HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION: PATTERNS

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HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION PATTERNS
PROCESSES of CHANGE
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The Human Impact

• Alteration of ecosystems
• Environmental destruction began early
• Increase in human modification over the last 500
  years

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Ecosystem

• Self-sustaining units consisting of all organisms
  (biota) and physical features existing together
  in a particular area
• Everything interconnected
• Even slight changes can bring dire consequences
• Each organism has a niche and plays a specific
  role in the Theatre of Energy

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Ecosystems

• Environment the totality of things that in any
  way can affect an organism
• A mosaic of terrestrial features, weather
  climate, landforms, and biota

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A Mosaic
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Ecosystems

• Ecology study of how organisms interact with
  each other and their environment
• Where does the interaction happen?
• The Biosphere

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The Human Impact

• Environmental stress
• Obvious actions
• Cutting of trees
• Atmospheric oceanic pollutants
• Other examples???
• Less obvious actions
• Toxic waste burial
• Ocean garbage dumps
• Agricultural pesticides
• Other examples???

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Water

• A renewable resource
• Not distributed evenly across the globe
• Distribution is sustained through the hydrologic
  cycle
• Where precipitation goes
• Much is lost through runoff and evaporation
• Some seeps downward into porous water-holding
  rocks called aquifers
• Aquifers hold about 50 times as much water as
  falls on the United States each year

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Ocean and Freshwater Distribution
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Water Withdrawal by Sector
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Global Water Scarcity
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Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

• Diversion of water from streams feeding the Aral
  Sea for irrigation
• Chemical pesticide use caused pollution of
  groundwater
• Aral Sea is drying up

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The Atmosphere

• What it does
• Oxygen and temperate climates
• Natural UV-protectant
• Helps with hydrologic cycle
• Self-cleaning
• Human influences?

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The Atmosphere

• Global warming
• Estimates of global warming have been lessened
• Earth might warm 3.5ºF to 5.5ºF over the next 50
  years
• Little consensus on the extent of greenhouse
  warming
• Key greenhouse gases have been increasing about 2
  percent per decade
• Past evidence?

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The Atmosphere

• Acid rain
• Does great harm over time to some ecosystems
• Mostly in industrial regions with good wind flow

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Acid Rain Destroys Quickly
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The Land

• Desertification
• Natural, but anthropogenic factors enhancing
  process
• E.g., the Sahara

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Deforestation

• Increasing human population taxing forests
• Taiga forests play key role (NOT just the Amazon)
• Tropical Rainforests still important...

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Soil Erosion

• The quiet crisis
• Anthropogenic factors can lead to increased soil
  erosion
• Possibly gt 25 billion TONS per year
• Better education needed
• Renewable and recoverable

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CONFRONTING ANTHROPOGENIC ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE
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Natural Anthropogenic Changes

• Greeks and Romans to Spanish invaders
• E.g., Florida Everglades
• Anthropogenic factors are increasing!
• Geographys role
• Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth,
  1955
• The Earth as Transformed by Human Action
• Myriad temporal spatial scale connections

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UnderstandingEnvironmental Change

• Global changes
• Population

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UnderstandingEnvironmental Change

• Patterns of consumption
• Exceptional resource usage
• Urban areas have global access
• Periphery countries greatly affect environment
• Water demand
• Consumption tied to technology

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UnderstandingEnvironmental Change

• Technology
• Resource extraction
• Fossil fuels pollution
• Hazardous and toxic byproducts
• Open pit mines

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Understanding Environmental Change

• Transportation
• Internal combustion engine
• Near-open access to remote areas
• Oil spills species distribution
• Facilitates global transport of goods and foods

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UnderstandingEnvironmental Change

• Energy
• Tertiary, quaternary, and quinary economic
  activities
• Many LDCs increasing fossil-fuel development
• 1999s energy consumption vs. 1971s

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Resource

• Video David Fronander, biogeographer
• Discusses Humans in Nature

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Discussion Questions

• While global temperatures are increasing, this is
  nothing new, according to past climate records.
  So why should we be worried if its all part of a
  cycle?
• Are the Earths processes interconnected?