Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process of evaluating the likely environmental impacts of a proposed project or development, taking into account inter-related socio-economic, cultural and human-health impacts, both beneficial and adverse. EIA is basically a tool used to assess the positive and negative environmental, economic and social impacts of a project. This is used to predict the environmental impacts of a project in the pre-planning stage itself so that decisions can be taken to reduce the adverse impacts. In this course students will develop basic understanding of the history, need, structure, process, involved methods and challenges. Students will also learn criteria for selecting method for impact assessment, overview of methods, parameters for public participation ad technique for writing reports. 

So hello and welcome to this new course on introduction to environmental

engineering and science so as mentioned in the intro video that probably you

must have seen as part of the course website it is already there so the focus

of this course is looking at the fundamentals of environmental engineering and science since this

course is designed in a way so that it's useful for all the graduating professionals all the graduating

undergraduates and postgraduates students to have certain understanding of environmental concept so are the

completion of this course you will not become a expert environmental engineer but you will get a good idea of different environmental issues that the

country is facing that the world is facing today and at the same time how your career whatever decision you make

how you can take those decision in a better informed manner so that you the

impact on the environment from your decision is minimal so that's the overall goal of this particular course

we will talk about certain fundamentals we'll talk about sustainability concepts so in this particular week this is which

is week 1 the four focus will be on what is sustainability concept since we said sustainability concept so what that

really means how it relates to innovations what are the challenges and as I said earlier this is this is a

irrespective of what discipline you come from if you had a little bit of chemistry in your high school and also

as part of your you're having chemistry as part of your bachelor's program that's good enough even if you're not

having to buy chemistry in the bachelors program but you had a decent chemistry course in your honor in your high school

that's fine and some basic math skills so it's again not don't get panicked

it's a it will be a not a core environmental engineering course

that we typically teach in AIT correct pool or ine IIT or NIT those kind of

institution this is a this is part of the probe the goal of this course is to

make you aware of environmental issues discuss the environmental issues and to

inform you that as in as a citizen of the country as a citizen of this planet and the citizen as a global citizen how

you can help the environment that's the overall goal but at the same time those of you are preparing for certain competitive exams like UPSC or IES exams

IES exams the concepts covered here will be useful for you as well as part of your general studies and so and and if

you are taking engine in Indian engineering services as a civil engineer one subject where environmental

engineering is a course environmental engineering is part of the syllabus as well so let's as I said this week will

look at the sustainability concept we will talk about what is sustainability what is engineering for sustainability

will try to measure sustainability because when we say sustainability it's a it's it's it's a highly used and I say

highly abuse term today many conferences you see people will add sustainability

term there many meetings you will see sustainability added newspaper report sustainability term is added but what

really that mean and how can we measure it as a as an engineer as a scientist as

a professional we always like to well we have to have numbers we have to have a quantitative measurement so that's what

we'll be talking about so this is the nutshell the concept covered in this particular week which is sustainability

concepts and how the systemic concept evolved and the background about it how

as an engineer or the scientist or the professional you can use the sustainability concept in whatever you

do and then how to measure it because it how to say that this is this particular process is more sustainable and then

some then as compared to some other process so before we get into nitty-gritty detail of the course I just

wanted to give you a little bit background about myself those of you have taken The AIMERS courses from me in the

past or you know me for some from some sources you already have this background

but just those of you are new I may since I'm a civil engineer civil /

environmental engineer with a bachelor's degree from this particular place where I'm offering this course which is The Aimers then I walked into consulting engineers a consulting engineer at ingenious India Limited which we worked

on petrochemicals refineries offshore oil platforms even pipeline oil and gas pipelines that does a lot of work was

going on on dhts at those particular taking the sulphur out from our petrol

diesel and all that and so that's what a lot of work was done and I traveled

around India a little bit as well during that period as part of that particular particular job which was for almost four

years and then I decided to go for PhD so I've went abroad and did my PhD from

University of Florida in environmental engineering sciences so they have a separate Department of Environmental

