The New Nation - Internet Edition

As population is increasing at a very high rate, people are moving to urban areas (cities) abandoning rural settings in search of employment, comfort and facilities. As a result cities are being overloaded with population that they can barely hold or support. A thickly-populated area is the home of large number of vehicles, reservoir for solid and liquid wastes, with poor sanitary condition and management problems. Densely populated cities are also characterised by high fuel consumption, increased amount of garbage and sewage, etc.

Typically, a city of 1 million inhabitants requires 1,800 metric tons of food, 2,700 metric tons of coal, 2,500 metric tonnes of oil, 2,400 metric tonnes of natural gas and 900 metric tonnes of motor fuel every day for its people. In turn, the inhabitants of the city produce each day 1,800 metric tones of garbage and 4,50,000 metric tons of sewage.

Owing to over-crowding, diversified activities and multitude of sources, cities have inherently been susceptible to pollution problems. The concentration of several of the air pollutants is greater in the urban atmosphere than in rural areas. Particulate matter in a city comes from cooking fires, industrial activities, vehicular exhausts and dirt arising from general transportation. Such a contamination of air with particulates may eventually lead to some changes in the climate pattern of a city as well. In urban areas the disposal of sewage and household wastes renders the water resources dirty and contaminated.

So, it is evident that, urbanisation can lead to different environmental problems where, unplanned urbanisation can make the situation more difficult. All the concerned authorities should pay careful attention in minimising such environmental problems in urban areas of Bangladesh like Dhaka and Chittagong city, etc.

Shanta Dutta

Santosh, Tangail