Many parents are realizing that as health conditions improve, more of their children are likely to survive, so they are choosing to have fewer babies. Increased access to family planning is helping parents control the number and spacing of their children. In addition, with greater access to education and jobs, more women are starting their families later and are having fewer, healthier children.

Due to the slowing of birth rates, population growth rates have started to decline in the many countries, although they still remain high in some countries because birth rates have not fallen as rapidly as death rates. Population growth rate still tends to be higher in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. Even as the population growth rate has been decreasing in these countries, the number of people added to the population each year has been increasing because the population base has become larger.

Population momentum

The lack of balance between birth and death rates is particularly pronounced in many developing countries experiencing population momentum. This phenomenon occurs when a large proportion of a country’s population is of childbearing age. Even if the fertility rate of people in developing countries reaches replacement level, that is if couples have only enough children to replace themselves when they die, for several decades the absolute numbers of people being born still will exceed the numbers of people dying.

There is a large difference in low-income countries between the percentage of people of child-bearing age and more elderly adults. Once this young group moves beyond child-bearing age, however, the momentum will decrease, and population can begin to stabilize so that births and deaths balance (assuming fertility rates remain at or below replacement levels). The reverse is true in many high-income countries where birth rates have already been low for several decades and populations have either stabilized or in some cases begun to decline.

How does the age of its population affect a country?

In low-income countries more than a third of the population is under age 15, compared with less than a fifth in high-income countries. This means that a larger portion of the low-income countries’ population is too young to work and, in the short run, is dependent upon those who can.

But the transition to lower population growth rates can pose problems, too. As growth slows, the average age of the population rises and eventually the proportion of elderly, nonworking people will increase. This puts great pressure on the working-age population and on a country’s pension, health care, and social security systems. This is an issue facing some high-income countries today and one that may face developing countries in the future as their population growth rates continue to decline.

People in motion

International migration has important social, economic and political significance. This is as true for countries that lose citizens to immigration as it is for the countries in which immigrants make their new homes. Although attention is often given to the numbers of people migrating from developing to industrial countries, most migration in the world today occurs between developing countries.

Urbanization is also significant. The rapid growth of cities in developing countries is nearly universal. Whereas less than 22 percent of the developing world’s population was urban in 1960, by 1990 it had increased to 34 percent. By 2015 it is expected to reach 48 percent.

The movement of people from rural to urban areas can result in greater production of goods and services, but it can also create congestion, pollution, and a greater demand for housing, clean water, sanitation facilities, recreation areas, public transport, health care and education. When rapid migration to cities strains the capacities of governments to provide these necessary services, the result may be a lower standard of living for everyone.

Population growth, the economy, and the environment

Rapid population growth rates can make it difficult for countries to raise standards of living and protect the environment because the more people there are, the greater the need for food, health care, education, houses, land, jobs, and energy. Adding more people to a country’s population means that the wealth must be distributed among more people, causing GNP per capita to decrease at least in the short term.

Responding to the needs of a rapidly growing population can challenge a country’s ability to manage its natural resources on a sustainable basis. For example, people may not be able to get access to safe water because more and more households, farms and factories are using increasing amounts of water. Deforestation may occur as trees are cut to provide fuel for cooking, building materials, or land for grazing and agriculture. Desertifcication may occur as land that has been intensively farmed becomes depleted of its nutrients or eroded when trees whose roots systems once anchored the soil are gone. The air may become polluted as people crowd into cities, the number of cars increases, people use more and more energy, and economies continue to industrialize.

Strategies for change: Affecting population growth rates

Parents tend to have larger families when they fear that many of their babies may die, when they need laborers to work on the family farm or business, when they want to ensure that they themselves will be cared for in their old age, and when they lack access to education and to family planning if they want it.

Experience shows that three of the most successful strategies to reduce fertility rates are to ensure that people 1) have greater access to primary health care and family planning services, 2) receive a basic education, especially girls and women, and 3) have government services that help protect them when they are sick, old or unemployed.

Population Growth Rate Highlights

Population growth rates are much higher in most low- and middle-income countries than in most high-income countries.

Population growth rates have declined in low- and middle-income countries over the past few decades but remain high because birth rates have not fallen as rapidly as death rates.

