Post Graduate Diploma in Urban Environmental Management and Law Assignment Sample 2024
1. Question 1
- With the help of improvement in urban transportation, it provides help to different sectors of India such as cultivation, education, industries, management, trading, and other business. As stated by Cleo has et al. (2019), the different factors that are influencing the management system of efficiency of urban transportation are historical, physical, technological, and economical factors.
The historical factor depicts the geographical location of the region, technological improvement, conventional evaluation, and the way the region is being used. One of the most important factors is the technological factor which describes the advancement in technology for increasing the efficiency of the transport system.
As urged by Cleophas et al. (2019), physical factors declared about the topographic management for finding out the routes, geographical purpose, and environmental situations. The economic factors define the costing for the development of transportation structure depending on the standard of the services along with the profit.
- Electric vehicles in India are facing more challenges in comparison to other developing countries. As mentioned by Vidhi and Shrivastava (2018), the primary challenge faced by them is the deficiencies in charging structure along with the shortage of places for charging electric cars. Another issue that is found to be faced by the people of India regarding the usage of electric cars is the short battery life.
Customers demand to purchase the electric cars that can have high battery capacity till it reaches the destination or the charging stations. Economic challengesare faced such as interest is high, excessive insurance to be paid whereas that amount of loan cannot be achieved by the customers. According to Vidhi and Shrivastava (2018), the time required for charging an electric car is high which can take even more than 1 hour and is considered to be a serious issue.
2. Question 2
Definition of heritage buildings
The building which is under the authority of a competent or heritage conservation committee and has its historical importance is considered to be a heritage building. As mentioned by Adie et al. (2018), the buildings have their architectural importance, attractiveness as well as well-defined cultural standards.
Need to conserve heritage buildings
The necessity to conserve the historical buildings is due to their increasing value in different aspects of life such as economic improvement by attracting tourists, educational advancement by researching, reconstruction, and involvement of the communities. Both national and international tourists are found to be visiting such places which increase the domestic financial condition.
It is found to be attracting other investors such as for research purposes to have more knowledge regarding the previous civilization of the locality (Jones, 2017). People are not able to provide the exact value of the historical structures unless they are conserved and thus it teaches them a “sense of place”.
To develop an unstable society, there is a need to recycle the usage of the old cultured buildings. According to the view of Levin et al. (2019), the patrimony buildings help India not only economically but environmentally as it is being reused instead of construction of new buildings. The heritage constructions are represented as educational excursion spots which provide opportunities for the students of schools, colleges, and universities to have practical experience by visiting the historical places.
Approaches for conservation of heritage buildings
Preservation, as well as conservation, is necessary for the heritage buildings from different elements that are pollution, wars, less education of local people, natural calamities, spitting and spitting done by visitors. The following historical-cultural evidence is needed to be conserved in the following ways:
- A campaign is needed to be organized by the educational institute’s students with the help of the higher authority of education to make people aware of the importance of heritage structure.
- The projects related to adopting such important buildings are to be organized by the government like “Adopt a heritage: Apni Dharohar Apni Pehchaan ” where both the governmental and private firms would together take the initiatives of managing the places. As mentioned by Richards (2018), companies are to be given responsibilities of providing water, lights, and cleaning the places.
- The archaeological departments visiting such places have to follow all the rules and regulations provided by the government to regain the preservation of such cultural places.
- The buildings are to be controlled by the specific department and the money required for the renovation of the properties is to be gathered from fundings (Mokuolu, 2021).
- The taxes, as well as the entry fees, can be applied to the visitors as a mintage cost of the monuments.
- The educational people such as the scholars from schools and universities are to be provided projects regarding making surveys by comparing the previous and present condition of the buildings along with recommendations (Jones, 2017).
- The government needs to make more laws such as the Heritage Conservation Act and Article 49 to save the buildings for more years and make India culturally rich.
Identification of the recent sites for heritage conservation
Some of the heritage buildings in India that have been identified as heritage conservation are:
Agra Fort and Taj Mahal
Agra fort was developed in the year 1983 and is presently situated in Agra whose historical importance is that it was built by the Mughal Empire. As per the view of Lidelöw et al. (2019), The “Taj Corridor Project ” was developed by the Indian government in 2004 which depicts cleaning the water of river Yamuna which is found to be polluted along with the implementation of a sewage canal.