Engineering Sciences which is separate from civil now they have a school which which now they have kind of gone back to

civil engineering big school of civil engineering within that they have different programs and then I walked in

you a Florida for around two and a half years as a research scientist as a coordinator for research program then I

was in New Zealand for nearly two years and did teaching and research there worked as a professor in USA in Canada

for six years then I came back in March 2015 and I usually joke around saying that during 2014 2015 there was a lot of

discussion in India regarding that car whop see those of you understanding Hindi will understand what I'm talking

about so they're talking about guru opsi and there's a lot of media use and cries on that so I thought let's we also like

me and my family we decided let's go back and do guru op C as well so that was a joke if you can if you caught it

so then I do exist in or like on the web on different social media LinkedIn

Twitter these days Facebook and those things as well and and then there is a

scholar Google profile so if you want to get more details so just a give you an idea so that you know what background I

am coming from and that way you have to be with me for next 12 weeks so if you

have taken this course if you are planning to do this course well you have to bear with me for next 12 weeks

you better know whom you are getting the informations from and whom you are interacting with again I would like to

emphasis again as for any other The Aimers course this course as well we will have a weekly quiz we'll have discussion

board and there will be online exams which is not really online exam it's a

computer-based exam which will be done at a designated centers many places in the country which those of you have

taken The Aimers you know those who are don't those informations will be there on the website eyes already if it's not already

there so in so be be attentive be responded like responsive asks questions

that is if you don't ask questions on the discussion forum then it becomes a little boring from our side too we want

you to be Lively we wanted to ask questions of course we'll have some live sessions like we did in the previous courses too so be be as as in clue as

that interactive as possible of course there are certain limitations of an online platform but we are trying to

make it as interactive as possible so please do that discussion forum we will be trying our best to reply back to you

within 24 hours if you have any question when you post a question make sure that you will look at the previous question

that has been posted so don't duplicate it because of course we will have TAS but then they also have certain like

hours are always limited for everyone so don't repeat the same questions again and again but like you can ask as many

questions as you want don't worry about that we will always give response so why

this course before is starting any course I try to emphasize even in the

classroom or online platform that why we should even talk about this course what is the importance what is the history

and that's always I encourage each and every student and also again I'm also

knit student like I consider myself in a student learning everyday good thing about academia is we get paid for

learning so we can be we just read write and talk to each other we're give

presentations take lectures advises students PhD masters BTech and we get

paid for it so that's really cool isn't it so it's not it's a job where you get paid for enriching your knowledge so that's the

beauty of an academic instead academic job so in this particular coats like into worldly when I say about the

why part like why this course it's a there was there is a history there was a Supreme Court directive which came I

think in in 90s which that first first time the directive came in 1990s where

the institutions across the country across India was asked to offer a course

and they call it environmental science courts EVs and that's how in we kind of know it in many institutions CVS courses

offered including at The Aimers interpret several are there almost I think all IITs and other places that is

offered offered in a different mode but it is offered and so there was a and the reason for that it's to sensitize the

upcoming professionals in in India or in India so that in terms of the

environmental issues the country is facing and the world is facing now why that is important it is important

because doesn't matter whether you become an environmental engineer or whether you are a mechanical engineer or

you are working in a in a banker or you're working as a consultant or you're working in an doing your MBA you're

working as a manager what you will make some decisions if not you will be

following some decisions at least in the beginning of your career but after a few years so I do as you grow in your way in

your in your company you will be making decisions so to make an environmentally

informed decision you need to know the basics of environmental science that's

the reason why made most CBSE syllabus there is an EVs course was introduced

throughout the country where the in Navy as a students to started taking the CBS course so one way you can also look at

this course it's kind of an extension of that that was more on basics here we will talk about more about applications

like how the knowledge of environmental will be useful of environmental tools so this course will provide you certain

tools to use while making the decision for your company for say if you become

an IAS officer and IES officer IAS officer has a huge responsibility if you

are an engineer local body if you're a water engineer wastewater engineer Evan if you are mayor or even your counselor

everybody makes decision or be part of the decision which has like could be

huge environmental impact so this course gives you all the basic information so that you are aware if you're a computer

science major it is still you have you have this like you when you talk about

the energy efficiency you talk about water efficiency all those things are related to the environment so everything

has a footprint we call it environmental footprint so Supreme Court directive was there which was again came in and then

we started having the course related to the course was being developed in many

many institutions and then we also have a concept it started having a concept

called sustainable development now what is that sustainable development means sustainable development means that let's

use the resources which is available from Mother Earth in such a way so that

our future generation can also be able to use similar resources for future

generations should have ability of those similar resources and we'll will talk in great detail about that India being a

developing country India as well many developing country we have a huge demand for resources we have to make lot of

development we have a lot of construction a lot of things have to come to come up so there is a demand for

development activities well we need to have a balanced approach with minimum impact on environment because see if you

can if you have a huge GDP numbers like a country's economy is growing but then

you we don't have clean water you cannot like when people say that oh we are

making a great progress I said yes we are making a great progress but no day I will be the most happiest person in

