Perspectives and Issues in Environmental Studies

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Professor Ananda Deb Mukhopadhyay, Vice-Chancellor, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal has a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and was a Post-Doctorate Fellow at the Oslo University, Norway. He was also a UNESCO Fellow at the Leoben Mining University, Austria and worked there as a Visiting Scientist. A specialist in earth sciences and the related disciplines, he loves to be involved in problem oriented projects where he tends to break the walls of the individual disciplines and reach at some tangible solution. His publication list is thus characterised by a varied assemblage.

Basically being an Earth Scientist he has carried out various studies related to "Environment". More than three decades he has worked for bringing Environment as a component of various disciplines in undergraduate and post-graduate levels of University Education. He has published several papers and books on various facets of Environment. He was bestowed with the UGC Pranabananda Saraswati Award in 1997 for his outstanding contribution in the field of Ecology and Environmental sciences.

Searching out and employing the tools for solving the problem, rather than solving it within the narrow confines of a particular discipline has been his strong forte. During the long span of exposure to myriad topics and subjects as a teacher and a researcher, Professor Mukhopadhyay has acquired dexterity in the management of integration.

Studies pertaining to Environment have become an essential component in Under-graduate and Post-graduate levels of the University education. The concept of "Our Common Future" entirely depends on achieving global sustainability. As a result understanding global environmental perspectives and issues is the essential need of the hour. The University Grants Commission initiated the introduction of Environmental Studies both at Undergraduate and Post-graduate levels of Indian Universities. With this backdrop this textbook is designed to bring out the holistic component of Environmental Studies. Thus the approach in this book is to synthesise the different facets of Environment and to highlight its perspectives and issues which form the basic components in the Environmental Curriculum of Under-graduate and Post-graduate levels of our Universities. The inter/multidisciplinary nature of Environmental Studies has been given sharper focus for understanding the Environment in totality.

Definition of Environment

Environment in broadest sense means everything that surround us. It also means the conditions under which any individual or thing sustains to live and develop. The surrounding conditions (Gilpin 1990) are:

(i) the sum total of physical conditions which affect and influence the growth and development of an individual or community;

(ii) the social and cultural conditions which affect the nature of an individual or community; and

(iii) the surrounding of an inanimate object of intrinsic value.

Human environment is classified as (a) biotic and (b) abiotic. Biotic environment encompasses human beings, fauna, flora, bacteria, viruses, ecology and all the social factors that constitute the 'Quality of life' while abiotic environment includes land, water, atmosphere, climate, sound, odour and tastes. The concept of 'Environment' emerged from an assembly of living and inanimate objects.