AN INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENT

Environmental studies got a prime concern, in the wake of high level of environmental degradation and thus worldwide awareness towards conserving environment. Biotic and abiotic means today are struggling for their existence because of environmental degradation. Tremendous urbanization, industrialization, population growth and large-scale exploitation of natural resources, without framing and implementing any rational policy of conservation, have led the high level temporal and spatial changes in the environmental conditions – climate change, global warming and cooling in particular. Summers are too hot, winters are too cold, extreme floods and extreme droughts have put the constraints for the survival of living beings. Environmental hazards – natural and
man-made – are more intensified and extreme.

It is against this backdrop that the present book is designed. It seeks to address interrelated, yet distinct, issues pertaining to environment. The most important amongst them are ecosystem, biodiversity, environmental pollution and hazards, environmental degradation, population explosion, global warming and climate change. The young entrants in the discipline of geography, especially environmental studies, will find something of interest and merit in this book.

CONTENTS
1 An Introduction to Environment

2 Natural Resources

3 Conservation of Natural Resources

4 Watershed Management

5 Ecology

6 Ecosystems

7 Biodiversity

8 Environmental Pollution

9 Environmental Hazards

10 Environmental Degradation

11 Population Explosion and Its Consequences

12 Global Warming and Climate Change

13 Environmental and Social Issues

14 Conservation Movements

15 India’s Environmental Regulations