module 2 POPULATION

Population Explosion
•The rapid and dramatic rise in world population that has occurred over the last few hundred years. The world's population increased from 1.65 billion in 1900 to 3.02 billion in 1960. The United Nations estimated that the population reached 6 billion in late 1999. Thus, the size of the population nearly quadrupled in the span of 100 years, a historically unprecedented rate of increase.

Population growth
Population in itself is NOT the problem. The problem is fast rate of growth of people which is giving rise to overpopulation.
Overpopulation refers to when an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the earth.
Overpopulation is not simply a function of the size or density of the population. Overpopulation can be determined using the ratio of population to available sustainable resources. If a given environment has a population of ten, but there is food or drinking water enough for only nine, then that environment is overpopulated.

How to set equlibrium between population & environment ?

INTRODUCTION

Overpopulation has had a major impact on the environment of Earth starting at least as early as the 20th century. Many posit that the human population has expanded, enabled by over-exploiting natural resources, with resultant adverse impacts upon biodiversity, aquifer sustainability, climate change and even human health. There are also indirect economic consequences of this environmental degradation in the form of ecosystem services attrition.

STEPS FOR SETTING EQUILIBRIUM

• Toward a livable future
  How people preserve or abuse the environment could largely determine whether living standards improve or deteriorate. Growing human numbers, urban expansion, and resource exploitation do not bode well for the future. Without practicing sustainable development, humanity faces a deteriorating environment and may even invite ecological disaster.
  


• Taking action:

Many steps toward sustainability can be taken today. These include: using energy more efficiently, managing cities better, phasing out subsidies that encourage waste, [etc.]

• Stabilizing population:

While population growth has slowed, the absolute number of people continues to increase (by about 1 billion every 13 years). Slowing population growth would help improve living standards and would buy time to protect natural resources. In the long run, to sustain higher living standards, world population size must stabilize.

• Slowing population growth

Environmentalists and economists increasingly agree that efforts to protect the environment and to achieve better living standards can be closely linked and are mutually reinforcing. Slowing the increase in population, especially in the face of rising per capita demand for natural resources, can take pressure off the environment and buy time to improve living standards on a sustainable basis.3,8,11,12

• Boost Living Standards

As population growth slows, countries can invest more in education, health care, job creation, and other improvements that help boost living standards.11 In turn, as individual income, savings, and investment rise, more resources become available that can boost productivity. This dynamic process has been identified as one of the key reasons that the economies of many Asian countries grew rapidly between 1960 and 1990.5

• Green development

It is a land use planning concept that includes consideration of community-wide or regional environmental implications of development, as well as site-specific green building concepts. This includes city planning, environmental planning, architecture, and community building

• Conservation & Management of Environment

Environmental sustainability is defined as the ability of the environment to continue to function properly indefinitely. This involves meeting the present needs of humans without endangering the welfare of future generations. The goal of environmental sustainability is to minimize environmental degradation, and to halt and reverse the processes they lead to.

This includes conservation of

Biome •In-situ conservation • Ex-situ conservatiosn

Water management

Natural Resource management

Conservation of atmosphere

Effects of overpopulation
•Inadequate fresh water
•Depletion of natural resources
•Increased levels of air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination and noise pollution

•Deforestation and loss of ecosystems. Changes in atmospheric composition and consequent global warming
•Mass species extinctions
•Poverty.

Remedies of Effects of overpopulation
•Water conservation & management
•Sustainable development
•Pollution control
•Natural & artificial regeneration of forests
•Social Awareness

Poverty & Population
•High infant and child mortality High rates of infant mortality are caused by poverty. Rich countries with high population densities have low rates of infant mortality.
•Increased chance of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics]
•Starvation, malnutrition or poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases (e.g. rickets). Famine is aggravated by coupled with inflation in some regions and a resulting low level poverty. Rich countries with high population densities do not have famine .Poverty of capital formation. Poverty and inflation are aggravated by bad government and bad economic policies. Many countries with high population densities have eliminated absolute poverty and keep their inflation rates very low]
•Low life expectancy in countries with fastest growing populations
•Unhygienic living conditions for many based upon water resource depletion, discharge of raw sewage and solid waste disposal
•Elevated crime rate due to drug cartels and increased theft by people stealing resources to survive
•Conflict over scarce resources and crowding, leading to increased levels of warfare



