Environmental Geology

Dear Students, I am professor L. P. Chourasia working as Honorary Professor in the department of applied geology of Dr. Harisingh Gour University, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh. I am going to tell you about the course entitled environmental geology. This course is based on Choice Based Credit System (CBCS) for B. Sc. Students with geology subject. The students who passed their higher secondary examination can pursue this course. It is a part of UGC curriculum as a skill enhancement course (SEC-3) of two credit and of eight week duration. The objective of this course is to make you familiar with the branch of science i. e. Environmental geology. This course offers applied aspects of geology in solving the environmental problem as you know that the environmental degradation such as water pollution, air pollution, soil pollution, noise pollution, Global warming and climate change took place due to rapid growth of population, industries, agriculture and mining activities in our country. Therefore, this course becomes necessary for B. Sc. Students. It is beneficial and fruitful for the student in their competitive examinations of related organizations. Every industry and mining industry requires a environmental geologist. Thus, there are more chances to get jobs after passing this course. Therefore, I appeal to join this course and make your better career.

Let us have an overview of this course. Entire course has been divided in to four units. Unit – I consists of Earth and its spheres; Unit- II has energy budget, global environmental and climate change; Unit –III deals with the geological and manmade hazards and their mitigation and Unit – IV consists of resources management, land use planning, land reclamations and energy resource management.

            Now I will tell you in brief about the definition and importance of environmental geology. What is environmental geology? Before I tell you definition of environmental geology I must tell you about the definition of geology. When most people hear someone mention geology, the first image that pops in to their mind is usually either someone wielding a rock hammer or someone drilling for oil. Most people do not realize that there is so much more to the field of geology than that. Geology is the branch of earth science that deals with the earths, its materials and its processes.

Environmental geology is the branch of geology that is concerned with the interactions between humans and the geologic environment it is fundamentally important branch of science because it directly impacts every single person on the  planet every single day. It is essentially a way of applying geologic knowledge to identify, remediate, and hopefully prevent environmental problems from occurring as a result of people. In other words, environmental geology is the application of geological information to solve conflicts of minimizing possible adverse environmental degradation or maximizing possible advantageous conditions resulting from the use of material and modified environment.    It is highly important field that impacts the daily living thing on the earth. There is simply no way to avoid the environment around you. Environmental geology as a field is just as broadly reaching and interesting as geology is, with many potential phenomena and human earth interactions to research. It involves mainly the knowledge of Engineering geology, geomorphology, economic geology, mining geology and hydrogeology.

            Environmental geologist must have a solid understanding not only currently occurring geologic events but  historical geologic events such as past earthquakes and floods. This knowledge of the past is important because it helps them to get a better idea of what types of damage occurred due to of these events. This is deferent that what a palaeontologist would do because environmental geologist  are concerned with how the past is related to the present. Likewise, environmental geologist can do attempt to protect people from environmental factors beyond their control (like suggesting that they should not build home in an active flood plain.)

In this course you will learn about the branch of science i.e. environmental geology. you will study about the different layers of earth such as atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere; natural disasters such as earthquakes, landslides volcanoes and floods, solar energy, geothermal energy, nuclear energy; Earth heat and global budget: climate change and global warming; watershed and  water resources management: weather and climate, management of natural energy resources and manmade geo-hazards. 

Environmental geology is a foundation course for those who want to enhance their career in disaster management. Our Purpose, to propose this course through MOOCs Programme is to make available, both the content i. e. text and video of the quality of class room teaching at the same platform. So, please join this course in the maximum possible numbers. I assure you that you will get extreme benefit by joining this course and make your academic career better.