Environment,

Ecology & Ecosystems

REFERENCES
 What is the Environment?
• The environment is everything around us, or as the famous
physicist Albert Einstein put it, “The environment is everything
that isn’t me.”
• Thus the environment is everything that makes up our surroundings
and affects our ability to live on the earth.
• The term the environment comes from the French word "environ"
which means everything that surrounds us.
What is the Earth’s Life-Support System?

Scientific studies reveal that the

earth’s life-support system consists of
four main systems that interact with
one another:
• The atmosphere (air),
• The hydrosphere (water),
• The geosphere (rock, soil, sediment),
• The biosphere (living things)
The atmosphere is a thin spherical envelope of gases surrounding the
earth’s surface.
Its inner layer, the troposphere, extends only about 17 kilometers above
sea level at the tropics and about 7 kilometres above the earth’s north and
south poles.
It contains the majority of the air that we breathe, consisting mostly of
nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%). The remaining 1% of the air includes
water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane, all of which are called
greenhouse gases, which absorb and release energy that warms the lower
atmosphere.
Without these gases the earth would be too cold for the existence of life as
we know it. Almost all of the earth’s weather occurs within this layer.
The next layer, stretching 17–50 kilometers above the earth’s surface, is
called the stratosphere.
Its lower portion holds enough ozone (O3) gas to filter out most of the
sun’s harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This global sunscreen allows life to
exist on land and in the surface layers of bodies of water.
The hydrosphere consists of all of the water on or near the earth’s
surface. It is found as liquid water (on the surface and underground),
ice (polar ice, icebergs, and ice in frozen soil layers called permafrost),
and water vapor in the atmosphere. The oceans, which cover about
71% of the globe, contain about 97% of the earth’s water.
The geosphere consists of the earth’s intensely
hot core, a thick mantle composed mostly of
rock, and a thin outer crust.

Most of the geosphere is located in the earth’s

interior.
Its upper portion (crust ) contains non-
renewable fossil fuels and minerals that we use,
as well as renewable soil chemicals (nutrients)
that organisms need to live, grow, and
reproduce.
The Biosphere is made up of the parts of Earth where life exists. The
biosphere extends from the deepest root systems of trees to the dark
environment of ocean trenches, to lush rain forests and high
mountaintops.
It is the total complex of soil, water, air and living organisms that forms a
complete ecosystem. They define the biosphere as
• “The space of our planet that is taken up by living beings”
or as
• “That part of the Earth's crust, of its hydrosphere and atmosphere, that
builds the environment for life”.
The biosphere is that part of the earth inhabited by living organisms,
including land, ocean and the atmosphere in which life can exist.

Dynamic interactions occur between the biotic region (biosphere) and the
abiotic regions (atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere) of the earth.
Energy, water, gases and nutrients are exchanged between the regions on
various spatial and time scales.

The study of the relationships of living organisms with one another and
with their environment is the science known as ecology.
• [Link]
Ecology & Eco-system
Ecology ‫ علم البيئة‬: is the science that
focuses on how organisms interact
with one another and with their
non living environment of matter
and energy.
Ecologists classify matter into
levels of organization ranging
from the atomic level to the level
of the biosphere.
They study interactions within
and among five of these levels—
organisms, populations,
communities, ecosystems, and the
biosphere.
What is an Ecosystem?
An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other
organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a
bubble of life. Ecosystems contain biotic or living parts, as well as
abiotic factors, or non-living parts.
For example, a forest ecosystem consists of plants (especially trees),
animals, and tiny 1 that recycle its chemicals, all interacting with one
another and with solar energy and the chemicals in its air, water, and
soil.

The biosphere is a global ecosystem

composed of living organisms (biota) and
the abiotic (non-living) factors from which
they derive energy and nutrients.
• [Link]
Ecosystems Have Living and Non-living Components
Two types of components make up the biosphere and ecosystems:

One type, called abiotic, consists of non-living components such as

physical conditions (temperature, pH, humidity, salinity, sunlight
and solar energy, etc.) and chemical agents (different gases and
mineral nutrients present in the air, water, soil, rocks)in an
ecosystem.
The other type, called biotic, consists of living biological components
such as plants, animals, and microbes.
Biotic factors also include dead organisms, dead parts of organisms,
and the waste products of organisms.
Ecosystems Have Living and Non-living Components
Biotic and abiotic are the two essential
factors responsible for shaping the
ecosystem. Therefore, both the abiotic and
biotic resources affect survival and
reproduction process.
• [Link]
Biotic Components
The living (biotic) organisms that transfer
energy and nutrients from one feeding level
to another in an ecosystem can be broadly
classified as producers and consumers.
Producers (self-feeders) make the nutrients they need from compounds and
energy obtained from their environment.
On land, most producers are green plants. In a process called
photosynthesis, plants capture the solar energy that falls on their leaves
and use it to combine carbon dioxide and water to form organic molecules,
(such as glucose), which store the chemical energy they need.

In freshwater and marine ecosystems, algae and aquatic plants growing

near shorelines are the major producers.
All other organisms in an ecosystem are Consumers, which cannot produce
the nutrients they need through photosynthesis or other processes.
They feed on other organisms (producers or other consumers) or their
remains. In other words, all consumers (including humans) depend on
producers for their nutrients.
There are several types of consumers. Primary consumers, or herbivores
(plant eaters), are animals that eat producers, feeding mostly on green
plants.
Carnivores (meat eaters) are animals that feed on the flesh of other animals.
Secondary consumers feed on the flesh of herbivores. Other carnivores,
tertiary (or higher), consumers feed on the flesh of other carnivores.
All dead animals and plants have run out of energy. It can’t grow any
more. But it is still vital to life, because it contains chemicals that are the
basic building blocks of all living things.
These chemicals get recycled into the food web with the help of
organisms called Decomposers.
Decomposers, get nutrients and energy by breaking down dead
organisms and animals wastes. They break complex organic materials
into more elementary substances: water, carbon dioxide and simple
compounds: phosphorus, nitrogen and calcium.
Through this process, they release nutrients back into the environment.
• Decomposers and detritus feeders are microscopic organisms.
• They are the key to nutrient cycling. Without them, the planet would be
overwhelmed with plant litter, dead animal bodies, animal wastes, and
garbage.
• [Link]
Energy Flow and Nutrient Cycling Sustain Ecosystems and the Biosphere

Ecosystems and the biosphere are sustained through a combination of one-

way energy flow from the sun through these systems and nutrient cycling
of key materials within them.
Energy Flows through Ecosystems in Food Chains and Food Webs
The chemical energy stored as nutrients in the bodies and wastes of
organisms flows through ecosystems from one feeding level to another.
For example, a plant uses solar energy to store chemical energy in a leaf.
A caterpillar eats the leaf, a robin eats the caterpillar, and a hawk eats the
robin. Decomposers and detritus feeders consume the remains of the leaf,
caterpillar, robin, and hawk after they die and return their nutrients
to the soil for reuse by producers.
Food Chains:
A sequence of organisms, each of which serves
as a source of food or energy for the next, is
called a food chain.

It determines how chemical energy and nutrients

move from one organism to another through the
trophic levels in an ecosystem along the same
pathways— primarily through photosynthesis,
feeding, and decomposition.

Every use and transfer of energy by organisms involves a loss of some

degraded high-quality energy to the environment as heat.
Food Webs:

It is a complex network of
many interconnected
food chains and feeding
relationships.
• [Link]
• Atmosphere: Whole mass of air surrounding the earth.
• Hydrosphere: Earth’s liquid water (oceans, lakes, other bodies of surface
water, and underground water), frozen water (polar ice caps, floating ice
caps, and ice in soil), and water vapour in the atmosphere.
• Geosphere: Earth’s intensely hot core, thick mantle composed mostly of
rock, and thin outer crust that contains most of the earth’s rock, soil, and
sediment.
• Biosphere: Zone of the earth where life is found. It consists of parts of the
atmosphere (the troposphere), hydrosphere (mostly surface water and
groundwater), and geosphere (mostly soil and surface rocks and
sediments on the bottoms of oceans and other bodies of water) where life
is found.
• Ecosystem: An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in
conjunction with the non-living components of their environment,
interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are linked
together through nutrient cycles and energy flows
• Ecology: Biological science that studies the relationships between living
organisms and their environment; study of the structure and functions of
nature.
• Producer: Organism that uses solar energy to manufacture the organic
compounds it needs as nutrients from simple inorganic compounds
obtained from its environment.
• Consumer: Organism that cannot make their own food, but feed on the
producers or other consumers; generally divided into primary consumers
(herbivores), secondary consumers (carnivores), tertiary (higher-level)
consumers.
• Decomposer: Organism that digests parts of dead organisms and release
fragments and wastes of living organisms, by breaking down the complex
organic molecules in those materials into simpler inorganic compounds.
This process returns most of these chemicals to the soil and water for
reuse.
• Food Chain: Series of organisms in which each eats or decomposes the
preceding one.
• Food Web: Complex network of many interconnected food chains and
feeding relationships.

• Biomass: Dry weight of all organic matter in plants and animals in an

ecosystem.
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‫‪Part 1‬‬
What is Sustainability? ‫االستدامة‬

It is the ability of the earth’s

various natural systems and
human cultural systems and
economies to survive and adapt
to changing environmental
conditions indefinitely.
Why should we care about Sustainability?
Because we are a species in the process of rapidly degrading our
own life support system.

In 2005, the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem

Assessment, a 4-year study by 1,360 environmental
experts from 95 countries warned that
“Human activity is putting such a strain on the
natural functions of Earth that the ability of the
planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can
no longer be taken for granted.”
Scientific research reveals that life on the earth has sustained itself
for at least 3.5 billion years despite being subjected to catastrophic
changes in environmental conditions.

To learn how to live more sustainably,

and thus more wisely, we need to find
out how life on the earth has sustained
itself for 3.5 billion years.

Research leads us to believe that the

long term sustainability of life on this
planet in the face of drastic
environmental changes has depended
on three key factors: solar energy,
biodiversity, and chemical cycling.
Sustainability Principles:
Solar energy,
Biodiversity, and
Chemical cycling.
 Solar Energy: The sun warms the
planet and provides energy that plants
use to produce food for themselves and
for us and most other animals.
Without the sun, there would be no
plants, no animals, and no food.

The sun also powers indirect forms of solar energy such as wind
and flowing water, which can be used to produce electricity.
• [Link]
Biodiversity: ‫التنوع البيولوجي‬
It is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth.
It refers to all the variety of life that can be found on Earth (plants,
animals, decomposers) as well as to the communities that they form
and the habitats in which they live.

✓Ecological diversity
✓Species diversity
✓Genetic diversity
• [Link]
✓Ecological biodiversity: is the diversity of ecosystems, natural
communities, and habitats. In essence, it’s the variety of ways that
species interact with each other and their environment.
• An example of ecological diversity on a global scale would be the
variation in ecosystems, such as deserts, forests, grasslands,
wetlands and oceans.
• The forests of Maine differ from the forests of Colorado by the
types of species found in both ecosystems, as well as the
temperature and rainfall. These two seemingly similar ecosystems
have a lot of differences that make them both special.
• Ecological diversity is the largest scale of biodiversity, and within
each ecosystem, there is a great deal of both species and genetic
diversity.
✓Species biodiversity: It is the number of different species present in
an ecosystem and relative abundance of each of those species.
Diversity is greatest when all the species present are equally
abundant in the area.
There are two constituents of species diversity:
• Species richness: Number of different species present in an
ecosystem. Tropical areas have greater species richness as the
environment is conducive for a large number of species.
• Species evenness: Relative abundance of individuals of each of
those species. If the number of individuals within a species is
fairly constant across communities, it is said to have a high
evenness and if the number of individuals varies from species to
species, it is said to have low evenness. High evenness leads to
greater specific diversity.
✓Genetic biodiversity: is the variation in genes that exists
within a species. Examples of genetic variation include eye
colour, blood type, camouflage in animals, and leaf
modification in plants.
A helpful way to understand genetic diversity is to think about
dogs. All dogs are part of the same species, but their genes can
dictate whether they are Chihuahua or a Great Dane.
There can be a lot of variation in genes—just think about all the
colours, sizes, and shapes that make up the genetic diversity of
dogs.
• [Link]
Chemical Cycling: Natural processes recycle nutrients, or
chemicals that plants and animals need to stay alive and reproduce.

Because the earth gets no new shipments of these chemicals, they

must be continuously cycled from organisms to their non-living
environment and back.

These cycles include hydraulic (water),

carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and
sulphur cycles.

