Extended Response Urbanization: Australia and The Philippines

Urbanisation is when people move from rural and less dense areas, to more densely packed areas, that offers more opportunities, more well-paying jobs and better social lives. It provides better opportunities for themselves and their families. In this report, I will be discussing the impacts and effects of urbanisation in Australia and The Philippines. Some areas that Urbanisation might impact in Australia and The Philippines is Environment, Water and sanitation.

Urban development plays a major part in environmental change. Urbanisation can contain opportunities and also as well as threats to our biodiversity. Other environmental issues can be pollution and other problems like sanitation and waste management and the safety of drinking water could be compromised.

With urbanisation affecting the environment comes poor air and water quality, lack of water availability, waste disposal problems. With the increasing population and density comes higher energy consumption use, leading to greater demands of the urban environment. Other environmental issues can also lead to growth in poverty population, greater population with the greater use in energy, as the population grows more cars would be bought and more automobile population will be created, health hazards, build up the risks such as flash flooding, less tree growth and other plants and possible loss of animal life from general waste and rubbish.

Due to mass urbanisation growth in the Philippines, the greenhouse gases and pollution produced from cars, trucks, factories etc, make water and air quality, unhealthy for human consumption which may cause infections, sicknesses. The Philippines urgently feel the need to put into place planning environmental issues in urban areas to reduce further risk of degradation. The level and speed of urbanisation in the Philippines have stabilized. Which indicates a higher growth population in the rural areas compared to urban areas.

Urbanisation has a major impact on water and waste management. Poor water quality and poor air quality, not enough water availability for the increasing population, waste disposal problems, and increasing energy consumption are made worse by the rising population density and demands. Urbanisation rarely improves water quality, to try and prevent the problems we need to understand how urbanisation affects the local water quality.

The impact of Urbanisation on Australia means more pavement and concrete, which stops the water from being soaked into the dirt, with the increase of pavements this will force rainwater to run off into storm sewers, then goes into streams causing flooding. It can cause flooding and erosion along the stream banks if the channel direction is changed. The design of nature was not meant to handle that much water and sewage discharge into the streams.

When it comes to supplying the Philippines with safe clean water there is a problem because the water may be contaminated. 36% of the river water supplies have access to the public and may be contaminated. 58% of the water from underground pockets are infected or contaminated. When this water is contaminated it is cause illnesses like diarrhoea, gastro-enteritis, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), hepatitis, cholera and dysentery. The Philippine government is fighting against polluted waterways in the Philippines. The government is enforcing legislation and policies that address the urgent need for control over water pollution, so they brought out new fines and environmental taxes. In some of the urban and coastal areas, it still remains a problem to access clean and adequate water.

Australian’s have to deal with our rare water assets. This has driven Australia to end up leading the world in water management. United Utilities Australia Pty Ltd (UUA), is a member of the Australian water industry. As of now, they are working to keep running 35 water treatment plants, 22 wastewater treatment plants, 9 reuse plants and 4 desalination plants. That advantage is in excess of 3million individuals in Australia.

Scientists confirm that we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction caused by humans. Biodiversity biggest threat is the size and growth of the human population and its need for higher consumption of resources, more space and generation of waste.

Urbanisation in Australia is reducing biodiversity by polluting the soil, air and water. The cutting down of trees and other natural resources in replacement for factories, houses, cities, etc. We take too much food than that is necessary and leave none for the animals and plants which reduces the population of commercial species such as fish. We introduce non-native species of plants and animals which may be diseased or toxic to our native animals and habitats.