Pollution, Climate Change and Environmental Impact Assessment

What the official syllabus says

General Studies-III (Main Examination, Paper VI), (B) Environmental Science and Disaster Management:

• Issues and concerns related to environment: pollution, climate change, global warming, etc., Environmental Impact Assessment.

Topics in detail

Basic ecology

• Ecosystem: structure and function, food chains and webs, energy flow, ecological pyramids
• Biogeochemical cycles: carbon, nitrogen, water
• Ecological succession; carrying capacity; ecosystem services

Air pollution

• Pollutants: particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5), sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone
• Sources: vehicles, industry, thermal power, construction dust, crop-residue burning
• Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981; National Ambient Air Quality Standards; Air Quality Index
• National Clean Air Programme (2019); BS-VI fuel standards
• Health effects: respiratory and heart disease

Water, soil, noise and other pollution

• Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; Central and State Pollution Control Boards (Gujarat Pollution Control Board)
• Industrial effluents; common effluent treatment plants; zero liquid discharge
• Critically polluted industrial clusters (such as Vapi and Ankleshwar in the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index)
• River pollution: Namami Gange; pollution of the Sabarmati and other rivers of Gujarat; marine pollution
• Soil pollution: pesticides, heavy metals; salinity ingress along the Saurashtra coast
• Solid waste, plastic waste, e-waste, biomedical waste and hazardous waste rules; extended producer responsibility
• Noise pollution; radioactive pollution

Climate change and global warming

• Greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases)
• Evidence and effects: temperature rise, sea-level rise, glacier melt, extreme weather, ocean acidification, coral bleaching
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its assessment reports
• Effects on India: monsoon variability, heat waves, coastal erosion and flooding (Gujarat's long coastline), agriculture
• Mitigation and adaptation; carbon sinks; carbon markets
• National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008) and its eight national missions; State Action Plans on Climate Change
• Gujarat's Climate Change Department (set up in 2009)
• Ozone depletion: causes and the Montreal Protocol (distinct from global warming)

Environmental law and institutions

• Article 48A and Article 51A(g); Article 21 as the basis of the right to a clean environment
• Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; National Green Tribunal Act, 2010
• Principles from courts: polluter pays, precautionary principle, public trust doctrine
• Coastal Regulation Zone notification (2019) and its relevance to Gujarat's coast

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

• Meaning and purpose of EIA; history in India (from 1994; EIA Notification 2006)
• Stages: screening, scoping, baseline data, impact prediction, public consultation, appraisal, decision, monitoring
• Category A (Union) and Category B (State) projects; State Environment Impact Assessment Authority
• Public hearing and the role of affected people
• Weaknesses: quality of reports, post-facto clearances, weak monitoring; debate on the draft EIA notification of 2020
• Strategic environmental assessment and cumulative impact assessment
• Social Impact Assessment (taken up under the economy section of this paper) as a companion process

Overlaps

• Prelims General Studies: Environmental Science (pollution, carbon emission, global warming, the national action plans on climate change).