Land Misuse And Land Pollution

 

The next category of pollution we are going to be looking at or considering this time around is land misuse and land pollution. A lot of  current environmental problems have been caused or aggravated by the careless use of land and natural resources. 

Overgrazing Of ranch-land has led to erosion. Draining and dredging wetlands has also led to the disappearance of coastal wildlife. Dams which are structures erected to obstruct the flow of water solely for the purpose of generating electricity prevents rivers from carrying sediments to the ocean and as a result beaches are disappearing and are being degraded. 

In times past, strip mining carried out in the United States has been less expensive, faster and more efficient than underground mining. But this activity has transformed large pacts of land in Pennsylvania, Ohio,Virginia, Kentucky, and other states into a maze of deep pits and huge soil mounds. Once the land has been altered and exposed by strip miners, it is ugly and vulnerable to erosion and flooding. 

Moreover, although strip miners can be filled in and be cleaned, this process can usually take up to thirty to forty years. Increased construction is and has been a problem along the coast of many nations. 

In the 1980’s, a report from the Council Of European states which is now called The European Union, said that trampling on coastal dunes have resulted in the loss of stabilizing vegetations and erosion of these dunes. To cope with this problem, the European authorities had to erect stricter zoning laws in coastal areas and have attempted to build new dunes. Construction along coastal areas have also caused the Black Sea coast to recede  and disappear in Russia. 

Building projects have been so numerous that soil has and is loosened which has caused erosion to be frequent over the past decades. Builders have even made it worse by increasing the damages as gravel from coastal areas are continuously being taken away,  as well as dams and construction of reservoirs have hugely disrupted the natural pebble making process. 

Urbanization, which is the agglomeration of people in space, has rarely been accompanied by large scale, long range planning. Therefore, haphazard, unplanned and irregular construction of past and recent urban cities and centers have  turned many urban and suburban areas and regions into commercial jungles. 

The physical deterioration of inner cities, the lack of parklands, and the proliferation of highways, byways and bridges not to talk of neon signs, all contribute to an unpleasant and psychologically upsetting environment. 

A major source of land pollution is the massive amount of solid wastes disposed of each and every day by large consumer societies. 

In African societies for instance, taking a case study of Nigeria in particular, there has been a high level of consumption of products due to the high rate of importation of these foreign goods into the country. 

Investors from China, India and the Middle East especially had taken a toll on the the nation’s consuming pattern by the introduction of their goods and services, and as a result, consumer levels hiked feverishly coupled with the government’s inability to put in place adequate measures to dispose of solid wastes to help check the ever increasing menace of land pollution. 

Although, the present administration has been able to clamp down on importation of products to a large extent, there’s still thethe problem of land pollution with the exception of cities like Lagos and Calabar whose governments have done considerably well in putting long term measures in ensuring that the environment is kept clean and tidy despite the high level of consumption.