| The Asia-Pacific region is home to around 58 per cent of the world’s
population (3.3 billion people in 1995) with an average annual growth rate
of 1.7 per cent and an average density in 1990 of 95 people per square
kilometre, which is equivalent to that of Europe (UN, 1993a). The countries
range in population size from a few thousand in some of the smaller Pacific
island nations to China with 1.2 billion, India with 0.9 billion and Indonesia
with 0.2 billion.
The urban populations in the developing countries of the region grew
at rates between 3 per cent and 6.5 per cent per year in the mid-1990s.
About 35 per cent of the population in the region is urban compared with
43 per cent for the world as a whole (Figure 1.19).
Although only one-third of its population resides in urban areas, the region
possesses 13 f the 25 largest cities of the world. It has been predicted
that in 2015 about 903 million people in Asia will live in cities with
a population of more than one million (WRI/UNEP/UNDP/World Bank, 1996).
The environmental stress generated by urbanization is related to poverty
and arises from economic growth and affluence. The growth of cities has
been accompanied by a proliferation of slums and squatter settlements without
access to basic infrastructure, water and sanitation (Table 9),
and gives rise to associated health risks. The lack of this basic infrastructure
causes urban dwellers to contribute further to local degradation. It has
been predicted that South Asia will continue to maintain a large share
of the world’s urban poor (WRI/UNEP/UNDP/WB, 1996).
Environmental concerns resulting from economic growth and affluence
in urban areas include traffic congestion (Figure 20),
increasing air and water pollution, loss of productive agricultural land,
loss of coastal habitats from conversion and land reclamation, over-extraction
of groundwater resources resulting in land subsidence, and deforestation
as a consequence of increased demand for construction timber.
Problems of urbanization are not only confined to continental or large
archipelagic states but also occur in small island states such as the Maldives,
Tuvalu and Tonga where in-migration to the capital islands has resulted
in severe shortages of land, and in some instances freshwater shortages,
as well as localised areas of coastal pollution.
By 2020, half of the world’s population will be urban and half of this
would reside in the Asia-Pacific region. This would add 1.5 billion people
to the urban centres in Asia, i.e. slightly more than the current population
of China (UN, 1993c). Such an increase would necessitate further development
of urban services and amenities. It would also pose a major challenge to
the prospect of sustainable urbanization in the region. Many innovative
approaches to environmental management are being undertaken in this region,
for example countries in the ASEAN sub-region are developing population
dispersion policies aimed at checking urban population growth and diffusing
urban primacy (ASEAN, 1995) |
