NCERT
Every NCERT book that matters for UPSC — open a book, then a chapter. Learn each chapter's concepts, then how UPSC tests them — with diagrams, flowcharts and the past questions to attempt.
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← Indian Economic Development — all chaptersEnvironment and Sustainable Development
Start here: why this chapter matters
In simple wordsThink of the environment as a family's inheritance — a farm, a well and a forest. You can live off it for ever if you take only the harvest, not the soil; draw only what the well refills; and cut only as many trees as grow back. Take more and the family grows rich for a while, then poor for generations. This chapter is about living off the interest, not the capital.
Every earlier chapter measured progress in output, jobs and incomes. This chapter adds the bill: India's growth has come ‘at a very heavy price — at the cost of environmental quality’. It has three parts — what the environment does for the economy, the state of India's environment, and strategies for sustainable development.
- Builds on Chapter 5 (organic farming, sustainable agriculture) and Chapter 2 (the Green Revolution's chemical inputs, Box 2.6 on subsidies and overuse).
- Overlaps with Geography — read alongside: Fundamentals of Physical Geography Chapters 7, 11 and 14 (atmosphere, climate change, biodiversity); India: People and Economy Chapters 4–6 and 9 (water, energy, planning and sustainable development, pollution).
- Links to Class 10 Geography (Resources and Development; Forest and Wildlife) and Class 10 Economics (sustainability of development).
- UPSC: GS3 ‘conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment’ and ‘inclusive growth’; Prelims environment questions every year — this page keeps only those this chapter actually teaches.
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Environment | Total planetary inheritance; all resources, biotic and abiotic |
| Biotic / abiotic | Living (plants, animals, forests, fisheries) / non-living (air, water, land, rocks, sunlight) |
| Renewable / non-renewable | Can be used without exhausting it (trees, fish) / exhausted by use (fossil fuels) |
| Carrying capacity | The load the environment can bear: extraction within regeneration, waste within absorption |
| Absorptive capacity | The environment's ability to absorb degradation |
| Opportunity cost | What we give up — here, money spent on health and clean-up that could have gone elsewhere |
| Global warming | Rise in average temperature of the lower atmosphere from greenhouse gases |
| Ozone depletion | Thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer by chlorine and bromine compounds |
| Sustainable development | Development that meets present needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet theirs |
| Intergenerational equity | Fairness between the present and future generations |
Reading the chapter opening (page 115) and the quotation (page 116)
- Four aims: the concept of environment; causes and effects of degradation and resource depletion; India's environmental challenges; and sustainable development.
- An anonymous quotation: left alone, the environment could support life for millions of years; the most unstable element is the human species, which with modern technology can cause far-reaching and irreversible change. The point: environmental damage is a human, and therefore economic and policy, problem.
At a glance — the six ideas to carry away
- Environment = all biotic and abiotic resources; four functions — resources, waste assimilation, life support, aesthetics.
- Crisis when extraction > regeneration or waste > absorptive capacity — the supply–demand reversal.
- India's environmental threat is a dichotomy: poverty-induced degradation and affluence-induced pollution.
- India: 2.5% of world area, 17% of people, 20% of livestock; vehicles 3 lakh (1951) → 35 crore (2022).
- CPCB set up in 1974; 17 categories of highly polluting industries.
- Sustainable development: meet present needs without compromising future generations; Daly's five conditions; nine strategies.
1. Environment: definition, functions and the crisis
In simple wordsA river gives water (a resource), carries away a town's waste (assimilation), keeps fish and birds alive (life support) and is pleasant to sit by (aesthetics). Pump out too much, dump in too much, and the fish die first — the third function fails.
The environment is the total planetary inheritance and the totality of all resources, including all biotic and abiotic factors that influence each other. It performs four functions — supplying resources, assimilating waste, sustaining life through genetic and biodiversity, and providing aesthetic services — without interruption only while demand stays within its carrying capacity. Otherwise the life-sustaining function fails: an environmental crisis.