Without chemical cycling, there would be

no air, no water, no soil, no food, and no
life.
Water Cycle:
Water is an amazing substance that is necessary for life on the
earth, and there is a fixed supply of it on our planet. The hydrologic
cycle, or water cycle, collects, purifies, and distributes this supply
of water.
The water cycle is powered by
energy from the sun and
involves four major
processes—evaporation,
condensation, precipitation,
and collection.
oWater reaches the atmosphere by
evaporation from the surfaces of plants
(transpiration), some surface water also
seeps into the upper layer of soils and by
evaporation from lakes and streams.

oAs water goes up in the high altitudes of

the atmosphere, water vapour condenses
into very tiny droplets due to the lower
temperature.
oThese particles come close together and
form clouds and fogs.
oWater returning to the earth’s surface as
precipitation takes various paths:
• Most precipitation falling on terrestrial
ecosystems becomes surface runoff. This water
flows into streams and lakes, which eventually
carry water back to the oceans, from which it
can evaporate to repeat the cycle.
• Some precipitation is converted to ice that is
stored in glaciers, usually for long periods of
time.
• Some precipitation sinks through soil and
permeable rock formations to underground
layers of rock, sand, and gravel called aquifers,
where it is stored as groundwater.
oA small amount of the earth’s water ends up in the
living components of ecosystems:

• Roots of plants absorb some of this water, most of

which evaporates from plant leaves back into the
atmosphere (transpiration).
Some combines with carbon dioxide during
photosynthesis to produce organic compounds such
as carbohydrates, that are broken down in plant cells,
which release water back into the environment.

• Consumers get their water from their

food and by drinking it.
oThroughout the hydrologic cycle, many
natural processes purify water:
• Evaporation and subsequent
precipitation act as a natural distillation
process that removes impurities dissolved
in water.
• Water flowing above ground through
streams and lakes and below ground in
aquifers is naturally filtered and partially
purified by chemical and biological
processes—mostly by the actions of
decomposer bacteria—as long as these
natural processes are not overloaded.
❖We alter the water cycle by
withdrawing large quantities of
freshwater faster than it can be
replaced.

❖We also cover land with buildings

and pavement, which reduces the
recharge of aquifers by holding
water above ground and increases
runoff, which in turn increases
flooding and soil erosion.
Water Cycle
Carbon Cycle: Cyclical movement of carbon in different chemical
forms from the environment to organisms and then back to the
environment.
Carbon is the basic building block of
the carbohydrates, fats, proteins,
DNA, and other organic compounds
necessary for life.

It circulates through the biosphere,

the atmosphere, geosphere and parts
of the hydrosphere.
The carbon cycle is based on carbon dioxide (CO2) gas, although
some CO2 is also found in water.

Carbon dioxide is a key component of the

atmosphere’s thermostat. If the carbon
cycle removes too much CO2 from the
atmosphere, the atmosphere will cool,
and if it generates too much CO2, the
atmosphere will get warmer.
oTerrestrial producers remove CO2 from
the atmosphere and aquatic producers
remove it from the water.
oThese producers then use
photosynthesis to convert CO2 into
complex carbohydrates such as glucose
(C6H12O6).
oThe respiration process breaks down
glucose and converts the carbon back
to CO2 in the atmosphere or water
for reuse by producers.
oAnimals eat plants, and thus the carbon elements
stored in plants are transferred to animals .

oAnimals give off CO2 during respiration.

oAfter they die, decay, and decompose releasing CO2.

oOver vast periods of time, because of the pressure and heat from
within the Earth’s crust, dead organisms become fossil fuels, for
example, coal, oil, and natural gas.

oWe extract fossil fuels, burn them to release

energy. This releases carbon dioxide back into the
atmosphere.
❖In only a few hundred years, we have
extracted and burned huge quantities of fossil
fuels that took millions of years to form. This
is why, on a human time scale, fossil fuels are
non-renewable resources.
❖We are mostly altering the carbon
cycle by adding large amounts of
carbon dioxide to the atmosphere
when we burn carbon-containing
fossil fuels and clear carbon-
absorbing vegetation from forests
(especially tropical forests) faster
than it can grow back.
Carbon Cycle
• [Link]
• [Link]
Nitrogen Cycle:
The major reservoir for nitrogen is the
atmosphere. Chemically unreactive
nitrogen gas (N2) makes up 78% of the
volume of the atmosphere.

Nitrogen is a crucial component of proteins, many

vitamins, and nucleic acids such as DNA. However,
N2 cannot be absorbed and used directly as a
nutrient by multicellular plants or animals.
Fortunately, two natural processes convert, or fix, N2 into
compounds that can be used as nutrients by plants and animals:

• One is electrical discharges, or lightning,

taking place in the atmosphere.

• The other takes place in aquatic systems,

soil, and the roots of some plants, where
specialized bacteria, called nitrogen-
fixing bacteria, complete this conversion
as part of the nitrogen cycle.
The nitrogen cycle is a repeating cycle of processes during which
nitrogen moves through both living and non-living things: the
atmosphere, soil, water, plants, animals and bacteria.
In order to move through the different parts of the cycle, nitrogen
must change forms.
oThere are many stages in the
nitrogen cycle.
oNitrogen fixation: In this stage, nitrogen moves from the
atmosphere into the soil.
Earth’s atmosphere contains a huge pool of nitrogen gas (N2). But
this nitrogen is “unavailable” to plants, because the gaseous form
cannot be used directly by plants without undergoing a
transformation.
Small amounts of nitrogen can be fixed by lightening; most nitrogen
fixation occurs naturally, in the soil, by bacteria.

To be used by plants, the N2 must be transformed through a process

called nitrogen fixation. Fixation converts nitrogen in the
atmosphere into forms that plants can absorb through their root
systems.
oAnimals that eat plants eventually consume these
nitrogen-containing compounds.
oThen those animals die or get rid of
waste. Decomposer bacteria
convert this detritus into simpler
nitrogen-containing inorganic
compounds in the soil.

oSpecialized bacteria in waterlogged soil and in the

bottom sediments of lakes, oceans, swamps, and
bogs convert those nitrogen compounds back into
nitrogen gas (N2) and released to the atmosphere to
begin the nitrogen cycle again (Denitrification).
Some are still used in the soil for plants.
❖We intervene in the nitrogen cycle in several
ways. Human activities have more than doubled
the annual release of nitrogen from the land into
the rest of the environment. Most of this is from
the greatly increased use of inorganic fertilizer to
grow crops.

❖This excessive input of nitrogen into the air and water contributes
to pollution and other problems.
❖Nitrogen overload is a serious and growing local, regional, and
global environmental problem that has attracted little attention.
Nitrogen Cycle
• [Link]
Phosphorus Cycle: Phosphorus circulates through water, the earth’s
crust, and living organisms in the phosphorus cycle.
In contrast to the cycles of water, carbon, and nitrogen, the
phosphorus cycle does not include the atmosphere.

The phosphorus cycle is also slow compared to the water, carbon,

and nitrogen cycles.

The major reservoir for phosphorous is phosphate salts in

terrestrial rock formations and ocean bottom sediments.
oAs water runs over exposed phosphorus-
containing rocks, it slowly erodes away inorganic
compounds that contain phosphate ions.
oThe dissolved phosphate can be
absorbed by the roots of plants and
by other producers.
oPhosphorous is transferred by food webs from
producers to consumers, eventually including
detritus feeders and decomposers.

oIn both producers and consumers, phosphorous is a component of

biologically important molecules. It is also a major component of
vertebrate bones and teeth.
oPhosphate can be lost from the cycle for long periods when it
washes from the land into streams and rivers and is carried to the
ocean.

oSomeday, geological processes may

uplift and expose these seafloor
deposits, from which phosphate can
be eroded to start the cycle again.
❖Human activities are affecting the phosphorous
cycle. This includes removing large amounts of
phosphate from the earth to make fertilizer and
reducing phosphorus in tropical soils by clearing
forests.
❖Soil that is eroded from fertilized crop fields, lawns, and golf
courses carries large quantities of phosphates into streams, lakes,
and the ocean, where it stimulates the growth of producers.

❖Phosphorous-rich runoff from the land can

produce huge populations of algae, which can
upset chemical cycling and other processes in
lakes.
Phosphorus Cycle
• [Link]
• [Link]
Natural Capital: the Natural Resources and Natural Services
that keep us and other forms of life alive and support our
economies.
Natural Resources: are materials and energy in nature that are
essential or useful to humans.
These resources are often classified as renewable (such as air,
water, soil, plants, and wind) or non-renewable (such as copper,
oil, and coal).
Renewable Resource: Resource that can be replenished rapidly (hours
to several decades) through natural processes as long as it is not used
up faster than it is replaced.

Examples include: trees in forests, grasses in grasslands, wild animals,

fish populations, fresh surface water in lakes and streams, most
groundwater, fresh air, and fertile soil.
Non-Renewable Resource: Resources that take longer than a person's
lifespan to be replaced.
They exist in a fixed quantity (stock) in the earth’s crust. On a time
scale of millions to billions of years, geological processes can renew
such resources. But on the much shorter human time scale, these
resources can be depleted much faster than they are formed.
Examples include copper, aluminium, coal, and oil.

Copper Aluminium
From a human standpoint, a resource (renewable or not) is anything
obtained from the environment to meet our needs and wants.
Some resources such as solar energy, fresh air, fertile soil, and wild
edible plants are directly available for use.
Other resources such as petroleum, iron, underground water, and
cultivated crops are not directly available. They become useful to us
only with some effort and technological ingenuity.
For example, petroleum was a mysterious fluid until we learned how
to find, extract, and convert it into gasoline, heating oil, and other
products that could be sold.
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‫‪Part 2‬‬
Natural Capital: the Natural Resources and Natural Services
that keep us and other forms of life alive and support our
economies.
Natural Resources: are materials and energy in nature that are
essential or useful to humans.
We have depended on Mother Nature for things needed by us to
survive. Humans require air, water, food from plants and animals,
sunlight, minerals, land, soil and fossil fuels to exist. All these
useful raw materials are called natural resources.
 Natural Services: are processes in nature which support life and
human economies. They are benefits that flow from natural capital.
Per the 2006 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), ecosystem
services are "the benefits people obtain from ecosystems".

Examples are purification of air and water, natural pollination of crops,

clean air, extreme weather mitigation, nutrient cycling, oxygen production,
soil formation, seed dispersal, pest regulation, waste decomposition.
The earth’s biodiversity of species, ecosystems, and interacting
components provide us with these essential services at no cost.

Without biodiversity, most life would

have been wiped out long ago.

The three interconnected principles of sustainability (Solar Energy,

Biodiversity & Chemical Cycling) are derived from learning how
nature has sustained a huge variety of life on the earth for at least 3.5
billion years despite drastic changes in environmental conditions.
We can use technology to enhance such services but there are no
substitutes for them.
• [Link]
 Natural Services:
• Trees and vegetation stabilize the soil preventing
it from eroding during rainstorms, and being
carried into streams as a pollutant.

• Trees decrease the risk of flooding caused by rain

due to the direct interception of rainfall on trees.
• On undeveloped lands, trees and vegetation roots
absorb rainwater lessening the risk of flooding
during heavy rains, as the water is instead slowly
released to streams, while another portion seeps
down into and replenishes groundwater.
• Also water experiences increased frictional
resistance when passing over land.
 Natural Services (cont.):
• A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is
flooded by water, either permanently or
seasonally.
- Wetlands retain and control flood waters.
- Wetland plants and soils store large
amounts of carbon that, if released, would
contribute to climate change.
- Wetlands are also a vital habitat for
migratory birds, fish, and mammals.
- Aquatic plants and microorganisms purify polluted
water carried into the wetlands with runoff. They
trap eroded soil, preventing it from running into
streams and lakes.
 Natural Services (cont.):
• Not only rural, but city trees too provide valuable
services. Trees provide shade and cooling to the
urban buildings they shelter; they have aesthetic
value; they trap polluted storm water runoff via the
soil held by their roots.
• Trees trap air pollutants: their sticky or hairy leaves
filter particulates from air.

• Natural systems provide seafood, wild game,

forage, wood, biomass fuels, and natural fibres.
 Natural Services (cont.):
• Chemical and nutrient cycling plays a large role in
Earth’s sustainability. Chemical cycles keep the
amount of elements on the earth in a perfect balance.

• Undeveloped land acts as a home to wildlife and

also provides timber, recreation and aesthetic
value, and has the advantage of being cooler than
cleared land.

• Fungi and decomposers have an important role in re-cycling

and converting nutrients into the soil, for re-absorbtion by
other plants. This results in naturally fertilising the soil and
reducing the need for artificial fertilisers.
 Natural Services (cont.):
• Vegetation and trees absorb the greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide, while releasing the oxygen necessary to our
lives.
• The atmosphere’s stratospheric-ozone layer protects
us from the sun’s strongest ultraviolet radiation.
• Earthworms increase soil aeration, infiltration,
structure, nutrient cycling, water movement, and plant
growth.
• Healthy ecosystems provide insects, birds, and other
animals that pollinate. Birds and some insects also
reduce many agricultural pests.
 Natural Services (cont.):
• When water evaporates in the water cycle,
minerals like salt and other substances
dissolved in water are left behind. As a
result, when the water vapour condenses
to become water again, it is relatively pure.
The evaporation and condensation are the
key terms that help water purifying.
• Soils along with vegetation and
microorganisms play very important roles in
natural water purification. Microorganisms
in soils, wetlands and riparian areas either
utilize or breakdown numerous chemical
and biological contaminants in water.
• [Link]
 Sustainable Yield & Environmental Degradation
The highest rate at which a renewable resource can be used
indefinitely without reducing its available supply is called its
Sustainable Yield.