There will be more than 1 billion more people in the world in 2015 than there were in 2000 (as population grows from about 6 billion to 7.1 billion), and six out of seven of these people will live in low- and middle-income countries.

Although the population growth rate for developing countries has been decreasing for several decades, the number of people added to the population each year has been increasing because the population base has become larger.

Countries that have a large proportion of their population in their childbearing years often experiencepopulation momentum. Even if couples have only enough children to replace themselves when they die, the population will continue to grow and will not stabilize until the younger group ages beyond their childbearing years.

Birth rates tend to fall when parents have access to family planning, health care, education and jobs.

Population growth can make it more difficult to raise standards of living in some countries and can put pressure on the environment.

Two of the most successful strategies for reducing fertility rates are providing greater access to primary health care and promoting education for girls and women.

Population Growth and GNP

• Of the world’s 6 billion people, more than 1.2 billion live on less than $1 a day. 
• Two billion more people are only marginally better off.
• About 60 percent of the people living on less than $1 a day live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
• In high-income countries, farmers—men and women—make up less than 6 percent of the workforce, while in low- and middle-income countries combined, they represent nearly 60 percent of all workers.
• Developing countries account for almost $1 out of every $4 that industrial countries earn from their exports.

GNP per Capita

Gross national product (GNP) per capita is the dollar value of a country’s final output of goods and services in a year, divided by its population. It reflects the average income of a country’s citizens. Countries with a GNP per capita in 1998 of $9,361 or more are described as high income, between $761 and $9,360 as middle income, and $760 or less as low income.

What GNP per capita shows

GNP per capita shows what part of a country’s GNP each person would have if this GNP were divided equally. Knowing a country’s GNP per capita is a good first step toward understanding the country’s economic strengths and needs, as well as the general standard of living enjoyed by the average citizen. A country’s GNP per capita tends to be closely linked with other indicators that measure the social, economic, and environmental well-being of the country and its people. For example, generally people living in countries with higher GNP per capita tend to have longer life expectancies, higher literacy rates, better access to safe water, and lower infant mortality rates.

Economic productivity and growth

Low and middle income countries produce about 20 percent of the world’s goods and services, but have more than 80 percent of the world’s population. This trend results in people in low and middle income countries having a smaller share of the world’s goods and services than people in high-income countries.

A general objective of nations is to increase the size of their economies and hence their GNP per capita. Economic growth depends on people — both men and women having better health, education, and work skills. It also depends on improving transportation, communication, and energy systems; having better tools and technology; having access to raw materials and capital; getting fair wages and prices for goods and services; encouraging savings and investment; increasing the value and variety of exports; and having better access to world markets to sell these exports.

Effects of population growth rate on GNP per capita

Between 1980 and 1998, GNP grew moderately in many low-income countries, although in some cases—most notably China—growth was substantial. However, in many developing countries, economic growth is often counteracted by rapid population growth. Between 1980–1998, GNP per capita has tended to grow at a slower rate in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.

Many countries are trying to slow their population growth in order to raise standards of living. In general, countries that have managed to increase their GNP per capita have tended to contain population growth while following sensible economic policies that can encourage stability and increases in both human and physical capital.

What GNP per capita does not show

GNP per capita helps measure the material output of a country, but it does not show what kinds of goods and services the country produces, whether all people share equally in the wealth of a country, or whether these people lead fulfilling lives.

Despite large differences in the GNP per capita of high, middle, and low-income countries, the trend across all countries is for the richest 20 percent of the population to earn incomes that are many times higher than the poorest 20 percent. To get a better picture of the standard of living in a country, you must go beyond GNP per capita to see how equitably income is distributed among all the people. Chart 3 depicts distribution patterns typical of low, middle, and high-income countries around the world.

GNP does not always capture activity in the informal economy (The exchange of goods and services not accurately recorded in government figures and accounting. The informal economy, which is generally untaxed, commonly includes goods and services including day care, tutoring, or black market exchanges), such as unreported cash payments for goods and services, bartering, or black market trading. The informal sector can generate a lot of income that never shows up in standard economic indicators. Many countries are encouraging programs that help people in the informal sector get loans and business training, with the goal that they eventually become part of the formal economy. 

