Tropentag, September 19 - 21, 2016 in Vienna, Austria "Solidarity in a competing world - fair use of resources"

Better Environmental Governance for Mitigation of Environmental Pollution - A Case Analysis of the Emerging Cities in South Asia

¹Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Agricultural Extension & Information System, Bangladesh
²University of East Anglia (UEA), School of International Development, United Kingdom
³University of Delhi, India
⁴Kerala Agricultural University, Dept. of Tree Physiology and Breeding, India

Abstract

As more than half of the world population is already living in urban areas and since several locations in Asia are among the fast urbanizing part of the globe, it is very necessary to ensure better environmental conditions to secure health and wellbeing of dwellers in these high density urban agglomerations. The multiple environmental determinants of health operating in such environs are also reported to adversely affect human health as well as leads to development of several chronic and lethal diseases impacting human health and longevity. The reports of various studies in the domain have already identified the strong linkage between the operation of various environmental determinants and disease prevalence in urban areas. Several cities have dealt with the unprecedented wave of urbanisation in differing degrees and in many a cases the scenarios resulted in heavy environmental pollution, poor urban sanitation, high incidences of diseases linked to environmental pollution, water quality, etc. In several of the instances, the causes behind negative operation of various environmental determinants have been linked to poor environmental governance. In the current paper we have attempted to approach the issue by analysing the urban environmental governance prevailing in two of the actively expanding cities in South Asia fraught significantly with environmental pollution viz. Dhaka and New Delhi. In the case analysis we have approached the scenario analysis with the principles of good governance and attempted to describe the prevailing governance patterns in the study cities as well as made suggestions for further improvement of governance model for urban environmental pollution management. The output of the current study is expected to find potential applications for improvement of urban environmental governance in urban agglomerations with similar features while contributing to the overall mission of securing urban health as well as knowledge holding in the domain.

Keywords: Environmental determinants, environmental governance, environmental pollution, South Asia

Contact Address: Shilpi Kundu, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Agricultural Extension & Information System, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, 1207 Dhaka, Bangladesh, e-mail: shilpi.agrogmail.com