Environment Concerns and Water problems in India and China

Environment Concerns and Water problems in India and China

As India’s and China's economy booms, the impacts on its environment are becoming more evident. Air pollution, diminishing biodiversity, fisheries depletion, invasive species, land degradation, soil erosion, and water pollution and shortages all continue to be major problems.
Seven of the world’s ten most polluted cities are in China. Acid rain alone costs the country an estimated $13 billion per year, while air pollution cuts as much as 3 percent off China’s GDP. Coal provides nearly two/thirds of the country’s energy; carbon emissions have doubled since 1980, and by 2020 China is expected to become the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. So much water is being pumped from the Yellow and Huai Rivers that they run dry for at least four months of the year; Shandong province, which produces one-fifth of China’s corn and one-seventh of its wheat, relies on the Yellow River for half the water used to irrigate its crops. There are about 50,000 miles of major rivers in China. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, 80 percent already are so polluted that fish can no longer survive in them.
India’s environment, like China’s, is declining rapidly. Air, water, and land all are polluted. The countryside around many cities has been denuded of trees, which have long since been burned as firewood, and biodiversity is being lost as habitats are destroyed. About 81 percent of Indians reportedly have access to potable water. However, it is not clear that water deemed potable in India would be considered so in the developed lands, and "access" can mean the presence of a single well within walking distance. Water shortages are common, particularly in some areas where water itself is abundant, but is collected by dams and piped to distant cities. Air pollution is growing in parallel with industrial development. The amount of particulates, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides emitted from power plants and transportation in India has growth by roughly a factor of 100 since independence half a century ago. Yet, ironically, the worst air is found where cars and electricity are scarcest, in the homes of the rural poor, where women still cook over indoor fires fueled by dried animal dung.