The Effect of Land Use Activities on the Health and Safety of the Environment
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are;
- To ascertain the effect of land use activities on the health and safety of the environment
- To ascertain the activities on the land that are dangerous to health
- To ascertain the relationship between land use activities and the safety of the environment
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
LAND USE OR LAND COVER
Apart from “landscape”, also the expressions “land use” and “land cover” are very frequent and can be easily confused. Thus, we feel that sound definitions are important. FAO (2000) defines land cover as “the observed bio-physical cover on the Earth’s surface”. As such, land cover reflects the real (de facto) land cover, in other words what grows on the examined plot, what can be “seen”. Land cover is usually examined by means of field mapping or remote sensing; the expression is traditionally used in natural sciences landscape ecology or physical geography. The approach towards land cover research much depends on the purpose of study which influences classification, legend, scale, minimal size of the grid, etc. To a certain degree, land cover research can be subjective, depending for instance on research teams. The term land use was first used by Stamp (1948)—see Sect. 2.3. It can be understood as a secondary concept as “land use” also includes the use of “land cover” by humans plus the social, economic, political or cultural “function” of land cover (Aspinall and Hill 2008). As a result, land use is seen either as a human activity as such (physical use of an area) or as an existing situation that reflects human activities in the landscape. FAO (1998) defines that land use “is characterized by the arrangements, activities and inputs people undertake in a certain land cover type to produce, change or maintain it”. Thus, this expression “establishes a direct link between land cover and the actions of people in their environment”. Similarly, Lambin et al. (2006, p. 4) defines land use as “the purpose for which humans exploit land cover”. Land use includes “both the manner in which biophysical attributes of the land are manipulated and the intent underlying that manipulation, i.e., the purpose for which the land is used”. Land use reflects the state of the landscape “de iure” and it is influenced by the attitude of owners and users, and also by the authorities. Thus, also land use research can be affected by the approach adopted by authorities and owners/users of respective area. Land use researchers usually rely on cartographic and statistical data that are typically used in social sciences, including social geography. Our approach is closer to “land use” as we mostly use statistical data collected from cadastral registers. In these files, for instance, forest that would grow on a plot labelled as “permanent grassland” is registered as “PG” until a formal change of land use is made by the authorities; the same, however, may apply vice versa. Since 1850, land owners have been obliged to report such a change to authorities no later than 1 year after it had occurred; in 1990 this deadline was extended to 2 years.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to the effect of land use activities on the health and safety of the environment
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on the effect of land use activities on the health and safety of the environment. 200 staff of ministry of environment in Abuja was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the effect of land use activities on the health and safety of the environment
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of the land use activities on the health and safety of the environment
Summary
This study was on the effect of land use activities on the health and safety of the environment. Three objectives were raised which included: To ascertain the effect of land use activities on the health and safety of the environment, to ascertain the activities on the land that are dangerous to health, to ascertain the relationship between land use activities and safety of the environment. In line with these objectives, three research hypotheses were formulated and three null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of ministry of environment, Abuja. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up environmental engineers, scientific officers, senior staff and junior staff was used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
The National Environmental Policy Act envisioned the environmental impact statement to be prepared “using an inter-disciplinary approach which will insure the integrated use of the natural and social sciences and the environmental design arts. Although this vision remains unrealized, the experience suggests that the public health community has significant opportunities for using the existing procedural framework of at least in land use policy settings to gain knowledge about several social and environmental determinants of health. Practice can begin in an experimental and adaptive mode that is sensitive to context and political limitations and that builds on experiences and lessons learned.
Recommendation
Government should set up an obligation that guide any activity of the land for a healthy benefit of the environment
REFERENCES
- National Environmental Policy Act. Title 42 USC §4331(b)(2); 2005. Karkkainen BC. Towards a smarter NEPA: monitoring and managing government’s environmental performance. Columbia Law Rev. 2002;102: 903–972.
- Arquiaga MC, Canter LW, Nelson DI. Integration of health impact considerations in environmental impact studies. Impact Assess. 1994;12:175–197.
- Steinemann A. Rethinking human health impact assessment. Environ Impact Assess Rev. 2000;20:627–645.
- Davies K, Sadler B. Environmental Assessment and Human Health: Perspectives, Approaches, and Future Directions. Ottawa, Ontario: Health Canada; 1997.
- Kemm J, Parry J, Palmer S. Health Impact Assessment: Concepts, Techniques and Applications. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; 2004.
- Ison E. Resource for Health Impact Assessment. London, UK: London’s Health; 2000.
- Lehto J, Ritsatakis A. Health Impact Assessment as a Tool for Inter-sectoral Health Policy: A Discussion Paper for a Seminar at Gothenburg, Sweden. Brussels, Belgium: European Center for Health Policy; 1999.
- Kwiatkowski RE, Ooi M. Integrated environmental impact assessment: a Canadian example. Bull World Health Organ. 2003;81:434–438. [PMC free article] [PubMed]
