Environment in South and Southeast Asia
Environment: South and Southeast Asia
Hopefully you are studying this lesson before lunch. Imagine a place where the only water there is to drink comes from a nearby river. You become thirsty so you head down there with a pail. When you arrive, there are two things that catch your eye. Upstream, a woman is washing her family's clothes along the same shoreline. She is using a kind of soap made from animal fat. Between the two of you, there are several cows standing around in the water, drinking. They look like they've been there for a long time. Now, imagine going to the water's edge and seeing all manner of nasty things swimming around in the water.
As disgusting as this sounds, the scene described above is repeated thousands of times a day in many areas of the world. Water that you would never dream of drinking in a million years is the only water available to many people. And this is just one of the environmental concerns. In today's lesson, you'll learn about environmental issues in South and Southeast Asia and what nations are doing to combat the problems.
India
India and its capital, New Delhi, is composed of land about one-third the size of the United States. Yet, it has a population that is more than three times larger (more than 1.1 billion). As a result, the environment faces many critical issues, such as:
• water shortages;
• unclean water sources;
• air pollution;
• deforestation;
• natural disasters from earthquakes, floods, and typhoons;
• soil erosion from unwise agricultural methods.
An ever-growing population naturally results in more pollution. As the industrial sector grows and more people drive cars, air pollution becomes an increasingly difficult problem to handle. Due partially to its location, the temperature average in India is increasing, which accounts for changes in weather patterns. Consequently, periods of drought are increasing. As water shortages occur due to drought, the quality of the water becomes a major issue.
In
Hopefully you are studying this lesson before lunch. Imagine a place where the only water there is to drink comes from a nearby river. You become thirsty so you head down there with a pail. When you arrive, there are two things that catch your eye. Upstream, a woman is washing her family's clothes along the same shoreline. She is using a kind of soap made from animal fat. Between the two of you, there are several cows standing around in the water, drinking. They look like they've been there for a long time. Now, imagine going to the water's edge and seeing all manner of nasty things swimming around in the water.
As disgusting as this sounds, the scene described above is repeated thousands of times a day in many areas of the world. Water that you would never dream of drinking in a million years is the only water available to many people. And this is just one of the environmental concerns. In today's lesson, you'll learn about environmental issues in South and Southeast Asia and what nations are doing to combat the problems.
India
India and its capital, New Delhi, is composed of land about one-third the size of the United States. Yet, it has a population that is more than three times larger (more than 1.1 billion). As a result, the environment faces many critical issues, such as:
• water shortages;
• unclean water sources;
• air pollution;
• deforestation;
• natural disasters from earthquakes, floods, and typhoons;
• soil erosion from unwise agricultural methods.
An ever-growing population naturally results in more pollution. As the industrial sector grows and more people drive cars, air pollution becomes an increasingly difficult problem to handle. Due partially to its location, the temperature average in India is increasing, which accounts for changes in weather patterns. Consequently, periods of drought are increasing. As water shortages occur due to drought, the quality of the water becomes a major issue.
In