Today the rising population of developing countries and the affluent consumption and production of the developed world strain the first two functions: many resources are extinct, wastes exceed absorptive capacity. Past development has polluted and dried up rivers and aquifers, making water an economic good. We spend heavily to find new resources, and on health — NCERT says 70% of water in India is polluted, raising respiratory and water-borne disease. Global problems — global warming and ozone depletion — add further costs. The opportunity costs of environmental damage are high.
⤵ From over-use to an environmental crisis (NCERT section 7.2)
Population explosion + industrial revolutiondemand for resources and waste disposal rises
Extraction > regeneration; waste > absorptive capacitycarrying capacity crossed
Supply–demand reversalenvironmental services now scarce: water becomes an economic good
Local costspolluted water and air → health spending; search for new resources
Global costsglobal warming, ozone depletion → government commitments
High opportunity costmoney for clean-up and health could have gone to development
Reading Fig. 7.1 — Water bodies (page 117) and Fig. 7.2 — Damodar Valley (page 119)
- Fig. 7.1: a shallow, stony mountain stream in a valley, with conifer slopes and snow-capped peaks behind — ‘small, snow-fed Himalayan streams are the few fresh-water sources that remain unpolluted’. The point: clean water is now the exception.
- Fig. 7.2: rows of factory sheds and tall chimneys sending up smoke — the Damodar Valley, one of India's most industrialised regions, whose heavy industries are turning the river into an ‘ecological disaster’ (caption). The point: concentrated heavy industry overwhelms a river's absorptive capacity.
Reading Box 7.1 — Global Warming and Box 7.2 — Ozone Depletion (pages 118–119)
- Box 7.1: warming of the lower atmosphere from greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution, mostly human-induced (fossil fuels, deforestation); CO₂ and methane up 31% and 149% since 1750; temperature up 0.6 °C in the past century; effects — sea-level rise, coastal flooding, loss of snow-fed water, species extinction, more storms and tropical diseases; contributors include coal and petroleum, deforestation, animal waste and cattle; the Kyoto conference (1997) asked industrialised nations to cut emissions.
- Box 7.2: ozone loss in the stratosphere from chlorine and bromine compounds — CFCs (coolants, aerosol propellants) and halons (fire extinguishers); more UV causes skin cancer and cuts phytoplankton; about 5% loss detected 1979–1990; led to the Montreal Protocol banning CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals.
- Both boxes cite websites (Wikipedia; a university site) — the figures are old.
Beyond NCERT — current facts and treaties
- Warming: the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report (2021) puts warming at about 1.1 °C (2011–2020 compared with 1850–1900) — NCERT's 0.6 °C is an older figure. Atmospheric CO₂ is now about 420 ppm, roughly 50% above the pre-industrial ~280 ppm.
- Climate treaties: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted in 1992 (at the Rio Earth Summit); the Kyoto Protocol (1997) came into force in 2005 (UPSC 2005); the Paris Agreement was adopted at COP21 in 2015.
- India's commitments: at COP26 (Glasgow, 2021) India announced net zero by 2070; its updated NDC (August 2022) aims to cut the emissions intensity of GDP by 45% by 2030 from 2005 levels and reach about 50% of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030. The National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008) has eight missions (solar; enhanced energy efficiency; sustainable habitat; water; Himalayan ecosystem; Green India; sustainable agriculture; strategic knowledge).
- Ozone: the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987; its Kigali Amendment (2016) phases down HFCs, which do not harm ozone but are powerful greenhouse gases.
Exam traps
- Kyoto = greenhouse gases; Montreal = ozone-depleting substances (UPSC 2005, 2015). Kyoto does not deal with ozone.
- Ozone depletion happens in the stratosphere; global warming in the lower atmosphere.
- Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO₂ (UPSC 2005); rice fields, coal mining, domestic animals and wetlands all release it (UPSC 2008).
- CFCs are used in plastic foams, cleaning electronic parts and aerosol cans — not in tubeless tyres (UPSC 2012).
2. The state of India's environment
In simple wordsIndia's environment is squeezed from two sides. A poor family cuts the last trees for firewood and overgrazes the commons; a rich family runs two cars and an air-conditioner. Both damage the same air, water and soil — which is why NCERT calls India's problem a ‘dichotomy’.
