Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and Heston (1991) (Penn World Tables). They found that concentrations
for sulphur dioxide and smoke increased with higher per capita GDP at
low levels of national income and decreased with higher levels of income,
with a turning point between $4000 and $5000, measured in 1985 US
dollars of GDP. For the mass of suspended particles, in a given volume of
air, they found that the relationship was monotonically decreasing. They
also found that all three pollutants increased at an income level of $10 000
to $15 000.
In another study, Grossman and Krueger (1995) examined the relation-
ship between per capita income and four types of environmental indica-
tors: urban air pollution (SO
2
, smoke and heavy particles), the state of the
oxygen regime in river basins (dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand
(BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and concentration of nitrates),
faecal contamination of river basins (faecal coliform and total coliform)
and contamination of river basins by heavy metals (concentration of lead,
cadmium, arsenic, mercury and nickel). They used panel data across many
countries for the 14 environmental indicators obtained from the GEMS.
They found evidence that, for most indicators, environmental quality ini-
tially deteriorated with economic growth, followed by a subsequent phase
of improvement. They also found that the turning points for the dif erent
pollutants varied but, in most cases, were below an income per capita level
of $8000, measured in 1985 US dollars of GDP. They also found that for
seven indicators there was a statistically signii cant positive relationship
between environmental quality and per capita income GDP of $10000.
Only in the case of total coliform did they i nd a signii cant adverse rela-
tionship at this level of income. They also highlighted that there were a few
points to be taken into account with regard to their i ndings. First, there
was no reason to believe that improvement in environmental quality as a
result of economic development was an automatic process. Second, the
reason for the downward slope and inverted U-shaped curve could be due
to countries ceasing to produce pollution-intensive goods as they imported
these goods from other countries. Third, the relationship observed in
previous research rel ected the technological, political and economic con-
ditions existing at that time, from which poor countries could learn and
avoid the mistakes of earlier growth experiences.
Shai k and Bandyopadhyay (1992) explored the relationship between
economic growth and environmental quality in a background paper for
the
World Development Report
, which was later published by Shai k in
1994. They conducted a systematic analysis on environmental quality data
from 149 countries for the period 1960 to 1990. They used ten environ-
mental indicators: lack of clean water, lack of urban sanitation, ambient
levels of SPM, ambient sulphur oxides (SO
2
), change in forest area and
