After reading this article you will learn about the meaning and objectives of environmental resources management in India.
Meaning of Environmental Resource Management:
The Environmental Resource Management is an interdisciplinary, science-based major, designed for students who want to use problem-solving, decision-making, and communication skills to address environmental and resource management issues.
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Environmental Resource Management has become an area of national and international significance. Resource managers, typically in the public and private developmental sectors, face increasingly complex technical problems that can cut across several of the more traditional educational disciplines.
In addition to the fundamentals of biological and chemical environmental processes, managers must be knowledgeable in local and global cause and effect relationships of human activities in the development and utilization of environmental resources. Resource managers must also understand the legal and regulatory aspects of resource management.
Sound environmental and natural resource management is necessary to sustainable development. If available natural resources are subject to over consumption and the environment is severely degraded, sustained economic growth and social well-being cannot be achieved.
Whereas in the past environmental concerns have been viewed as a luxury affordable only by wealthy nations, there is growing awareness that environmental protection and natural resource management are essential to long-term development.
Environmental degradation can be linked to weaknesses in local market mechanisms, policy failure, weak institutions and regulatory frameworks, a lack of public awareness and participation, underdeveloped technical capabilities and rapid population growth.
Most problems like these are best addressed from a broad perspective, using a multidisciplinary approach to build local capacity to identify, investigate, assess and address environmental issues.
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The following are the areas which should be given due importance when Resource Management techniques are implemented:
i. Water quality and water resource management – Helping developing countries manage water resources.
ii. Applied economics – Applying demand estimation studies to manage environmental resources.
iii. Comparative risk assessment – Identifying health risks and developing action plans.
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iv. Strengthening environmental management institutions – Helping developing countries provide basic services.
Water Quality and Water Resource Management:
A range of capacities should be offered to assist countries with the management of their water quality and water resources, including designing integrative tools to manage surface water quality. These tools help decision makers predict the impact of hypothetical changes in policy such as regulation, market-based pollution fines, and charges on both water quality and allocation between different end uses.
Applied Economics:
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Guided by a demand-based framework for managing environmental resources, resource management professionals should have extensive experience in formal demand estimation studies (e.g., determining a community’s willingness to pay for water and sanitation services), cost-benefit studies, and cost-effectiveness analysis. In addition, they should have extensive field experience in sample survey work, which supports formal economic analysis.
Private sector participation is the key to the successful implementation of projects; Resource Management professionals should deliver a full range of services to support private sector participation in water supply and waste management. Their services should include establishing legal and regulatory frameworks, strengthening community participation, and providing training to improve capacity of public and private institutions.
Comparative Risk Assessment:
Resource Management experts should conduct comparative risk assessment projects in various countries to help officials identify the most important public health risks attributable to environmental conditions in their towns and cities. These assessments provide a basis for environmental action plans to reduce such risks, and these experts can help national and state governments develop and implement those action plans.
Strengthening Environmental Management Institutions:
Due to decentralization in many developing and democratizing countries, the provision of basic services such as water and sanitation has been handed to the local governments, many of which are not well equipped to handle these new responsibilities.
Resource Management teams should work with national governments to set up effective frameworks and procedures to ensure that responsibilities are clearly laid out, encouraging public participation and consultation between all stakeholders.
Objectives of Environmental Resource Management:
The following are the Short-term and Long-term objectives which should be implemented by the Government of India for better Environmental Resource Management:
Short-Term Objectives:
1. Evaluate knowledge about water quality and support for management efforts related to coastal resources.
2. Identify farmers’ current use of best management practices and attitudes about public policies.
3. Predict public acceptance of new food production technologies and develop educational strategies.
Long-Term Objectives:
1. Understand public awareness of and attitudes about environmental management issues.
2. Evaluate and improve farmers’ adoption of environmental management practices, including an understanding of the positive and negative influences on adoption.
3. Anticipate and communicate potential impacts of new technologies and public policies.
The problems encountered in the field of environment in India arise due to the conditions of poverty and under-development. Developmental activities lost sight of environmental and ecological imperatives.
The damage done to the environment because of the large size of the population and its increase and scale of developmental activities – is of such magnitude that urgent remedial measures are called for. Environmental management is now accepted as a major guiding factor for national development in India.
There has been, over the last decade, a progressive strengthening of official involvement in environmental management, with increased scientific, technical, administrative and legislative break-up at the Central and State levels.
The three main resources which need to be managed efficiently in India are water, land and forests. As water is the elixir of life and clean drinking water is scarce in India, proper land usage is necessary for optimum productivity and forests provide us timber and provide livelihood and employ most of the rural population in the timber business and most importantly they support the life of various organisms.