Environmental Management

Description
Environmental Management offers research and opinions on use and conservation of natural resources, protection of habitats and control of hazards, spanning the field of applied ecology without regard to traditional disciplinary boundaries. The journal aims to improve communication, making ideas and results from any field available to practitioners from other backgrounds. Contributions are drawn from biology, botany, climatology, ecology, ecological economics, environmental engineering, fisheries, environmental law, forest sciences, geology, information science, public affairs, zoology and more. As the principal user of nature, humanity is responsible for ensuring that its environmental impacts are benign rather than catastrophic. Environmental Management presents the work of academic researchers and professionals outside universities, including those in business, government, research establishments, and public interest groups, presenting a wide spectrum of viewpoints and approaches. Environmental Management is a purposeful activity with the goal to maintain and improve the state of an environmental resource affected by human activities. It is not, as the phrase suggests, the management of the environment as such, but rather the management of the interaction and impact of human societies on the environment. Environmental Management aims to ensure that ecosystem services are protected and maintained for equitable use by future human generations, and also, maintain ecosystem integrity as an end in itself by taking into consideration ethical, economic, and scientific (ecological) variables. Environmental Management tries to identify the factors that have a stake in the conflicts that may rise between meeting the needs and protecting the resources.

Overview
India is the seventh largest country in the world by geographical area. It has a population of over 1.1 billion people, up to 65% of which are under the age of 30. Over the next five to ten years, India is expected to experience aggressive growth in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 8 to 10% by some estimates. While this growth seems high compared to many countries, India will require a high growth rate to ensure the livelihood of its population. The huge population burden also brings with it a whole spectrum of social issues that have environmental implications. A review of the following statistics from the McKinsey Global Institute published in 2010 illuminates some of Indias challenges and opportunities in the next 20 years.

Environmental Management

Summary
While progress on the environmental front is being made, India still faces some major challenges. Despite highly evolved environmental laws and regulations in some areas, many environmental practices such as regulation of air pollutants using a model seen in western countries are still at a very rudimentary stage in India. Increased environmental regulations will likely become a key area of concern in the near future as an increasingly wealthy citizenry demands more advanced environmental controls and a reduction in exposure to industrial pollutants. Increasing urbanization will further strain the countrys urban infrastructure. Per the McKinsey Global Institute, the infrastructure equivalent of a new Chicago or two new Mumbais will have to be built every year in India for the next 20 years to meet the countrys demands. Another way of looking at the need for expanded infrastructure India will need to add 20-times the capacity of paved roads, metros and subways that were added in the past decade to meet the anticipated urban population rise by 2030. The environmental sector is expected to be at the forefront of Indias evolving story in the coming years.

Significance
Environmental resource management is an issue of increasing concern as reflected in its prevalence in seminal texts influencing global socio-political frameworks.

Scope
Environmental Management can be viewed from a variety of perspectives. Environmental resource management involves the management of all components of the biophysical environment, both living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic). This is due to the interconnected and network of relationships amongst all living species and their habitats. The environment also involves the relationships of the human environment, such as the social, cultural and economic environment with the biophysical environment. The essential aspects of environmental resource management are ethical, economical, social and technological which provide for formulation of principles and help in making decisions. The scientific and technical nature makes environmental resource management profession to operate in a humanistic and rational mode in the world.

Aspects:
Ethical

Environmental Management strategies are intrinsically driven by conceptions of human-nature relationships. Ethical aspects involve the cultural and social issues relating to the environment, and dealing with changes to it. All human activities take place in the context of certain types of relationships between society and the bio-physical world (the rest of nature), and so, there is a great significance in understanding the ethical values of different groups around the world. Broadly speaking, two schools of thought exist in environmental ethics: Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism each influencing a broad spectrum of environmental resource management styles along a continuum. These styles perceive different evidence, imperatives, and problems, and prescribe different solutions, strategies, technologies, roles for economic sectors, culture, governments, and ethics, etc.
1) Anthropocentrism

Anthropocentrism, an inclination to evaluate reality exclusively in terms of human values, is an ethic reflected in the major interpretations of Western religions and the dominant economic paradigms of the industrialised world. Anthropocentrism supports an understanding of nature as existing solely for the benefit of man and as a commodity to be used for the good of humanity and improved human quality of life. Anthropocentric environmental resource management is therefore not the conservation of the environment solely for the environment's sake, but rather the conservation of the environment, and ecosystem structure, for human sake.