India is rich in resources: fertile soils (the black soil of the Deccan suits cotton and drew textile industries), hundreds of rivers, forests, minerals — about 8% of the world's iron-ore reserves, plus coal, natural gas, bauxite, copper, chromite, diamonds, gold, lead, lignite, manganese, zinc and uranium — and the Indo-Gangetic plains, among the world's most fertile and densely populated regions. But development has pressed hard on these finite resources and on health.
- The dichotomy: poverty-induced degradation and pollution from affluence and fast industrial growth.
- Pressing concerns: air pollution, water contamination, soil erosion, deforestation, wildlife extinction.
- Priority issues: (i) land degradation, (ii) biodiversity loss, (iii) air pollution, especially vehicular pollution in cities, (iv) fresh-water management, (v) solid waste management.
Land degradation — NCERT's factors: loss of vegetation from deforestation; unsustainable fuelwood and fodder extraction; shifting cultivation; encroachment on forests; forest fires and overgrazing; inadequate soil conservation; improper crop rotation; indiscriminate fertilisers and pesticides; poor irrigation planning; groundwater extraction beyond recharge; open-access resources; and poverty of agriculture-dependent people.
NCERT's land-degradation paragraph
- The printed page jumbles two paragraphs: the list of factors breaks off at (x) and resumes after the population sentence. Read it as twelve factors (i)–(xii) followed by the population, forest and erosion figures.
- The nutrient figures do not agree: 0.8 + 1.8 + 26.3 = 28.9 million tonnes against the Government's 5.8–8.4 million tonnes in the next sentence. They come from different estimates; quote each with its source.
Reading Fig. 7.3 — Deforestation (page 120)A conifer forest floor scattered with stumps of felled trees, a few tall trees still standing. The caption links deforestation to land degradation, biodiversity loss and air pollution — three of the five priority issues from one cause.
Reading Box 7.3 — Chipko or Appiko — What's in a Name? (page 121)
- A cartoon in the box shows villagers — men and women — hugging tree trunks while a huge, scowling contractor with an axe and a badge reading ‘Contractor’ looms over them, and a bird watches from a branch: ordinary people standing between the forest and commercial felling.
- Karnataka's version of the Himalayan Chipko movement is Appiko (‘to hug’). On 8 September 1983, when felling began in the Salkani forest, 160 men, women and children hugged the trees, drove the woodcutters away and kept vigil for six weeks, until officials promised scientific felling under the district's working plan. About 12,000 trees were saved, and the movement spread to nearby districts.
- Damage from commercial felling: twelve years after a paper mill came to Uttar Kannada, bamboo was wiped out; broad-leaved trees gone, soil washed away to bare laterite where only a weed grows; streams dry faster, rain is erratic, new crop pests appear.
- Appiko's rules: consult local people when marking trees; no felling within 100 metres of a water source or on slopes of 30° or more.
- The box's question: if a paper mill employs 10,000 and a plywood factory 800, but they deprive a million people of daily needs, is that acceptable? Two sides: industrial jobs and output vs the livelihoods and ecological services of forest-dependent people.
- Slip: the box places Salkani in ‘Sirsi district’; Sirsi is a taluk of Uttara Kannada district (Beyond NCERT). Source: CSE, State of India's Environment, 1984–85 — dated.
⤵ How commercial felling degraded Uttar Kannada (Box 7.3)
Forest land allotted to a paper millbamboo and broad-leaved trees felled
Soil exposed to heavy raintopsoil washed away; bare laterite left
Waterstreams dry faster; rainfall erratic
Farmsonly weeds grow; new pests attack crops
People respondAppiko — hug the trees; demand rules for felling
Beyond NCERTThe Chipko movement began in 1973 in the Chamoli district of present-day Uttarakhand, against commercial felling (UPSC 1979: it aimed at preventing the felling of green trees). UPSC 1986 and 2014: deforestation is the main cause of soil erosion in India (terrace cultivation reduces it).
