ENVIRONMENTAL CARRYING CAPACITY OF AN INDUSTRIAL PARK

Abstract

Environmental Carrying capacity refers to the capacity of the environment in a specified region to sustain biotic and abiotic things beyond which the concern for their sustenance shall arise. It depends on a large number of factors including soil cover, water quality, air quality, social factors and so on. It also concerns with steep growth of human population in the region along with other living organisms. In this study, carrying capacity is evaluated for five categories: Meteorology, Land Use/Land Cover, Soil Pollution, Air Pollution, Terrain roughness, Demographic Profile. An industrial park is a portion of a city that is zoned for industrial use rather than residential or commercial needs. Industrial parks may contain oil refineries, ports, warehouses, distribution center, factories, and so on. In this study, land use/land cover change is shown to have occurred in Singrauli coal field due to rapid expansion of mining and industrial activity during the period 1985-2019. Environmental degradation is the exhaustion of the world's natural resources: land, air, water, soil, etc. It occurs due to over-exploitation of natural resources. Individuals dispose off wastes that pollute the environment at rates exceeding their rate of decomposition or dissipation and are overusing the renewable resources such as agricultural soils, forest trees, ocean fisheries, etc. at rates exceeding their natural abilities to renew themselves. Information from numerous sources have been used to estimate the carrying capacity at appropriate scales. The carrying capacity results are mostly based on the threshold concentrations of the environment. In other words, carrying capacity is determined from the emission that causes the environmental conditions not exceeding the threshold levels. Singrauli is the 50th district of Madhya Pradesh State of India with its headquarter at Waidhan. It has been formed after disintegrating it from Sidhi district. Singrauli has emerged as an energy hub of the country, especially for thermal electric power and coal, and therefore, it is also locally called as “URJANCHAL”. The total installed capacity of all power plants in Singaruli is about 10% of the total installed capacity of the country. SO2 level for the study area is above 700 ppm which is 8 times of the limit specified and NO2 level measured was 687.2 mg/Nm3 which is 8.59 times of the limits specified by CPCB, which indicate iv that the air carrying capacity of the region is already exhausted (http://cpcb.nic.in/automatic-monitoring-data/). While the water quality is within desirable limits, indicating that the quality of water is not yet deteriorated to its fullest extent, and thus, the water quality carrying capacity is not exhausted. The data of groundwater table when analyzed indicate its over-exploitation, and consequently, the groundwater availability has declined. Highest depletion of groundwater is experienced in Mara village where the groundwater level has decreased by 10.43 meters from its ground level. There has been a significant reduction in agricultural land due to industrialization and urbanization in the last two decades, and thus, there is a stress on agricultural land. On the other hand, a significant increase in Coal Mines and Built-up area has been observed. Since the major population of Singrauli region depends on agriculture, the future is not green enough. The drainage density of region in 2014 was 0.52km/km2 (up to order 3) while in 2017, it reduced to 0.06km/km2, indicating that the conversion or burial of drains has taken place in the region due to industrialization and urbanization.