When use of a renewable

resource exceeds its
natural replacement rate,
the available supply
begins to shrink, a
process known as
Environmental
Degradation.
Some renewable resources can be used by almost anyone, like fresh
air, underground water supplies, the earth’s climate, and the open
ocean and its fish.
We are environmentally degrading many openly shared renewable
resources. Scientists called such degradation the Tragedy of the
Commons.
It occurs because each user of a shared common resource
or open-access resource reasons, “If I do not use this
resource, someone else will. The little bit that I use or pollute is
not enough to matter, and anyway, it’s a renewable resource.”
When the number of users is small, this logic works. Eventually,
however, the cumulative effect of many people trying to exploit a
shared renewable resource can exhaust or ruin it.
• [Link]
• [Link]
There are two major ways to deal with this difficult problem:
• Use shared renewable resources at rates well below their estimated
sustainable yields by reducing use of the resources, regulating
access to the resources, or doing both.
For example, governments can establish laws and regulations
limiting the annual harvests of various types of ocean fish that are
being harvested at unsustainable levels.
• Convert open-access renewable resources to private ownership. The
reasoning is that if you own something, you are more likely to
protect your investment.
That sounds good, but this approach is not practical for global open-
access resources such as the atmosphere and the open ocean, which
cannot be divided up and sold as private property.
Protect your capital and live on the
income it provides.

Deplete or waste your capital, and

you will move from a sustainable
to an unsustainable lifestyle.
Ecological Footprint: The amount of biologically productive land and
water needed to indefinitely supply the people in a particular country
or area with renewable resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes
and pollution produced by such resource use.

The Per Capita Ecological Footprint: The average ecological footprint

of an individual in a given country or area.
If a country’s (or the world’s) total ecological footprint is larger than its
biological capacity to replenish its renewable resources and absorb the
resulting wastes and pollution, it is said to have an ecological deficit.

In 2008, it was estimated that humanity’s global ecological footprint

exceeded the earth’s ecological capacity to indefinitely support
humans and other forms of life by at least 30%.
• [Link]
In other words, humanity needs the equivalent of about 1.3 earths to
indefinitely supply the current average use of renewable resources
per person and to dispose of the resulting pollution and wastes.
If the number of people and the average use of renewable resources
per person continue growing as projected, by around 2040 supplying
such resources indefinitely will require the equivalent of two planet
earths.
According to the developers of the ecological footprint concept, it
would take the land area of about five planet earths for the rest of the
world to reach current U.S. levels of renewable resource consumption
with existing technology.
In another way, if everyone consumed as much as the average
American does today, the earth could indefinitely support only about
1.3 billion people!
One problem that we face is the time delay between the unsustainable
use of renewable resources and the resulting harmful environmental
effects and their renewal or treatment. Time delays can allow an
environmental problem to build slowly until it reaches a threshold
level, or Ecological Tipping Point, which causes an often irreversible
shift in the behavior of a natural system.
Nature can restore renewable resources only at a certain rate.
However, humans consistently and increasingly consume renewable
resources at a faster rate than ecosystems can restore them.
Earth’s Overshoot day:
Earth Overshoot Day
marks the date when
humanity has exhausted
nature's budget for the
year. For the rest of the
year, we are maintaining
our ecological deficit by
drawing down local
resource stocks and
accumulating carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere.
Over the past 20 years, it has
moved up two months to
July 29, the earliest ever. This
means that humanity is
currently using nature 1.75
times faster than our planet’s
ecosystems can regenerate,
equivalent to 1.75 Earths.

Humanity first saw ecological deficit in the early 1970s.

Overshoot is possible because we are depleting our natural
capital, compromising the planet’s future regenerative capacity.
• [Link]
• [Link]
 Renewable Sources of Energy
A renewable resource, also known as a flow
resource, is a natural resource which will replenish
to replace the portion depleted by usage and
consumption.
Renewable energy, often referred to as clean energy, comes from
natural sources or processes that are constantly replenished.

An energy source can be considered sustainable if it fulfills 3

demands of energy:
• The energy can be naturally replenished.
• Technology should improve energy efficiency.
• The long term availability
Sustainable Energy:
Sustainable energy is a form of energy that meets our today's
demand of energy without putting them in danger of getting expired
or depleted and can be used over and over again.
Sustainable energy should be widely encouraged as it does not cause
any harm to the environment and is available widely free of cost.

• All renewable energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal, biomass,

hydropower and ocean energy are sustainable as they are stable
and available in plenty.
Solar Energy:
Each year, the Earth’s surface receives sunlight with
an energy content equivalent to ten times more
than that stored in all known reserves of coal, oil,
natural gas, and uranium combined.

This validates the fact that the sun is the most plentiful source of
energy on the entire globe and that it could one day be the most
reliant source of energy.
Solar energy provides an unlimited, steady supply through time.
Solar energy is also a green source of energy because it does not
emit pollutants during the energy production process.
Solar Energy (cont.):
Solar energy is the energy that is produced
by the sun in the form of heat and light.

It is one of the most renewable and readily available sources of

energy on planet Earth. The fact that it is available in plenty and free
and does not belong to anybody makes it one of the most important
of the non-conventional sources of energy.
Solar energy has been used by people since ancient
times by using simple magnifying glasses to
concentrate the light of the sun into beams so hot
they would cause wood to catch fire.
Solar Energy (cont.):
The term ‘‘solar energy” as applied to electric power generation
refers to either photovoltaic cells or thermal--solar systems.
▪ Photovoltaic (PV) cells directly generate
electricity from light.
▪ A thermal--solar system generates electricity
indirectly: sunlight is reflected from panels
onto collectors. These heat water (or
sometimes other substances) to produce the
steam that powers the turbines that make
electricity.
Solar Energy (cont.):
• Solar power does not directly pollute, pollution is generated when
solar panels are manufactured, transported, and maintained.
• Workers need protection from the toxic chemicals used to
manufacture solar cells.
• Solar energy is not generated at night and less is made on days
with little sunlight so we must store the solar energy.
• To produce large amounts of electric energy, large land areas
would be covered with solar panels.
• Solar panels are expensive and not affordable by most developing
countries.
Wind Energy:
When wind blows, we call it energy from the
wind.
Wind energy is a kind of kinetic energy, or
simply energy in motion brought about by the
sun’s effect on the atmosphere.
Wind energy today is the cleanest and most reliable way to generate
electricity. Wind power neither produces any toxic emissions nor
any heat-trapping emissions that contribute to global warming.
Wind Energy (cont.):
Naturally, the sun rays unevenly heat the
atmosphere. The entire heating process, in
conjunction with the earth’s rotation, produces
wind that disperses throughout the different earth
surfaces.

In other words, winds are caused by uneven heating of the

atmosphere by the sun, the roughness of the Earth surface and
Earth’s rotation.

Winds flow patterns are changed by the topography of land, water

and plants.
Wind Energy (cont.):
▪ One of the most popular uses of wind
energy is to generate electricity.
During this process, a wind turbine uses the
energy of the wind. As the wind starts to
move the blades of the turbine, a generator
starts to turn which then produces electricity.
▪ Another use of wind energy is in transportation.
Civilizations have for many thousands of years
made use of wind energy for sailing.
Both small and large ships capable of sailing
under the power of the wind.
Wind Energy (cont.):
▪ A more enjoyable use of wind energy is for
sports and activities that rely on the power
of the wind.
For example: Windsurfing, sailing and kite
surfing.

▪ Wind energy has been traditionally used in food

production. Windmills were widely used for
milling grain so that it could be used for
producing food such as bread.
Wind Energy (cont.):
• Wind machines don’t directly pollute, but do generate pollution
during their manufacture, transportation, and when access roads
are built for them.
• Unless locations are planned to avoid bird
migration routes, turbines can result in bird deaths.
• Noise is sometimes a problem too.
• Large tracts of land are needed, but, except for surfaces covered
by machines and access roads, the land can be used for crops or
trees.
• The cost of wind energy has fallen greatly over the years. It could
be cost competitive with fossil fuels were it not for other problems.
A major problem is transporting the power to customers.
Geothermal Energy:
The term geothermal originates from the Greek
words; Geo, which means earth and Thermal,
which means heat.
‘‘Geothermal” refers to the heat below the Earth’s
surface.
As the depth increases, so do the temperatures of the underground
water and rocks. Individuals across the world take advantage of the
underground energy to heat their homes and generate electricity by
digging up deep wells and subsequently pumping the hot
underground water or steam to the earth’s surface.
Traditionally, it was used for bathing and heating purposes but
today it is also used for generating electricity.
Geothermal Energy (cont.):
Utilizing geothermal energy to generate electricity is a considerably
new industry.

The conversion of geothermal energy

into electricity occurs through a
geothermal power plant.
The power plant uses the steam from
the hot water beneath the earth’s
surface to turn turbines, which later
activates a generator to produce
electricity.
Geothermal Energy (cont.):
• Supply of geothermal energy is limited and confined to certain
areas only.
• Such geothermal energy is free of the pollutants that combustion
produces, but can release noxious chemicals along with the steam.

• Geothermal energy can be made more widely available if the

methods and technologies used to extract it are improved.

• Geothermal energy is still not explored fully.

• Transportation of geothermal electricity is not as simple.
Biomass Energy:
Biomass is any organic fuel such as wood, crop
wastes or other vegetation, and animal dung.

If grown in a sustainable manner, biomass has

no net carbon dioxide emissions. This is true
because the carbon dioxide released when it is
burned equals the carbon dioxide absorbed as
new biomass grows.

Biomass is organic, meaning it is made of material that comes from

living organisms, such as plants and animals.
The most common biomass materials used for energy are plants,
wood and waste.
Biomass Energy (cont.):
All these types of biomass contain energy,
because they’re organic materials. So,
whether they started life as plants or
animals, they’ve all absorbed chemical
energy naturally from the sun.

When they’re used as biomass, these

materials are called ‘feed-stocks’.
Biomass Energy (cont.):
Biomass can be used for heating by simply burning
feed-stocks, just like our ancestors have done for
thousands of years.

Biomass can generate electricity by burning the

agricultural waste or wood to heat water. This
produces steam, which spins turbines.
Biomass can be used to produce
biofuel, which can be solid, liquid,
or gas.
Biodiesel and bioethanol are two of
the most common types of biofuel.
Biomass Energy (cont.):
Biomass is always available. Humans and
animals will always create waste, and plants
will always grow – so there’s no danger we’ll
run out of the stuff!
Using waste to create energy means that less
of it goes into the landfill. That’s a win for the
environment.
Burning biomass doesn’t release sulphur or mercury, and it releases
less nitrogen than burning coal.

It is cheap and can be produced in your own home – for example,

with a wood-burning stove or a biomass boiler.
Biomass Energy (cont.):
• The idea of biomass energy is that living
things like plants and animals absorb carbon
dioxide from the environment as they grow.
So when you burn them, the carbon they
release into the atmosphere is the same
amount they took out. This supposedly
makes the process carbon neutral.
But it’s not such an effective system when trees or crops are cut
down specifically to be used for energy.
This is because, even if every tree is replanted, it will take a long time
for the forest to grow big enough again to suck all that carbon back
out of the atmosphere.
Biomass Energy (cont.):
• Crops grown in order to be burnt for energy
(Switchgrass, miscanthus, hybrid poplar and
willow) take up a lot of land. That land
could be used for other things like
conservation, housing, or growing crops for
food.

• Burning biomass also releases carbon monoxide, which adds to air

pollution.
Hydroelectric power:
Hydroelectric energy is a form of energy
that uses the power of water in motion—
such as water flowing over a waterfall—to
generate electricity.

Hydropower is classified as a renewable energy due to the fact that

the water cycle is continually renewed by the sun.

Electricity generated from hydropower plants is predominantly

utilized in countries with bountiful supply of water resources.
Hydroelectric power (cont.):

Most hydroelectric power plants have a

reservoir of water, a gate or valve to
control how much water flows out of the
reservoir, and an outlet or place where the
water ends up after flowing downward.
The water potential energy is converted into kinetic energy as water
flows downhill. The water can be used to turn the blades of a turbine
to generate electricity, which is distributed to the power plant’s
customers.
Hydroelectric power (cont.):
• Hydropower is non-polluting, but does
have environmental impacts.
Hydropower facilities can affect land
use, homes, and natural habitats in the
dam area.
• Reservoirs may cover important natural areas, agricultural land,
and archaeological sites.
• Building a dam and reservoir to support hydroelectric power takes
a lot of money, time, and construction.
• Hydroelectricity can disrupt wildlife habitat. Hydroelectric power
plants can cause a loss of fish habitat, and lead to the entrapment of
fish and the restriction of their passages.
Ocean Energy:
Our planet is called the blue planet
because of the presence of seven major
oceans. The oceans have proved to be a
promising source of energy. It is a
renewable source of energy.
However, it is still not popular as compared to the other non-
conventional sources of energy like solar energy
Considering the amount of ocean energy produced in today’s world
it is almost negligible compared in global scales.
Ocean Energy (cont.):
There are different types of producing
ocean energy.
- Wave Energy: a form of kinetic energy.
This is used to power a turbine.
- Tidal Energy: is formed from the movement of water currents and is
known for a longer time than wave energy. It is another form of
hydropower and uses rise and fall of tides to generate electricity.
- Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: this aims at producing energy
from the temperature differences created in water. The water gets too
cold as your deep dive into the ocean. The more difference in
temperature, the bigger will be the efficiency of this method.
Ocean Energy (cont.):
• The main issue with the ocean wave
energy is that it needs a costly set up.
• Water conditions are not the same in every
part of the world. Even on the coastal areas
the waves are not the same always.