3. Air pollution and the pollution control boards
In simple wordsA factory chimney pollutes a neighbourhood; a city's millions of exhaust pipes pollute every street at nose level. That is why NCERT singles out vehicles: their pollution is released exactly where people breathe.
Air pollution is widespread in cities, where vehicles are the main source, and near concentrations of industries and thermal power plants. Motor vehicles rose from about 3 lakh in 1951 to 35 crore in 2022; two-wheelers and cars were about 85%. India is among the ten most industrialised nations, with unplanned urbanisation, pollution and accident risk; the CPCB has identified 17 categories of large and medium industries as significantly polluting.
Reading Box 7.4 — Pollution Control Boards (page 123)
- The Central Pollution Control Board was set up in 1974 to tackle water and air pollution; States then set up their own boards.
- Functions: collect and spread information on water, air and land pollution; lay down standards for sewage, trade effluents and emissions; advise governments; sponsor research; run mass-media awareness; prepare manuals and codes for treating sewage and effluents; regulate industries' air quality; inspect every industry through district officials; give background air-quality data for industrial siting and town planning.
- They monitor water quality in 125 rivers (with tributaries), wells, lakes, creeks, ponds, tanks, drains and canals.
- The box asks you to visit a factory or irrigation department and collect awareness material.
- Cross-reference slip: the text says the 17 polluting industry categories are in Box 7.4, but the box does not list them.
Beyond NCERT — the laws
- The CPCB was constituted in 1974 under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 — a statutory body; it was later given air-pollution functions under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. The umbrella Environment (Protection) Act followed in 1986.
- The National Green Tribunal was set up by the NGT Act, 2010, for speedy environmental justice. UPSC 2018: the claim that the CPCB was created by executive order is false; the NGT reducing the courts' burden is true (key: 2 only).
- Delhi's switch of public transport to CNG followed Supreme Court orders from 1998; Delhi's odd–even road-rationing trials began in January 2016.
4. Sustainable development
In simple wordsA good tenant leaves the house at least as good as he found it. Sustainable development asks each generation to be a good tenant of the earth — to leave its children a stock of ‘quality of life’ assets no smaller than it inherited.
Environment and economy are interdependent; development that ignores the environment destroys what sustains life. Sustainable development lets all future generations have an average quality of life at least as high as ours. The classic definition — ‘development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generation to meet their own needs’ — was emphasised by the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Its key words are ‘needs’ (a question of distribution — meeting everyone's basic needs requires redistributing resources, a moral issue) and ‘future generations’.
- Our Common Future: meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the opportunity for a better life.
- Edward Barbier: raising the material standard of living of the poor at the grassroots — income, education, health care, sanitation, water — and cutting absolute poverty through lasting, secure livelihoods that minimise depletion, degradation, cultural disruption and social instability.
- Brundtland Commission: protect future generations — a moral duty to hand over the planet ‘in good order’.
- The present generation should promote development compatible with (i) conserving natural assets, (ii) preserving the regenerative capacity of ecosystems, and (iii) avoiding added costs or risks for future generations.
- In 2015 the UN adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.
Who defined it?NCERT says UNCED ‘defined’ sustainable development, then says the seminal report Our Common Future ‘gave the above definition’. The definition comes from Our Common Future (1987), the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland — the ‘Brundtland Commission’; UNCED, the 1992 Rio ‘Earth Summit’, built on it (Beyond NCERT). For the exam: Brundtland, 1987.
Beyond NCERT
- UPSC 2010: the Brundtland definition is inherently tied to carrying capacity. UPSC 2016: SDGs were not proposed by the Club of Rome in 1972; they are to be achieved by 2030. UPSC 2002: the Johannesburg World Summit (2002) was on sustainable development.
- Mains 2019 asked about carrying capacity in planning; Mains 2020 about intra- and inter-generational equity — exercise Q19 here.
5. Strategies for sustainable development
In simple wordsMost of these strategies swap a dirty, wasteful habit for a clean one that often already existed: cooking on gas or biogas instead of wood, cow dung into gas and fertiliser instead of dung cakes, neem instead of chemical sprays, owls and snakes instead of rat poison.