Family Welfare
Introduction
Welfare of each citizen is the AIM of family welfare Department. It is tried to achieve mainly through saving the lives of mothers and children and improving their health status as well as checking the population growth
India launched the National Family Welfare Programme in 1951 with the objective of "reducing the birth rate to the extent necessary to stabilise the population at a level consistent with the requirement of the National economy. "The Family Welfare Programme in India is recognised as a priority area, and is being implemented as a 100% Centrally sponsored programme. As per Constitution of India, Family Planning is in the Concurrent list. The approach under the programme during the First and Second Five Year Plans was mainly "Clinical" under which facilities for provision of services were created. However, on the basis of data brought out by the 1961 census, clinical approach adopted in the first two plans was replaced by "Extension and Education Approach" which envisaged expansion of services facilities along with spread of message of small family norm.

Implementation of Family Welfare Programme

• Under the Guidance of Secretary & Commissioner (Family Welfare), Commissioner (Health) and Additional Director (Family Welfare) and through primary health care approach Family welfare department is striving to achieve complete welfare of the citizen by organizing and implementing RCH programme through out the state.
•The state Family Welfare department is also carrying out special schemes like Integrated Population Development Project, link couples, rapid referral services, moped loans, National Maternity Benefit Schemes etc. The department is actively working for polio eradication and Intensive Pulse Polio Campaign and surveillance for polio cases are being carried out.



Women & Child Welfare
•The Department of Women and Child Development was set up in the year 1985 as a part of the Ministry of Human Resource Development to give the much needed impetus to the holistic development of women and children. With effect from 30.01.2006, the Department has been upgraded to a Ministry under the independent charge of Smt. Renuka Chowdhury, Minister of State for Women and Child Development.

Mandate
•The broad mandate of the Ministry is to have holistic development of Women and Children. As a nodal Ministry for the advancement of women and children, the Ministry formulates plans, policies and programme; enacts/ amends legislation, guides and coordinates the efforts of both governmental and non-governmental organization working in the field of Women and Child Development. Besides, playing its nodal role, the Ministry implements certain innovative programme for women and children. These programme cover welfare and support services, training for employment and income generation, awareness generation and gender sensitization. These programme play a supplementary and complementary role to the other general developmental programme in the sectors of health, education, rural development etc. All these efforts are directed to ensure that women are empowered both economically and socially and thus become equal partners in national development along with men.

Policy Initiatives
•For the holistic development of the child, the Ministry has been implementing the world's largest and most unique and outreach programme of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) providing a package of services comprising supplementary nutrition, immunization, health check up and referral services, pre-school non-formal education.
• Ministry is also implementing Swayamsidha which is an integrated scheme for empowerment of women. There is effective coordination and monitoring of various sectoral programme. Most of the programmes of the Ministry are run through non-governmental organisations. Efforts are made to have more effective involvement of NGOs. The major policy initiatives undertaken by the Ministry in the recent past include universalisation of ICDS and Kishori Shakti Yojana, launching a nutrition programme for adolescent girls, establishment of the

Disaster Management

•Emergency management (or disaster management) is the discipline of dealing with and avoiding risks. It is a discipline that involves preparing for disaster before it happens, disaster response (e.g. emergency evacuation, quarantine, mass decontamination, etc.), as well as supporting, and rebuilding society after natural or human-made disasters have occurred.
•In general, any Emergency management is the continuous process by which all individuals, groups, and communities manage hazards in an effort to avoid or ameliorate the impact of disasters resulting from the hazards
•Disaster management is a multidisciplinary area in which a wide range of issues that range from forecasting, warning, evacuation, search, and rescue, relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation are included.
It is also multi - sectoral as it involves administrators, scientists, planners, volunteers and communities.

