An Environmental Impact Assessment of Sewage Pollution in Madurai District

The study was conducted in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu to study the Environmental Impact Assessment of sewage pollution. The study revealed that the decline in crop production was directly related with the pollution intensity. The averting or defensive expenditure for drinking water and irrigation water included obtaining protected water, getting water from non-polluted areas, boiling the water and purchase of water filters. The agricultural damage function related the value of agricultural damages to averting expenditure of land and irrigation water and quality indices of land and water quality.Contingent valuation study revealed that the proportion of farmers WTP was higher in seriously affected category with 85.71 per cent study area and in low affected category, it was 28.57 per centwhich revealed that the willingness to pay varied according to pollution intensity. The amount of WTP was also higher for seriously affected farmers with Rs.1800 per year each in study area which was due to higher pollution intensity prevailing in these farms. Seriously affected farmers were interested and willing to pay whatever they were able to pay which might be due to high pollution prevailed in that category. The proportion of compensation was lower in seriously affected farms since the farmers in this category felt that the compensation principle would not be practical and time consuming. In seriously affected farms, household size and drinking water quality had positive influence on WTP. Age and Green index had negative influence on WTP. In low affected farms, household head\u27s education, household size and occupation dummy had positive relationship with the willingness to pay while green index had negative influence on WTP