- Non-conventional energy: thermal plants emit CO₂ and fly ash; big hydro projects flood forests and disturb rivers. Wind and solar are cleaner.
- LPG and gobar gas in villages: wood, dung cakes and biomass cause deforestation, waste dung and pollute indoor air; subsidised LPG is clean, and gobar gas plants (on easy loans and subsidy) turn dung into fuel gas plus slurry that is an excellent organic fertiliser.
- CNG in cities: Delhi's CNG public transport has significantly cleaned the air; other cities followed.
- Wind power: no adverse impact; high initial cost easily absorbed.
- Solar photovoltaic cells: convert sunlight to electricity; ideal for remote areas off the grid; pollution-free. India leads the International Solar Alliance.
- Mini-hydel plants: use perennial mountain streams; don't change land use; meet local demand, avoiding transmission lines and losses.
- Traditional knowledge: about 15,000 medicinal plant species, about 8,000 in regular use; Ayurveda, Unani, Tibetan and folk systems; herbal products with few side effects.
- Biocomposting: chemical fertilisers damaged land and groundwater; compost and earthworm (vermi)composting restore soil and reduce urban waste.
- Biopest control: neem-based pesticides; mixed cropping and crop rotation; predators — snakes, owls, peacocks, lizards.
⤵ How a gobar gas plant turns a problem into two products
Cattle dung (and organic waste)once burnt as dung cakes or wasted
Fed into a sealed plantbroken down without air (anaerobic digestion)
Gasmainly methane (with CO₂) — clean cooking fuel
Slurryexcellent organic fertiliser and soil conditioner
Gainsless felling for fuelwood, cleaner indoor air, better soil
NCERT slipThe book says ‘wind power and solar rays are good examples of conventional sources of energy’. It means non-conventional — the section heading itself is ‘Use of Non-conventional Sources of Energy’.
Reading Fig. 7.4 — Gobar Gas Plant (page 126)A rural biogas unit among bushes: a large dome-shaped gas holder on a masonry base, with an open rectangular pit in front where slurry collects. The point: a simple village technology that replaces firewood and returns fertiliser to the field.
Beyond NCERT
- Biogas is mainly methane and carbon dioxide (UPSC 1987).
- Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (from 2016) gives LPG connections to poor households.
- The International Solar Alliance was launched by India and France at the UN climate conference (COP21) in Paris in 2015; its headquarters is in Gurugram; membership is open to countries, not automatically all UN members (UPSC 2016).
- Neem: neem oil is a pesticide and has pharmaceutical uses (UPSC 1999, 2014); neem-coated urea slows the release of nitrogen, reducing waste (UPSC 2016). Bacteria, fungi and flowering plants all supply bio-pesticides (UPSC 2012).
Conclusion (NCERT): development to meet a rising population's needs presses on the environment; demand for environmental resources once fell short of supply, but now exceeds it. Sustainable development — ‘a paradigm shift in development thinking’ — minimises environmental problems and ensures lasting development and non-declining welfare for all.
Reading the Recap box (page 129)Seven points: the four functions; population and affluent consumption as stresses; pressure on India's resources and health; the two-dimensional threat (poverty and affluence); the need for sustainable development alongside government measures; the Brundtland definition; and conservation, regenerative capacity and avoiding risks to future generations.
NCERT's ‘Work These Out’ — short answers
Why has water become an economic commodity? (page 117)
Rivers and aquifers are polluted and drying up; clean water is scarce relative to demand, so it must be treated, transported and priced — bottled water, tankers, purifiers, metered supply. A former free good now has a price.
Fill in diseases caused by air, water and noise pollution. (page 117)
Air: asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, heart disease. Water: cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea, jaundice (hepatitis A), dysentery. Noise: hearing loss, stress, sleep disturbance, high blood pressure.
Trace products back to nature (trucks → steel and rubber → iron/trees → earth; books → paper → trees; cloth → cotton; petrol → earth; machinery → iron). (page 122)
Every product starts as an environmental resource — minerals, trees, crops or fossil fuels. The game shows the first function of the environment: supplying resources to every enterprise.