• Along with the waves, we also need to have high force of air to
regulate the turbines.

• There are few places on earth that experience huge tides which
makes it overall applicability a bit difficult.
• [Link]
• Sustainability: It is the ability of the earth’s various natural systems and
human cultural systems and economies to survive and adapt to changing
environmental conditions indefinitely.
• Solar Energy: Direct energy from the sun and number of indirect forms of
energy produced by the direct input from such radiant energy. Principal
indirect forms of solar energy include wind, falling and flowing water
(hydropower), and biomass (solar energy converted into chemical energy
stored in the chemical bonds of organic compounds in trees and other
plants).
• Biodiversity: Variety of ecosystems (ecological diversity), variety of
different species (species diversity), genetic variability among
individuals within each species (genetic diversity).
• Chemical Cycling: The natural recycle of nutrients, or chemicals that
plants and animals need to stay alive and reproduce.
• Natural Capital: the Natural Resources and Natural Services that
keep us and other forms of life alive and support our economies.
• Natural Resources: Materials and energy in nature that are essential
or useful to humans.
• Natural Services: are processes in nature which support life and
human economies. They are benefits that flow from natural capital.
• Renewable Resource: Resource that can be replenished rapidly (hours
to several decades) through natural processes as long as it is not used
up faster than it is replaced.
 • Non-Renewable Resource: Resources that take longer than a
person's lifespan to be replaced.
• Sustainable Yield: Highest rate at which a potentially renewable
resource can be used indefinitely without reducing its available
supply.
• Environmental Degradation: Depletion or destruction of a potentially
renewable resource such as soil, grassland, forest, or wildlife that is
used faster than it is naturally replenished.

• Tragedy of the commons: Depletion or degradation of a potentially

renewable resource to which people have free and unmanaged
access.
• Ecological Footprint: The amount of land and water needed to
supply the people in a particular country or area with renewable
resources and to absorb and recycle the wastes and pollution
produced by such resource use.
• Per Capita Ecological Footprint: The average ecological footprint of
an individual in a given country or area.
• Ecological Tipping Point: Point in the development of an
environmental problem where a threshold level is reached, causing
an irreversible shift in the behavior of a natural system.
• Biocapacity: The capacity of ecosystems to regenerate what people
demand from those surfaces.
• Earth’s Overshoot day: the date when humanity’s demand for
ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth
can regenerate in that year.
Natural Capital Degradation
(Part 1)
Natural Capital: the Natural Resources and Natural Services
that keep us and other forms of life alive and support our
economies.
 Protect your Capital and live on
the income it provides.

Deplete or waste your Capital, and

you will move from a sustainable
to an unsustainable lifestyle.
 Are we living sustainably?
The bad news is that, according to scientific evidence, we are living
unsustainably by wasting, depleting, and degrading the earth’s
natural capital at an accelerating rate.
In many parts of the world, potentially renewable forests are shrinking,
deserts are expanding, soils are eroding, and agricultural lands are being
replaced by suburban developments.
In addition, the lower atmosphere is warming, glaciers are melting, sea
levels are rising, and floods, droughts, and forest fires are increasing,
potentially renewable water tables are falling, rivers are running dry,
fisheries are collapsing, coral reefs are disappearing, and various species are
becoming extinct.
• [Link]
Case Study: The Aral Sea Disaster
The shrinking of the Aral Sea is the result of a large-
scale water transfer project in an area of the former
Soviet Union with the driest climate in central Asia.
Since 1960, enormous amounts of irrigation water have
been diverted from the Aral Sea and its two feeder
rivers. The goal was to create one of the world’s largest
irrigated areas, mostly for raising thirsty cotton and rice
crops in a very dry area. The irrigation canal stretches
more than 1,300 km.
• Since 1961, the sea’s salinity has risen sevenfold and
the average level of its water has dropped by 22
meters. It has lost 90% of its volume of water and has
split into two major parts, separated mostly by salt-
covered desert.
Case Study: The Aral Sea Disaster (cont.)
• About 85% of the area’s wetlands have been
eliminated.
• About half the local bird and mammal species have
disappeared.
• A huge area of former lake bottom is now a human-
made desert covered with glistening white salt.
• The sea’s greatly increased salt concentration has
caused the local extinction of 26 of the area’s 32 native
fish species. This has devastated the area’s fishing
industry, which once provided work for more than
60,000 people.
• Fishing villages and boats once located on the sea’s
coastline now sit abandoned in a salt desert.
Case Study: The Aral Sea Disaster (cont.)
• Winds pick up the sand and salty dust and blow it
onto fields as far as 500 kilometers away.
• As the salt spreads, it pollutes water and kills wildlife,
crops, and other vegetation.
• Aral Sea dust settling on glaciers in the Himalayas is
causing them to melt at a faster than normal rate.
• Shrinkage of the Aral Sea has also altered the area’s
climate. The once-huge sea acted as a thermal buffer
that moderated the heat of summer and the extreme
cold of winter. Now there is less rain, summers are
hotter and drier, winters are colder, and the growing
season is shorter.
Case Study: The Aral Sea Disaster (cont.)
• The combination of such climate change and severe
salinization has reduced crop yields by 20–50% on
almost one-third of the area’s cropland.
• To raise yields, farmers have used more herbicides,
insecticides, and fertilizers, which have percolated
downward and accumulated to dangerous levels in
the groundwater—the source of most of the region’s
drinking water.
• Many of the 45 million people living in the Aral Sea’s
watershed have experienced increasing health
problems—including anaemia, respiratory illnesses, liver
and kidney disease, eye problems, and various cancers—
from a combination of toxic dust, salt, and
contaminated water.
• [Link]
• [Link]
Case Study: Dust Bowl
Americans learned a harsh environmental
lesson in the 1930s, when much of the
topsoil in several dry and windy mid
Western states was lost because of a
combination of poor cultivation practices
and prolonged drought.
oFarmers ploughed over 5.2 million acres of the deep-rooted grass
that kept soil in-place. They had conducted extensive deep
ploughing of the virgin topsoil.
oThis had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally
trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high
winds.
Case Study: Dust Bowl (cont.)
Years of over-cultivation meant the soil
lost its richness. When the drought killed
off the crops, high winds blew away the
remaining unanchored topsoil.
• They raised enormous clouds of dust. It
deposited mounds of dirt on everything,
even covering houses.
• These choking billows of dust – named "black blizzards" or "black
rollers" – travelled cross country, reaching as far as the East Coast
and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, D.C.
• On the plains, they often reduced visibility to 1 m or less.
• Dust suffocated livestock and caused pneumonia in children.
• [Link]
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation
An old-growth forest is an uncut or
regenerated primary forest that has not been
seriously disturbed by human activities or
natural disasters for several hundred years or
more.
A second-growth forest is a forest which has
regrown after being removed by human
activities such as clear-cutting or by natural forces
such as fire, hurricanes, or volcanic eruption, until
long enough period has passed so that the
effect of the disturbance are no longer evident.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
Deforestation is the temporary or permanent
removal of large expanses of forest for
agriculture, settlements, or other uses.

Tropical forests cover about 6% of the earth’s

land area—roughly the area of the lower 48
U.S. states.
Climatic and biological data suggest that
mature tropical forests once covered at least
twice as much area as they do today. Most of
this loss of tropical forest has taken place since
1950.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
Satellite scans and ground-level surveys
indicate that large areas of tropical forests are
being cut rapidly in parts of Africa, Southeast
Asia and South America.
Studies indicate that at least half of the
world’s known species of terrestrial plants
and animals live in tropical forests.

These species are highly vulnerable to

extinction when their forest habitats are
destroyed or degraded.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
Many forest experts acknowledge this
regrowth. However, they point out that these
second-growth tropical forests do not have the
biological diversity—especially the diversity
of animals—or the important uninterrupted
expanses of old-growth tropical forests.
They note that these old forests harbour
biodiversity that could not be regenerated in
second-growth or commercial forests, simply
because it took many millions of years to
evolve along with the old-growth tropical
forests.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
oHundreds of millions of people in the
developing world rely on forests to earn their
living.
oAbout two billion people use fuel wood as
their main source of energy for cooking and
for heating their homes.
oRural households in developing countries
collect food, fuel, medicinal plants and
construction materials directly from the
forest.
oTens of millions of people supplement their
cash incomes by collecting and selling such
materials.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
oOthers sell timber from their own traditional
land areas to logging companies, or make
and sell furniture and handicrafts, just to
have enough income to support themselves
and their families.
oIndustrial logging provide millions of full-
time jobs and steady earnings for people in
developing countries.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
oThe importance of forests cannot be
underestimated. We depend on forests for
our survival, from the air we breathe to the
wood we use.
oBesides providing habitats for animals and
livelihoods for humans, forests also offer
watershed protection, prevent soil erosion
and mitigate climate change.
oThey provide ecosystem services that are
critical to human welfare. They provide
habitat to more than half of the world’s land-
based species.
Stratification of
specialized plants and
animals in a tropical rain
forest.
Species avoid or
minimize competition
for resources and results
in the coexistence of a
great variety of species.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
oForests absorb harmful greenhouse gasses
that produce climate change. In tropical
forests alone, a quarter of a trillion tons of
carbon is stored in forest biomass.
oProviding food and medicine.
oServing as a buffer in natural disasters like
flood and rainfalls.
oProtecting watersheds and reducing or
slowing the amount of erosion and chemicals
that reach waterways.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
oTrees intercept rainfall in their canopy,
reducing the amount of rain that reaches the
ground. A portion of this captured rain
water evaporates from tree surfaces.
oTrees take up water from the soil through
their roots, which increases soil water
storage potential and lengthen the amount of
time before rainfall becomes runoff.
oForested land produce very little runoff,
which can reduce downstream flood flows
that erode stream channels, damage property
and destroy habitat.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
Pressures of population growth and poverty
push farmers and the landless poor into
tropical forests, where they try to grow
enough food to survive.

Some Government subsidies can accelerate

deforestation by reducing the costs of timber
harvesting, cattle grazing, and establishing
vast plantations of crops.
Case Study: Tropical Deforestation (cont.)
• Southeast Asian forests are being replaced
with vast plantations of oil palm, whose oil is
used in cooking, cosmetics, and biodiesel
fuel for motor vehicles.
• In Africa, people struggle to survive by
clearing plots for small-scale farming and by
harvesting wood for fuel, which is causing
deforestation on that continent.
Major interconnected
causes of the
destruction and
degradation of tropical
forests. The importance
of specific secondary
causes varies in
different parts of the
world.
• [Link]
Case Study: Forest Fires
Two types of fires can affect forest
ecosystems. Surface fires usually burn only
undergrowth and leaf litter on the forest
floor. They may kill seedlings and small trees,
but they avoid most mature trees and allow
most wild animals to escape.
Occasional surface fires have a number of
ecological benefits. They burn away
flammable ground material and help to
prevent more destructive fires.
Case Study: Forest Fires (cont.)
They also free valuable mineral nutrients tied
up in slowly decomposing litter and
undergrowth; release seeds from the cones of
lodge pole pines; stimulate the germination of
certain tree seeds and help to control tree
diseases and insects.
Wildlife species such as deer, moose,
muskrat, and quail depend on occasional
surface fires to maintain their habitats and
provide food in the form of vegetation that
sprouts after fires.
Case Study: Forest Fires (cont.)
Another type of fire, called a Crown fire is an
extremely hot fire that leaps from treetop to
treetop, burning whole trees.
Crown fires usually occur in forests that have
not experienced surface fires for several
decades, a situation that allows dead wood,
leaves, and other flammable ground litter to
accumulate.
• These rapidly burning fires can destroy
most vegetation, kill wildlife, increase soil
erosion, and burn or damage human
structures in their paths.
Case Study: Forest Fires (cont.)
• A 2005 study by forest scientists found that
widespread fires in the Amazon basin are
changing weather patterns by raising
temperatures and reducing rainfall.
• This is converting large deforested areas of
tropical forests to tropical grassland
(savanna)—another example of reaching an
irreversible ecological tipping point.
• Models stated that if current burning and
deforestation rates continue, 20–30% of the
Amazon basin will be turned into savanna
in the next 50 years, and most of it could
become savanna by 2080.
Case Study: Forest Fires (cont.)
• Large areas of tropical forest in Brazil’s
Amazon basin are burned each year to make
way for cattle ranches, plantation crops such
as soybeans, and small-scale farms.
• The burning of tropical forests releases CO2
into the atmosphere, which is projected to
warm the atmosphere and change the global
climate at an increasing rate during this
century.
Case Study: Forest Fires (cont.)
• Scientists estimate that, globally, these fires
account for at least 20% of all human-created
greenhouse gas emissions, and that each
year they emit twice as much CO2 as all of
the world’s cars and trucks emit.
• The large-scale burning of the Amazon
accounts for three-fourths of Brazil’s
greenhouse gas emissions, making Brazil the
world’s fourth largest emitter of such gases.
Large areas of tropical forest in
Brazil’s Amazon basin are
burned each year to make way
for cattle ranches, plantation
crops such as soybeans, and
small-scale farms.
• [Link]
• [Link]
• [Link]
Case Study: Floods in Bangladesh
A flood happens when water in a stream
overflows its normal channel and spills into the
adjacent area, called a floodplain‫ السهل الفيضي‬.
oFloodplains, which usually include highly
productive wetlands, help to provide natural
flood and erosion control, maintain high
water quality, and recharge groundwater.
oPeople settle on floodplains to take advantage
of their many assets, including fertile soil,
ample water for irrigation, availability of
nearby rivers for transportation and
recreation, and flat land suitable for crops,
buildings, highways, and railroads.
Case Study: Floodplains in Bangladesh (cont.)
Floods actually provide several benefits. They
have created the world’s most productive
farmland by depositing nutrient-rich silt on
floodplains. They also recharge groundwater
and help to refill wetlands, thereby supporting
biodiversity and aquatic ecological services.
Floods usually are considered natural
disasters, but since the 1960s, human activities
have contributed to a sharp rise in flood
deaths and damages, meaning that such
disasters are partly human-made.
Case Study: Floodplains in Bangladesh (cont.)
• One such human activity is removal of water-absorbing vegetation,
especially on hillsides. People usually replace such vegetation with
farm fields, pastures, pavement, or buildings that cannot absorb
rainwater.
Case Study: Floodplains in Bangladesh (cont.)
• Building on wetlands, which naturally
absorb floodwaters, is a second human
activity that increases the severity of
flooding.
• Another human-related factor that will
increase flooding is a rise in sea level from
projected climate change.

