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Environmental planning as a tool for environmental protection - The need and the possibilities
N. Raghu Babu
Environmental Engineer, Central Pollution Control Board, Parivesh Bhawan,
East Arjun Nagar, Delhi - 110 032
Introduction
In the
process of development, the issues confronting today are achieving desired
development for economic or social reasons on one hand and safe guarding the
environment and maintaining good quality living conditions on the other. While
taking up developmental activities, the assimilative capacities of the
environmental components i.e., air, water and land to various pollution are
rarely considered. Also, lack of proper land use control is resulting in poor
land use compatibility. The developmental activities being haphazard and
uncontrolled are leading to over use, congestion, incompatible landuse and poor
living conditions. The problems of environmental pollution are becoming complex
and are creating high risk environment.
Conventionally, the
environmental pollution problems are solved by introducing environmental
management techniques such as control of pollution at source, providing of
sewage treatment facilities etc. However, environmental risks are not being
controlled completely by such solutions. The environmental aspects are to be
induced into each of the developmental activities at the planning stage itself
and are to be well co-ordinated and balanced. Presently, the environmental
aspects are not usually considered while preparing master plans or regional
plans and the process is skewed towards developmental needs. For all
developmental activities, a crucial input is land and depending on the activity
a specific landuse is decided. The environmentally related landuse such as trade
and industry, housing construction, mining etc. are likely to have some impact
on the environment. These land uses need proper planning and integration as some
of the activites have interdependencies auch as industry with tranpsort, housing
etc.
The spatial planning tools can help in sustainable development. In
India, presently spatial planning approach is mostly limited to urban areas only
and the regions are not normally considered for planning purposes and for
attaining balanced development. The present paper details the need for usage of
environmental planning as a tool for environmental protection and the priority
actions needed to be taken.
Environmental Planning - The
Need
Lack of spatial planning:
The country today lacks
integrated spatial planning (national/state/regional/town level). The planning
is mostly limited to urban areas and even in these areas the master plans do not
taken into consideration the environmetnal aspects and the developmental needs
are not well reflected. Also, the master plans are several times are violated.
Lack of planning is leading to unbalanced development thereby forming
uneconomical agglomerations, ecologically degraded areas and over exploitation
of resources. The developmental activities tend to be haphazard and uncontrolled
thus leading to over use, congestion, poor land use compatibility etc.
The planning solutions for achieving balanced and sustainable
development had been demonstrated to a good extent in some of the countries.
Some of the major constraints for introducing integrated spatial planning in
India are:
- In view of the existing social and living conditions, economic interests may
tend to over-ride the environmental aspects;
- Ecosystem are already over-used in some areas;
- Introduction of spatial planning which involves highly complex nature of
planning activities is a daunting task particularly in a large country, like
India;
- Lack of legal framework for spatial planning, dearth of financial resources,
inadequate environmental awareness, shortage of manpower and limitations in
technical competence are among the constraints in integration of environmental
concerns in the development process.
However, spatial planning based
on assessment of existing environmental profiles as well as potential
assimilative capacity could help environmentally acceptable development and
resolve the conflicts which are otherwise confronted with. Planning of
activities based on assessment of local or regional environmental impacts could
be a useful approach for introducing the concept of spatial planning in a
limited manner under Indian conditions.
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