A truck driver paid a ₹10,000 fine for emitting black soot. Why? Was it justified? (page 122)
Black soot means incomplete combustion — particulate matter harmful to health; the fine applies the polluter-pays principle and Daly's fifth condition (correct pollution inefficiencies). Justified, though maintenance support and cleaner fuels also matter.
Box 7.4: visit a factory or irrigation department; collect awareness material on water and air pollution. (page 123)
Look for effluent treatment plants, scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators, monitoring stations, consent-to-operate certificates from the State Pollution Control Board.
Compare air-pollution readings a week before Diwali, on Diwali and two days after. (page 124)
Typically particulate levels (PM2.5, PM10) rise sharply on and just after Diwali because of firecrackers, combined with winter inversion and crop-residue smoke in north India — a vivid case of waste exceeding absorptive capacity.
Box 7.3: is it acceptable for a paper mill (10,000 jobs) and plywood factory (800) to deprive a million people of daily needs? (page 121)
Argue both: industry gives jobs and output; but a million people's fuel, fodder, water and soil — plus future generations' — weigh more. Middle path: consult local people, sustainable felling under working plans, plantation-grown raw material, compensation.
Delhi's CNG buses, convertible engines, solar street lights and odd–even scheme — debate the need for sustainable practices. (page 126)
For: cleaner air, lower health costs, energy security. Concerns: cost of conversion, inconvenience, limited effect if other sources (dust, industry, crop burning) remain. Conclusion: a mix of cleaner fuels, public transport and controls on all sources.
Collect details of the 17 SDGs and discuss them for India. (page 125)
The 17 goals range from no poverty, zero hunger, health and education to clean water, clean energy, decent work, reduced inequality, climate action, life below water and on land. For India, link them to chapters: poverty and jobs (Chapter 6), education and health (Chapter 4), rural livelihoods (Chapter 5), environment (this chapter).
NCERT exercise — answer outlines
Try each question yourself first, then open the outline to compare. Q3 and Q4 are also in the self-check.
1. What is meant by environment?
The total planetary inheritance and totality of all resources — all biotic (plants, animals, forests, fisheries) and abiotic (air, water, land, rocks, sunlight) factors that influence each other.
2. What happens when the rate of resource extraction exceeds that of their regeneration?
Carrying capacity is crossed; resources are depleted or become extinct; the environment fails in its life-sustaining function — an environmental crisis, with rising costs of finding new resources and of health.
3. Classify the following into renewable and non-renewable resources: trees, fish, petroleum, coal, iron-ore, water.
Renewable: trees, fish, water. Non-renewable: petroleum, coal, iron ore. (Renewables can still be exhausted if used faster than they regenerate.)
4. Two major environmental issues facing the world today are ___ and ___.
Global warming and ozone depletion.
5. How do the following contribute to the environmental crisis in India, and what problems do they pose for the government: rising population, air pollution, water contamination, affluent consumption, illiteracy, industrialisation, urbanisation, reduced forest cover, poaching, global warming?
Population: pressure on land, water, fuel (India: 17% of people, 2.5% of area). Air pollution: respiratory disease — health costs. Water contamination: water-borne disease; treatment costs (70% of water polluted, NCERT). Affluent consumption: vehicles (3 lakh → 35 crore), waste, energy. Illiteracy: low awareness, poor practices. Industrialisation: 17 polluting categories; effluents (Damodar). Urbanisation: solid waste, slums, sewage. Forest loss: erosion, floods, biodiversity loss. Poaching: extinction of species. Global warming: sea-level rise, extreme weather, agriculture losses. For government: higher spending on health, clean-up and regulation (opportunity costs), plus international commitments.
6. What are the functions of the environment?
(i) Supplies resources (renewable and non-renewable); (ii) assimilates waste; (iii) sustains life through genetic and biodiversity; (iv) provides aesthetic services such as scenery.