Going beyond GNP per capita helps reveal other important development issues. For example, GNP per capita is given in dollars, but a dollar may buy more in one country than in another. To compare the actual purchasing power of per capita incomes across countries,i.e.,purchasing power parity (PPP)[A method of measuring the relative purchasing power of different countries’ currencies over the same types of goods and services. Because goods and services may cost more in one country than in another, PPP allows us to make more accurate comparisons of standards of living across countries. PPP estimates use price comparisons of comparable items but since not all items can be matched exactly across countries and time, the estimates are not always “robust.”]. Another issue is that GNP per capita does not recognize the costs of depleting natural resources and damaging the environment. The concept of natural resource accounting, although still being developed, strives to measure and allow for these costs.[Natural resource accounting. The process of adjusting national accounts such as GNP to reflect the environmental costs of economic production. Although methods are still being developed, natural resource accounting strives to determine the costs of depleting natural resources and damaging the environment.]

Sustainable Development in India

http://www.moef.nic.in/divisions/ic/wssd/doc4/consul_book_persp.pdf

Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development is often an over-used word, but goes to the heart of tackling a number of inter-related global issues such as poverty, inequality, hunger and environmental degradation. In theory, development that is sustainable and not damaging to the planet is very possible. Of course though, in reality there are a lot of politics and challenges are involved.

There are many definitions of sustainable development, including this landmark one which first appeared in 1987:

"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

— from the World Commission on Environment and Development’s (the Brundtland Commission) report Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Agenda 21

Agenda 21 is a non-binding, voluntarily implemented action plan of the United Nations with regard to sustainable development. It is a product of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is an action agenda for the UN, other multilateral organizations, and individual governments around the world that can be executed at local, national, and global levels. The "21" in Agenda 21 refers to the 21st century. It has been affirmed and modified at subsequent UN conferences.

People concerned about sustainable development suggest that meeting the needs of the future depends on how well we balance social, economic, and environmental objectives or needs when making decisions today. 

Many of these objectives may seem to conflict with each other in the short term. For example, industrial growth might conflict with preserving natural resources. Yet, in the long term, responsible use of natural resources now will help ensure that there are resources available for sustained industrial growth far into the future.

Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges faced by humanity. As early as the 1970s, "sustainability" was employed to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems." Ecologists have pointed to The Limits to Growth, and presented the alternative of a "steady state economy" in order to address environmental concerns.

The concept of sustainable development has in the past most often been broken out into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability. More recently, it has been suggested that a more consistent analytical breakdown is to distinguish four domains of economic, ecological, political and cultural sustainability. 

The goal of sustainable development is to improve living standards and the quality of people’s lives, both now and for future generations. 

Social issues are an important piece of the development.

The need for social services is universal

All people in a society must have access to certain basic goods and services in order to lead healthy, fulfilling and productive lives. Education and training must be available, so that everyone has the chance to earn a decent living and learn new skills. Girls must have the same opportunity as boys to go to school or to get jobs. Women must have access to basic family planning services and adequate health care and nutrition for themselves and their children. The elderly must receive the medical care, social security and pensions they need to support themselves as they grow older. Ensuring fair access to basic services is an essential task of governments around the world.

Local issues/global issues

Social concerns in one country can have impacts that reach beyond national borders. For example, unequal access to education or lack of job opportunities can lead people to migrate. This may cause profound changes in the country they leave, as it adjusts to the loss of certain groups. And the countries in which immigrants settle may face the challenges of increasing demands on educational and health care systems, as well as of integrating diverse groups into society. Increasingly, the social concerns of one country may affect other countries around the world.

Linking social sector issues with the economic and the environmental sectors

Social sector issues are closely linked to economic issues such as poverty. In any society, it is the poor who are least likely to receive adequate health care, education, and family planning services. Higher birth rates may result, making it difficult for these families to meet their basic needs and break out of the cycle of poverty. Social issues are also linked with environmental concerns. In many countries, contaminated water and polluted air are responsible for an increase in water-borne diseases and respiratory problems, all of which place an extra burden on local health care systems.

It is only when information about social conditions is combined with economic and environmental data that the full impact of development decisions on the quality of life can be understood. In order for countries to meet the needs of their people now and in the long term, governments must develop policies that balance social needs with both economic growth and environmental protection.

