Impacts of Unplanned Urbanization and Settlements on Environment

Urbanization is the physical growth of rural or natural land into urban areas because of population immigration to an existing urban area. Urbanization is defined by the United Nations as “a movement of people from rural to urban areas with population growth equating to urban migration.” It incorporates changes in density and administrative services along with physical facilities, technology, society, settlements and other facets.

Unplanned urbanization and settlements are the conditions resulted by the improper planning, which leaves adverse effects on the health, sanitation, security, housing and other such aspects of life, marked with uncontrolled migration. While planned urbanization invites positive change in the multidimensional society, unplanned urbanization is rightly viewed as a negative trend that brings about dire consequences affecting every face of the society.

Before going through the impacts of unplanned urbanization and settlements, it is imperative to discuss the causes of urbanization or in a simple dialect, movement of people from rural to urban areas. People move into cities chiefly to seek economic opportunities. Cities are known to be the places where money, services and wealth are centralized. Cities are where fortunes are made and where social mobility is possible. In addition, businesses, which generate jobs and capital, are usually located in urban areas. Hence, people living in a small farm in countryside wish to take their chance moving to the city and try to make enough money to send back home to their struggling families. Moreover, there are better basic services as well as other specialist services that are not found in rural areas. Health is another major factor: there are doctors and hospitals with improved services that can cater for people’s health needs. Similarly, other factors include a greater variety of entertainment (restaurants, movie theatres, parks, etc.) and a better quality of education.

Nobody can refute the benefits provided by urbanization to the commoners in this 21st century. In fact, a country’s development largely depends on the rate of urbanization in that particular country. However, unplanned urbanization and unsystematic settlements in urban areas brings about a heap of problems. Various areas such as environment, economy, health and social aspect are severely impacted by unplanned urbanization. The following part of the essay discusses on detail on the impacts brought about by it on environment.

Urban sprawl creates a number of negative environmental outcomes that are strongly related to global change issues. For more than 100 years, it has been known that two adjacent cities are generally warmer than surrounding areas 91 to 6°C). This region of city warmth, known as urban hear island, can influence the concentration of air pollution. This results into reduces soil moisture and intensification of carbon dioxide emission. Similarly, the number of vehicles and industries increase owing to the rapid unplanned urbanization. On the one hand, they cause air pollution with the emission of toxic chemicals and harmful gases and accelerate the use of non-renewable resources like petrol, coal, etc. on the other hand. Moreover, sulphur and nitrogen oxides emitted from burning of fossil fuels in power plants, and from exhausts of motor vehicles, when oxidized into and acids and dissolved into atmospheric water, causes acid rain. This phenomenon severely affects the natural vegetation in the environment.

The rapid growth of cities strains their capacity to provide services such as energy, education, health care, transportation, sanitation and physical security. Consequently, unhealthy settlement is created. It acts as a complement, and deteriorates the purity of various factors of environment such as air, water and land.

The growing population and advancing civilization in towns and cities force human beings to clear large tracts of natural vegetation to develop agricultural lands, residential areas and industrial establishments. As a result, the agricultural soil inevitable loses it fertility over a period. Similarly, deforestation is another formidable threat to the people’s quality of life and the natural environment created by unplanned urbanization and settlements. Due to over population in city areas, requirement of timber, fuel, paper, wood, etc. increases. People clear large areas of forests for agriculture, housing, factories, roads and railway tracks. Its aftermath will be uncertain rainfall pattern and loss of biodiversity due to the fragmentation of the habitats of wild plants and animals resulting into disturbed environmental balance and the possible occurrences of natural fiascos in the long term.

Another impact of unplanned urbanization and settlements is seen on water, a vital necessity for the sustenance of human life. A rapid increase in population and expansion in agriculture and industry in city areas increase the demand for water manifold. To meet the requirements of huge population, surface water is over drawn, resulting in drying up of nearby wet lands. A crystal clear example of it is the water shortage the Kathmanduties are facing as a result of unplanned urbanizations and unhealthy settlements. Besides, unsystematically urbanized and industrialized centers are the areas of acute water pollution. Sewage and industrial effluents are discharged into nearby water sources in enormous quantities causing water pollution.

Moreover, industrialized urban life and congestion even leads to noise pollution whose further impacts are deafness or loss in hearing capacity to some extent. And the main reason for the cities becoming areas of massive sprawl and serious environmental problems due to unmanaged urbanization and settlements as afore-mentioned is because governments have less revenue to spend on the basic upkeep of cities and the provision of services contrary to the rapid increase in urbanization. Also, because the rural areas lack basic amenities or do not have them properly developed, people there prefer migrating to cities. Their actions not only fulfill their whims but also invite unplanned urbanization and settlements, a curse for the modern world.

A proper planning for urbanization is a useful tool for the solution of the problems emerged from the unmanaged urbanization and settlements. The principal way to mitigate the impacts of urbanization on environment it the formulation of a proportionate development plan with a view to develop each region of the country. This approach will utilize the available resources to the optimum level in each region. Furthermore, rural areas should be facilitated with basic amenities such as roads, electricity, communication, health services and education to discourage mass migration. Business, industry, construction works and sector services should be developed in remote areas to generate employment opportunities. However, the basic part is that people themselves should realize their responsibilities, carry out urbanization and industrialization systematically, and carry out urbanization and industrialization systematically based on pre-plans and without breaching official rules and regulations.

Lets stop just for a moment and take stock of the present state of affairs. Do our actions make a conservational use of the environment, the base for our survival, or our own actions leading to the extinction of human race from the face of the earth? In this Environment day, lets vow to stop unplanned urbanization and settlements and contribute from our side for the protection of environment for ourselves and