Question

List any two ecological impacts of urbanisation.

Answer 1

Urbanisation is the process by which cities grow and an increasing proportion of the population moves to them. Uncontrolled urbanisation in India has resulted in rapid environmental degradation, generating a slew of issues such as land insecurity, deteriorating water quality, excessive air pollution, noise, and waste disposal issues.

Some of the impacts of urbanisation on various aspects of the environment are:

1. The Formation of a Heat Island: Soil and vegetation absorb and reflect energy differently than concrete, asphalt, and bricks. Cities remain warm at night, even after the countryside has cooled.
2. Changes in Air Quality: Human activity causes the release of a range of pollutants into the atmosphere, including lead, sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, ozone, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
3. Different Precipitation Patterns: Cities frequently receive more precipitation than rural regions because dust has the ability to condense water vapour into rain drops. Rural-urban linkages are the flows of goods, people, information, finance, waste, information or social relations across space that connect rural and urban areas. Stronger urban-rural collaboration has several advantages, including more sustainable land use and planning, improved services (public transport, health, education, etc.) and better natural resource management.