Urbanization and Environmental Degradation: Evidence from Four SAARC Countries-Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka

The broad aim of this study is to evaluate empirically the impacts of urbanization along with some other explanatory variables on environmental degradation measured by carbon dioxide emissions for four countries from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) region namely India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. Annual time series data over the period of 1982-2013 are used. After, employing various relevant and required statistical tests, the method of least squares has been employed as an analytical technique for parameters estimation. The least squares estimate reveals that the impact of urbanization on the environment found is blended. In cases of Bangladesh and India, the relationship between urbanization growth and environment found is significantly negative, while, the impact of urbanization on environment is significantly positive in case of Sri Lanka and insignificantly positive for Pakistan during the period under the study. The findings of the study suggest that policy makers need to formulate appropriate policy for long term urban planning which can certainly help to mitigate largely CO2 emissions/environmental pollution. (C) 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 35: 823-832, 2016