7. Identify six factors contributing to land degradation in India.
Any six: deforestation; unsustainable fuelwood and fodder extraction; shifting cultivation; encroachment on forests; forest fires and overgrazing; lack of soil conservation; improper crop rotation; overuse of agro-chemicals; poor irrigation management; groundwater extraction beyond recharge; open-access resources; poverty of farm-dependent people.
8. Explain how the opportunity costs of negative environmental impact are high.
Money spent on finding new resources, treating water, cleaning air and treating pollution-related diseases (respiratory, water-borne), and on global commitments (warming, ozone), could otherwise have funded schools, roads or jobs. Lost productivity from illness adds to the cost.
9. Outline the steps involved in attaining sustainable development in India.
Daly's conditions (population within carrying capacity, input-efficient technology, renewables within regeneration, non-renewables matched by substitutes, correcting pollution) plus NCERT's strategies: non-conventional energy, LPG and gobar gas, CNG, wind, solar PV, mini-hydel, traditional knowledge, biocomposting, biopest control; regulation by pollution control boards.
10. India has abundant natural resources — substantiate the statement.
Fertile soils (Deccan black soil for cotton; Indo-Gangetic plains); hundreds of rivers; forests; long coastline and Indian Ocean; mountains; minerals — about 8% of world iron-ore reserves, coal, natural gas, bauxite, copper, chromite, diamonds, gold, lead, lignite, manganese, zinc, uranium.
11. Is environmental crisis a recent phenomenon? If so, why?
Yes, largely: earlier, demand for environmental resources and services was below supply — pollution within absorptive capacity, extraction below regeneration. Population explosion and industrialisation reversed this; demand now exceeds supply.
12. Give two instances of (a) overuse and (b) misuse of environmental resources.
(a) Overuse: groundwater pumped beyond recharge; excess forest felling (15 million cubic metres over the limit). (b) Misuse: rivers used as drains for industrial effluents (Damodar); excessive chemical fertilisers and pesticides contaminating soil and water.
13. State any four pressing environmental concerns of India.
Any four: air pollution (especially vehicular), water contamination, soil erosion and land degradation, deforestation, wildlife extinction and biodiversity loss, solid waste management, fresh-water management.
14. Correction for environmental damages involves opportunity costs — explain.
Resources used to treat polluted water, restore degraded land, control emissions and treat illness have alternative uses forgone — the opportunity cost. Prevention is usually cheaper than cure.
15. Explain how the supply–demand reversal of environmental resources accounts for the current environmental crisis.
Earlier, supply of environmental resources and absorptive capacity exceeded demand. With population growth and industrialisation, demand for resources and waste disposal rose beyond regeneration and absorption, while supply fell through overuse and misuse — scarcity, pollution and crisis (see the reversal chart).
16. Highlight any two serious adverse environmental consequences of development in India. India's problems pose a dichotomy — poverty-induced and affluence-induced — is this true?
Consequences: air pollution from vehicles and industry; land degradation and deforestation. Yes: the poor degrade commons through fuelwood, fodder, overgrazing and shifting cultivation out of necessity; the affluent pollute through vehicles, energy use and industrial consumption. Both must be addressed — livelihoods for the poor, regulation and pricing for the rich.
17. What is sustainable development?
Development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, 1987).
18. Keeping in view your locality, describe any four strategies of sustainable development.
Choose four from NCERT's list and localise: rooftop solar; biogas or LPG instead of firewood; CNG or electric public transport; vermicomposting of household waste; neem-based pest control in kitchen gardens or farms; mini-hydel in hilly areas.
19. Explain the relevance of intergenerational equity in the definition of sustainable development.
‘Future generations’ is a key phrase: the present generation must leave a stock of ‘quality of life’ assets no smaller than it inherited — conserving natural assets, preserving regenerative capacity, and not imposing extra costs or risks on the future. It turns environmental care into a moral obligation across time, alongside intra-generational equity (meeting the needs of today's poor).
