Different types of Ecosystems Services
• What are Ecosystem Services
Ecosystem services (ES): Ecosystem functions or processes that the society benefits from either explicitly in monetary form (say through selling of crops or ayurvedic medicines) sor implicitly by improving the quality of one’s life. If these same ecosystem services are used in urban areas and cities, we define them as urban ecosystem services (UES).
• UES are provided at different scales within an urban landscape
1. Local scale: Like temperature regulation by trees, water and pollutant filtration by soil, timber production and other similar things.
2. Regional or landscape scale: Like climate regulation, biodiversity, etc.
3. Global scale: Carbon mitigation, contribution to the world-wide gene pool.
• Classification of Ecosystem services
1. Provisioning Services: production of food and timber, water supply, provision of genetic resources
2. Regulating services: regulation of climate extremes like heavy rainfall and heat waves, floods and diseases, regulation of water flows, treatment and handling of waste
3. Cultural services: Use of natural beauty for tourism, provision of aesthetic features, spiritual requirements
4. Habitat and supporting services: soil formation and processes, pollination, provision of energy, matter and nutrient fluxes, biodiversity
• Examples of Ecosystem services and how they help us
1. Provisioning Services -basically the beneficial products obtained directly from the Nature
a) Getting food, crops, spices, fisheries and fresh water for direct consumption necessary for survival
b) Obtaining raw materials like fuel wood, charcoal, fertilizers, metals and minerals used for production of other materials
c) Medicinal resources and o...
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...rflies, etc. which helps in seed dispersal helps in the production of food and other agricultural goods. An estimated 90% of all flowering plants would not exist without animals and insects transporting pollen from one plant to another. Example: Honeybees in the Himalayan region, people in that region recognize that bees help secure better livelihoods, both by increasing agricultural productivity and by generating direct income from selling honey and wax.
b) Nutrient Cycle: movement of organic matter back in to the cycle so that it could help in further production of crops.
c) Soil formation: Soil provides multiple services essential for the sustainability of other ecosystem services like nutrient cycling and water retention.
d) Grazing: Helps the soil by increasing the soil density and promoting plant variety and it also benefits the livestock at the same time.
Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to investigate the various components of different ecosystems in a smaller representation and study the conditions required for the ecosystem’s sustainability as well as the connections between
Native plants in any given area have adapted to all the other organisms in a given area and genetically diverse ecosystems are generally maintained.
Take, for example, that livestock agriculture and the plant-based agriculture specifically used for feeding that livestock utilizes 30 percent of land on Earth. With crops in high demand to feed the many animals that are slaughtered or otherwise used by humans, it's been found that the soil has lost a great deal of its nutritional value and has eroded to the point that, in the United States, nearly 33 percent of topsoil is diminished.
Humans interact with the ecosystem in every way imaginable. We humans have a huge impact on the Earth’s biodiversity, whether it’s positively or negatively.
The protection of the worlds topsoil is vital to us. The soil is still the major medium for plant and crop growth and our basic resource for land use and development. Imagine our world without soil! A barren land with almost no plant growth and constant dustbowls to block out our sunlight. Erosion would destroy our mountain ranges. Our lakes, rivers and oceans would be clogged with sediments. Like any of our worlds problems, we must educate people about the problems and risks and how the depletion of topsoil affects our everyday needs. (Kirby, 1997)
No one knows the origins of agriculture. Since the beginning of recorded history, agriculture has existed. Yet not all vegetation is native to its location today. They have been diffused through many different cultures over time and had expanded greatly due to the industrial revolution. In chapter 10 titled, “Agriculture” of the book Contemporary Human Geography, written by J. Rubenstein. Rubenstein describes the expansion of the production of food from just family consumption to mass production in four steps; expand agriculture, increase agricultural activity, identify new food sources, and expand exports. One of the biggest processes happens in the second step (increase agricultural activity) known as the green revolution. The green revolution refers to scientifically engineered seeds of grain, maize, and rice that have been created and grown to adapt to many different climates rather than just temperate ones(Rubenstein, 10.7).To explain present times J. Benson describes about the different techniques used for agriculture today in the article, “Drastic changes to US agriculture policy necessary for future of food, say scientists”. As Benson explains farmers today use organic farming, grass-fed animal raising, and biodiversity growing methods to sustain a long-term agricultural which creates nutrition rich food as well as nutrition rich soil(Benson, 2011). Nutrition rich food and Nutrition rich soil is well needed. Nutrition rich soil sustains agriculture conditions. Without it, crops don't have the proper conditions to grow, which decreases the crop and requires the need for international trade to make up what is lost.