India is the day when I can go around anywhere in India and open a tap and

with my glass of water and can drink it without worrying about getting gastrointestinal problem so that's that

will be a that will be the real development where I can have access to

station wherever I go it's not that especially for ladies and girls when they go for a mall go to shopping area

um all these days have washrooms but if you go to like a Old Town shops and all

that you don't have access and where there is the toilets are so filthy so even if they are there they're so filthy

so the day when we have good access of sanitation not only in like a tick that

okay we have built so many toilets that's great but the toilet should be working as well and the toilet should be clean and that of course not everything

can be done by the government so everybody has to pitch in so at the same time and so clean water clean having

access to sanitation clean air where I could breathe without having to put a

mask on on me so that's that in Delhi and other places we know that doctors

writing prescription to some patients that you go out of Delhi like that person only has house in Delhi how he

can go out where he will live so those things are not really possible so it's a so we have to have a we have to do

development but with minimum impact on the environment so that's very very important so try to minimize the impact

or we need development for job there is the environmental issues also requires that environmental when we talk about

environmental issues that also will create lots and lots of jobs and the other like talk about solid wastage

everywhere we like sea waste being just either on the side of the road or even

if it's taken from collected it is just going to a dump site no treatment as such most of it 70 to 80% is just going

to the dump site hardly 50 to 60% is being collected so if you are a mayor if

you are a is officer this will be your responsibilities this will be I find if you are secretary of a housing society

after like 10 years 15 years down the line you should be aware of what what the things you can do with these are stuff so you will get all those kind of

information from this course as well as a future professional you will make critical decision they related to the

development activities so their rule is it you will we will be making a lot of decision

this course essentially will provide you some basic tolls in making their those decision so that's the whole purpose of

this course we are not going to make you an expert environmental engineer in 12 weeks that's not possible because there

are several courses you have to take to become that but you can after your bachelor's degree you can go for a

master's in environmental science environmental engineering there are different environmental programs out there but this the goal of this course

is to provide you some basic tools so that you can which make informed

decision so that it's better for the environment and it's better for the

country so that's the whole purpose of this particular course

so now you might be thinking that okay we talked about all that so why we are

worried about environment in last few decades much more than what we typically

per people we're worried about say three decades for decades five decades before today so the reason for that I'll try to

explain in next few slides mother earth is 4.6 billion years old

that's a huge amount of time 4.6 billion years is the age of mother earth

we humans when we came to this earth if you put that mother earth's the timeline

as a as a 24-hour scale so as you can see on my own over here this is a

24-hour scale sorry it's it so this is a 24-hour scale which

has been presented here for Mother Earth's timeline and so if you put 24

hours and then in this case one second becomes 52,000 years one minute becomes

3.125 million years one hour is 187 point five million years so again just

to if you are just to make sure that you are with me here what we are trying to do we have taken the entire life of

Mother Earth put it in a scale of 24 hours because it's easy for us to understand say at a scale of 24 hours if

we try to put it one second actually means 52 thousand years so that's what

that's what one second like as soon as one second is over 52,000 years over so in that scale if you look at the

humans as we exist today which is known as Homo sapiens we have existed in this

planet for only four seconds just four seconds some researcher says even you

can say three to three-and-a-half seconds because it depends on how you take when homo suitable sapiens evolved

and all that so out of 24 timeline of Mother Earth that we know

humans people like us existed for approximately four seconds

and in this four seconds we can if we can say that we have really impacted the

environment a lot we have made the environment water is polluted air is

polluted garbage everywhere waste water issues not getting treated just going to

the so there's a huge amount of impact that Mother Earth is getting so as you

can see over here so Earth history in 24 hours we have different species were

present and then different things happened over the life of Earth like

Homo sapiens we are here today maybe say a few hundred three hundred few power

few hundred thousand years from now we may not exist there might be different a species ruling this planet different

