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Importance of Environment and Components

The document defines environment as the sum of living and non-living components that surround and influence an organism. It notes that the Earth is the only planet known to support life. Both the physical environment (soil, air, water, sunlight) and biological environment (living things) interact closely to form a stable system. For human civilization to survive, protecting the environment through maintaining biodiversity, material cycles, ecological balance is important.

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64 views1 page

Importance of Environment and Components

The document defines environment as the sum of living and non-living components that surround and influence an organism. It notes that the Earth is the only planet known to support life. Both the physical environment (soil, air, water, sunlight) and biological environment (living things) interact closely to form a stable system. For human civilization to survive, protecting the environment through maintaining biodiversity, material cycles, ecological balance is important.

Uploaded by

Shadman Sadik
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

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1.3 Environment and its Components


Environment: The environment encompasses virtually everything that surrounds an organism in a holistic ecological approach. Out of all the nine planets, meteorites, and satellites in our solar system, the earth is the only planet known to support life. Life on earth e periences different types of surroundings. These surroundings may !e living or non"living. Each living organism constantly interacts with its surroundings and adapts to it. These surroundings are our environment. The physical environment, which consists of soil, air, water, sunlight among others, provides favoura!le conditions for the e istence and growth of different life forms. Living !eings constitute the !iological environment. #oth the physical and the !iological environments closely interact with each other to form a sta!le selfperpetuating system. Everything that influences an organism and its living processes from outside is collectively known as $environment.% The living component of the environment is known as the !iotic component and the non"living component &things' as the a!iotic component. (ence, the term $environment% can !e defined as the sum total of living and non" living components, their influences and events surrounding an organism. )o organism can live without interacting with the environment. *nimals depend on green plants for food and o ygen, whereas plants depend on animals for pollination of flowers and dispersal of seed or fruit. Therefore, for the survival of human civili+ation, the protection of its environment is very important. ,or this, some fundamental principles have to !e followedi. ii. .aintenance of !iodiversity. .aintenance of all gaseous and material cycles and interdependence of living organisms among themselves and with a!iotic environments. iii. .aintenance of ecological order and natural !alance, which depend on the food chain relationship, sustaina!le productivity and !iotic interaction.

These principles were known to early human !eings, who lived in harmony with nature. (owever, in the course of evolution, man has developed a new type of environment, the man" made environment. * large chunk of the im!alance in nature is caused !y this man"made environment. This man"made im!alance has forced us to put restraints on the use of natural resources.

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