How does urbanization affect the environment in China?
With China’s fast urbanization, serious problems emerged related to overcrowding, air and water pollution and environmental degradation [6]. In 2006, China became the world’s largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter [7] and continues to contribute to raising CO2 emissions.
What are the environmental impacts of China’s growing population?
Population growth has reduced arable land/captia. The impact on forests has been deforestation. 13% of land is currently forested, and timber reserves encompass 9.14 billion cubic meters, or 9 cubic meters/person. The demand for firewood and timber will increase.
What are the environmental impacts of urbanization?
Urbanization also affects the broader regional environments. Regions downwind from large industrial complexes also see increases in the amount of precipitation, air pollution, and the number of days with thunderstorms. Urban areas affect not only the weather patterns, but also the runoff patterns for water.
What are the environmental impacts of China’s development?
But this success comes at the cost of deterioration of the environment. China’s environmental problems, including outdoor and indoor air pollution, water shortages and pollution, desertification, and soil pollution, have become more pronounced and are subjecting Chinese residents to significant health risks.
How did urbanization help China?
Rapid urbanization has fueled China’s economic boom over the past four decades, with the share of urban residents surging from around 20% of the population when economic reforms started in 1979.
How did urbanization change China?
By the end of the 1940s, China had 69 cities. In 2007, it had 670 cities, almost ten times as many. Increasing urbanization is the result of migration from villages, as well as natural increase, leading to the expansion of small towns which have been reclassified as cities.
What is the biggest environmental problem in China?
As the world’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in recent years, China suffers from notoriously bad air pollution. Its carbon-intensive industries have caused additional environmental challenges, including water scarcity and soil contamination.
What are the 6 environmental costs that result from urbanization?
While rapid urbanization has greatly accelerated economic and social development, it has also engendered numerous environmental problems, manifested in local climate alteration [2,3,4,5], carbon storage [6], increased air and water pollution [7,8,9], increased energy demands [10], a major reduction in natural …
What are environmental benefits of urbanization?
Urban growth generates revenues that fund infrastructure projects, reducing congestion and improving public health. Environment-friendly infrastructure and public services such as piped water, sanitation, and waste management are easier and cheaper to construct, maintain and operate in cities.
What is the main environmental issue in China?
According to Jared Diamond, the six main categories of environmental problems of China are: air pollution, water problems, soil problems, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss and mega projects.
How is urbanization reshaping China’s environment?
Twenty-five of the world’s largest 100 cities are in China. Urbanization, in turn, is reshaping both the physical environment and the cultural fabric. Take, for example, the issue of pollution.
What is urbanization and how does it affect the environment?
Urbanization, in turn, is reshaping both the physical environment and the cultural fabric. Take, for example, the issue of pollution. Huge cities place huge demands on the environment, but high-density living conditions also present opportunities for improving efficiency of energy usage. There are clear signs of the environmental challenge.
Is China’s urban explosion bad for the environment?
While underscoring the unprecedented scale of China’s urban explosion, she encouraged a nuanced view of what urbanization means to the country. “It’s not that China cities are bad for the environment—or that they’re all going to save the environment.”
What is driving urbanization in Shanghai?
Urbanization is correlated with the increase of air temperature, hot days and the decrease of relative humidity, wind speed and vegetation NDVI in Shanghai. The growth of UHI in Shanghai has been driven by the continuous increase of buildings, paved roads, buses, population and GDP, as well as the decrease of cultivated land.