![]() | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Karachi has many environmental issues, severely affecting its biophysical environment as well as human health. The industrialization as well as lax environmental oversight have contributed to the problems. The various forms of pollution have increased as Karachi which has caused widespread environmental and health problems. Air pollution, lack of proper waste management infrastructure and degradation of water bodies are the major environmental issues in Karachi.
Karachi has a tropical semi arid climate, with a lengthy dry season, with a short yet abundant monsoon season between June and September.
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. [1] Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution. According to a study by National Institutes of Health, chromium and lead levels are high in almost all ground water sources, however extremely high concentrations were found in industrial areas. Presence of any one of the heavy metal contamination necessitate the need for the estimation of other heavy metals as significant positive correlation was found between chromium and lead concentration, indicating the possibility of similar contamination sources in Karachi. [2] [3]
The Karachi coastline, which stretches over 135 km, is facing severe pollution due to a combination of industrial, port, municipal, and transportation activities in the area. The coastline is being overwhelmed with water-borne pollution being discharged in the shipping process into the marine environment. A recent study found that some of the marine life was contaminated with lead, which if consumed by humans through seafood, has been linked to anemia, kidney failure and brain damage. In fact, the study also discovered that even the mangrove forests protecting the feeder creeks from sea erosion as well as a source of sustenance for fishermen are threatened by this pollution. [4] In the Korangi Industrial Area, 2,500 industrial units including 170 tanneries dispose untreated waste into the Arabian Sea. [5]
Air pollution is the release of chemicals and particulates into the atmosphere. Common gaseous pollutants include carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrogen oxides produced by industry and motor vehicles. Photochemical ozone and smog are created as nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons react to sunlight. Particulate matter, or fine dust is characterized by their micrometre size PM10 to PM2.5. The air in Karachi is polluted by automobile smoke, especially rickshaws and buses, industrial emissions, open burning of garbage, house fires, and other particles but the government and environment organizations do not seem to take the issue seriously or in a timely manner.
The two-stroke engine on rickshaws and motorcycles are one of the major polluters of air in Karachi and rest of Pakistan. The two-stroke engines, as well as defective or poorly maintained vehicles, are major polluters by producing carbon dioxide emissions. Two-stroke engines as well as defective vehicles using substandard lubricant are major emitters of sulfur dioxide and smoke. Automobiles operating on compressed natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas are major air polluters. [6]
The Light pollution includes light trespass, over-illumination and astronomical interference. Light pollution is the presence of anthropocentric and artificial light in the night environment. It is exacerbated by excessive, misdirected or obtrusive use of light, but even carefully used light fundamentally alters natural conditions
Littering is the criminal throwing of inappropriate man-made objects, unremoved, onto public and private properties. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation have suffered due to mismanaged administrative and financial affairs and are now facing serious difficulties in discharging basic duties such as collection and disposal of municipal garbage from important residential areas. [7]
Noise pollution which encompasses roadway noise, aircraft noise, industrial noise as well as high-intensity sonar. The noise for Karachi came to 80 dB (A), the General Noise Index x (G.N.I.) to 460, and the noise pollution level (N.P.L.) to 99 dB (A). These values are significantly higher (P less than 0.01) than the available international data. The sources of noise production were identified as, the road traffic, human activity, industrial and civil works, mechanical and engineering workshops. The most noticeable sources of noise pollution in Karachi, are the autorickshaws, trail motor bikes and the fag horns of public transport. [8] The noise emanating from a wide variety of sources such as; Motorcycles, Auto-Rikshaws, Cars, Wagons, Mini-buses & Buses, Trucks, Tractors, Water tankers, Bulldozers and Machine drills etc. [9]
Soil contamination occurs when chemicals are released by spill or underground leakage. Among the most significant soil contaminants are hydrocarbons, heavy metals, MTBE, [10] herbicides, pesticides and chlorinated hydrocarbons.
The Naya Nazimabad a neighbourhood of Karachi was developed on contaminated soil resulting in serious health issues for the residents. There has been a coverup to downplay the contamination of Naya Nazimabad in Pakistan's media. Shunaid Qureshi, developer of Naya Nazimabad, CEO Al Abbas Sugar Mills and former Chairman of Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PASMA) were arrested in January 2014. [11] The Javedan Cement Limited (JCL) was privatized and sold at very low prices of Rs. 4.3 billion ($43 million) to Haji Ghani and Shunaid Qureshi. The new owners almost immediately stopped production, dismantled the cement factory and converted the 1,300 acres JCL land into Naya Nazimabad housing project worth over Rs. 100 billion ($1 billion).
