This report provides estimates of socialand financial costs of environmental damage in India fromthree pollution damage categories: (i) urban air pollution,including particulate matter and lead; (ii) inadequate watersupply, poor sanitation, and hygiene; (iii) indoor airpollution; and four natural resource damage categories: (a)agricultural damage from soil salinity, water logging, andsoil erosion; (b) rangeland degradation; (c) deforestation;and (d) natural disasters. The estimates are based on acombination of Indian data from secondary sources and on thetransfer of unit costs of pollution from a range of nationaland international studies. The quantification and monetaryvaluation of environmental damage involves many scientificdisciplines including environmental, physical, andbiological and health sciences, epidemiology, andenvironmental economics. Estimates of the costs ofdegradation are generally reported as a percent ofconventional gross domestic product (GDP). This provides auseful estimate of the importance of environmental damagesbut it should not be interpreted that GDP will increase by agiven percent if the degradation were to be reduced to zero.Any measures to reduce environmental degradation will have acost and the additional cost goes up the greater is thereduction that is made. Hence a program to remove alldegradation can well result in a lower GDP. This reportprovides a measure of the overall damage relative to abenchmark, in which all damages related to economic activityare eliminated. The report is structured as follows: sectionone provides a summary of estimated social and financialcosts of environmental damage; section two focuses on urbanair pollution; section three deals with water supply,sanitation, and hygiene; section four focuses on indoor airpollution; section five focuses on land degradation, cropproduction, and rangeland degradation; and section six dealswith forest degradation.
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