The state of conservation of Agra Fort is implemented to look after the gardens and renovate them to make them attractive for the tourists. As urged by Levin et al. (2019), Plans and states of conservation of the Taj Mahal project have been made by the administration of India where the employees of the projects are asked to request the visitors not to touch the buildings and enjoy its generic beauty.
Fatehpur Sikri is a town where the buildings were made of beautiful stones at the time of the Mughal Empire but are now found to be getting eroded naturally. As mentioned by Yarrow (2019), projects have been made on these issues by the central government of India by making chemical treatments such that the stones are not eroded and their beauty is preserved.
The additional laws that are used in case of preserving the unique beauty of the Taj Mahal are Remains Act 1958 and Rules 1959 (Yarrow, 2019). Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ) has been marked by the high administration of the country where the use of coal and coke has been banned for the industries within the radiation.
Sun temple
Sun temple is another heritage site that was developed during the Kalinga dynasty in 1984 and is a proof of architectural view at that time. According to Jagrati et al. (2020), the site has been observed to be facing challenges regarding saline water, setting down of water, destructure of stones, and vegetative intrusion.
Such problems have been solved by the cultural ministry of the Indian government by adapting different techniques such as paper pulping for removing dirt from the surfaces, combing and reinforcing the present stones according to the requirement. To prevent the stones from wind erosion, plantation of enormous amounts of trees has been done to prevent the direct collision between winds and stones (Yarrow, 2019).
Biocidal treatment has been done periodically along with filling up the blank places with normal stones within the stones that are missing by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
Mahabalipuram Monuments
Mahabalipuram Monuments are a group of historical buildings which is located in Odisha and is well known for being the largest open-air rock relief and was developed during Pallavas’ reign. The laws and regulations that are being used to provide security to the archaeological evidence are Ancient Monument and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act and Rules of 1959 and 1958 (AMASR) (Richards, 2018).
The ASI is asked to take surveys periodically about the details of the historical buildings and has to report to the archaeological ministry for their commands.
3. Question 3
Impact of a pandemic on waste management and generation
During the pandemic situations, waste management was not maintained properly due to the lack of seniority of human beings in the following sectors.
- According to the view of Ejeromedoghene et al.(2021), the generation of wastes has been found to increase in different places such as sides of roads and was not sent to disposal areas due to lockdowns.
- The government of India had made strict rules of not stepping outside and thus there was the availability of huge amounts of waste that was found to be increasing day by day. The presence of heaps of waste in the outside environment might have been the reason behind the rapid speed of spreading the disease.
- According to many researchers, it has been depicted that the novel virus has its presence on different surfaces such as plastic materials and infected air in the surrounding. During such a serious situation people were asked not to share staff with anyone who increased the usage of single things and gave rise to more packet wattages.
- As stated by Kulkarni and Anantharama (2020), the waste needs to be disposed of properly so that people do not get affected by it and the virus does not get the chance to affect others. The main issue that is faced in India regarding waste management is people are not well trained and educated about the importance of removing wastes and how it affects the health of an individual.
- The SARCS-Co-V2 has made a huge impact on the waste management system as it has been noted that the wastes that have been produced from the virus-infected persons are not disposed of properly and are seen to be infecting other persons easily.
- The wastes from the health care services as well as quarantine homes are to be sealed before they are thrown out as it has the tendency of getting mixed with fresh air and affecting others (Mokuolu, 2021).
Ways to deal with the disposal and segregation
The different techniques that are to be adapted to manage the disposal and segregation of wastes in India are as follows:
Reduction in usage of plastics
The world economic forum recently proposed that the presence of plastics is increasing in large water bodies in comparison to the availability of fishes. As mentioned by Kenny and Priyadarshini (2021), plastics are not easily decomposed and are found to be polluting the environment as well as the living organisms and therefore usage of plastics needs to be reduced.
Alternative plastic materials such as paper bags and jute bags can be used which are eco-friendly and can be used to save the environment.
Segregating wastes
The wastes are needed to be segregated based on the property of disposal such as easily disposable and needs time for disposing of. It can be differentiated by using separate colour disposal containers. For example, green colour water containers would consist of easily degradable wastes such as vegetable skins whereas the red colour would contain undegradable ones such as plastics (Ejeromedoghene et al. 2021).
