Introduction: Environment and Health

Ever since the progress in the human civilization and population explosion, various issues
pertaining to the environment has surfaced including climate change, ozone depletion,
urbanization, noise, air pollution, persistent organics, desertification and groundwater pollution.
Many of these issues were identified by a community based health response to the environmental
stimulus. Thus, environment in context of health takes into account natural, social and built
settings experienced by individuals. Few well established modern day practices like the power
plants and industrial infrastructures, intensive agriculture, techno-savvy lifestyle and transport
have been well established sources for varied organic and inorganic pollutants. The set of
pollutants associated with these anthropogenic activities have fairly been established namely,
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), heavy metals, semivolatile organics and volatile organics.
Apart from these, the fate and transport of these pollutants in all the four spheres namely
atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere and biosphere of our planet has been established with fair
amount of certainty. However, these pollutants show spatial and temporal changes in residence
lifetime with the varying climate in different parts of the world. As a consequence these
pollutants reflect a different health impact of the environment like the stratospheric ozone
depletion shows a rise in skin cancer risk in the Antarctic region as compared to the equator.
Similarly, various health problems have been identified with the climate change include direct
effects (increase in deaths due to thermal and extreme climate exposure) and indirect effects
(asthma, allergies, malnutrition, malaria, cholera etc.). Similarly, urbanization is related to the
increased risk of cancer due to traffic release of PAH, noise lead psychological disorder and
respiratory and pulmonary dysfunction. Intensive agriculture is associated with processes like
open biomass burning and chemical usage, which lead to increase in heavy metal toxicity of soil,
plants and food. On the other hand these sources lead to an increase in organic release to
environment, which is reflected in the human population with increased risk of spontaneous
abortion, endocrine disruption, non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, neurotoxicity and cancer. Thus, a
geographically attributed assessment of the pollutants and their interrelation with the health of
community is a challenging task, which is not only dependent upon the exposure to pollutants
but also on the vulnerability of the population. These factors are manipulated by complicated
relation with the predisposing factors (genetics, age, sex and ethinicity) and individual behavioral
factors (lifestyle, work, education and income). Thus identifying independently environmental

and health attributes are not a firm locator of the problem and solutions would be elusive for
such problems, which has been the case with various studies world over. Thus, a more
interdisciplinary act is essential for the understanding of the interrelationship between
environment and health.
In this context the Central University of Punjab, located in the heartland of Punjab known as the
Malwa belt had resolved to the mandate of Environment and Health, taking into the perspective
the significant decline in the health indicators of this region. The region comprises of eleven
districts including Ludhiana, Sangrur, Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktsar, Mansa, Patiala, Moga,
Ferozpur, Abohar and Barnala, covering ---- sq.Km of land, which is about % of the total land
cover of Punjab. The region has intensive cultivation for cash crops like rice, wheat and cotton,
with more than --% land use under agriculture. The region has earned the state the name of
Bread Basket of India.

The agriculture in this region is supported by infrastructural

developments of canal system, five thermal power plants. Apart from this the region also hosts
the largest industrial sector with Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh as the focal point, apart from
this Bathinda hosts a state-of art Refinery and various other industries. The regions health
perspective came into the fore with increased incidence of Cancer being reported in this region.
Apart from this various other heath issues prevailing in the region being highlighted are
fluorosis, kidney failures, premature graying and aging, adverse child health cases and various
other human health indicators (ref). One disease which stood out the most was increased number
of cancer cases in the region pegged at 120 cases per lac population against the national average
of 80 cases per lac. However, the situation would be alarming as the cancer treatment facility
were feeble and majority of population had to flee to nearby places in rajasthan, Haryana and
Delhi for the plausible treatment. These increase in the lifestyle diseases are attributed to the
presence of high concentration of fluorides nitrates, pesticides, heavy metals and uranium in the
environment (Ref). The fluoride is firmly established to be contributed by groundwater in this
region. However, the nitrate and pesticides are attributed to the 10-12 time more application of
fertilizers and pesticides during the intensive agriculture in this region. However, the studies on
pesticide exposure in this region have been unable to establish occupational and environmental
factors. Source of heavy metal are suspected to the increased fertilizer carrying various
impurities which aggrevate in the soil and are subsequently transported to water. Apart from this
uranium in water and soil in this region are found to have high background concentrations, with

probable sources being the fly-ash from the thermal power plants, fertilizers and to the
neighborhood of granite bearing Tosham Hills. However, intensive studies have been eluding the
key to address issues in relation with the source appropriation that too with a complete the
Sub Objectives:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Identification of key suspected pollutants in the water, soil and air environment.
Establishing the sources for the pollutants.
Spatial and temporal source appropriation of the pollutants.
Carcinogenic risk assessment and hazard quotient determination based on an integrated
model.

Key Features of the Centre:

The centre was set-up of the university with the mandate for research in local environment. The
centre is well equipped with various state-of-the art analytical facilities with quality assurance
for analysis of heavy metal ions and Pesticides. The premier research achievements include
1. Preparing a local database based on survey of the locality for lifestyle.
2. Summary of data on the water and soil analysis in this region for heavy metals.
3. Study on the oganochlorine and organophosphorus pesticide residues in the soil in this
region.
4. A state-of-art laboratory on GIS and remote sensing, which has already accomplished the
study of Harike wetland and water logging and soil salinity in the neighborhood.
5. Advanced bioremediation and nanoremediation techniques for water and wastewater
treatments.
6. Solid waste management particularly for fly-ash and its application in catalytic pyrolysis
and biogas formation.
7. Biosensing and chemosensing approaches for the establishing quick and reproducible
analysis of the environmental analytes including uranium, arsenic and organic pollutants.

Innovation
The data and models generated based on source appropriation would serve as the baseline for
any health related work in the locality.