Accordingto Dinesh Kaushik, environmental degradation has been characterized as thesensitive issue for the world, as well as for the developing countries such asIndia.
The cause of environmental degradation in India has come from variousfactors depending on different geographical region. Environmental degradationin the southern and western part of India mainly stem from the economicdevelopment and the growth of urbanization. On the contrary, environmentaldegradation in northern part of the country largely comes from the rapid growthof the population.
Therefore, the growth of population is also one of theinclusive and main factors leading to environmental destruction in the country. In comparison to the global population, India is ranked as the second largestpopulation country, which is accounted for 17. 5% equal to 1, 271 billionpopulations.
Based on the author argument, he claimed that this rapid growth ofthe population would lead more serious problems like environmental pollution, desertification, global warming, ozone depletion, if serious steps would not betaken to the control the growing population in India. The population growth hasbeen tightly connected to the environmental degradation in India. The growth ofpopulation in India has brought negative effects to environmental issues andnatural resources such as air, water, and land, especially in the northernregion of the country. There are two core environmental degradation issues thathave been affected severely notably in the northern part along the rapid growthof population in the country. The first environmental degradation isdeforestation. The total area of forest in India has covered for 23. 28% of thetotal geographical area. However, the number of forest area has gradually decreaseddue to the growth of the population and economic development.
People keepclearing forest for agricultural land, location for industries, for housing andother development such as construction of dam, expansion of infrastructure. Moreover, due to the larger population, which lead to an increase demand forfood consumption, people has cleared forest for cultivation and permanentsettlements. There is around 4. 37 million hector of forest area has beencleared for cultivation and only around 0. 141 million hector of forest has beencut for industries and township. In the northern part of India where there is33% of the population has been covered by only 5% of forest area.
Therefore, The rapid population growth has contributed immensely to the deforestation. Theother environmental issue is soil degradation. Due to the increasing demandwith the growth of population, farmers have practice modern farming activitiesleading to soil erosion, land and loss of nutrients (Dinesh, 2015)
