Tuesday 24 April 2012

INNOVATIVE STUDY REQUIRES FOR ALL CITIES OF INDIA : Carrying Capacity studies in Visakhapatnam region

Carrying Capacity Studies

  • This is a innovative study and first of its kind in the country to study the pressure on the resources towards development process.
  • GoAP has released an amount of Rs. 1.00 crore as grant to the study.
  • EPTRI sent a proposal for Rs. 1.5 crores to GoI.
  • Efforts are being made to collect Rs. 50.00 lakhs from the industries situated in and around Visakhapatnam.
  • A field office is established at Visakhapatnam and posted 2 EPTRI staff members to operationalizing the Office.
Project on Carrying Capacity studies in Visakhapatnam region
Overview:

Planning for sustainable development calls for trade off between the desired production consumption levels through the exploitation of supportive capacity and environmental quality with the assimilation capacity of regional ecosystem. In this context, an understanding of carrying capacity provides and operational frame work enabling planning for sustainable development.

Any level of development or economic activity that does not exceed the carrying capacity of the planning region is sustainable in ecological terms. Human society depends on many ecologic and economic resources for survival and the carrying capacity study helps to identify the single vital resource that is in least supply. Thus in endeavor, scarce resources must be managed in the face of many competing demands in the natural and human environments which in turn must withstand perturbations caused by changes in man’s social and economic activities. 

The regional carrying capacity is a multidimensional concept of inter-related capacities of various regional processes of resources extraction, production, consumption, and waste/residual generation
The Carrying Capacity studies aims to bring out the steps to raise the levels of ecologic compatibility and economic efficiency while ensuring sustainable development in a region. Since there is a limit for the total waste that can be discharged in the area without environment problems, the best combination of the industries, which ensures optimum utilization of the gas and oil produced in the area, generating maximum employment opportunities and wealth in the area, subjected to the environmental constraints. In this context, an understanding of Carrying Capacity of Visakhapatnam region provides an operational framework enabling planning for sustainable development.

Visakhapatnam, the major port city of the State and also well connected with all other modes of transport added value in choosing this region for promoting industrial developmental activities. The natural gas and oil in the region of Visakhapatnam could be used for a variety of industries, and each of these industries may produce different employment opportunities, value addition to the raw material, and generate waste products. Unfortunately, environmental problems associated with industrial development in the past are coming in the way of further industrial growth in this region

In the absence of clear understanding of the current environmental scenario, market forces like eco-mark bring in pressure on the entrepreneur for investment of expensive treatment systems, which will add high cost to the production. A clear understanding of the environmental setting facilitates the investor to evaluate business proposition considering the production costs, which attracts such investments in the region.

Recognizing that the quantity, productivity and regenerative capacity of a region’s resources are limited, a strong motivation exists for conceptualization of environmental carrying capacity, a concept akin to that in population dynamics in Ecology, as a basis for regional planning and evaluation.
The study results in:

  • Developing powerful tool for assessing the overall potential for socio-economic development
  • Availability of baseline data, which results in saving time and money in conducting elaborate unit wise EIA studies
  • Sectorial plans can be harmonized for healthy development
  • Long term environmental monitoring will be initiated which is an integral part of the present study

Usefulness of the project:

The above results help the industries department, regulator agencies, entrepreneurs, infrastructure development agencies, State planning department, urban planners and municipal authorities in their sectoral planning / management activities.

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