IMPACT OF URBANIZATION ON ENVIRONMENT

RIVER EROSION Bangladesh is a land of rivers. Our territory is surrounded by thousands of big and small rivers. Most of our territory is standing less than ten meters (30 feet) above sea level. As Bangladesh has a big number of rivers, so river erosion is becoming one of the most familiar disasters of our country especially in rural areas. Because of urbanization and cutting down a lot of trees of river side, this problem is getting bigger day by day. About 10,000 square kilometers of Bangladesh's 144,000 total is covered with water, and larger areas are routinely flooded during plays an important rule for river erosion and causes lots of damage to our locality. According to a research; if we plant more trees on riverside, it will help us to make our soil more stable to protect itself from erosion. But because of urbanization, a lot of trees are being cut down and the riverside remains in danger. EMISSION OF GASES As a developing country, Bangladesh has a lot of industries. In the process of development, the scenario that happens because of globalization is not peaceful for us as we see it now. The emission of very harmful and toxic gases is polluting our weather day by day. If I give an example of our capital city Dhaka, then we can easily realize that Dhaka is fast turning into a inhabitable city. In this serious situation, the news about Dhaka city air reported to containing higher proportion of lead and CO must be very alarming. Faulty vehicles, especially diesel run vehicles, brick kilns, dust from roads and construction sides and toxic fumes from industries contribute to air pollution. Industrialization and mechanized vehicles are two major sources of air pollution of any country. The number of automobiles of our country has been increasing at least 10% annually and that contributes a lot to air pollution of our country. Emission of toxic gases causes a lot of air pollution and for that reason people are being suffered from headache asthma, high blood pressure and even cancer. LAND DEGRADATION Land degradation is also a curse of urbanization. The population of our country is increasing day by day. They need more and more food for the increasing number of population. Thats e why the pressure upon land is getting higher. The land that supposed to be cultivate once a season, is being cultivated twice or thrice a season. Thats why the productivity power of land is getting lower day by day. Besides that, farmers of our country are very familiar in using high amount of fertilizer in their lands to get huge production of crops. But it helps to decrease the quality of land rather than getting benefit from the soil. Land degradation is mainly a manmade curse. Land degradation is also related with environmental pollution. The soil is being polluted due to

industrial waste and toxic materials also. Sometimes it is found that because of being over polluted land lost its productivity power forever. That is not only harmful for our vast population but it is also a curse on the way of economic and agricultural development of our country. As Bangladesh an agricultural country and most of our people earn their livelihood by doing agricultural works, so it is very much needed for us to reduce the rate of land degradation. To do so, we the government and different NGOs can teach the farmer the way of proper cultivation of land. Industries should throw their waste and other toxic materials away from the agricultural land. We have to set up industries not beside the cultivating land.