• Reports stated that living in many of the

world’s largest coastal cities are likely to be
at risk from such coastal flooding.
Case Study: Floodplains in Bangladesh (cont.)
Bangladeshis have adapted to moderate
flooding. Most of the houses have flat thatch
roofs on which families can take refuge with
their belongings in case of flooding. The roofs
can be detached from the walls, if necessary,
and floated like rafts.
Unfortunately, great floods can overwhelm
such defences.
In the past, great floods occurred every 50
years or so. But since the 1970s, they have
come roughly every 4 years.
Case Study: Floodplains in Bangladesh (cont.)
• Bangladesh’s flooding problems begin in the
Himalayan watershed, where rapid
population growth, deforestation,
overgrazing, and unsustainable farming on
steep and easily erodible slopes have
increased flows of water during monsoon
season. Monsoon rains now run more quickly
off the denuded Himalayan foothills, carrying
vital topsoil with them.
• This increased runoff of soil, combined with
heavier than normal monsoon rains, has led
to more severe flooding along Himalayan
rivers and downstream in Bangladesh.
Case Study: Floodplains in Bangladesh (cont.)
• Many of the country’s coastal mangrove
forests have been cleared for fuelwood,
farming, and aquaculture ponds for raising
shrimp.
• It resulted in more severe flooding, because
these coastal wetlands had sheltered
Bangladesh’s low-lying coastal areas from
storm surges, cyclones, and tsunamis.
• [Link]
Natural Capital Degradation
(Part 2)
Protect your capital and live on the
income it provides.

Deplete or waste your capital, and

you will move from a sustainable
to an unsustainable lifestyle.
Case Study: Colony Collapse Disorder
Colony Collapse Disorder is the phenomenon that
occurs when the majority of worker bees in a
colony disappear and leave behind a queen, plenty
of food and a few nurse bees to care for the
remaining immature bees and the queen.
But hives cannot sustain themselves without
worker bees and would eventually die. This
combination of events resulting in the loss of a bee
colony has been called Colony Collapse Disorder.

In 2008, a record 36% of the honeybee colonies

(each with 30,000 to 100,000 individual bees) in 27
U.S. states were lost.
Case Study: Colony Collapse Disorder (cont.)
Almost one-third of the death was due to Colony
Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that cause
adult bees to disappear from their hives without a
trace.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) was first
reported in 2006. Beekeepers began reporting high
colony losses where the adult honeybees simply
disappeared from the hives, almost all at the same
time. There were few, if any, dead bees found in or
around the hives.
Case Study: Colony Collapse Disorder (cont.)
oGlobally, about one-third of the human diet comes
from insect-pollinated plants, and honeybees are
responsible for 80% of that pollination.
oIf all of the world's bees died off, there
would be major rippling effects
throughout ecosystems. A number of
plants, such as many of the bee orchids,
are pollinated exclusively by specific
bees, and they would die off without
human intervention.
oThis would alter the composition of their habitats
and affect the food webs they are part of and
would likely trigger additional extinctions or
declines of dependent organisms.
Case Study: Colony Collapse Disorder (cont.)
oOther plants may utilize a variety of pollinators,
but many are most successfully pollinated by
bees. Without bees, they would set fewer seeds
and would have lower reproductive success. This
too would alter ecosystems.

oBeyond plants, many animals, such as the

beautiful bee-eater birds, would lose their prey in
the event of a die-off, and this would also impact
natural systems and food webs.
Case Study: Colony Collapse Disorder (cont.)
oIn terms of agriculture, the loss of bees would
dramatically alter human food systems.
oMany fruits and vegetables, however, are insect-
pollinated and could not be grown at such a large
scale, or so cheaply, without bees. Blueberries
and cherries, for example, rely on honeybees for
up to 90% of their pollination.
Case Study: Colony Collapse Disorder (cont.)
oAlthough hand-pollination is a possibility for
most fruit and vegetable crops, it is incredibly
labor-intensive and expensive. Tiny robotic
pollinator drones have been developed in Japan
but remain very expensive for entire orchards or
fields of time-sensitive flowers.
oWithout bees, the availability and diversity of
fresh product would decline substantially, and
human nutrition would likely suffer.
Case Study: Colony Collapse Disorder (cont.)
• Suspected causes of Colony Collapse Disorder
include a fungus, viruses, bacteria, and poor
nutrition and stress caused when bee colonies are
fed an artificial diet while being trucked around
the country and rented out for pollination.

• A growing number of beekeepers believe that a

significant cause may be relatively new nicotine-
based pesticides, known to affect the immune
and nervous systems of insects and to reduce
their ability to fight off infections. The wax in
beehives absorbs these and other airborne toxins.
Case Study: Colony Collapse Disorder (cont.)
• Causes of CCD also include attacks by parasitic
mites that can wipe out a colony in hours.

A suggestion is that we cut back on our use of

pesticides, especially at midday when honeybees
are most likely to be searching for nectar. Also, we
can make our yards and gardens a buffet for bees
by planting native plants such as bee balm, foxglove,
red clover, and Joe-Pye weed. These species provide
food for bees and can be grown without the use of
pesticides.
• [Link]
Case Study: Frogs Disappearing
Since 1980, populations of hundreds of the earth’s
almost 6,000 amphibian species have been
vanishing or declining in almost every part of the
world, even in protected wildlife reserves and
parks.
According to scientists who study amphibians,
about 33% of all known amphibian species are
threatened with extinction.
oA world without amphibians would be a worse
place. Amphibians are a keystone of many
ecosystems, and when they disappear, the
environment changes dramatically.
Case Study: Frogs Disappearing (cont.)
oFrogs would eat algae off rocks in streams. Now
that the amphibians has disappeared, the algae
is proliferating.
oAdult frogs eat large quantities of insects,
including disease vectors that can transmit fatal
illnesses to humans (mosquitoes causing
malaria).
Case Study: Frogs Disappearing (cont.)
oFrogs also serve as an important food source to
a diverse array of predators, including
fish, snakes, birds,

mink, foxes, otters,

raccoons, centipedes,

and even monkeys.

Case Study: Frogs Disappearing (cont.)
oFor millennia, secretions from their skin and
from glands near their ears, as well as from
their bones and muscle tissues have been used
as remedies for infections, bites, cancer, heart
disorders, haemorrhages, allergies,
inflammation, pain and even AIDS.

No single cause has been identified to explain

these amphibian declines. However, scientists
have identified a number of factors that can affect
frogs and other amphibians at various points in
their life cycles:
Case Study: Frogs Disappearing (cont.)
• Habitat loss, especially from the draining of
wetlands, deforestation, and urban
development.
• Prolonged drought, which can dry up breeding
pools so that few tadpoles survive.
• Increases in ultraviolet (UV) radiation due to
reductions in stratospheric ozone during the
past few decades, caused by ozone-depleting
chemicals we have put into the air. Higher
doses of UV radiation can harm amphibian
embryos lying in shallow ponds and adults
exposing themselves to the sun for warmth.
 Case Study: Frogs Disappearing (cont.)
• Pollution, especially exposure to pesticides in
ponds and in the bodies of insects consumed by
frogs, which can make them more vulnerable to
bacterial, viral, and fungal diseases and to some
parasites.

• Climate change, which has been identified as the

primary cause of the extinction of the golden
toad in Costa Rica

• Overhunting, especially in Asia and France,

where frog legs are a delicacy.
• [Link]
Case Study: Sea Otter Extinction
Southern sea otters live in giant kelp forests in
shallow waters along part of the Pacific coast of
North America.
Each day, a sea otter consumes about a fourth of
its weight in clams, mussels, crabs, sea urchins,
abalone, and about 40 other species of bottom-
dwelling organisms.

By the early 1900s, the species was hunted almost

to extinction in this region.
Case Study: Sea Otter Extinction (cont.)
oIn giant kelp forest ecosystems, sea urchins prey
on kelp, a form of seaweed. However, as
keystone species, Southern sea otters prey on
the sea urchins and thus keep them from
destroying the kelp forests.

oBiologists classify them as a keystone species.

Without Southern sea otters, scientists
hypothesize that sea urchins and other kelp-
eating species would probably destroy the kelp
forests and much of the rich biodiversity
associated with them.
Case Study: Sea Otter Extinction (cont.)
oWe should care about the sea otters because
people love to look at these charismatic, cute,
and cuddly animals as they play in the water.
As a result, they help to generate millions of
dollars a year in tourism income in coastal areas
where they are found.
• The population size of Southern sea otters has
fluctuated in response to changes in
environmental conditions.
Case Study: Sea Otter Extinction (cont.)
• One such change has been a rise in populations
of killer whales that feed on them. Scientists
hypothesize that they began feeding more on
Southern sea otters when populations of their
normal prey, sea lions and seals, began
declining.
• Another factor may be parasites known to breed
in cats. Scientists hypothesize that some sea
otters may be dying because Northern
California cat owners flush used faeces-laden
cat litter down their toilets or dump it in storm
drains that empty into coastal waters. The
faeces contain the parasites, which then infect
the otters.
Case Study: Sea Otter Extinction (cont.)
• Thorny-headed worms from seabirds also are
known to be killing sea otters, as are toxic algae
blooms triggered by urea, a key ingredient in
fertilizer that washes into coastal waters.

• Toxic chemicals released by human activities

can accumulate in the tissues of the shellfish on
which otters feed and prove fatal to otters.
• The fact that sea otters live close to the shore
makes them vulnerable to other pollutants in
coastal waters.
Case Study: Sea Otter Extinction (cont.)
• Some Southern sea otters also die when they
encounter oil spilled from ships. The entire
California Southern sea otter population could
be wiped out by a large oil spill from a single
tanker off the State’s central coast or from an oil
well.

• Otters were also hunt for extinction because fur

traders had killed them for their thick,
luxurious fur. Others had killed otters because
they were competing with commercial fishers
for valuable abalone and other shellfish.
Case Study: Sea Otter Extinction (cont.)
• Some Southern sea otters also die when they
encounter oil spilled from ships. The entire
California Southern sea otter population could
be wiped out by a large oil spill from a single
tanker off the State’s central coast or from an oil
well.

• Otters were also hunt for extinction because fur

traders had killed them for their thick,
luxurious fur. Others had killed otters because
they were competing with commercial fishers
for valuable abalone and other shellfish.
• [Link]
• [Link]
Case Study: Jellyfish Blooming
Jellyfish blooms have damaged the normal
composition and function of marine ecosystem
and ecological environments, which have been
one of the new marine ecological disasters.

