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ENVIRONMENTAL INTERRELATIONSHIPS

ENVIRONMENTAL INTERRELATIONSHIPS. Module 1. Outline. Nature of Environmental Geography Interrelatedness Humans and The Environment Environmental systems - Ecosystem Approach Environmental Commons Who “owns” Earth? Regional Concerns Political versus Natural Boundaries.

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ENVIRONMENTAL INTERRELATIONSHIPS

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  1. ENVIRONMENTALINTERRELATIONSHIPS Module 1

  2. Outline • Nature of Environmental Geography • Interrelatedness • Humans and The Environment • Environmental systems - Ecosystem Approach • Environmental Commons • Who “owns” Earth? • Regional Concerns • Political versus Natural Boundaries

  3. Environmental Geography • The role of Environmental Geography is to: • understand the natural interactions within our environment, and • integrate this understanding with the uses that humans make of the natural world and their impacts.

  4. The Environment • Elements of the physical environment • Water • Air • Soil and Land • Physical connections • Hydrologic Cycle • Atmospheric Circulation • Food Chains and Webs

  5. Human Activities • Human settlement and Land use • Resource extraction • Agriculture • Forestry • Energy and Mining • Consumption and Waste • Consumption is waste

  6. An Environmental Lesson • What can we learn from Walkerton? • Things are connected • Bad things happen from neglecting the environment • Tackle the cause not the symptom • Humans are a part of nature • Not apart from nature

  7. First Law of Ecology • You can never do only one thing (Garrett Hardin)

  8. Connectedness • “When you tug at a single thing in nature, you find it is attached to the rest of the world” John Muir (1876) Founder of the Sierra Club of North America • The environment is interconnected, and we are connected to the environment

  9. Interrelatedness • The “environment” is everything that affects an organism during its lifetime. • biotic - living component • abiotic - non-living component

  10. Ecosystem Approach • Ecosystem: A region in which organisms and the physical environment form an interacting unit. • An ecosystem approach requires looking at the way the natural world is organized and how different components act and interact.

  11. Natural versus Political Boundaries • Most social and political decisions are made with respect to political boundaries and jurisdictions. • But environmental systems and environmental problems rarely coincide with these boundaries.

  12. Rivers and Watersheds

  13. Trans-Boundary Water

  14. Other Transboundary Issues • Quantity of water • Quality of water • Air pollution • local, regional , global • smog, acid rain, ozone depletion • Habitat loss for migratory species • Global climate change

  15. Global Commons • Those natural systems and cycles that underpin the functioning of ecosystems everywhere. • Atmosphere • Oceans • Hydrologic Cycle • Biogeochemical (nutrient) Cycles

  16. Global Commons (2) • These provide us with • air • water • soil • nutrients • climate stability • natural resources

  17. Atmospheric Circulation

  18. Ocean Circulation

  19. Hydrologic Cycle

  20. Rivers and Oceans

  21. Tragedy of the Commons • Ecologist Garrett Hardin reiterated Aristotle's wisdom that "... what is common to the greatest number of people gets the least amount of care ..."  • The "tragedy of the commons" emerges whenever the benefits to an individual of (over-)exploiting an open-access (common) resource exceed that individual's share of the resulting damage costs.

  22. Regional Environmental Concerns • Out of necessity (political and realistic) most countries, and regions within countries, focus on specific, local issues that apply directly to them. • If you live in the middle of Toronto, how “real” is the problem of biodiversity loss in Brazil ??

  23. Regional Environmental Issues

  24. Geography Matters • The physical environment is variable in geographic space • Human society and culture are variable over geographic space • Environmental interactions are thus rooted in their geographical location • So that geography matters!

  25. Great Lakes • The Great Lakes Region is dominated by large metropolitan areas. Many of these large industrial centers have declined, leaving behind abandoned sites, and environmental pollution. • One of the greatest problems associated with the industrial uses of this area is water contamination from toxic chemicals. • Bioaccumulation - Fish Advisories

  26. Environmental Indicator • A selected key statistic that represents or summarizes a significant aspect of the state of the environment, natural resource sustainability or related human activity.

  27. Environmental Indicator • Environmental indicators focus on • trends in environmental changes, • the stresses that are causing them, • how ecosystems and their components are responding to these changes, and • societal responses to prevent, reduce or ameliorate these stresses. • Example: Stratospheric ozone and CFC's

  28. A qualitative indicator

  29. Atmospheric CO2 • Trend is a measure of the rate of change with time

  30. Trend and Variation • Variation is the oscillation around the trend (or mean)

  31. Summary • Humans are a part of nature • Not apart from nature • Environmental interactions are rooted in their geographical location • Most ecosystems do not coincide with political boundaries • This raises issues for the life-support systems of the planet (global commons)

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