Acquiring composting
A campaign has been run by the Indian government namely Swachh Bharat Abhiyan where they had taken the idea of composting the maximum amazon of wastes generated from homes. One of the main advantages that have been obtained from such initiatives is it provides healthy nutrition to the plants and helps in their growth and works as a fertilizer (Mehta and Angadi, 2020).
Assume 3 R’s
The 3 R’s depict reuse, reduce and recycle is counted to be the most effective among all the above-mentioned ways as it reduces the waste. The landfills that are present in India are getting overloaded day by day; the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has taken the initiatives of 3 R’s to make people aware of it. The plastic bottles can be reused by using it make Discord decorating homes.
Question 4
Ways of Rainwater Harvesting
The management of urban natural resources, done by rainwater harvesting and recycling are the most common techniques used in urban India. As mentioned by Tammadun et al. (2018), the potential of rooftop rainwater harvesting is done to meet the outdoor water demand in arid regions.
Rooftop rainwater harvesting is the most common technique in urban India where rainwater is collected on the roof of houses and then transported to a reservoir for groundwater recharge (Pawar et al. 2020). Most of the Indian cities experience water shortage particularly in summer which scales up the harvesting in the rainy season.
Communities in states like Gujarat and Rajasthan have been practicing rooftop rainwater harvesting which supplies drinking water throughout the year in case of droughts (Campisano et al. 2017). The number of tanks in which water is harvested depends on the water demand, space and size availability, budget as well as volume of the rain.
The rainwater harvesting system in the dry states of Gujarat and Haryana have some basic elements to the system. The elements can be identified namely as catchment area, channel flow of water, filter system, storage area and the recharge area (Campisano et al. 2017).
The catchment area is the area where rain falls and the supply channel gives the water a direction to flow. The water is then filtered from the first spell of rain and is stored such as tanks or reservoirs and is used to replenish the groundwater table.
Apart from the dry states, the Khatri community in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh has a Khatri way of harvesting rainwater similar to a deeply carved rock in the mountains. As per opinionated by Chander and Kumar (2018), the Khatri way of harvesting rainwater is done for different purposes indifferent for animal consumption and washing purposes for inhabitants as well as for human consumption.
The Khatris are owned by individuals and communities, maintained as needed holding their own set of challenges.
Advantages and Challenges
Advantages
The advantage of rooftop rainwater harvesting can be identified as:
- Availability of Water:The prime advantage of harvesting rainwater is mainly the availability of water near the household which lowers the distance to fetch water for people. The method helps in saving water bills and decreases the demand for water in arid regions (Dhawan, 2017).
- Cost Efficiency and Less Maintenance: The method of rainwater harvesting is low-costyet accessible requiring less maintenance at a household level promoting water and energy conservation (Jain, 2019).
- Environmental Benefits: The benefits of Khatrirainwater harvesting can be identified as reduced stormwater runoff, reduced stream bank erosion (Chander and Kumar, 2018).
- Improved Groundwater Level: Rainwater harvesting improves the quality and quantity of groundwater table and does not require a filtration system for irrigation purposes (Dhawan, 2017)
- Independent Water Supply:The harvested rainwater has an independent water supply by rain being the critical source of water that can be used as a supplement of rainwater.
Rainwater harvesting is beneficial to the minimized water scarcity yet holds its own set of challenges.
Challenges
The challenges can be identified as:
- Design Related Issues: Rainwater harvesting has the main challenge of rainwater harvesting on the appropriate design of the reservoir tank and its evaluation. The main design parameters of the catchment area, tank sizes need to be updated with the variation of rainfall volume in the area (Jain, 2019).
- Water Quality: Rainwater is the purest form of water yet the addition in atmospheric pollution has degraded the water conditions making it prone to bacteria and chemicals. As per the views of Tiwari et al.(2018), precautions have to be taken for rainwater harvesting within the scope of safety for humans and animals.
- Treatment of Rainwater:Treatment is required for the harvested rainwater which is a necessity to clean and filter the water. It can pose a challenge by the use of various disinfectants apart from sand filtration and solar disinfection which may or may not be available.
- Climate Changes: The biggest challenge of all remains climate change globally, which has caused future precipitation to be accounted for by the harvesting system. False rain alarms cause chaos in developing the probabilistic relationship between storage and climate change (Tiwari et al.2018).
References
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