different species is staying on this planet the ruling is not a good work because we cannot really rule planet

planet has a way of getting back at us they are they are the boss actually we are not we have to realize it then only

you will be able to understand that ego that human ego is actually creating also a lot of problem so keeping those things

in picture just four seconds four seconds lot of resources have been used

lot of impact has been made so we have

to start doing the course correction now why course correction because if you

don't do the course correction we will be having lots and lots of problem newer and newer type of disease we should see

happening people at very young age getting impacted there will be impact on climate change climate changes happening

disasters are happening recently we had a huge lie case we had a storm here

which was impacted we saw and some other states so it's and those the frequency

of these natural disasters are also increasing now these scale natural calamities frequency is quite high and

so that's so in terms of we have to start looking at aspect of it is also from a population

point of view from a human population point of view in this particular graph if you can look carefully what is being

sown is on the left-hand side you have the global population you have this global population on the left and this

is in a year - initially BC then we have ad so as you can see from a stone edge

branches Iron Age Middle Ages and then you have now lit like it that newer

newer time and here's a huge exponential so you start looking at from the back

from from my left to right so as you can see from minus 500 BC we are going

towards so the lion is almost flat here as the blue line at the bottom of the

x-axis the year axis the time axis you can if you can look at carefully it's a very flat after like a non- 500 they

started picking up where were at this particular point which you can see earlier it is totally flat over here so

population is not that much since the scale is in million so that's why you don't see much population showing up

until 500 BC so but then as we move into

ad the population is started getting up and there as there are certain hiccups so there is a black plague which again

destroyed certain number of people and then we had but after as we improved

from medical practices from trying to keep us away from these different types

of natural disease we started as we become getting more and more knowledge about how to keep tape - how to take

care of ourselves and also as we started staying together the community developed

is learned how to do farming and with farming you need more hands so more

hands with more children and so that there were variety of reasons which kind of play into came into play and then we

have a huge as you can see in this particular Italy huge increase in population in a very

short amount of time and so that's the reason now we have lots and lots of

people and we have to take care of these people so lot lots and lots of demand for resources so when you have huge

demand for resources you have to look at look at your resources in a how to take

best possible it make use of best possible way how to make use of resource without in trying to pack it bring it

back because the the certain material which are we are getting we are getting

out of that we are we are not we don't have too much the abundancy is there but certain materials are becoming critical

so there are a critical material concept so we need to start looking at things in a more more proactive way to prevent the

environment make it the life make the life at least livable for our fellow

citizens so that's that kind of looks into that similar population data we're

putting in a slightly different way so this is coming from this particular

source which is called our data in the world of sorry yeah so this is the so

here as you can see on the y axis we have the years and the x axis also we

have the timeline and what it is telling you is when how there what population

has doubled over the period of time so initially it took 697 so close to 700

years for the world's population to to double from 0.25 billion 2.5 billion and

that was in 1543 so we were only point five billion less than 500 years ago

less than 500 years ago we were only 0.5 billion now we are close to seven point

six seven point seven between seven point five and ever so there's a huge increase in population and the rate of

increase is also much faster so it took seven nearly seven hundred years for

first from 0.25 to 0.5 then took 600 years like 594 to be precise to double

from 0.375 to 0.75 another to 60 years

to develop from 0.5 to 1 so it took 250

260 years to double from point 5 billion to 1 billion 125 years less than half of

that 125 years to 1 to 2 billion 76

years from 1.5 to 3 billion 47 years to 2 to 4 billion so 47 years happen so the

world's population went from 2 billion to 4 billion form even it from a like a

close to for many many of the people who are about 50 years of age they have seen

the world population double so 47 and every age they have seen the world

population to double then 37 years to

two point five to five billion in 1987 in 1987 we were 5 billion people which

was 30 years ago I remember 1987 as well that was the like we had the first time

World Cup held outside England I'm talking about could get World Cup when it was in India we lost that Kolkata

game I still feel sorry for feel sorry for that day but that's that was in 1987

which finally I think australia won defeating Pakistan or Sri Lanka I don't

remember so anyway I mean probably that was the first time of Australia winning a World Cup because the first two was