2) Ecocentrism

Ecocentrists believe in the intrinsic value of nature while maintaining an understanding that human beings must use and even exploit nature to survive and live. It is this fine ethical line that ecocentrists navigate between fair use and downright abuse. At an extreme end of the ethical scale, ecocentrism includes philosophies such as ecofeminism and deep ecology which evolved as a reaction to the dominant anthropocentric paradigms. In its current form, it is an attempt to synthesize many old and some new philosophical attitudes about the relationship between nature and human activity, with particular emphasis on ethical, social, and spiritual aspects that have been downplayed in the dominant economic worldview.
Economic

The economy functions within, and is dependent upon goods and services provided by natural ecosystems. The role of the environment is recognized in both classical economics and neoclassical economics theories, yet the environment held a spot on the back-burner of economic policies from 1950 1980 due to emphasis from policy makers on economic growth. With the prevalence of environmental problems, many economists embraced the notion that if environmental sustainability must coexist for economic sustainability, then the overall system must be one which permits the identification of an equilibrium between the environment and the economy. As such, economic policy makers began to incorporate the functions of the natural environment or natural capital - particularly as a sink for wastes and for the provision of raw materials and amenities. Debate continues among economists as to how to account for natural capital, specifically whether resources can be replaced through the use of knowledge and technology, or whether the economy is a closed system that cannot be replenished and is finite. Economic models influence environmental resource management in that management policies reflect beliefs about natural capital scarcity if natural capital is believed to be infinite and easily substituted, environmental management would be irrelevant to the economy.

For example, economic paradigms based on neoclassical models of closed economic systems are primarily concerned with resource scarcity, and thus prescribe legalizing the environment as an economic externality for an environmental resource management strategy.This approach has often been termed Command-and-control.Colby has identified trends in the development of economic paradigms, among them, a shift towards more ecological economics since the 1990s. "The pairing of significant uncertainty about the behaviour and response of ecological systems with urgent calls for near-term action constitutes a difficult reality, and a common lament" for many environmental resource managers. Scientific analysis of the environment deals with several dimensions of ecological uncertainty. These include: structural uncertainty resulting from the misidentification, or lack of information pertaining to the relationships between ecological variables; parameter uncertainty referring to uncertainty associated with parameter values that are not known precisely but can be assessed and reported in terms of the likelihoodof experiencing a defined range of outcomes and stochastic uncertainty stemming from chance or unrelated factors. Adaptive management is considered a useful framework through which to deal with situations of high levels of uncertainty though it is not without its detractors. A common scientific concept and impetus behind environmental resource management is carrying capacity. Simply put, carrying capacity refers to the maximum number of organisms a particular resource can sustain. The concept of carrying capacity, whilst understood by many cultures over history, has its roots in Malthusian theory. An example is visible in the EU Water Framework Directive. However, "it is argued that Western scientific knowledge ... is often insufficient to deal with the full complexity of the interplay of variables in environmental resource management. These concerns have been recently addressed by a shift in environmental resource management approaches to incorporate different knowledge systems including traditional knowledge, reflected in approaches such as adaptive co-management community-based natural resource management and transitions management.

Sustainability
Sustainability and environmental resource management involves managing economic, social, and ecological systems within and external to an organizational entity in order for it to sustain itself and the system it exists within. In context, sustainability implies that rather than competing for endless growth on a finite planet, development will improve quality of life without necessarily having to consume more resources. In order to sustainably manage the state of environmental resources affected by human activities organizational change is needed to instill sustainability values within an organization, in order to portray these values outwardly from all levels and to reinforce them in its surrounding stakeholder community.The end result should be a symbiotic relationship between the sustaining organization and community, along with the environment.

