Environmental Science

The paper at a glance

Environmental Science carries the subject code 307. The syllabus described here is the one published for 2026-27.

This is one of the longer domain syllabi: a cover page and seven pages of text. It is also unusually broad, moving from schools of ecological philosophy through pollution monitoring techniques to the WTO and international aid.

How the syllabus is organised

The document is laid out in seven numbered units, from 1. Human Beings and Nature to 7. International Relations and the Environment. It never uses the word "Unit"; the seven headings are simply numbered 1 to 7, and most are broken into sub-parts marked with Roman numerals. The pages carry no printed page numbers, so our citations count the cover as page 1.

The syllabus itself is a list of topics only. It does not print question counts, marks, negative marking or timing, and it does not say how many questions come from each unit. Read it alongside the exam pattern.

Units 1 and 2: ecological thought, population and conservation

The opening unit is philosophical and names thinkers and movements rather than scientific content. The second is the ecology core: population dynamics and conservation in India.

Unit	What it covers
1. Human Beings and Nature	Modern schools of ecological thought; deep ecology (Gary Snyder, Earth First) versus shallow ecology; stewardship of land (Wendell Berry); social ecology, including Marxist environmentalism and socialist ecology (Barry Commoner); feminism; green politics (Germany and England as examples); sustainable development — basic concepts, the Brundtland Commission report, the Sustainable Development Goals and Mission LiFE
2. Population and Conservation Ecology	Population dynamics — factors causing population change (birth, death, immigration, emigration), age structure, population pyramids, the three shapes of survivorship curves, r and K strategies; human populations — carrying capacity, the Malthusian view of over-population and questioning Malthus, population growth versus disparate consumption of resources, demographic transition and its influencing factors; population regulation — exponential (J-shaped) and logistic (S-shaped) growth, factors regulating population size (space, food and water, territories, predators, weather and climate, parasites and diseases, disasters, self-regulation); threats to the ecosystem — habitat destruction, genetic erosion, biodiversity loss, expanding agriculture, impounded water, waste, increasing consumption; conservation — the state of Indian forests, conflicts over forested areas (tribal rights, tourism, poaching, roads, dams, development projects), scientific forestry and its limitations, social forestry, the forest department, NGOs, Joint Forestry Management, ecotourism, wildlife sanctuaries, national parks and biosphere reserves, in situ and ex situ conservation (zoos, aquaria, plant collections), Project Tiger as a case study, and acts and rules on ecology, forest and biodiversity conservation

Unit 2 is the one place where the source repeats itself: the factors regulating population size are printed twice in part III, and the forest-conflict and Project Tiger material appears twice in part V. Our table lists each item once.

Unit 3: Environmental Pollution

This is the most technical unit, and the only one that reads like a laboratory or field-methods course: sampling techniques, water quality indicators and soil tests are named individually.

Unit

What it covers

3. Environmental Pollution

Pollutants, contaminants, sources, sinks and receptors, impacts of air, water and soil pollution on health and ecosystems, Indian acts and rules on air, water, soil and noise pollution; air pollution and its monitoring — structure, temperature profile and composition of the atmosphere, primary and secondary pollutants, National Ambient Air Quality Standards, ambient air quality monitoring (gaseous and particulate), industrial and vehicular pollution, emission standards and the CNG programme, acid rain, smog and photochemical smog, tropospheric ozone, monitoring stations and sampling, manual techniques (passive samplers, high volume samplers, bubbler systems) and instrumental techniques (NDIR, chemiluminescence), the air quality index, the NAAQM programme, the Central and State Pollution Control Boards, the National Air Monitoring Programme; water pollution and its monitoring — distribution of water on earth, point and non-point and biodegradable and non-biodegradable sources in surface and ground water, water quality indicators (pH, electrical conductivity, turbidity, salinity, alkalinity, hardness, dissolved oxygen, temperature, nitrates and sulphates, metals and pesticides, BOD and COD), lake stratification, eutrophication; soil pollution and its monitoring — sources such as industry, mining, agricultural run-off and sewage, physical, chemical and biological soil characteristics, soil types, moisture, pH and acidity, experimental assessment of soil respiration, pH, aggregates and infiltration rate

The monitoring detail is qualified in the source with "to be dealt with in brief".

