Bringing ENVIRONMENT&DEVELOPMENT hand-in-hand by taking the confidence of society is a looming problem of the 21st century. Population explosion, depletion of fossil fuel reserves, global warming, under-performing ecosystems and extinction of species need urgent attention. Workable solutions are the need of the hour to protect ourselves and our future generations, more so in this post-COVID era aiming to achieve new-normals.
As per the UN statistics by the year 2030, nearly 60% of the world population is going to be accommodated in cities. Cities are the centres of order if managed efficiently or it can be centres of chaos. Hence effective environment management solutions at city/metropolitan area level have a substantial contribution to the sustainability of the ecologically-overshooting earth.
Two strong indicators of sustainability have been formulated based on sustainability researches across the world. These indicators are ENVIRONMENTAL EFFICIENCY (EE) & CARRYING CAPACITY(CC) which were evolved during the PhD dissertation from three important terms from the sustainability research literature.
They are
- Human Development Index of UNDP (HDI)
- Biocapacity (Bc)
- Ecological Footprint (EFp) of Global Footprint Network
Environmental Efficiency(EE) is evolved based on an ‘output/input’ approach while carrying capacity, is evolved based on ‘capacity/consumption’ and which shall not be less than 1 on sustainability considerations. World Countries analysis has been carried to demonstrate its effectiveness and based on which some international environment management tips are proposed to vide the conference paper at GLOBAL SUMMIT LONDON 2012. EE and CC monitoring can be done between nations/ states/ metropolitan regions within the nations by adopting this innovative methodology formulated.
Using the possibilities of Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing it is possible to prepare the EE&CC maps of the cities and metropolitan regions based on proxy indicators which can effectively be applied for achieving environmentally-efficient development management systems. Ideas of EE&CC are further improvised as ‘may value’ and ‘ton value’ which contribute to inter-generational sustainability and intra-generational sustainability respectively.
EE&CC theories can be applied effectively to RANK the nations/states/cities performance based on which corrective policies, programmes and projects could be evolved leading to sustainability and prosperity and it is gaining more importance in this post-COVID era.