Radioactive contamination resulting from 20th century activities in atomic physics, such as nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons research, manufacture and deployment. (See alpha emitters and actinides in the environment). The Karachi Nuclear Power Complex is located 50 km from Karachi downtown. The KANUPP-1 is a 137 MW CANDU reactor. There are two 1100 MW each CAP1400 Nuclear reactors under construction. In November 2013, Pakistan and China confirmed that CAP1400 Nuclear reactor, based on AP1000 Westinghouse Electric Company Pressurized water reactor, will be built at Karachi. [12] Questions are also raised about the design model of the proposed Karachi power plants. It has been claimed that the design of the Karachi plants, the ACP-I000, is still under development and thus untried and untested. [13]
Thermal pollution is a temperature change in natural water bodies caused by human influence, such as use of water as coolant in a power plant.
Visual pollution, which can refer to the presence of overhead power lines, motorway billboards, scarred landforms (as from strip mining), open storage of trash, municipal solid waste or space debris. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has imposed a ban on installing new advertising billboards, signboards and other hoardings in the metropolitan for the next three months. The decision was taken in a meeting of KMC’s senior officials after the corporation took notice of visual pollution blighting the landscape of the city. [14] There are over 3,000 billboards in Karachi causing visual pollution. [15]
Water pollution is by the discharge of wastewater from commercial and industrial waste (intentionally or through spills) into surface waters; discharges of untreated domestic sewage, and chemical contaminants, such as chlorine, from treated sewage; release of waste and contaminants into surface runoff flowing to surface waters (including urban runoff and agricultural runoff, which may contain chemical fertilizers and pesticides); waste disposal and leaching into groundwater; eutrophication and littering.
110 million gallons per day of raw, untreated water from the Indus River is mixed with treated water from the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB)’s water treatment plants, and this mixed water is supplied to the city. The KWSB claims that this water is fit for consumption. The quantity of chlorine has also been increased to ensure that all sorts of bacteria and germs are eliminated. [16]
Karachi has drinking water pollution and inaccessibility. There is dissatisfaction with garbage disposal in Karachi. Instead of disposing garbage at the solid waste management plant, the people have been throwing and burning it at various residential and commercial points in the city, causing immense pollution. [17]
Pakistan exports leather product using Leather production processes including tanning. In addition to the other environmental impacts of leather, the production processes have a high environmental impact, most notably due to:
One tonne of hide or skin generally leads to the production of 20 to 80 m3 of turbid and foul-smelling wastewater, including chromium levels of 100–400 mg/L, sulfide levels of 200–800 mg/L and high levels of fat and other solid wastes, as well as notable pathogen contamination. Pesticides are also often added for hide conservation during transport. With solid wastes representing up to 70% of the wet weight of the original hides, the tanning process comes at a considerable strain on water treatment installations. [18]
Karachi’s industries generate a cocktail of chemicals and toxic substances, and a significant amount of industrial effluent is discharged into creeks, rivers, or the sea.
Pakistan exports textile products and the Textile mill effluents is causing huge pollution of its water. Textile mill effluents (TMEs) are wastewater discharges from textile mills that are involved in wet processes such as scouring, neutralizing, desizing, mercerizing, carbonizing, fulling, bleaching, dyeing, printing and other wet finishing activities. They are not generated at facilities that conduct only dry processing (carding, spinning, weaving and knitting), laundering or manufacturing of synthetic fibres through chemical processes.
Environmental management comprises two terms: environment and management. So at first, we have to know, what management is. Then we can easily understand about the environmental management.
Management is the process of planning, designing, controlling, coordinating, staffing or leading to acquire a desired objective.
At first, one views about management functionally, such as measuring quantity, adjusting plans, meeting goals. This applies even in situation where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Henri Fayol considers management to consist of six functions: Whatever, everyday we are managing everything, every idea. It leads the proper to reach the desired goal.