There are many drivers that compel environmental resource management to take sustainability issues into account. Todays economic paradigms do not protect the natural environment, yet they deepen human dependency on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Ecologically, massive environmental degradation and climate change threaten the stability of ecological systems that humanity depends on. Socially, an increasing gap between rich and poor and the global North-South divide denies many access to basic human needs, rights, and education, leading to further environmental destruction. The planets unstable condition is caused by many anthropogenic sources. As an exceptionally powerful contributing factor to social and environmental change, the modern organisation has the potential to apply environmental resource management with sustainability principals to achieve highly affective outcomes. To achieve sustainable development with environmental resource management an organisation should coincide with sustainability principals, such as: social and environmental accountability, long-term planning; a strong, shared vision; a holistic focus; devolved and consensus decision making; broad stakeholder engagement and justice; transparency measures; trust; and flexibility etc.
Current paradigm shifts

In order to adjust to todays environment of quick social and ecological changes some organizations have begun to experiment with various new tools and concepts. Those which are more traditional and stick to hierarchal decision making are having difficulty dealing with the demand for lateral decision making that supports affective participation.[38] Whether it be a matter of ethics or just strategic advantage organizations are internalizing sustainability principles. Examples of some of the worlds largest and most profitable corporations who are shifting to sustainable environmental resource management are: Ford, Toyota, BMW, Honda, Shell, Du Pont, Swiss Re, Hewlett-Packard, and Unilever. It is important to note that though sustainability of environmental resource management has improved, corporate sustainability, for one, has yet to reach the majority of global companies operating in the markets. The three major barriers to preventing organizations to shift towards sustainable practice with environmental resource management are: not understanding what sustainability is; having difficulty modeling an economically viable case for the switch; and having a flawed execution plan, or a lack there of. Therefore the most important part of shifting an organization to adopt sustainability in environmental resource management would be to create a shared vision and understanding of what sustainability is for that particular organization, and to clarify the business case.

Stakeholders:
1)Public sector

The public sector comprises the general government sector plus all public corporations including the central bank.[41] In environmental resource management the public sector is responsible for administering natural resource management and implementing environmental protection legislation. The traditional role of the public sector in environmental resource management is to provide professional judgment through skilled technicians on behalf of the public. With the increase of intractable environmental problems, the public sector has been led to examine alternative paradigms for managing environmental resources. This has resulted in the public sector working collaboratively with other sectors (including other governments, private and civil) to encourage sustainable natural resource management behaviors.
Private sector

The private sector comprises private corporations and non-profit institutions serving households. The private sectors traditional role in environmental resource management is that of the recovers of natural resources.Such private sector recovery groups include mining (minerals and petroleum), forestry and fishery organisations. Environmental resource management undertaken by the private sectors varies dependent upon the resource type, that being renewable or non-renewable and private and common resources.
Civil society

Civil society comprises associations in which societies voluntarily organise themselves into and which represent a wide range of interests and ties.These can include community-based organisations, indigenous peoples organisations and non-government organisations (NGO). Functioning through strong public pressure, civil society can exercise their legal rights against the implementation of resource management plans, particularly land management plans. The aim of civil society in environmental resource management is to be included in the decisionmaking process by means of participation. Public participation can be an effective strategy to invoke a sense of social responsibility of natural resources.

Tools
As with all management functions, effective management tools, standards and systems are required. An environmental management standard or system or protocol attempts to reduce environmental impact as measured by some objective criteria. The ISO 14001 standard is the most widely used standard for environmental risk management and is closely aligned to the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). As a common auditing standard, the ISO 19011 standard explains how to combine this with quality management. Other environmental management systems (EMS) tend to be based on the ISO 14001 standard and many extend it in various ways:

The Natural Step focuses on basic sustainability criteria and helps focus engineering on reducing use of materials or energy use that is unsustainable in the long term, Natural Capitalism advises using accounting reform and a general biomimicry and industrial ecology approach to do the same thing, US Environmental Protection Agency has many further terms and standards that it defines as appropriate to large-scale EMS The UN and World Bank has encouraged adopting a "natural capital" measurement and management framework, The European Union Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS).

