With development, the urban areas are growing into bigger agglomerations with ever increasing influx of people. The urban areas in the country are poised with severe environmental problems. The adverse environmental effects are due to air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, unhygienic and poor living conditions, human stress, natural resource depletion, diminishing of green cover, over exploitation of resources, inadequate water supply, overcrowding and congestion, damage to cultural & heritage sites. Some of the causes of the adverse effects are population migration, gap between supply/demand of jobs and services, mushrooming of slums, lack of water supply, drainage and garbage disposal facilities, inadequate public transport, lack of recreation areas, haphazard growth of industries, encroachments, lack of public awareness, lack of plan implementation and resource crunch. The problems of environmental pollution in urban areas are becoming complex and are creating high-risk environment.

Conventionally, the environmental problems in the urban areas have been addressed by adopting pollution control measures. Such measures included providing of adequate sewage treatment facilities, clean fuels for vehicles, improved engines for vehicles and pollution control in industries. However, it has been seen that the problems due to lack of proper planning and plan implementation are coming to fore due to incompatible land uses, such as industries coming up with in residential areas. It has to be understood that pollution control measures alone cannot prevent pollution and related risks. Some of the concerns are:

1. Emission standards from vehicles or industries are mainly based on techo-economic feasibility, which implies that certain amount of emissions are permitted and mere compliance with standards does not ensure zero pollution. The standards of emissions from industries or vehicles are required to be made stringent form time to time, if the background levels of pollution increase. This implies additional costs on the ‘sources’ and hence the possibilities of the ‘sources’ not complying with standards due to these increased costs.
2. The pollution control systems have problems due to reliability of their performance, operation and maintenance and also risks if the polluter does wilfully not operate them.
3. As the number of industries at a location increase, there are cumulative impacts on the surroundings.
4. Distance between the pollution ‘source’ and the ‘receiver’ plays an important role. If the industries come up too close to residential areas or are placed with in residential areas, there could be increase in risks.
5. Risks due to storage and handling of chemicals, transport of chemicals, materials and products also have to be considered.

The issues of concern are:

1. Environmental aspects are rarely taken into consideration in urban planning/ development
2. Increasing PILs for relocating environmentally incompatible land uses is an indication that siting of industries/developmental projects will be dictated by public opinion
3. Solutions of pollution control in individual sectors viz. industry, transport etc. are not entirely solving the problems
4. Lack of planning standards for incorporating environmental infrastructure as a part of land use is leading to space problems and looking for uneconomical solutions at later stages
5. The increasing environmental awareness can have a negative impact on development if not corrected in the initial stages itself

Proper planning of land uses and supporting infrastructure is an important aspect which has been generally neglected. The environmentally relevant activities that occupy land (land use) and have potential to pose impacts on the environment include trade and industry locations, housing construction, transport facilities (road, rail, water), utilities, refuse/hazardous waste, wastewater installations, forestry, quarrying/mining, power generation, agriculture, recreation and tourism. Some of these activities also have inter-dependencies such as the industries depending on housing, transport, waste treatment installations etc. It is required to incorporate environmental considerations into these activities and to appropriately plan the land uses, compatible to each other.

The environmental considerations are usually not incorporated while preparing land use plans. Even if they are considered, plan implementation is generally weak. For ensuring best results of improved environmental quality, proper planning is utmost important. It is easier to plan and execute preventive measures than to invest on pollution control and remediation of polluted areas. Proper land use planning does not mean that there is need for pollution control. Pollution control and regulatory measures can play a very effective role as a second step of defence against pollution.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), since 1995 has been involved in executing various environmental planning and mapping tasks targeted towards ensuring sustainable development. Using these experiences, CPCB has taken up a pilot study for Kanpur Urban Area to demonstrate the planning tools for environmental improvement. The present Newsletter details the outcome of the study.