Q.1. What is population explosion and state its impact on environment, health and welfare?
Or
Human population explosion is causing severe resource depletion and environmental degradation.
Ans. Introduction: Population explosion refers to the rapid and dramatic rise in world population that has occurred over the last few hundred years. Between 1959 and 2000, the world's population increased from 2.5 billion to 6.1 billion people. According to United Nations projections, the world population will be between 7.9 billion and 10.9 billion by 2050.
Most of the growth is currently taking place in the developing world, where rates of natural increase are much higher than in industrialized countries. This might lead to over population in some countries.
Causes of Rapid Population Growth:
(i) Poverty: Poverty is believed to be the leading cause of overpopulation. A lack of educational resources, coupled with high death rates leading to higher birth rates, result in impoverished areas seeing large booms in population.
(ii) Reduced Mortality Rates: Improvement in medical technology has led to lower mortality rates for many serious diseases. Particularly dangerous viruses and ailments such as polio, smallpox and measles have been practically eradicated by such advances.
(iii) Immigration: Unchecked immigration into countries may lead to overpopulation to the point where those countries no longer have the required resources for their population. This is particularly problematic in countries where immigration numbers far exceed emigration numbers.
Impact of Growing Population:
(i) Environment: Population explosion leads to generation of waste which is dumped in the environment. With increased use of resources, biodiversity is degraded. Humans start acquiring forest lands for expanding settlements. Intensive farming and excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides have led to over-exploitation of land and water resources. These have led to land degradation in the form of soil erosion, water logging and salination.
Impact on Human Health
(i) Malnutrition: A growing population with disparities in distribution can add strain to the environment to feed people. Overpopulation is a breakdown of the ecological balance in which the population may exceed the carrying capacity of the environment. This means weakened food production, leading to inadequate food consumption and malnutrition.
(ii) Ageing Population: The decline in fertility rates combined with increased life expectancy in most parts of the world means not only a slowing of population growth but also to an older population,
(iii) Infectious diseases: Population explosion can lead to infectious diseases like malaria, dengue, tuberculosis etc.
Impact on Welfare: Population explosion leads to problems of poverty as there are lower resources available per person. The per capita income is low and therefore, the standard of living is also low. This also causes a slowdown in economic growth of the country.
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