Environmental Pyramid

Other strategies exist that rely on making simple distinctions rather than building top-down management "systems" using performance audits and full cost accounting. For instance, Ecological Intelligent Design divides products into consumables, service products or durables and unsalable - toxic products that no one should buy, or in many cases, do not realize they are buying. By eliminating the unsalable from the comprehensive outcome of any purchase, better environmental resource management is achieved without "systems". Recent successful cases have put forward the notion of "Integrated Management". It shares a wider approach and stresses out the importance of interdisciplinary assessment. It is an interesting notion that might not be adaptable to all cases. Environmental Management issues:

Air pollution, poor management of waste, growing water scarcity, falling groundwater tables, water pollution, preservation and quality of forests, biodiversity loss, and land/soil degradation are some of the major environmental issues India faces today. India's population growth adds pressure to environmental issues and its resources.
Population growth and environmental quality

Public dumping of rubbish alongside a road

There is a long history of study and debate about the interactions between population growth and the environment. According to the British thinker Malthus, for example, a growing population exerts pressure on agricultural land, causing environmental degradation, and forcing the cultivation of land of poorer and poorer quality. This environmental degradation ultimately reduces agricultural yields and food availability, causes famines and diseases and death, thereby reducing the rate of population growth Population growth, because it can place increased pressure on the assimilative capacity of the environment, is also seen as a major cause of air, water, and solid-waste pollution. The result, Malthus theorized, is an equilibrium population that enjoys low levels of both income and environmental quality. Malthus suggested positive and preventative forced control of human population, along with abolition of poor laws.

Pollution
Water pollution

The Taj Mahal next to the polluted Yamuna river.

India is recognized as has having major issues with water pollution, predominately due to untreated sewerage. Rivers such as the Ganges, the Yamuna and Mithi Rivers, all flowing through highly populated areas, are all heavily polluted. Water supply and sanitation continue to be inadequate, despite long-standing efforts by the various levels of government and communities at improving coverage.
Air pollution

A rural stove using biomass cakes, fuelwood and trash as cooking fuel. Surveys suggest over 100 million households in India use such stoves (chullahs) every day, 2-3 times a day. It is a major source of air pollution in India, and produces smoke and numerous indoor air pollutants at concentrations 5 times higher than coal.

Air pollution in India is a serious issue with the major sources being fuelwood and biomass burning, fuel adulteration, vehicle emission and traffic congestion. India is the world's largest consumer of fuelwood, agricultural waste and biomass for energy purposes. Traditional fuel (fuelwood, crop residue and dung cake) dominates domestic energy use in rural India and accounts for about 90% of the total. In urban areas, this traditional fuel constitutes about 24% of the total. Fuel wood, agri waste and biomass cake burning releases over 165 million tonnes of combustion products into India's indoor and outdoor air every year. Vehicle emissions are another source of air pollution. Vehicle emissions are worsened by fuel adulteration and poor fuel combustion efficiencies from traffic congestion and low density of quality, high speed road network per 1000 people.
Solid waste pollution

Trash and garbage disposal services, responsibility of local government workers in India, are ineffective. Solid waste is routinely seen along India's streets and shopping plazas

Trash and garbage is a common sight in urban and rural areas of India. It is a major source of pollution. Indian cities alone generate more than 100 million tons of solid waste a year. Street corners are piled with trash. Public places and sidewalks are despoiled with filth and litter, rivers and canals act as garbage dumps. In part, India's garbage crisis is from rising consumption. India's waste problem also points to a stunning failure of governance.
Noise pollution

Public address horn loudspeakers mounted on a utility pole at a festival in Tiruvannamalai, a town in Tamil Nadu, South India. They produce a very high decibel level and are often accused of creating sound pollution.

The Supreme Court of India gave a significant verdict on noise pollution in 2005.Unnecessary honking of vehicles makes for a high decibel level of noise in cities. The use of loudspeakers for political purposes and for sermons by temples and mosques makes noise pollution in residential areas worse.
Land or Soil pollution

Main reason of this type of pollution is poor garbage disposal services in both the rural and urban areas of India. It is very common in India to find out a heap of garbage on the Street corners.

