Impact of increasing population to the environmental problems in vietnam

1050 IMPACT OF INCREASING POPULATION TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS IN VIETNAM M.Sc. La Ngoc Mai mailn@neu.edu.vn Faculty of Human Resources Economics and Management, National Economics University, Hanoi Vietnam Abstract The dramatic growth of human population is putting a substantial stain on our environment. The increase of population forced construction, transportation, industrial production, agriculture, and mineral resource exploitation to increase to serve human needs. These are also the main emission sources causing environmental pollution in general and air pollution in particular. The authors collected data analyzing the changes in air pollutants in the 2007-2016 period, from which to analyze the sources of pollution and the results of the paper contribute to improving people's awareness of environmental protection and also offer some solutions to reduce environmental pollution in Vietnam Keywords: Air and water pollution, Physical environment, Population and environment 1. Introduction Population and environment are two closely related factors. The fluctuation of the population has many positive and negative impacts on the sustainable or unsustainable development of the environment, natural resources and nature environment is also responding to these impacts of human society. The rapid explosion of the world population in general as well as Vietnam population in particular has caused big pressure exhausting the natural resources due to over-exploitation for the needs of housing, food production, industrial production. Rapid population growth also creates concentrated waste sources that exceeding the biodegradable capacity of the natural environment in urban areas of agricultural, industrial production, populated areas causing heavy pollution for surrounding environment. The formation of cities, megacities and economic development makes the environment seriously degraded, land loss, forest loss, desertification. The supply of clean water, housing and green trees does not meet the population development. The 1051 increasing pollution of air, water, and land environment requires specific short-term and long-term solutions. The UNICEF report wrote: "World population growth has increased the seriousness of the ability to protect life of our planet." Therefore, understanding the current population growth situation, how population growth affect the environment will help us make specific decisions and actions to step by step prevent these negative impacts, restore and maintain parts of the environment which are degraded and polluted. 2. Research method Researching and using data information from the General Statistics Office, information on environmental phenomena, population growth in Vietnam as well as the world through media reports, official electronic websites in 2017, 2018. On the basis of those data, conducting the synthesis, analysis, comparison to draw key characteristics, rapid population growth trends in Vietnam and how it affects the environment. The article can partly help each individual citizen, as well as managers understand their responsibilities in environmental protection, together planning strategies from micro to macro to reduce the impact, influence of population growth to the general environment, together looking towards sustainable development. 3. Result 3.1. Basic concept of population and environment The close relationship between population and environment has been concerned by many researchers and typically, we have: Malthus' doctrine (1798, 1803, 1960) indicates that population growth always tends to outstrip the productive capacity of land resources. These results in consequences such as hunger, increased death rate or delayed marriage, narrowing family size, working to minimize population growth. Malthus argues that the demand of the population creates a direct limit to the availability of resources and, in contrast, the resource itself also establishes limits on population growth. This view has contributed to the concept of the 'tolerance limit' of the natural environment, thereby contributing to the establishment of environmental population policies. The United Nations Population and Environment Specialist Group preparing for the 1994 World Population Conference also offers a similar model to measure the impact of population and resource and environment-related factors: I = P x A x T  I: Level of impact on natural resources and environment.  P: population size.  A: Average of resources used per capita.  T: The degree of destruction of resources and the environment due to the use of technology to produce a consumer unit 1052 3.2. Situation of Vietnam's population growth and impacts to the environment 3.2.1. Situation of Vietnam population growth The population of Vietnam increased by an average of 2604 people per day. As expected in 2018, Vietnam will increase by 950,346 people and reach 97 million people by 2019. Natural increase of the population is expected to be positive because the number of children born is more than the number of death, which is 997,715 people and mechanics increase will be as negative as in previous years, which means that the number of people moving to Vietnam to settle down is less than the number of people leaving the country to settle in another country. The results of the census and statistics show that after 85 years, the population of Vietnam has increased by 5.3 times, while during the same period, the world population increased by only 3.6 times. Vietnam is ranked 14th in the world in the ranking of countries and territories, while our total land area is only 310,060 km2, ranking 66th in the world. According to scientists from the United Nations, to ensure the convenience of life, the average population density should only be 35-40 people living on 1 km2. However, the current population density in Vietnam is 312 people / km2, which is 9-10 times higher than the standard population density, not to mention some big cities, with population density of up to 2,171 people / km2 in Hanoi, 3,888 people / km2 in Ho Chi Minh City. Even compared to China, the most populous country in the world, the population density of Vietnam is still 2-3 times higher and compared to other developing countries, it is 10 times higher. Population growth rate has decreased but population size has still increased Table 1: Growth rate and