Environmental management system is a systematic approach of planning, designing, coordinating, leading and controlling all the activities and what objectives/ functions of any entity to have a desired outcome in terms of enhancing environmental quality. Objectives of Environmental Management
From a practical point of view,
Among the environmental activists making significant contributions to addressing Karachi's environmental challenges is Aneeqa Bashir. Known for her efforts in tree conservation and sustainability advocacy, Bashir has been actively involved in various initiatives aimed at improving the city's environmental health.
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance or energy. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants.
Industrial waste is the waste produced by industrial activity which includes any material that is rendered useless during a manufacturing process such as that of factories, mills, and mining operations. Types of industrial waste include dirt and gravel, masonry and concrete, scrap metal, oil, solvents, chemicals, scrap lumber, even vegetable matter from restaurants. Industrial waste may be solid, semi-solid or liquid in form. It may be hazardous waste or non-hazardous waste. Industrial waste may pollute the nearby soil or adjacent water bodies, and can contaminate groundwater, lakes, streams, rivers or coastal waters. Industrial waste is often mixed into municipal waste, making accurate assessments difficult. An estimate for the US goes as high as 7.6 billion tons of industrial waste produced annually, as of 2017. Most countries have enacted legislation to deal with the problem of industrial waste, but strictness and compliance regimes vary. Enforcement is always an issue.
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies, with a negative impact on their uses. It is usually a result of human activities. Water bodies include lakes, rivers, oceans, aquifers, reservoirs and groundwater. Water pollution results when contaminants mix with these water bodies. Contaminants can come from one of four main sources. These are sewage discharges, industrial activities, agricultural activities, and urban runoff including stormwater. Water pollution may affect either surface water or groundwater. This form of pollution can lead to many problems. One is the degradation of aquatic ecosystems. Another is spreading water-borne diseases when people use polluted water for drinking or irrigation. Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource.
Environmental remediation is the cleanup of hazardous substances dealing with the removal, treatment and containment of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment. Remediation may be required by regulations before development of land revitalization projects. Developers who agree to voluntary cleanup may be offered incentives under state or municipal programs like New York State's Brownfield Cleanup Program. If remediation is done by removal the waste materials are simply transported off-site for disposal at another location. The waste material can also be contained by physical barriers like slurry walls. The use of slurry walls is well-established in the construction industry. The application of (low) pressure grouting, used to mitigate soil liquefaction risks in San Francisco and other earthquake zones, has achieved mixed results in field tests to create barriers, and site-specific results depend upon many variable conditions that can greatly impact outcomes.
Environmental technology (envirotech) is the use of engineering and technological approaches to understand and address issues that affect the environment with the aim of fostering environmental improvement. It involves the application of science and technology in the process of addressing environmental challenges through environmental conservation and the mitigation of human impact to the environment.
Industrial wastewater treatment describes the processes used for treating wastewater that is produced by industries as an undesirable by-product. After treatment, the treated industrial wastewater may be reused or released to a sanitary sewer or to a surface water in the environment. Some industrial facilities generate wastewater that can be treated in sewage treatment plants. Most industrial processes, such as petroleum refineries, chemical and petrochemical plants have their own specialized facilities to treat their wastewaters so that the pollutant concentrations in the treated wastewater comply with the regulations regarding disposal of wastewaters into sewers or into rivers, lakes or oceans. This applies to industries that generate wastewater with high concentrations of organic matter, toxic pollutants or nutrients such as ammonia. Some industries install a pre-treatment system to remove some pollutants, and then discharge the partially treated wastewater to the municipal sewer system.
Lyari River is a small ephemeral stream that flows through the Pakistani megacity of Karachi from north east to the center and drains into the Arabian Sea at the Manora channel. It is one of the two rivers of Karachi, the other being Malir River. The river is about 50 kilometres long. As a seasonal river, it carries the collected water after the rains in the catchment area.
Soil contamination, soil pollution, or land pollution as a part of land degradation is caused by the presence of xenobiotic (human-made) chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment. It is typically caused by industrial activity, agricultural chemicals or improper disposal of waste. The most common chemicals involved are petroleum hydrocarbons, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, solvents, pesticides, lead, and other heavy metals. Contamination is correlated with the degree of industrialization and intensity of chemical substance. The concern over soil contamination stems primarily from health risks, from direct contact with the contaminated soil, vapour from the contaminants, or from secondary contamination of water supplies within and underlying the soil. Mapping of contaminated soil sites and the resulting clean ups are time-consuming and expensive tasks, and require expertise in geology, hydrology, chemistry, computer modelling, and GIS in Environmental Contamination, as well as an appreciation of the history of industrial chemistry.