Disaster Mitigation

Disaster Mitigation is any action or measure that either prevents that occurrence of a disaster or reduces the severity of its effects. The concept of Disaster Mitigation has been around for many years, even though the term may not be familiar to everyone. An example of Disaster Mitigation is the use of smoke alarms, sprinkler systems and fire escapes. Disaster Mitigation is an integral part of many data center operations, which routinely create backups of important data. Disaster Mitigation can reduce the effects of many hazards, not just fires

The disaster mitigation involves two categories and four phases each:

•Phases and professional activities - The process of emergency management involves four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery

•Phases and personal activities - The process of emergency management involves four phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery

Phases and professional activities

Mitigation
Mitigation efforts attempt to prevent hazards from developing into disasters altogether, or to reduce the effects of disasters when they occur. The mitigation phase differs from the other phases because it focuses on long-term measures for reducing or eliminating risk
Preparedness
In the preparedness phase, emergency managers develop plans of action for when the disaster strikes. Common preparedness measures include the
•communication plans with easily understandable terminology and chain of command
•development and practice of multi-agency coordination and incident command
•proper maintenance and training of emergency services
•development and exercise of emergency population warning methods combined with emergency shelters and evacuation plans
•stockpiling, inventory, and maintenance of supplies and equipment
Response
• The response phase includes the mobilization of the necessary emergency services and first responders in the disaster area. This is likely to include a first wave of core emergency services, such as firefighters, police and ambulance crews. They may be supported by a number of secondary emergency services, such as specialist rescue teams.
Recovery
•The aim of the recovery phase is to restore the affected area to its previous state. It differs from the response phase in its focus; recovery efforts are concerned with issues and decisions that must be made after immediate needs are addressed. Recovery efforts are primarily concerned with actions that involve rebuilding destroyed property, re-employment, and the repair of other essential infrastructure

Phases and personal activities
Mitigation
•Personal mitigation is mainly about knowing and avoiding unnecessary risks. This includes an assessment of possible risks to personal/family health and to personal property- example of mitigation would be to avoid buying property that is exposed to hazards, e.g. in a flood plain, in areas of subsidence or landslides
Preparedness
•Preparedness measures can take many forms including the construction of shelters, installation of warning devices, creation of back-up life-line services (e.g. power, water, sewage), and rehearsing evacuation plans.
Response
•The response phase of an emergency may commence with search and rescue but in all cases the focus will quickly turn to fulfilling the basic humanitarian needs of the affected population. This assistance may be provided by national or international agencies and organisations
•The recovery phase starts after the immediate threat to human life has subsided. During reconstruction it is recommended to consider the location or construction material of the property.
The most extreme home confinement scenarios include war, famine and severe epidemics and may last a year or more. Then recovery will take place inside the home. Planners for these events usually buy bulk foods and appropriate storage and preparation equipment, and eat the food as part of normal life.

Note •ELEMENTS OF MITIGATING STEP WILL REMAIN SAME FOR ALL THE DISASTERS-(FLOOD,CYCLONE,EARTHQUAKE,ETC )

(WITH ABOVE MENTIONED MITIGATING STEPS MENTION FOLLOWING AS PER REQUIREMENT OF THE QUESTION)

FLOODS

Floods can be caused by natural, ecological or anthropogenic factors, either individually or as a combined result.
Anthropogenic activities, such as deforestation and shifting cultivation, can also contribute to floods.


Some mitigation measures for floods
Structural measures:
1. Prevention of over-bank spilling by the construction of embankments and floodwalls.
2. Improvement of flow conditions in the channel and anti-erosion measures.
3. Improved drainage.
4. Reservoirs for impounding monsoon flows to be released in a regulated manner after the peak flood flow passes.

non-structural measures :
1.Flood forecasting and warning services.
2.Disaster relief, flood fighting and public health measures.
3.Flood insurance.
4.Maintaining wet lands.
5.Flood forecasting and warning services.

Protection measures from damage to building:
-To avoid residing on river banks and slopes on river sides and the sides of gorges.
-To build at least 250 meters away from the sea coast/ river banks.
-To build proper drainage system in all flood prone areas, so that the water can be drained off quickly to prevent accumulation.

Cyclones:
Cyclones pose a major threat to life and property in many parts of the world. Every year these sudden, violent cyclones bring widespread devastation to coastlines and islands lying in their erratic paths.

Protection measures for damage to building
-Site selection
-Platforms and orientation
-Foundations
-Wall openings
-Glass panelling
-Roof architecture