population of Vietnam in the period of 1950 - 2017 Year Speed of population growth% Vietnam's population (million people) 1950 2,24 24,81 1960 3,07 32,67 1970 2,59 43,41 1980 2,26 54,37 1990 2,18 68,21 2000 1,12 80,29 2010 1,04 88.36 2017 1,07 95,41 Source: General Statistics Office of Population during the period of 1950-2017 1053 Our country had a very high population growth rate in the years 50,60, peaked at 3.08% in 1960. Rapid population growth affected the socio-economic development, especially in the context that the 2 regions, South and North, had their own strategic tasks. Therefore, on December 26th, 1961, Prime Minister Pham Van Dong signed to issue the first decision on giving birth with instructions. In 1975, the population growth rate decreased to 2.5% and fell to 1.9% in 1990 with positive contributions of population propaganda policies and programs. The population growth rate of our country decreased to the lowest rate in 2004 and 2005 with a rate of 0.92% and always maintained below 1.15%. Thanks to the efforts of the whole society, the population growth rate of our country has actually decreased, but due to the large population size, our population continues to increase each year. According to the data calibrated in accordance with the average birth rate of the United Nations Economic and Social Division, by 2020, the country's population will reach more than 98 million and by 2050 it will be nearly 113 million. Table 2: Forecast of Vietnam's population in the period of 2020 - 2050 Year Speed of population growth% Vietnam's population (million people) 2020 0,99 98,16 2025 0,79 102,09 2030 0,61 105,22 2035 0,48 107,77 2040 0,40 109,93 2045 0,31 111,64 2050 0,20 112,78 Source: Effective data on average births, United Nations Economic and Social Division forecasts 2020-2050 period Together with reducing the rate of population growth, it is the trend that many women give birth to only one child, or decide not to have children. This has had a little effect on population size when Vietnam reached replacement fertility level in 2006, nearly 10 years earlier than expected. However, the decline in fertility level does not mean that the population size will decrease but it is still increasing in the coming years, the reason is that the number of women in childbearing age is increasing as a result of the previous population growth speed. Currently, according to statistics, only about one in every 1.5 women who enter the childbearing age passes the childbearing age, therefore, according to experts, depending on the fertility level, Vietnam will achieve maximum population size in 2040-2050, or 2060. 1054 Another thing worth noting is that the quality of Vietnam's population is generally low. Although the population of our country is young (the proportion of the population in working age from 15 to 64 is 69.3%), the literacy rate is high (it is estimated that 94.52% of the adult population aged 15 and above can read and write) and life expectancy is high (76.6 years), but the rate of malnutrition in children is also high (the rate of stunting children is 24.6% in 2015), nutrition for pregnant mothers is lacking, the gap in living standards between population groups is large, low quality of labor, elderly life is not guaranteed. The Vietnam’s HDI index is 0.683 in 2017, ranking 115th out of 188 countries compared. 3.2.2. Current state of air quality The air environment has a vital meaning to maintain the life of the Earth, especially human life. But the characteristic of the air environment is that it cannot divide the border, territory, also cannot privately owned or traded. Air pollution is an inadequate issue that needs alarming in urban areas, industrial zones or some trade villages in our country. Air pollution has a serious impact on health, respiratory system, quality of life of people, adversely affects the ecosystem and also causes climate change. With the rapid growth of the population of the country in particular and the population of the world in general, air pollution is increasingly heavy through the speed of industrialization and rapid urbanization. The main air pollutants are: SO2, NO2, CO, H2S, lead (Pb) gas, suspended dust and volatile organic combustion like gasoline. According to the environmental monitoring data, the air in our country now has high pollution of dust and CO in trade villages, large urban areas, industrial parks, air quality of rural environment is still within the permitted limits. Within the scope of the article, the author would like to provide data on the main air pollutants: TPS, SO2, NO2 as well as analyze some of the underlying causes of high pressure to air environment, but ask for permission to not synthesize all causes and numbers. Dust pollution. According to the observation of indicators reflecting suspended dust pollution such as TSP, PM10 (coarse dust) and PM2.5 (fine dust) at monitoring stations on some traffic routes, the level of dust pollution in our country at present is still at a high level. The concentration of TSP dust has exceeded Vietnam standard 05: 2013 level from 2 to 3 times and often concentrates in large urban areas, most clearly expressed in special urban types. 1055 Figure 2: Describe the average annual TSP concentration in the air around a number of traffic routes in the 2007-2016 period Source: General Department of Environment Compared to traffic routes, the level of pollution in residential areas is many times lower, the further away from the traffic axis, the better the air quality. However, residential areas with large traffic density, the dust pollution level is still higher than the permitted level of Viet Nam standard. Figure 3: The development of TSP concentration in the air around a number of residential areas across the country in the 2007-2016 period Source: General Department of Environment For industrial parks, depending on the type of production, technological process, production scale and fuel used, industrial parks will emit different components and concentrations. But in general, these areas have TSP concentrations exceeding Vietnam standard limits from 1.5 to 2 times. 