Розділ 1. Urbanization and ecology

Everybody knows the obvious correlation between urbanization and economic development; some Asian countries rapidly developed during 70’s and 80’s, the time when the large movement of population from rural to urban was recorded. According to UN report, worldwide, cities produce on average 60 percent of a country’s GNP. Bangkok, for example, produces 40 percent of Thailand’s output, whereas only 12 percent of its population lives in this city. Cities are undoubtedly the basis for any functioning economy and it will keep remaining important in the future. As mentioned in the introduction, cities are the centers of culture and economic prosper, but the mismanagement and poor economical development can turn the cities into centers of unemployment, poverty and pollution.

As the city grows it needs more lumber, more steel, more labor and more land.

They absorb the agricultural land for urban use, the forest for construction and all sorts of raw materials for growth. A city the size of San Francisco has more copper and aluminum than a medium size mine; more lumber than some countries have in their forest. Cities behave like a giant growing monster, eating and swallow everything round it, while at the same time spoiling and wasting surrounding areas. High concentration of cars and industries causes the air and water pollution, high demand produces extra wastes and high density requires more land. In many cases cities are the only cause of the instability of the sensitive ecosystem of the region.

Until recent time the false attitude was popular that only cities of developed countries has an ecology problem. Breaking point was in 1972 when UN’s Stockholm conference on ecology declared that ecology of urbanization is

one of the difficult problem almost in all countries, no matter where.

One of the reasons of environmental pollution in the developing countries is

weak legislation enforcement. Cheap production cost, weak legislation countries. As a result many corporations from developed countries moved their production of hazardous and dangerous products in to third world. Instead of paying millions of dollars for cleaning and security equipments, they are enjoying a quite safe and cheap environment in hosting countries and harming environment without even bothering about it. Most of these productions usually located within the urban zones. For example, research done in

Nicaragua in 1980, found the source of mercury poisoning among the population in capital city. Uncontrolled down throw of mercury by American corporation leaded to enormous poising of environment. In fact the content of mercury in the city water was 12 times higher than it was allowed in the US.

Розділ 2 Air and water of condition of urbanization

2.1. Air pollution

Under the term “ecological disaster” we understand that one constant system changes to another unstable system. For example, increase in average temperature on Earth leads to melting of polar ice, which can have an unpredictable consequence; or spread of the ozone hole can bring all sorts of diseases or death to a many life forms. One or all of these disasters would occur as the product of our activity if the countries won’t pay enough attention to greenhouse effect of emission.

Urban air pollution is one of the most important environmental problems. High

concentration of transportation, industry and people turns the city into perfect polluter of the air. According the statistical data, the main sources of air pollution are vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions, and domestic use of wood, coal and refuse for heating and cooking. But in the city the lion share of air pollution belongs to transportation. Vehicles contribute about 14% of total global air pollution but in big cities it can contribute up to 80% of the city’s emission. There are about 600 million units of vehicles in the world, and every type produces about 3-4 kg of carbon dioxide, more than our nature can absorb.