What to remember
Numbers
Functions of the environment4
Water in India polluted (NCERT)70%
CO₂ / CH₄ rise since 1750 (Box 7.1, dated)31% / 149%
Warming in the past century (Box 7.1, dated)0.6 °C (IPCC AR6: about 1.1 °C †)
Kyoto conference1997 (in force 2005 †)
Ozone loss 1979–1990 (Box 7.2)about 5%
India's share of world iron-ore reservesabout 8%
India's share: area / people / livestock2.5% / 17% / 20%
Forest land per person: available / needed0.06 ha / 0.47 ha
Excess fellingabout 15 million cubic metres a year
Soil erosion5.3 billion tonnes a year
Nutrient loss (N, P, K)0.8, 1.8, 26.3 million tonnes (Govt: 5.8–8.4 total)
CPCB set up1974
Rivers monitored by PCBs125
Motor vehicles3 lakh (1951) → 35 crore (2022); two-wheelers + cars ≈ 85%
Highly polluting industry categories (CPCB)17
Appiko8 September 1983, Salkani; 160 people; 12,000 trees saved
SDGs17 goals, adopted 2015, for 2030
Medicinal plantsabout 15,000 species; 8,000 in regular use
One-liners
- Environment = biotic + abiotic; four functions.
- Carrying capacity: extraction ≤ regeneration, waste ≤ absorption.
- Supply–demand reversal explains today's crisis.
- Kyoto for greenhouse gases; Montreal for ozone.
- India's threat is a dichotomy: poverty and affluence.
- Sustainable development = present needs without compromising future needs (Brundtland, 1987).
- Daly: population, efficient technology, renewables, substitutes, pollution correction.
- Gobar gas gives fuel gas and fertiliser slurry.
Traps to avoid
- Kyoto Protocol does not deal with ozone depletion.
- Ozone depletion is in the stratosphere; warming in the lower atmosphere.
- The sustainable development definition is from Our Common Future (1987), not first from UNCED (1992).
- Wind and solar are non-conventional — NCERT's ‘conventional’ is a slip.
- CPCB is statutory (Water Act 1974), not created by executive order (UPSC 2018).
- Appiko is Karnataka's (Uttara Kannada); Chipko is the Himalayan movement (1973).
- Nutrient-loss figures in NCERT don't agree (28.9 vs 5.8–8.4 million tonnes).
- SDGs were not proposed by the Club of Rome; they run to 2030.
- Water is renewable but can still be depleted.
- Biogas is mainly methane and CO₂, not ethylene or CO.
How to strategise
Prelims — what UPSC asks
- Global problems: CFC uses (2012), Montreal Protocol (2015), Kyoto's entry into force and focus (2005), methane sources (2008); more ozone and Kyoto questions sit with Fundamentals of Physical Geography Chapter 11.
- Sustainable development: Brundtland definition and carrying capacity (2010), SDGs (2016), Johannesburg summit (2002).
- India's institutions and strategies: NGT vs CPCB (2018), Chipko (1979), deforestation and soil erosion (1986, 2014), biogas constituents (1987), neem and bio-pesticides (1999, 2012, 2014, 2016), H-CNG buses (2019), International Solar Alliance (2016).
- Many other environment questions (biodiversity, protected areas, climate science) belong to the Geography chapters; revise those there.
Mains — where it appears and how to answer
- GS1/GS3: tourism and the carrying capacity of Himalayan States (2015), carrying capacity in planning (2019), intra- and inter-generational equity (2020), global warming and its control (2022), SDG 7 energy access (2018), India's Paris and COP26 commitments (2025).
- Answer frame: functions and carrying capacity → supply–demand reversal → India's dichotomy (poverty and affluence) with NCERT's data → institutions (CPCB, Acts, NGT) → sustainable development (Brundtland, Daly, SDGs) → strategies (energy, farming, traditional knowledge) → commitments (NDC, net zero 2070).
Self-check
Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.
1. NCERT Q4: The two major environmental issues facing the world today are:
2. NCERT Q3: Which of the following is a non-renewable resource?
3. Which of the following is NOT one of NCERT's four functions of the environment?
4. The Montreal Protocol deals with:
5. The Central Pollution Control Board was set up in:
6. According to Herman Daly, for non-renewable resources:
7. The Appiko movement took place in:
8. The slurry left in a gobar gas plant is used as:
UPSC questions from this chapter
Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.