Environmental issues in Pakistan include air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, climate change, pesticide misuse, soil erosion, natural disasters, desertification and flooding. According to the 2020 edition of the environmental performance index (EPI) ranking released by Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Pakistan ranks 142 with an EPI score of 33.1, an increase of 6.1 over a 10-year period. It ranked 180 in terms of air quality. The climatic changes and global warming are the most alarming issues risking millions of lives across the country. The major reasons of these environmental issues are carbon emissions, population explosion, and deforestation.
The Ministry of Environment is the South Korea branch of government charged with environmental protection. In addition to enforcing regulations and sponsoring ecological research, the Ministry manages the national parks of South Korea. Its headquarters is in Sejong City.
Title 40 is a part of the United States Code of Federal Regulations. Title 40 arranges mainly environmental regulations that were promulgated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), based on the provisions of United States laws. Parts of the regulation may be updated annually on July 1.
This article discusses topics related to the environment of Pakistan.
The leather manufacturing process are the operations taken to create leather from hides. The procedure is divided into three sub-processes: preparatory stages, tanning, and crusting. All true leathers will undergo these sub-processes. A further sub-process, surface coating, may be added into the sequence. The list of operations that leathers undergo vary with the type of leather. There are environmental impacts associated with the process.
To protect the environment from the adverse effects of pollution, many nations worldwide have enacted legislation to regulate various types of pollution as well as to mitigate the adverse effects of pollution. At the local level, regulation usually is supervised by environmental agencies or the broader public health system. Different jurisdictions often have different levels regulation and policy choices about pollution. Historically, polluters will lobby governments in less economically developed areas or countries to maintain lax regulation in order to protect industrialisation at the cost of human and environmental health.
Water pollution in New Zealand is an increasing concern for those who use and care for waterways and for New Zealand regulatory bodies. An increase in population is linked to an increase in water pollution, due to a range of causes such as rural land use, industrial use and urban development. Fresh water quality is under pressure from agriculture, hydropower, urban development, pest invasions and climate change. While pollution from point sources has been reduced, diffuse pollution such as nutrients, pathogens and sediments development and from stormwater in towns is not under control. There are more than 800 water quality monitoring sites around New Zealand that are regularly sampled.
Water chemistry analyses are carried out to identify and quantify the chemical components and properties of water samples. The type and sensitivity of the analysis depends on the purpose of the analysis and the anticipated use of the water. Chemical water analysis is carried out on water used in industrial processes, on waste-water stream, on rivers and stream, on rainfall and on the sea. In all cases the results of the analysis provides information that can be used to make decisions or to provide re-assurance that conditions are as expected. The analytical parameters selected are chosen to be appropriate for the decision-making process or to establish acceptable normality. Water chemistry analysis is often the groundwork of studies of water quality, pollution, hydrology and geothermal waters. Analytical methods routinely used can detect and measure all the natural elements and their inorganic compounds and a very wide range of organic chemical species using methods such as gas chromatography and mass spectrometry. In water treatment plants producing drinking water and in some industrial processes using products with distinctive taste and odors, specialized organoleptic methods may be used to detect smells at very low concentrations.
Water pollution in the United States is a growing problem that became critical in the 19th century with the development of mechanized agriculture, mining, and manufacturing industries—although laws and regulations introduced in the late 20th century have improved water quality in many water bodies. Extensive industrialization and rapid urban growth exacerbated water pollution combined with a lack of regulation has allowed for discharges of sewage, toxic chemicals, nutrients, and other pollutants into surface water. This has led to the need for more improvement in water quality as it is still threatened and not fully safe.
Javedan Corporation Limited, doing business as Naya Nazimabad, is a housing project that is being developed around the Manghopir Lake.
Pollution in Korea has become diversified and serious due to rapid industrialization and urbanization since the 1960s. The causes of environmental pollution, both in South and North Korea, can be found in population growth, urban concentration, and industrial structure, similar to the rest of the world.