'Cities have become places of urban environmental degradation'

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

Sustainable city planning should be aimed at achieving social and environmental equity, while improving the lives of the people and it is necessary to have a sustainable city form as well as provision and proper management of the services.

President, Institute of Environment Professionals, Prof Hemanthi Ranasinghe said, speaking on "Towards an Environmentally Sustainable Urban Development," at the 6th AGM of the Association at the Waters Edge in Battaramulla recently.

She said, in order for a city or urban area to be sustainable, it needed to produce and manage basic services such as water, waste, energy and transportation in a way that it conforms to the principles of sustainable development. It has to have conducive policies, plans and regulations to make the efforts sustainable.

Prof Ranasinghe said that sustainable development means attaining a balance between environmental protection and human economic development and also between present and future needs. It means equity in development and sectoral actions across space and time which requires an integration of economic, social and environmental approaches towards development.

Sustainable urban development refers to attaining social equity and environmental protection in urbanization, while minimizing the costs of urbanization. It tries to achieve a balance between the development of the urban areas and protection of the environment with an eye to equity in employment, shelter, basic services, social infrastructure and transportation in urban areas.

She said, with rapid expansion of urban population around the world, there has arisen a wide awareness about minimizing the environmental costs of urbanization. Concerns are raised at environmental damages and depletion of non renewable resources and rising levels of pollution in urban areas which are positive signs.

In recent times, cities have become places of urban environmental degradation and wasteful use of resources, proving to be costly to the generations present as well as the future.

In order to mitigate the problem, it has been necessary to minimize the depletion of non-renewable resources and resort to environmentally sustainable economic development. But this has to be done in ways that are socially, economically and politically acceptable.

Accordingly, ensuring environmental sustainability means taking steps, which include integration of the principles of sustainable development in the policies and programmes of the country, reversal of loss of environmental resources, reduction of the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and improving the lives of slum dwellers.