West Indies and the third one was India so yes Australia and in Borders team was that was the time the first and now they

have won several times I don't even remember how many times they want so it's so it's a so it's 37 years and it

so we are 5 billion in 1987 which was slightly more than 30 years ago now and

now we are close to seven point six billion so we have added

another two point five million people in 30-some years after after this period

you can see that there is a decrease after there is after thirty-seven years we are seeing 49 69 95 because people

have started realizing and these are some of the projections as well people have started realizing that having too

many children's are becoming a problem because things are becoming expensive education is very very expensive now

everybody wants the children to be executed all families most of the families they want their children to be

educated get a decent education so there is a family planning and all those things kick in and so that's why the

population is rate of growth of population is coming down but population

is this is still increasing and will keep on increasing for next several

decades now so what does if you look at the overall population we talked about

but what about the population in different regions of the world the here

the different colors that you see the top one is North in Central America the dark green the lighter green is your

South America so here you have North and Central America South America then we

have our scene here which is a very thin if you look at that if you pause this video and look at it very very carefully

you will see a very thin yellow line kind of going here you see the very thin yellow line which is showing up there so

that's your like that's the Oceania Shanee as Australia New Zealand which is

not too much too many people anyway so that's the that's the part right here it

right there over there then we have Europe and then this huge thing is Asia

where we are in the bottom is Africa so as you can see from 1800 onwards 226

2016 so almost last 200 years of data the population of Asia is increasing in

a much higher proportion compared to others Africa is also picking up many

African countries are like a brain you having a huge population so that's so in in our region

we we will have even more although the world is becoming global but it still certain things that is still local

so in our region as well we will have a huge impact on resource demand because

of increase in population if you want to make housing for all and create a lot of jobs create a lot of factories so we

need a lot of resources for that so our and urban population if you look

at the urban population urban population is also increasing there here you see

that the yellow one shows the low and middle-income the bottom one shows the high income countries the urban

population is also going up as as we are progressing so urbanization is we have

r1 is used to be one percent land surface now it is slightly higher but it is 60 to 70 percent of anthropogenic

greenhouse gas emissions so urban areas creates lot of the in house gas emissions huge concentration of

population and economic activities demand for food energy and water materials so Harbin areas actually drive

global land-use changes now many many places as you drive around in India as well you see that the villages we don't

see villages when we go from one on the highway or a state highway you finish one town and then you are basically in

another town so there is in between the gap is going away so there is no gap now if you go from Mumbai to Surat probably

you will hardly see any gap powerfully you still see that but pop to certain areas after you start on the train for

several like for a good period of time you will see no no base no farming

nothing it's all houses houses houses houses so that's a that's because of the change in the land use urbanization

again putting in a different perspective from 1900 to 2050 which is a projection the one then the black one says that

it's the urban up a person living in an urban area Green is person living in a rural area so as you can see from 1900 where we

have 2 out of 10 people like 20 percent now in 2030 which is closer to us we are looking at nearly 60 percent and 2050 it

will become nearly 70 percent so 70 percent of the population of the world will live in urban areas a huge demand on

resources so that's to meet that demand irrespective of whatever profession you

are in you will be involved in creating taking care of these demand that's it

would be hardware demand it could be software demand it could be civil infrastructure demand it could be Road

demands whatever housing everything buildings and all so all these demand requires material it requires water it

requires energy and material water energy it has huge environmental

footprint so that's the reason why this course is a must for each and every

graduating professional in the country and that's the motivation of why we are trying to put this course in an online

platform so that many and many people can take advantage of that so let's stop

here so we'll start our discussion from this particular slide again in the next

video so that says again this this was the first video I hope you liked it you

have any feedback feel free to put that in the discussion forum we cannot entertain emails because it's individual

emails unless you are in a something very very emergency situation where you because it's very difficult to respond

back to several thousand students who will be taking this course so it's it's late that's why we have created that

discussion forum so please and that that's the forum we will use for communication as well so do check your

discussion forum in a regular basis so hope you are enjoying this course and

now you have probably realized that you don't need to drop it you still is still

liking it from our side we'll make all the effort to make it an enjoyable course and of course it requires effort

from your side too so thank you and see you again