Social indicators

One way of measuring a country's level of development is to look at social data such as the population growth rate, which measures the increase in a country’s population and reflects the number of births and deaths and people migrating into and out of the country. 

Economic Sector

The goal of sustainable development is to improve living standards and the quality of people’s lives, both now and for future generations. Economic issues are an important piece of the development.

Everyone plays a role in the economy

Economics is a system of deciding how to allocate limited resources that will be used to meet human needs and wants. Whenever we buy, sell, or barter something, we are taking part in the exchange of goods and services that makes up the economy. Examples of such goods and services can vary widely—from food, school buses, books, minerals, and military weapons, to bank loans, factories, electricity, hospitals, hair cuts, clothes, and television programs.

When a country’s economy is healthy, most people can make, buy, or trade for most of the goods and services they need and want. In some countries these goods and services may be available only to relatively few people. In all countries some people may have more than enough, while others may barely survive.

Local issues/global issues

To help their economies continue to grow over time, countries strive to develop economic, social, and environmental goals, policies, and strategies for the short and long term. And since economies around the world are increasingly and inextricably linked through trade, the decisions that one country -- rich or poor -- makes about its economy can affect many other countries. Developing countries may depend on industrial countries to provide goods and services that they lack the technology or resources to produce. But industrial nations also depend on developing countries, who purchase one-quarter of the goods and services they export.

Linking the economy with environmental and social sectors

Economic issues are closely linked to environmental concerns. The economy depends on the sustainable use of renewable resources. Overuse of these resources for short-term gain may undercut a country’s long-term economic future.

Economic issues are also linked with social concerns. For example, inadequate investment in education and training of workers limits the potential for economic growth. And rapid population growth may limit the economic system’s ability to meet people’s basic needs and provide jobs for everyone who wants to work.

It is only when information about the economy is combined with social and environmental data that the full impact of development decisions on the quality of life can be understood.

Economic indicators

One way to measure a country’s level of development is to look at economic data such as the dollar amount of the country’s gross national product (GNP) per capita. GNP per capita helps measure the material output of a country, but it does not show what is produced, whether all people share equally in the wealth of the country, or whether they lead fulfilling lives.

Environmental Sector

The goal of sustainable development is to improve living standards and the quality of people’s lives, both now and for future generations. Environmental issues are an important piece of the development.

Environmental issues affect everyone

Industrial and developing countries alike share environmental concerns. Both must strive to ensure that citizens in both cities and rural areas have clean air to breathe, safe drinking water, and adequate supplies of clean renewable energy. Agriculture and industry must make efficient and responsible use of the natural resources, like, land, soil, forests, rivers, oceans, mineral deposits, upon which they rely.

Local issues/global issues

Some environmental issues are highly localized, but many others cross national borders. Industrial and human waste dumped into a river by one country may affect the health and livelihoods of citizens in another country hundreds of miles downstream. Ozone-depleting gases cause changes in the earth’s atmosphere that may result in rising cancer rates and lower crop yields in countries around the world. As global interdependence increases, solving environmental problems requires greater cooperation and coordination between nations regionally and worldwide.

Linking the environment with the economic and social sectors.

Environmental concerns are inextricably linked to economic issues such as poverty. People living in poverty may damage the environment as they struggle simply to survive, cutting down trees for fuel wood, exhausting crop land, and contaminating urban water supplies with waste they cannot afford to treat.

Environmental concerns are also linked with social issues such as population growth. A rapidly growing population places strains on a country’s natural resources, as well as on its ability to provide housing, health care, education, safe water, and sanitation for all.

It is only when information about the environment is combined with social and economic data that citizens and decision makers can understand the full impact of development decisions on the quality of life. The challenge for governments is to create development strategies that incorporate values of environmental sustainability, while increasing economic growth and providing adequate social services.

Environmental indicators

One way of measuring a country’s level of development is to look at environmental data such as access to safe water, which measures the percentage people who can get all the safe water they need to lead healthy lives. 

Green Raw Materials

http://www.plasticseurope.org/


http://plastics.sabic.eu/publications/_media/a_to_z_of_pe___uk.pdf


http://www.mnn.com/your-home/remodeling-design/stories/10-materials-that-might-replace-wood-one-day