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Phùng Hưng Hà Nội Crossroads Thủ Đức, Hồ Chí Minh Settle 5 Trần Bình Trọng, Đà Nẵng T junction Tam Hiệp, Đồng Nai Junction Quang Trung - Hùng Vương, Quảng Ngãi 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 --- VS 05:2013 24h average --- VS 05:2013 average year VS: Vietnam standard 1056 Figure 4: Annual average TSP concentration around some of our industrial parks in 2007-2016 Source: General Department of Environment According to the general analysis, dust pollution in our country is at a quite high level, however, the level of pollution always changes between the hours of the day, between the days and months of the year. Dust pollution, especially fine dust tends to focus in the winter months, with little rainfall for the North and North Central regions. For the southern provinces and cities with the differentiation of the dry and rainy seasons, the dust concentration is usually higher in the dry season and at peak traffic hours, lower in the rainy season and decreases at noon as well as at night in the day. Pollution of NO2, CO2, SO2, O3 gases NO2 gas shows signs of pollution in areas with high traffic frequency. For other gases SO2, CO, the monitoring values are still lower than the Vietnam standard 05: 2013 standard limits, but these gases all have a higher increase during peak traffic hours. Figure 5: Movement of NO2 concentration in the air around some urban roads in 2007-2016 Source: General Department of Environment 1057 In addition to toxic gas pollution, odor pollution also exists due to organic substances and nutrients stagnating in rivers, lakes and surrounding canals. Noise pollution Another inadequate air pollution issue is the noise pollution. At traffic routes, noise pollution exceeds specified Vietnam standard 26:2010, however, the excess level is not great. This phenomenon takes place in both large and small cities. Figure 6: Movements of noise parameters due to ambient air in some urban roads in 2012-2015 Source: General Department of Environment In urban residential areas, the noise level is also quite high, but still within the permitted standards, except for some areas where there are construction sites. 3.2.3. Sources of pollution Vietnam is a developing country, with the 14th largest population size in the world, with a territory of only 310,000 km2. Populous pressure on socio-economic development has greatly affected the natural environment, as well as natural resources of the whole country. The larger the population size, the greater the emission sources causing pollution to the environment, notably in which is the air environment. Due to the habit as well as living needs of different residential areas, the impact on the air environment of each area is also different. However, the main sources of emissions are: industrial production, transportation, construction and people, agriculture and trade villages, landfill and waste treatment. Industrial production activity Along with the increasing population size is the rapid growth of industrial parks to produce goods to meet consumer needs, as well as to create jobs for laborer. Since 2002, our country has 80 zones, up to 2005 there are over 120 industrial parks and 1058 currently according to data provided by the Department of Economic Zones Management, Ministry of Planning and Investment, 2016, the whole country has 328 industrial parks, 625 industrial clusters and 16 economic zones, mainly concentrated in the Southeast, Red River Delta and Southwest regions. Table 3: Estimated load of substances emitted into the environment from cement production Emissions (million tons/year) 2011 2015 2020 Dust 0,65 1,075 1,34 CO2 0,086 0,14 0,18 Source: Institute of Building Materials, Ministry of Construction Many production facilities do not have toxic waste treatment equipment, do not meet the standards for emission standards causing air pollution in the region and local pollution around enterprises, factories, especially brick kilns, pottery manufacturing enterprises, coal-fired thermal power plants, copper-casting, steel- making, and chemical fertilizer plants. These hazardous substances often include groups of dust, groups of organic substances, heavy metals and group of inorganic substances, which are mainly NO2, SO2 and TSP emissions. Table 4: Estimates the amount of substances emitted into the environment from construction material production Emissions (million tons/year) 2011 2015 2020 Dust 2,82 3,43 4,1 SO2 0,73 0,87 1,03 CO2 280,7 342,8 446,5 Source: Institute of Building Materials, Ministry of Construction Construction activity The population has increased, great pressure on infrastructure as well as the housing demand, therefore, in recent years; our country has promoted the construction of roads, bridges, apartment areas, new urban areas transporting materials and waste to everywhere. Activities of removing old buildings, landfilling, material transporting and wastes seriously pollute the surrounding environment, especially the air environment. There have been many regulations on dust cover, washing the car before leaving the construction site or spraying to wash the road but the implementation is still limited and ineffective. Although construction activities over the past time have 1059 contributed to reducing traffic congestion, creating significant changes in the landscape and gradually forming the transportation network according to planning, but this is also the source of spreading large amounts of dust pollution, emissions into the air environment such as SO2, CO, VOC ... People, activities of landfill and waste disposal For people’s activities such as using fossil fuels, uncontrolled waste combustion increases the concentration of air pollutants: NOx, CO, CO2, SOx, HCL, HF, Dioxin, Furan and ash. Currently, because of improved living conditions, people have gradually replaced the use of toxic charcoal and wood stoves with gas stoves, induction cookers and electric stoves. However, with the increasing population size, the amount of waste discharged into the environment is still a big problem for planners. Open-air garbage dumps are places where solid wastes with high organic ingredient are concentrated, under the impact of moisture, organisms, temperature, solid waste is decomposed and produces gases like CH4 - 63.7% CO2 - 33.3% and some other substances). According to statistics, CH4 and CO2 from domestic waste account for 19% of total gas emissions. The process of transporting waste also generates odors from the process of decomposing organic substances causing high pollution for the air environment. Transportation activity The population increases, the demand of using for traffic transportation also increases. However, in Vietnam, public transpor