1.) Explain how human activities can cause an imbalance in biogeochemical cycling and lead to problems such as cultural eutrophication and fish kills.
Biogeochemical Cycling is a pathway by which chemicals circulate through the ecosystem involving both nonliving (abiotic) and living (biotic) components. Human activities can cause an imbalance in biogeochemical cycling by mining and/or by burning fossil fuel, which increases the amounts of chemical elements removed from cycling and removing within the ecosystem. Human activities interfere with the water cycling in three ways; first, they withdraw water from aquifers, second, they build roads, buildings and increase in runoffs, thirdly, they interfere with natural selection in purifying water and instead add pollution and chemicals to the water. Over enrichment caused by human activities lead to excessive oxygen reduction and bacterial growth, known as eutrophication. Eutrophication leads to algae dying and decay to oxygen consumption which causes fish to die.
2.) Compare and contrast the traits and growth patterns of opportunist...
The excerpt from Rachel Carson’s Silent Springs explains how the human race has used their powers to alter the natural environment. These changes resulted in adverse effects, not only to organisms, but also to mankind. According to the extract, for many decades, life on Earth has been characterized by balanced interaction between the living organisms and the surrounding. The environment controlled the animal life habits and physical forms of vegetation. The situation has changed over time, and now people possess significant powers to change the environment. Human activities has increased to alarming levels in the past quarter century. Such powers have resulted in the contamination of the environment to a great extent: dangerous and even lethal materials are released into the air while others are disposed of in lakes and oceans, resulting in pollution. The pollution causes
Currently, pollutants are destroying the environment and harming the health of U.S. citizens. Global warming threatens to change the lifestyle of many people around the world. Industries across the globe and goods that use or contain harmful contaminants have been the largest contributors to climate change. In recent years, there has been “artificially heightened levels of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere” and a dramatic increase in other pollutants, “resulting in an unnatural upward trend in global warming” (Global). The level of pollutants currently in the air is not considered to be linked to the earth’s natural cycle. In fact, for the past century, “human activities…have increased the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to levels far higher than any measured for at least 800,000 years” and the concentration of CO2 is becoming a devastating and possibly irreversible problem with each day (Global). Although some...
Our Earth consists of many of many different components, such as land, animals, air, etc. and lately a lot of our attention has been brought to pollution and the state in which our Earth and atmosphere is in. Our ocean covers seventy one percent of the earth’s total surface area and plays a major role in our Earth’s atmosphere. (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2010) Acidification has been one of the many components that has been leading to the destruction of our surrounding oceans. (Doney, 2008)
Eutrophication of bodies of water is a naturally occurring phenomenon. However, the process has been aggravated by the human population. Such man-made eutrophication is caused by excessive discharge of nutrien...
The Earth’s surface is covered by over two-thirds of water. With half of the world being covered by water; pollution in the water is a very big crisis that can actually be reduced to some extent. Water pollution is a human problem because it seems to be a recent development that started round the end of the 19th century. Scientists say that “humans have limits with an estimated 7 billion people on the planet, and pollution is a sign of exceeded pollution. According to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) pollution is a serious problem. “Pollution from toxic chemicals threatens life on this planet. Every ocean and every continent, from the tropics to the once-pristine polar regions, is contaminated." Now that we know how serious it is, let’s talk about what pollution is, what causes it, the effects, and how we can help.
In the past 50 years, we have drastically changed the environment to meet our growing demands. These alterations are causing major problems in several ecosystems. Living unsustainably, changing natural order, and reversing the degradation of ecosystems are the three main problems we face.
Interactions between human and the ecosystem have been operating for millenniums, and are impossible to eliminate, as each depends on the other in order to survive and flourish. However, as modern technology advances, as well as the increase in the world’s population, the need for natural resources begin to rise to an alarming rate which has started to gradually destroy the ecosystem. Recently, there has been an increase of sea levels in region whilst other rain-bounty areas have begun to experience their first droughts. This phenomenon is known as climate change. Climatologists have concluded that human activity has played a major role in contributing to the changes, therefore requiring extreme measures before this phenomenon evolves into a catastrophe. In this essay, we will discuss human activities that contributed to climate change, as well as addressing possible solutions to the phenomenon.