• Eutrophication result from excess fertilizer

from agriculture, dumping of sewage, and
deposition of reactive nitrogen from fossil fuel
burning. This leads to more phytoplankton,
often in the form of algal blooms that support
rapid jellyfish population growth.
Case Study: Jellyfish Blooming (cont.)
Eutrophication is known to negatively increase
plankton blooms resulting in a hypoxic water
state, again leaving room for the jellyfish to
invade due to their success of reproduction in
oxygen depleted waters.
The subsequent decay of these blooms often
leads to reduced concentrations of dissolved
oxygen, which jellyfish can bare.
Jellyfish also thrive in dammed areas because
they are more tolerant to variable salinity.
Case Study: Jellyfish Blooming (cont.)
• Coastal development has also created physical
changes to coastal ecosystems that favour
rapid jellyfish growth. Hard structures provide
more space for jellyfish polyps to adhere to
and develop on.
• Floating artificial structures increase shaded
substrate area jellyfish polyps thrive on.
• Jellyfish blooms may benefit from warmer
temperature that could increase the food
availability of jellyfish and promote jellyfish
reproduction, especially for warm temperate
jellyfish species.
Case Study: Jellyfish Blooming (cont.)
• Worldwide, the quantity, size and distribution
of large predators is declining, many of these
species are predators of jellyfish, i.e. the pacific
salmon, tuna, cod, sharks and, sea turtles, as a
result of overfishing.

• Trawling and other methods impacting the

seabed could create improved conditions for
jellyfish by removing competitors and
predators from the seafloor.
• [Link]
• [Link]
Case Study: Great Barrier Reef Bleaching
Coral reefs are an important coastal ecosystem.
Reefs form when massive colonies of tiny animals
called polyps secrete a protective crust of limestone
around their soft bodies.
When the polyps die, their empty crusts remain
behind as part of a platform for more reef growth.
The resulting elaborate network of crevices, ledges,
and holes serves as “condominiums” for a variety
of marine animals.
Coral reefs are the result of a mutually beneficial
relationship between the polyps and tiny algae that
live in the tissues of the polyps.
Case Study: Great Barrier Reef Bleaching (cont.)
The algae provide the polyps with food and oxygen
through photosynthesis and also give the reefs their
stunning coloration. The polyps, in turn, provide
the algae with a home and some of their nutrients.

Coral reefs are vulnerable to damage because they

grow slowly and are disrupted easily. They also
thrive only in clear and fairly shallow water of
constant high salinity. This water must have a
temperature of 18–30 °C.
Case Study: Great Barrier Reef Bleaching (cont.)
oThey provide important ecological and economic
services: They help moderate atmospheric
temperatures by removing CO2 from the
atmosphere, and they act as natural barriers that
help to protect 15% of the world’s coastlines from
erosion caused by battering waves and storms.

oCoral reefs also support important fishing and

tourism industries.
• If the atmosphere warms this could raise the water
temperature in some areas above this limit and
threaten many reefs.
Case Study: Great Barrier Reef Bleaching (cont.)
• Also, increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere
and ocean are raising the acidity of ocean water,
which makes it harder for polyps to create calcium
carbonate, the material from which reefs are built.
Australia's Great Barrier Reef has experienced its
most widespread bleaching event on record, with
the south of the reef bleaching extensively for the
first time.
This marks the third mass bleaching event on the
reef in just the last five years and scientists say that
the rapid warming of the planet due to human
emissions of heat-trapping gases are to blame.
Case Study: Great Barrier Reef Bleaching (cont.)
• Warm ocean temperatures are the main driver of
coral bleaching, which is when corals turn white
as a stress response to water that is too warm. This
happens because they are expelling the algae that
grows inside them, which is their main energy
source and gives them their colour.
Bleaching doesn't kill coral immediately. But if
temperatures remain high, eventually the coral will
die, destroying a natural habitat for many species of
marine life.
• [Link]
• [Link]
Case Study: Sharks Finning and Overfishing
oShark species, feeding at or near the tops of
food webs, remove injured and sick animals
from the ocean, and thus play an important
ecological role.
oSharks limit the abundance of their prey,
which then affects the prey of those animals,
and so on throughout the food web.
oIn addition to their important ecological roles,
sharks could save human lives.
oIf we can learn why they almost never get
cancer, we could possibly use this information
to fight cancer in our own species.
Case Study: Sharks Finning and Overfishing (cont.)
oScientists are also studying their highly
effective immune systems, which allow
wounds in sharks to heal without becoming
infected.
• Sharks are caught mostly for their valuable
fins and then thrown back alive into the water,
fins removed, to bleed to death or drown
because they can no longer swim. This
practice is called finning.
• The fins are widely used in Asia as a soup
ingredient and as a pharmaceutical cure-all. A
top (dorsal) fin from a large whale shark can
fetch up to $10,000.
Case Study: Sharks Finning and Overfishing (cont.)
• Sharks are also killed for their livers, meat,
and jaws, and because we fear them. Some
sharks die when they are trapped in nets or
lines deployed to catch swordfish, tuna,
shrimp, and other species.
• Sharks are especially vulnerable to overfishing
because they grow slowly, mature late, and
have only a few offspring per generation.
• [Link]
Climate Change
Part 1
Flow of Energy from and to the Sun
About one-third of the incoming
solar radiation is reflected back
into space by clouds, particles in
the atmosphere, and the earth’s
surface.
Another fifth of the incoming
radiation is absorbed by ozone
in the lower stratosphere (mostly
UV radiation) and clouds and
water vapour in the troposphere.
Flow of Energy from and to the Sun

Most of the remaining half of

incoming solar radiation is
absorbed by land and water
on the earth’s surface.
Flow of Energy from and to the Sun
The earth’s surface absorbs
much of this solar energy and
transforms it to heat, which
flows into the lower atmosphere.
Some of this heat escapes into
space, but some is absorbed by
molecules of greenhouse gases
and emitted into the lower
atmosphere.
This natural warming effect of the
troposphere is called the natural
greenhouse effect.
• [Link]
Natural Greenhouse Gases
Life on the earth and the world’s economies are totally dependent on
the natural greenhouse effect— one of the planet’s most important
forms of natural capital.

It occurs primarily because of the

presence of four natural greenhouse
gases—water vapour (H2O), carbon
dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and
nitrous oxide (N2O)—that warm the
atmosphere. Without this natural
greenhouse effect, the world would
be too cold to support the forms of
life we find here today.
• [Link]
Man Made Greenhouse Gases
• Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels
(coal, natural gas, and oil), trees and other biological materials,
and also as a result of certain chemical reactions (e.g., manufacture
of cement).
• Methane is emitted during the production and transport of coal,
natural gas, and oil. Methane emissions also result from livestock
and other agricultural practices and by the decay of organic waste
in municipal solid waste landfills.
• Nitrous oxide is emitted during agricultural and industrial
activities, combustion of fossil fuels and solid waste, as well as
during treatment of wastewater.
• Fluorinated gases: Hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur
hexafluoride, and nitrogen tri-fluoride are synthetic, powerful
greenhouse gases that are emitted from a variety of industrial
processes.

• Ground-level ozone is a greenhouse gas -- it can absorb infrared

radiation and contribute to warming. Ground-level ozone forms
from Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides
in the presence of heat and the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.
• Water vapour is a bit different: the amount of water vapour in the
atmosphere cannot, in general, be directly modified by human
behaviour but is instead set by air temperatures.

The warmer the surface, the greater the

evaporation rate of water from the
surface. As a result, increased
evaporation leads to a greater
concentration of water vapour in the
lower atmosphere capable of absorbing
infrared radiation and emitting it back to
the surface.
Atmospheric concentrations of both the natural and man-made gases
have been rising over the last few centuries due to the industrial
revolution.

As the global population has

increased and our reliance on fossil
fuels (such as coal, oil and natural
gas) has been firmly solidified, so
emissions of these gases have risen.
• [Link]
If the earth’s natural greenhouse effect is enhanced at least partially
by human activities, climate scientists expect the warmer atmosphere
to cause climate changes in various places on the earth that could last
for centuries to thousands of years.
As this warming intensifies during this century, climate scientists
expect it to:
• Alter precipitation patterns,
• Increasing oceans temperature,
• Raise average sea levels,
• Shift areas where we can
grow crops and where some
types of plants and animals
(including humans) can live.
 Scientific reports stated that the lower atmosphere is
getting warmer and that human activities, especially
the burning of carbon containing fossil fuels, have
played an important role in increasing the average
temperature of the atmosphere since the 1950s.
• Between 1906 and 2005, the average global surface temperature has
risen by about 0.74 °C. Most of this increase has taken place since
1980.
• Annual greenhouse gas emissions from human activities rose 70%
between 1970 and 2008, and these increases correlate closely with
temperature increases during this period.
• In some parts of the world, glaciers are melting
and floating sea ice is shrinking, both at
increasing rates, rainfall patterns are changing,
and extreme and prolonged drought is increasing.
• During the last century, the world’s average sea
level rose by 10–20 centimetres, mostly because
of runoff from melting land-based ice and the
expansion of ocean water as its temperature
increased.
• The 10 warmest years ever recorded have
occurred since 1997.
• [Link]
 Global Warming

Global warming is the long-term heating of Earth’s climate system

observed since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900) due
to human activities, primarily fossil fuel burning, which increases
heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere.

The term is frequently used interchangeably with the term climate

change, though the latter refers to both human- and naturally
produced warming and the effects it has on our planet.
 Global Warming

Although people tend to use these terms interchangeably, global

warming is just one aspect of climate change.
o “Global warming” refers to the rise in global temperatures due
mainly to the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere.
o “Climate change” refers to the increasing changes in the measures
of climate over a long period of time – including precipitation,
temperature, and wind patterns.
• [Link]
Case Study: Increasing Oceans Temperature

Between 1955 and 1995, both the North and South

Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and Indian Ocean all
showed an average warming of 0.06 oC between
the surface of the ocean and a depth of 3000m.

A 0.06 oC rise seems small, but if you calculate the

volume of three oceans down to 3000 m, the result
is a great deal of stored heat.
Increasing Oceans Temperature (cont.)
▪ The ocean does an excellent job of absorbing
excess heat from the atmosphere. The top few
meters of the ocean stores as much heat as
Earth's entire atmosphere. So, as the planet
warms, it's the ocean that gets most of the extra
energy.
▪ But if the ocean gets too warm, then the plants
and animals that live in it must adapt—or die.
▪ Steadily rising ocean temperatures are forcing
fish to abandon their historic territories and
move to cooler waters. The result is that
fishermen’s livelihoods are being disrupted.
Increasing Oceans Temperature (cont.)
▪ As water temperatures have spiked along the
U.S. East Coast, the Atlantic’s inhabitants have
undergone a dramatic rearrangement.
According to an analysis by researchers, black
sea bass, once most abundant off the coast of
North Carolina,
have shifted to New Jersey.

▪ Lobsters have all but vanished from

Long Island Sound, where rising
temperatures have made the
crustaceans more susceptible to disease.
Increasing Oceans Temperature (cont.)
▪ Butterfish have supplanted herring in the Gulf,
with disastrous consequences for baby puffins
birds, which struggle to swallow the disc-
shaped interlopers and starve to death.

Butterfish

Herring Puffin
Increasing Ocean Temperature (cont.)
▪ Harmful algae usually bloom during
the warm summer season or when
water temperatures are warmer than
usual. Warmer water due to climate
change might favor harmful algae in
a number of ways:
o Toxic blue-green algae prefer warmer water.
o Warmer temperatures prevent water from
mixing, allowing algae to grow thicker and faster.
o Warmer water is easier for small organisms to
move through and allows algae to float to the
surface faster.
Increasing Ocean Temperature (cont.)
o Algal blooms absorb sunlight, making water
even warmer and promoting more blooms.
▪ Algal blooms prevent light from penetrating the
water’s surface. They also prevent oxygen from
being absorbed by organisms beneath them.
Sunlight is necessary for plants and organisms
like phytoplankton, which manufacture their
own nutrients from sunlight, water, and carbon
dioxide.
Increasing Ocean Temperature (cont.)
▪ Hypoxia –lack of oxygen- occurs when algae
and other organisms die. Hypoxia events often
follow algal blooms. They sink to the seafloor,
and are decomposed by bacteria. The
decomposition process uses up oxygen. This
lack of oxygen creates dead zones in which most
aquatic species cannot survive.
Increasing Ocean Temperature (cont.)

▪ Not only does warm water hold less dissolved

oxygen than cool water, it also tends to divide
into layers that don’t readily mix.

▪ Warmer waters also drive up animals’ metabolic

rates, forcing them to use more oxygen to
breathe.
Increasing Ocean Temperature (cont.)
▪ Warming water has reduced the extent of kelp
by around 60 miles along the coast in Western
Australia, depleting valuable species, like
abalone and lobster, which take cover beneath
seaweed canopies.
▪ There are fears that kelp and its dependents may
be driven south along the Australian coast until
they simply run out of near-shore habitat.