Units 4 and 5: development and agriculture

Unit	What it covers
4. Development and Environment	Urbanisation — push and pull factors, consequences for rural and urban sectors, future trends and projections; a critical appraisal of the conventional development paradigm from the viewpoints of sustainability, environmental impact and equity — economic development, natural resources, the development-environment relationship, overuse and diversion of scarce resources, disparate access, increasing wastes and pollution; the Gandhian approach — local self-governance (Antyodaya, Sarvodaya, Panchayati Raj), local self-sufficiency and local markets, the village as the basis of development, cottage industries and intermediate technologies, focus on employment, the Indian way of life and environmental concern; urban environmental planning and management — sanitation, water, transport, energy, air quality, housing, economic and political constraints, indigenous approaches (rainwater harvesting, garbage segregation, composting, energy from wastes, dry toilets, DEWATS), new urbanism and smart growth, with the examples of Bogota (traffic management), Cuba (organic urban agriculture), Curitiba (traffic planning and urban renewal) and Cochabamba (water management and protests against water privatisation)
5. Sustainable Agriculture in India	Crop varieties and techniques for maintaining soil fertility; pre-colonial agriculture (growing for sustenance, multi-cropping, soil health, seed diversity), colonial influence (punitive taxation, commercial crops for export, devaluation of traditional practices, the Bengal famine) and a comparison of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial agriculture; irrigation — macro versus micro systems (canals and dams versus sprinkler, drip and dug wells) with their features, advantages and disadvantages, and traditional rainwater harvesting (tankas, khadins, ahar, pynes, zings, johads, eris); the Green Revolution — origin, high yielding varieties, fertilizers and pesticides, mono-cropping, and its environmental, social and economic impacts; elements of sustainable agriculture — mixed farming, mixed cropping, inter-cropping, crop rotation, organic and bio-fertilizers, green manure, bio-pesticides, Integrated Pest Management, eating local foods, and a comparison of traditional, natural, organic, modern, gene-revolution and sustainable agriculture; management of produce — storage, food preservation methods, packaging, grading, transport, food adulteration and additives, ISI, AGMARK and FPO quality marks; food security — meaning and need, production, storage and access, land reform, credit and market support, seed ownership, and the National Food Security Act 2013

Both units lean on India: Gandhian development, Panchayati Raj, traditional rainwater harvesting structures by regional name, the Green Revolution, the National Food Security Act 2013. Unit 4 also names four foreign cities as urban-planning examples.

Units 6 and 7: economics and international relations

Unit	What it covers
6. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics	Classification of natural resources (abiotic and biotic, renewable and non-renewable, stock, potential and actual, ubiquitous and localised), scarcity and growth, natural resource accounting and physical accounting; GDP and GNP as measures of income and their advantages and disadvantages; the purpose of environmental economics, defensive expenditure, natural or ecological capital, carbon footprint and carbon credit; externalities — positive and negative, with examples and impacts; cost-benefit analysis and Extended Producer Responsibility; natural capital regeneration — ecosystem services and their types, causes of environmental degradation, the ecological footprint and the importance of preserving and regenerating natural capital
7. International Relations and the Environment	Global impacts of pollution — ozone depletion (Chapman's cycle, effects, ozone-depleting substances such as halons, carbon tetrachloride, CFCs, methyl chloroform, methyl bromide and HCFCs, thinning over Antarctica and the Arctic, control measures), waste dumping, persistent organic pollutants, global warming, greenhouse gases, carbon footprint, climate change indicators and causes, the Montreal and Kyoto protocols, Bamako convention, Paris agreement, Conference of Parties and carbon credits, case studies of Amazonia and of the ivory trade in Africa; international trade — free trade versus protectionism, import barriers, transnational companies and the environment, India's trade and foreign exchange crises, the export imperative and aquaculture in India, toxic waste trade and the Bamako and Basel conventions, globalisation and the trade regimes (GATT and its change into WTO, WTO principles, IPR and its categories, TRIPS, TRIMS) and their impact on India; international aid — agencies, tied and untied aid with their advantages and disadvantages

The last unit is the longest list of proper nouns in the document: five treaties and conventions, two case studies, and the alphabet of trade regimes from GATT to TRIMS. The economics unit is the shortest.

What this syllabus does not tell you

The document is a topic list and nothing more. From it you cannot learn:

• how many questions come from each unit, or the marks, negative marking and duration — those are on the exam pattern;
• the weightage of any unit, so treat every unit as examinable rather than ranking them;
• how difficult the questions will be, or how far the "brief understanding" qualifiers limit what is asked;
• which books to use; the syllabus names no textbook, and unlike Physics, Chemistry and Biology it does not follow a single NCERT book;
• how much weight a university gives this paper once you qualify — the programmes that accept it are listed below, but the marks or ranking rule each one applies sits in its own admission bulletin.

Two small slips in the source are worth knowing about when you check it: the same population-regulation list and the same conservation material are printed twice in Unit 2, and Unit 4 places Bogota in Bolivia, though the city is in Colombia. We report the topics as the document gives them and flag these in the fact notes.

For anything about attempt rules or numbers of questions, go to the NTA information bulletin and the exam pattern rather than to this list.