To describe the long term implications of the Carbon Cycle, one must understand the cycle of life. For an organism to be created it must use up resources that are the basis for its survival. Carbon is one of the most crucial resources that is needed for life to survive. When an organism is created it uses up a specific set of resources, which include energy and carbon. The organism then grows and survives continually using up resources, which lower the available energy surrounding it, but increase the potential energy that it contains. When the organism finally reaches the end of its life cycle it begins to degrade, releasing all of its resources back into the environment (Kleidon, 2010). Carbon being one of its building blocks is released back into the environment. The carbon is then available once again for another organism or life cycle to use. This is the basis for the Carbon Cycle, there is a set amount of carbon available, thus when an organism uses it, it must be returned to the environment through life processes which are a result of entropy leading to a maximum point. The Water Cycle works in the exact same manor; however, it is not only used by organisms. Water, along with Carbon is crucial to the biotic and abiotic environments on Earth. The Water Cycle employed natural environmental
and is existing surely because of humans themselves- overpopulation. “Overpopulation is the problem” and causes other externalities such as pollution, deforestation, and a greater handful of biodiversity losses. In addition, overpopulation causes economic and political factors such as more consumption per person and the reduction of resources that can be provided per person. This contributes to the strain on ecological systems and the economic and population growth. With overpopulation, many resources become finite and an umpteen amount of ecosystems are being destroyed. Overpopulation relates to the impact of humans on pollution. Obviously with more human life, there is more necessity for jobs such as factories that give off fumes, automobiles, and the use for burning fossil fuels. In greater extent, this leads to an environmental factor in that it accumulates chemicals in food chains such as mercury, arsenic, and copper. It can lead to political problems as well, when trying to interact with other countries and stop the problem of global pollution and eventually endin...
Jacques-Yves Cousteau once said, “Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today” (“Population,” Internet). With the current statistics, Jacques could not be more accurate. Every second, 4.2 people are born and 1.8 people die, which would be a net gain of 2.4 people per second (“Population,” Internet). At this steady rate, the environmental health is spiraling downwards, and it is safe to assume humans are responsible for this. As the population increases, harmful effects on the land, water, and air also do.
The water cycle also gets affected from human interaction with the environment. When we urbanized places we affect the ground water, which in turn affects the water cycle. Urbanizing areas and putting companies and gas station’s that produce waste is not good for the water cycle. The pollutants from these places seep into the ground and pollute the groundwater and make it harder for that water to come back to the surface clean. It takes years for this to naturally occur and when we interact with it like that it takes even longer and affects the cleanliness. The water cycle is constant and happens naturally without our involvement. So when we make it harder for the water cycle do keep itself running it is detrimental to the whole world.
Eutrophication is “the process by which a body of water acquires a high concentration of nutrients, especially phosphates and nitrates. These typically promote excessive growth of algae. As the algae die and decompose, high levels of organic matter and the decomposing organisms deplete the water available oxygen, cause the death of other organisms, such as fish. Eutrophication is a natu...
Above all, these organisms encourage the growth of algae, which absorb dissolved oxygen in the water essential for the survival of fish populations. Occasionally, the decomposition of newly-submerged biomass and sediment further reduce the water's oxygen content. Water sources can literally choke to death as a result of increasing human activity, such as industry and agriculture giving rise to increased nutrient loading.
...eochemical cycles. By increasing the amount of crops that are removed from the soil and the subsequent soil erosion, phosphorus levels in the soil have dropped. The phosphorus lost from the soils travels to aquatic ecosystems which then can cause massive algal blooms. The increased use of nitrogen based fertilizers has also altered that cycle. The fertilizers add high levels of nitrates to the soil, and in natural ecosystems, nitrates will undergo denitrification and be returned as atmospheric nitrogen. This is not the case because the nitrate levels exceed the levels of denitrification that bacteria can handle. Additionally, much of the denitrifying bacteria is found in marshes and wetlands, which are currently being destroyed at incredible rates. In some areas, the excess nitrate has made it into the ground water system and contaminated the drinking water system.
Water pollution is also a major thing in the world because almost 60% of it is fishes. It occurs due to several factors; the industrial waste dumped into the rivers and other water body’s cause am imbalance in the water leading to its severe contamination and deaths. And the infamous Global warming is the emission of greenhouse gases particularly CO2 is leading to global warming.