Restate thesis: In reality forests are better left alone, forests provide the earth with a regulated climate, strong biodiversity, and good nutrient rich soil for plants to strive on.
Agriculture promoted the individuals within a civilization, as there were numerous crops that grew food, therefore enabling farmers to feed a large population. For example, “Farming could support many more people than hunting, albeit with a poorer quality of life…a field planted entirely in edible crops lets one feed far more mouths than a forest with
The environment is stabilized by the biogeochemical cycles. Biogeochemical cycles are the processes that occur naturally and recycle the nutrients in different chemical forms from the non-living ecosystem to living organisms and then back to the non-living ecosystem. Biogeochemical cycles consist of five cycles which are iron cycle, sulphur cycle, phosphorus cycle, nitrogen cycle and carbon cycle. The most important and complex of biogeochemical cycles is the nitrogen cycle (Botkin & Keller, 2012). Nitrogen cycle allows the various nitrogenous species to cycle among the inert nitrogen gas in the atmosphere and soil (Newton, 1999). According to Newton (1999), “the nitrogen gas molecule is fixed by either natural processes, which include both biological and non-biological (lightning, combustion and volcanism) systems, or man-made processes (mainly industrial ammonia production)” (p. 1). There are four processes in the nitrogen cycle, namely nitrogen fixation, decomposition, nitrification, and lastly, denitrification (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).
Soil is the most important non-renewable resource on any farm. Healthy soil is key to a good
2003) and this in effect reduces the biodiversity of the ecological environment. As stated by Laurance et al. (2007), Habitat fragmentation is among the most important of all threats to global biodiversity. Land Degradation Land degradation occurs when land changes due to human use and results in a reduction in the overall quality of the environment. It is considered as one of the major problems associated with industrialized agriculture. Land degradation as a result of industrialized agriculture can occur in multiple ways, including changing soil quality and physical changes to the land. Soil Quality Reduction: Reduction in soil quality occurs because the amount of nutrients available to plants decreases over time. Normally, when a plant dies in a forest, it decomposes and returns nutrients to the ground for future plants to use but in industrialized agriculture, crops are harvested, and remaining plant parts are also removed from the
Scientists have begun to say that we have to do more to protect our ecosystem, because our very existence is depending upon it. When the ecosystem is not functioning properly the continuation of plant, animal and human life ecosystems would be impossible. Life cycles can not function without ecosystems. The ecosystem provides us with clean air, water, habitats for fish and other services. They also aid in the mod...
Agriculture also leads to soil erosion, both through rainfall and wind. This soil can damage the aquatic ecosystems it ends up in, an...
The change of environemetnal conditions may lead to either growth or reduction in the number of species and to changes in floral complosition. (Zielinska, 2007). One of the most important major factors that defines stability and efficient functioning of forest ecosystem is diversity that is required to maintain biodiversity for forest management (Polykov et al., 2008).One the other hand major threat to biodiversity is habitat loss (Mac Donald, 2003) Therefore it is the basic need to assess biodiversity to determine the effects (Agosti et al., 2000). Criteria required to maintain health forest ecosyste...
... largest agricultural producers in the world showing that agricultural potential is huge, but with problems such as soil loss, nutrient depletion, over grazing and climate change this could lead to problems in the near future. With the amounts of fertilizers needed at this stage for crop productions our soil is already a non-renewable commodity.To conclude this essay we can see that soil is a cmodity fr the country and should nt be overlooked as being important , Suth Africa relies n agriculture fr our ecnmy aswell as the thousands f jobs created directly and indirectly from agriculture.Soil shuld be seen as a non renewable resurce and with the amound of degradation , sil depletion and soil displacement soil could become very scarce in South Africa , If soil protection policies are not implemented , the soil will nt be able t sustain production for a growing nation