Abalone Lobster
Increasing Ocean Temperature (cont.)
▪ Coral is another ocean creature in trouble. Coral
is a very fragile animal that builds a shell
around itself. It lives in harmony with a certain
kind of colourful algae.
The algae make food using sunlight, a process
called photosynthesis. They share the food with
the coral, and, in turn, the coral gives the algae a
safe and sunny place to live. Fish love coral too,
because there are lots of nooks and crannies for
them to hide in.
Increasing Ocean Temperature (cont.)
▪ Warming of only about one degree Celsius can
stress corals out, causing them to “bleach.”
That means they spit out the symbiotic algae
that live inside them and usually provide them
with much of their energy. Sometimes, corals
can recover from these bleaching events. Other
times, they can’t.
▪ The corals lose their colourful food sources
and become weak. This sad event is happening
on a grand scale in many places around the
world.
Increasing Ocean Temperature (cont.)
▪ Rising ocean temperatures also affect the
benefits humans derive from the ocean –
threatening food security, increasing the
prevalence of diseases and causing more
extreme weather events and the loss of coastal
protection.
• [Link]
Climate Change
Part 2
Case Study: Melting Snow and Ice
Climate models predict that atmospheric warming
will be the most severe in the world’s polar regions.
▪ Light-coloured ice and snow in these regions help
to cool the earth by reflecting incoming solar
energy. The melting of such ice and snow exposes
much darker land and sea areas, which absorb
more solar energy.
▪ This causes polar regions to warm faster than
lower latitudes, and it accelerates atmospheric
warming because less solar energy is reflected
away from the earth’s surface. This melts more
snow and ice and causes further warming in an
escalating spiral of change.
Melting Snow and Ice (cont.)
▪ Loss of Arctic Sea ice affects global air and water
circulation patterns. Thus it could reduce long
term average rainfall and snowfall in the already
dry American West and affect food production in
several areas by reducing the availability of
irrigation water.
▪ It could also lead to increased precipitation and
flooding in Western and Southern Europe.
Melting Snow and Ice (cont.)
▪ Mountain glaciers play a vital role by storing
water as ice during cold wet seasons and
releasing it slowly to streams during warmer dry
seasons. Such glaciers are a major source of
water for large rivers. During the past 25 years,
many of the world’s mountain glaciers have
been melting and shrinking at accelerating rates.
99% of Alaska’s glaciers are shrinking.

Melting of Alaska’s Muir

Glacier in the popular
Glacier Bay National Park
and Preserve between 1948
and 2004.
Melting Snow and Ice (cont.)
▪ In 2007, scientists estimated that 80% of the
mountain glaciers in South America will be gone
by 2025. As this occurs, millions of people in
countries such as Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador
who rely on meltwater from the glaciers for
irrigation and hydropower could face severe
water, power, and food shortages.
▪ Similar shortages could threaten billions of
people in Asia if mountain glaciers in the
Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau melt.
Melting Snow and Ice (cont.)
▪ Alaska’s permafrost (permanently frozen
subsoil) is also beginning to melt. This is
resulting in sagging roads and sinking pipelines.
Some trees are showing their roots as the
permafrost melts.
▪ The amount of carbon stored as methane (CH4)
and CO2 in permafrost is very high. Some
scientists are concerned about a layer of
permafrost on the Arctic Sea floor, “methane time
bombs.” They could eventually release amounts of
methane and CO2 that would be many times the
current levels in the atmosphere, resulting in
rapid and catastrophic climate change.
• [Link]
• [Link]
Melting Snow and Ice (cont.)
Throughout the winter, the bears hunt seals on
floating sea ice that expands each winter and
contracts as the temperature rises each summer.
Normally the bears swim from one patch of sea ice
to another to hunt and eat seals during winter as
their body fat accumulates.
In the summer and fall, the animals fast and live off
their body fat for several months until hunting
resumes when the ice expands again each winter.
Melting Snow and Ice (cont.)
▪ Evidence shows that the Arctic is warming twice
as fast as the rest of the world is. As a result, the
average annual area of floating sea ice in the
Arctic is declining. And the winter ice is
breaking-up earlier each year, shortening the
bears’ hunting season.
▪ The shrinkage of sea ice means that polar bears
have less time to feed and store the fat they need
to survive their summer and fall months of
fasting.
As a result, they must fast longer, which weakens
them.
Melting Snow and Ice (cont.)
▪ As females become weaker, their ability to
reproduce and keep their young cubs alive
declines.

▪ As bears grow hungrier, they are more likely to

go to human settlements looking for food. The
resulting increase in bear sightings has given
people the false impression that their
populations are growing.
Melting Snow and Ice (cont.)
▪ Ice shrinkage has forced polar bears to swim
longer distances to find food and stable sea ice,
which is proving deadly for many of their cubs.

▪ Loss of sea ice also threaten

the bear’s main prey, sea
seals, which need ice to raise
their young.
• [Link]
Case Study: Rising in Sea Levels
Globally, sea levels rose 10 to 20 cm in the twentieth
century. This rise is due to expansion of seawater as
it warms, and to the melting of land-based ice,
especially mountaintop glaciers.
▪ Such a rise in sea level would be more dramatic if
land-based glaciers in Greenland and Western
Antarctica continue melting at their current or
higher rates as the atmosphere warms.
Rising in Sea Levels (cont.)
▪ A study estimated that a loss of just 15% of
Greenland’s ice sheet would cause a devastating
1-meter rise in sea level that would threaten
millions of people and cause trillions of dollars of
damage to many of the world’s major coastal
cities.
▪ Severe reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
might prevent such a catastrophic rise in sea
level, but even then, most scientists are projecting
a minimum rise of 1 meter by 2100. This change
could threaten at least one-third of the world’s
coastal estuaries, wetlands, and coral reefs.
• [Link]
Rising in Sea Levels (cont.)
▪ This would also contaminate freshwater coastal
aquifers with saltwater, disrupt many of the
world’s coastal fisheries, flood low-lying barrier
islands, and cause gently sloping coastlines to
erode.
▪ Projected sea level rises would also submerge
low-lying islands around the world. Flooding in
some of the world’s largest cities located on
coasts would displace at least 150 million people.
▪ It would also threaten trillions of dollars worth of
buildings, roads, and other forms of
infrastructure.
Rising in Sea Levels (cont.)
▪ People who are already poor and overcrowded,
may be forced from homes in low-lying countries
such as Bangladesh.
▪ A rising sea level can exert great damage even in
less critically affected regions, e.g., beaches,
beach-front property, and may increase storm
surges along coastlines.
▪ A higher sea level also means salty water can
infiltrate fresh groundwater in coastal areas,
making it undrinkable.
• [Link]
Case Study: Threatening Biodiversity
As climate change alters temperature and weather
patterns, it will also impact plant and animal life.
Scientists expect that biodiversity will decline
greatly as temperatures continue to rise.
The loss of biodiversity could have many negative
impacts on the future of ecosystems and humanity
worldwide.
▪ Approximately 30% of the land-based plant and
animal species could disappear if the average
global temperature change exceeds 1.5–2.5 oC.
This percentage could grow to 70% if the
temperature change exceeds 3.5 oC.
Case Study: Threatening Biodiversity
▪ Rising temperatures already affect the world's
polar regions. Diminishing ice packs reduce the
habitats of polar bears, penguins, puffins, and
other Arctic creatures.
▪ Changes in temperatures will also cause shifts in
mating cycles, especially for migratory animals
that rely on changing seasons to indicate their
migration and reproductive timing.
▪ Some adaptive organisms—such as weeds, fire
ants, beetles that kill trees, and disease carrying
organisms—will likely threaten many other
species as they expand.
Threatening Biodiversity (cont.)
▪ Rising sea levels will also cause changes to ocean
temperatures and perhaps even currents. Such
changes would have a strong impact on
zooplankton, an essential part of the food chain
in the ocean.
▪ As biodiversity decreases, there will be far-
reaching effects. Disruptions in the food chain
may greatly affect not only ecosystems but also
humanity's ability to feed an ever-growing
population.
• [Link]
• [Link]
Case Study: Increasing Severe Droughts
Severe and prolonged drought affects at least 30%
of the earth’s land. A study stated that by 2059, up
to 45% of the world’s land area could experience
extreme drought.
Long-term climate change can also contribute to
prolonged drought. During the past 15 years,
average rainfall in Australia and in the western
United States has been decreasing, with a warmer
atmosphere being responsible for 37% of the drop.
If the atmosphere continues to warm as projected its
influence on prolonged drought will increase.
Increasing Severe Droughts (cont.)
▪ As drought increases and spreads, the growth of
trees and other plants declines, which reduces
the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.
▪ Forest and grassland fires increase, which adds
CO2 to the atmosphere.
▪ Moisture can also evaporate from dry soils,
depriving them of already limited moisture.
▪ Droughts have worsened the pollution in recent
years because the same amount of pollution
enters the rivers, but there is less water to dilute
it. Lakes and coastal areas are also badly
polluted.
• [Link]
Case Study: Threatening People’s Health
Doctors warned that climate change will be the
biggest threat to human health during the 21st
century.
▪ Frequent and prolonged heat waves in some areas
will increase deaths and illnesses, especially
among older people, those with poor health, and
the urban poor who cannot afford air conditioning.
▪ A warmer, CO2-rich world will be a great place for
rapidly multiplying insects, microbes, toxic molds,
and fungi that make us sick.
Threatening People’s Health (cont.)
▪ Microbes that cause tropical infectious diseases
such as dengue fever, yellow fever, and malaria
are likely to expand their ranges and numbers if
mosquitoes that carry them spread to warmer
and higher elevation areas, and thus diseases
currently restricted to existing hot regions may
move into the newly warming regions.

▪ Higher atmospheric temperatures will also

increase air pollution by increasing the rate of
chemical reactions that produce photochemical
smog.
Threatening People’s Health (cont.)
▪ A WHO study estimated that climate change
already affects more than 250 million people and
contributes to the premature deaths of more than
150,000 people a year—an average of 411 people
a day—and that this number could double by
2030.
Most of these deaths are caused by increases in
malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition, and flooding that
can be traced to climate change. By the end of this
century, the annual death toll from climate change
could be in the millions.
• [Link]
Case Study: Damaging Forests
▪ As conditions become warmer and drier, the
frequency of forest fires could increase in
some areas such as the South-Eastern and
Western United States.
▪ This would decrease forest biodiversity and
accelerate climate change by adding more CO2
to the atmosphere.
▪ A warmer climate would also greatly increase
populations of insects and fungi that damage
trees.
Damaging Forests (cont.)
▪ Rising temperatures and increased drought
from projected climate change will likely
make many forest areas more suitable for
insect pests, which would then multiply and
kill more trees.
▪ The resulting combination of drier forests and
more dead trees could increase the incidence
and intensity of forest fires. This would add
more of the greenhouse gas (CO2) to the
atmosphere, which would further increase
atmospheric temperatures and cause even
more forest fires in a spiralling cycle of
increasingly harmful changes.
• [Link]
Case Study: Declining Food Production
Around 80% of the world’s crops are rain-fed.
Farmers depend on the regular seasonality of
harvests that for millennia has regulated crop
growth and given rhythm to countryside life.
However, climate change is altering rainfall
patterns around the world.

Scientists warn that by 2050, some 200–600 million

of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people
could face malnutrition and starvation due to the
effects of climate change on agricultural systems.
Case Study: Declining Food Production
▪ When temperatures rise, the warmer air holds
more moisture and can make precipitation more
intense. Extreme precipitation events, which are
becoming more common, can directly damage
crops, decreasing yields.

▪ Global warming enables weeds, pests, and fungi

to expand their range and numbers. In addition,
earlier springs and milder winters allow more of
these pests and weeds to survive for a longer
time. Plant diseases and pests that are new to an
area could destroy crops that haven’t had time
to evolve defences against them.
Case Study: Declining Food Production
▪ Hotter weather will lead to faster evaporation,
resulting in more droughts and water
shortages—so there will be less water for
irrigation just when it is needed most.

▪ The ultimate effect of rising heat depends on

each crop’s optimal range of temperatures for
growth and reproduction. If temperatures
exceed this range, yields will drop because heat
stress can disrupt a plant’s pollination,
flowering, root development, and growth
stages.
• [Link]
 Air
Pollution
#1
What is Air pollution?

Air pollution is the presence of chemicals in the atmosphere in

concentrations high enough to harm organisms, ecosystems, or
human made materials, or to alter climate.
 Sources of Air Pollution

Natural Human
Include dust blown by Most Human inputs of
wind, pollutants from outdoor air pollutants
wildfires and volcanic occur in industrialized and
eruptions, and volatile urban areas where people,
organic chemicals cars, and factories are
released by some concentrated.
plants.
Stationary Mobile
Most Natural air pollutants are
spread out over the globe or
removed by chemical cycles,
precipitation, and gravity.
But chemicals emitted from
some volcanic eruptions and
forest fires can temporarily
reach harmful levels in areas
where they occur.
Man-made pollutants are generated mostly by the burning of fossil
fuels in power and industrial plants (stationary sources)
and in motor vehicles (mobile sources).
Stationary sources of air pollution, including factories, refineries,
boilers, and power plants, emit a variety of air pollutants.

Mobile sources (e.g., trucks, buses, passenger cars, construction

equipment, locomotives, and other types of vehicles) are major
contributors to air pollution because they emit smog-forming
pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and hydrocarbons (HC) as
well as particulate matter (PM), toxics, and greenhouse gases
(GHGs).
 Scientists classify air pollutants into 2 categories

Primary Pollutants Secondary Pollutants

Harmful chemicals While in the atmosphere, some
emitted directly into the primary pollutants react with
air from natural processes one another and with other
and human activities. normal components of air to
form new harmful chemicals.
• [Link]
What are the Major Air Pollutants?
There are SIX common air pollutants, also known as Criteria Air
Pollutants. They can harm your health and the environment, and
cause property damage!
1#CARBON MONOXIDE

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colourless,

odourless, flammable, and highly toxic gas
that forms during the incomplete
combustion of carbon-containing materials.