Trends in Environmental Management in India:

1. Impact Assessment and Planning (IAP) Assessing environmental and social impacts prior to setting up operations and obtaining environmental approval from the authorities is almost mandatory in most project categories. IAP assessments may be required not only for newly constructed facilities, but also for new operations that will be housed in an existing building. 2. Environmental Liability and Clean-up Foreign investment has resulted in heightened scrutiny of current and historic environmental liabilities associated with property transactions in India. For a comprehensive discussion of environmental liability in India. 3. Sustainability and Regulatory Compliance The increasing desire of Indian companies to meet world class standards has caused established companies in India to take on sustainability initiatives as a means of improving their global brand and reputation. In addition, the presence of a highly popular and visible Environmental Minister, Mr. Jairam Ramesh, has ensured that environmental compliance is given greater importance now than it has received been in the past. Mr. Ramesh also advocates principles such as green accounting, which furthers the drive to sustainability. 4. Climate Change While India still lags the West in coming up with concrete regulations based on the development versus environment debate, there is an increasing awareness in India that climate change is not about scoring points but about the existence of entire communities inside and outside of India. In

fact, reports from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) predict that India will be one of the countries that is worst affected by the global shift in weather patterns. India has carried out many Clean Development Mechanism projects under the Kyoto protocol, but it is unclear what kind of a framework will exist after 2012.

Solutions to Environmental Problems

The list of environmental problems and solutions presented in this write-up should throw some light on how do we go about the conservation of natural resources.

Contamination of Soil The soil is important natural resources on earth. It is the medium used for growing crops which provide us with the necessary foods. The contamination which alters natural composition of soil affects the food chain and thereby, the entire ecosystem. Use of chemical fertilizers is a major cause of contamination of soil. Making use of organic fertilizers not only protects the soil from getting damaged, but also leads to the production of crops with fewer amounts of toxic chemicals. Using organic fertilizers also provides wholesome nutrition to the plants/crops which in turn benefits the consumers. Contamination of soil is one of the important environmental problems and issues which need to be dealt with a lot of care and responsibility. Genetic Erosion The foods that we consume, originate mostly from hybrid varieties of crops. Conservation of the natural/locally found crop varieties is important from the point of conserving biodiversity. It is necessary to take proper steps in this direction i.e. to conserve these local varieties. It has been found that local varieties are far more nutritious than those created by the method of hybridization. The hybrid varieties are created keeping in mind a certain objective i.e. of increasing the yield, making the crop resistant to pests, etc. However, in the process of adding these characteristics, we lose out on the original genetic make up of these crops. Steps should therefore, be taken to conserve their local crop varieties. Water Pollution This problem has prevailed for so many years and still we arent able to find satisfactory solution to water pollution. The indiscipline or lack of concerns about disposal of industrial waster is an important factor responsible for water pollution. Improvement in the recycling process is the possible solution for this problem. Implementing the strict guidelines set by the local governing bodies pertaining to waste water disposal should solve the problem to a great extent. Hazardous Waste Disposal. The disposal of hazardous waste materials have a long-term effect on the environment. Plants, animals and human beings are all affected by this waste disposal. Different types of hazardous

waste materials include pesticides, carcinogens, paints, solvents, teratogenic compounds, etc. Proper treatment of these wastes before disposal is the solution to this problem. Depletion of Ozone Layer The ozone layer protects living beings on earth from ultraviolet rays of sun. This layer is becoming thinner day-by-day due to pollutants like nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, lead, particulate matter and carbon monoxide. Apart from the depletion of ozone layer, these emissions of gases also cause several health problems. Keeping a check on these emissions is the solution to protect the ozone layer. The topic of environmental problems and solutions is quite complicated and difficult to understand given the complexity/interrelations of different components of the ecosystem. It is however, the attitude/approach of human beings towards using the natural resources that is going to influence environment to a great extent. The knowledge of environmental ethics should also help in the conservation of natural resources.

References
1. McKinsey Global Institute: Indias Urban Awakening: Building Inclusive Cities, Sustaining Economic Growth 2. The Two Cultures Revisited: The Environment-Development Debate in India, Economic and Political Weekly Vol. No 42 dated Oct 16th 3. Pahl-Wost, C. (2006) The implications of complexity for integrated resource
management Environmental Modelling and Software 22 (2007) 561-569 4. www.google.com 5. www.wikipedia.org Environmental Management

6. http://envirocivil.com/environment/environmental-problems-and-solutions/