CO accounts for more than 50% of air pollution.

Worldwide, hundreds of millions of tons are emitted yearly.
CARBON MONOXIDE
Major sources:
▪ Motor vehicle exhaust,
▪ Burning of forests and grasslands,
▪ Tobacco smoke,
▪ Open fires,
▪ Inefficient stoves used for cooking,
▪ Incomplete combustion of carbon-
containing materials.
CARBON MONOXIDE
Exposure:
▪ CO is formed anywhere that a carbon-containing material is
burned, so CO exposure can happen anywhere that combustion
occurs.

▪ In urban areas, up to 80 or 90% of CO is emitted by

motor vehicles. Drivers stalled in traffic, or driving
in highly congested areas, can have high exposure;
so can traffic control personnel, mechanics working
inside garages and parking garage attendants.
CARBON MONOXIDE
Exposure:
▪ Cigarette smoke contains CO too. Individuals with CO
exposure at work, and who also smoke, increase their
risk of adverse effects.

▪ Facilities burning coal, natural gas, or

biomass are CO sources.

▪ Biomass combustion (wood, dried manure, other

dried vegetation) can lead to significant CO
exposure in rural areas, and in impoverished
locales where biomass is burned for cooking,
heating, and even light.
CARBON MONOXIDE
Why CO is of Concern?
❑ CO reacts with haemoglobin in red blood cells
and reduces the ability of blood to transport
oxygen to body cells and tissues.

❑ Chronic exposure can trigger heart attacks and

aggravate lung diseases such as asthma and
emphysema ‫ انتفاخ الرئة‬.

❑ At high levels, CO can cause headache,

nausea, drowsiness, mental impairment,
collapse, coma, and death.
• [Link]
2#Sulphur dioxide
Sulphur dioxide (SO2) is a colourless gas
with a sharp irritating odour.
It accounts for about 18% of all air pollution,
making it second only to CO as the most
common urban air pollutant.
Major sources:
About one third of the SO2 in the
atmosphere comes from natural
sources. The other two-thirds come from
human sources.
Sulphur dioxide
Natural Sources:

▪ Erupting volcanoes are a major but periodic

source of SO2. Magma contains dissolved
gases. As magma rises towards the surface
and pressure decreases, gases are released
from the liquid portion of the magma (melt)
and continue to travel upward and are
eventually released into the atmosphere.
Sulphur dioxide
Man-made Sources:
▪ Combustion of sulphur-containing coal in electric power and
industrial plants and oil refining.

▪ Petroleum contains sulphur too, but it can be more readily

removed than that in coal, and motor vehicles account for a lesser
percentage of SO2 emissions.

▪ Metal smelters and other fossil-fuel-burning

industrial facilities produce SO2. Smelters emit
SO2 because many metal ores contain sulphur.
Sulphur dioxide
Why SO2 is of Concern?
❑ The SO2 gas reacts with moisture in the eyes,
lungs, and other mucous membranes to form
strongly irritating acid.

❑ Exposure also aggravates pre-existing

respiratory or heart disease.

❑ Low SO2 concentrations can damage plants,

crops, trees and soil.
Sulphur dioxide
Why SO2 is of Concern?
❑ In the atmosphere, SO2 can be
converted to aerosols, which consist of
microscopic suspended droplets of
sulphuric acid (H2SO4) in wet
conditions or suspended particles of
sulphate (SO42–) salts in dry conditions,
that return to the earth as a component
of acid deposition.
They are aerosols and

} wash out with rain or

slowly settle by gravity.
They are acid depositions.
Sulphur dioxide
Why SO2 is of Concern?
❑ Sulphur dioxide, sulphuric acid droplets, and sulphate particles
reduce visibility, and also affects the level of sunlight reaching the
Earth.
Sulphur dioxide
Why SO2 is of Concern?
❑ The acid particulates formed are part of the acid
deposition (acid rain) problem.

❑ Stratospheric O3 depletion because the aerosol particles provide

surfaces on which O3-destroying reactions can occur.

❑ Acidification of surface water, reducing biodiversity and

killing fish.

❑ SO2 corrodes metals and damage paint, paper, leather,

and stone on buildings and statues.
• [Link]
3#Nitrogen dioxide
The gases, nitric oxide (NO) and
nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are
the major components of
nitrogen oxides (NOx).
A third gas, nitrous oxide
(N2O) is also often grouped
into NOx.

Nitrogen Oxides are a family of poisonous, highly reactive gases.

Nitrogen dioxide
In the air, NO reacts with oxygen to form
nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a reddish-brown gas.
Collectively, NO and NO2 are called nitrogen oxides (NOX).

In the atmosphere, some of the NOX reacts to form nitric acid

(HNO3) and nitrate salts (NO3–)—components of harmful acid
deposition.
They are aerosols and

} wash out with rain or

slowly settle by
gravity. They are acid
depositions.
Nitrogen dioxide
Major sources:
▪ Nitrogen compounds are present in fossil
fuels even in very small amounts.
▪ Atmospheric nitrogen is a very stable chemical. However,
Burning fuel at a high temperature in automobiles engines
promotes a reaction between N2 and atmospheric oxygen.
It is this reaction that results in NOx formation.
▪ Lightning, volcanoes and certain bacteria
in soil and water also produce NOx as part
of the nitrogen cycle.
▪ Fertilizers and animal wastes also produce NOx.
Nitrogen dioxide
Exposure:
▪ NOx gases are emitted almost
anywhere that combustion
occurs, especially at high
temperatures.

▪ The major source of NOx is motor vehicles,

including off-road vehicles such as construction
equipment and boats.
▪ Electric utilities, industrial boilers, cement kilns, turbines,
industrial combustion and commercial and residential
combustion also produce NOx.
Nitrogen dioxide
Why NOx is of Concern?
❑ Both NO and NO2 play a role in
the formation of photochemical
smog—a mixture of chemicals
formed under the influence of
sunlight in cities with heavy
traffic.
Photochemical smog is a harmful complex
mixture of air pollutants (mainly ozone)
produced in the lower atmosphere by the
reaction of hydrocarbons and NOx under
the influence of sunlight.
• [Link]
Nitrogen dioxide
Why NOx is of Concern?
❑ At high enough levels,
nitrogen oxides can
irritate the eyes, nose,
and throat; aggravate
lung ailments such as
asthma and bronchitis
‫التهاب الشعب‬.
❑ Converted to the aerosols (suspension of fine solid particles or
liquid droplets in air or any gas), nitric acid and nitrate, there can
be major deleterious effects. The tiny aerosols can be deeply
inhaled into, and cause inflammation of, the lungs.
Nitrogen dioxide
Why NOx is of Concern?
❑ Formation of haze that affects visibility.

❑ Nitrogen dioxide is toxic to plants. It reduces plant growth.

❑ Cause acid rains.

❑ Stratospheric O3 depletion because the aerosol particles provide

surfaces on which O3-destroying reactions can occur.
• [Link]
4#Particulate Matter
Suspended particulate matter (SPM) consists
of a variety of solid particles and liquid
droplets small and light enough to remain
suspended in the air for long periods.
Particulate matters does not blend into air in a homogeneous
manner.
It has no fixed composition: A particle may contain only one
chemical such as sulphate, sulphuric acid, or lead.
Another particle may contain a number of pollutants, e.g. sulphate,
nitrate, metals, dust, biological matter, etc.
Particulate Matter

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

classifies particles as fine, or PM-10 (with
diameters less than 10 micrometers), and
ultrafine, or PM-2.5 (with diameters less than
2.5 micrometers).

PM may be as large as visible cotton dust, historically found in

fabric mills. Or, PM can be tiny, sub-microscopic particles, aerosols.
Indeed, it is these tiny particles -- even at low concentrations -- that
now pose major problems.
Particulate Matter

Other pollutants can become PM!! A number of

other pollutants can be converted to particulates!!
SO2 and NOx, are converted to the aerosols,
sulphate and sulphuric acid, and nitrate and nitric
acid.
Such conversion to PM is not unique. Some organic
vapours, VOCs, condense into particulates.

Natural Sources:
▪ Dust, wild fires, pollen and sea salt.
Particulate Matter
Man-made Sources:
▪ Coal-burning power plants ▪ Rural areas from burning
▪ Electric power plants biomass fertilizers, dried
▪ Diesel motor vehicles manure, dried crop
▪ Road construction residues.
▪ Tobacco smoke
▪ Burning fossil fuel
▪ Industrial plants
▪ Steel milling
▪ Inefficient combustion (soot)
▪ Wood burning stoves
 Particulate Matter
Exposure
▪ Workers with chronic exposure to silica dust
developed silicosis.
▪ Coal miners, over their years of working,
developed black-lung disease from coal dust.
▪ Textile workers developed brown-lung disease from
cotton dust.
▪ Workers inhaling airborne asbestos developed
asbestosis or lung cancer.
▪ With less-extreme exposure, larger particles of dirt,
dust, or pollen catch in the nose, throat, or windpipe,
and can be sneezed, coughed, swallowed, or spat out.
Particulate Matter
Why Particulate Matter is of Concern?
❑ These particles can irritate the nose and
throat, damage the lungs, aggravate asthma
and bronchitis, and shorten life.

❑ Toxic particulates of chemicals such as lead, cadmium, can cause

mutations, reproductive problems, and cancer.

❑ Particulates also reduce visibility

due to smog formation, corrode
metals, and discolour clothes and
paints.
• [Link]
5#Ozone
Often called "smog," ozone is harmful to breathe.
It is a colourless and highly reactive gas, and is a
major ingredient of photochemical smog.
Ground-level O3 is the same O3 that is found in the stratosphere.
However, ground-level (tropospheric) O3 is a pollutant whereas in
the stratosphere, O3 depletion is the problem!
O3 is a summer pollutant. It is found in photochemical smog.
Photochemical smog consists of ozone (O3) and other closely related
species ("secondary pollutants") that are produced photochemically
from directly emitted species, in a process that is driven by sunlight
and is accelerated by warm temperatures.
Ozone
Sources:
It forms when summer heat and ultraviolet rays
allow the reaction of the two other pollutants:
nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds
with atmospheric oxygen (via several steps) to
generate O3.
Ozone
Exposure:
▪ They are produced primarily when fossil fuels
like gasoline, oil or coal are burned or when
some chemicals, like solvents, evaporate.
▪ NOx is emitted from power plants, motor
vehicles and other sources of high-heat
combustion.
▪ VOCs are emitted from motor vehicles, chemical
plants, refineries, factories, gas stations, paint
and other sources.
Ozone
Exposure:
Knowing how ozone is formed; in a city, O3 builds
up over the progress of a summer day:
O3 levels are typically low early in the morning. Then vehicle
exhausts from the morning traffic increase atmospheric levels of
NOx and VOCs.
As the day progresses,
it becomes warmer, the
sun’s ultraviolet rays
are stronger, and O3 is
generated.
Ozone
Why Ozone is of Concern?
❑ It can cause coughing and breathing problems,
aggravate lung and heart diseases, reduce
resistance to colds and pneumonia ‫التهاب رئوي‬, and
irritate the eyes, nose, and throat.
❑ It also damages plants; it is said
“Ground-level ozone causes more
damage to plants than all other air
pollutants combined.”

❑ It also damages rubber in tires (ozone cracking),

fabrics, and paints.
• [Link]
 Air
Pollution
#2
What are the Major Air Pollutants?
There are SIX common air pollutants, also known as Criteria Air
Pollutants. They can harm your health and the environment, and
cause property damage!
6#Lead
Lead (Pb) is an elemental heavy metal found
naturally in the environment as well as in
manufactured products.
Lead can be released directly into the air, as
suspended particles.
Exposure:
Humans may be exposed to lead from air pollution directly, through
inhalation, or through the incidental ingestion of lead that has
settled out from the air onto soil or dust.
Lead
Exposure:
▪ Lead can be found in all parts of our environment – the air, the
soil, the water, and even inside our homes.
▪ Soil, yards and playgrounds can become
contaminated when exterior lead-based paint
from houses or buildings flakes or peels and gets
into the soil.
▪ Lead has been used for a long time in a wide
variety of products found in and around our
homes, including painted toys, furniture and toy
jewellery; cosmetics; food or liquid containers;
and plumbing materials.
Lead
Exposure:
▪ Lead in soil can be ingested as a result of hand-to-
mouth activity that is common for young children
and from eating vegetables that may have taken up
lead from soil in the garden.
▪ Lead in soil may also be inhaled if re-suspended in the air or
tracked into your house thereby spreading the contamination.
▪ Older playground equipment can
still contain old lead-based paint,
and artificial turf and playground
surfaces made from shredded
rubber can contain lead.
Lead
Exposure:
▪ Lead can enter drinking water through corrosion of
plumbing materials, especially where the water has
high acidity or low mineral content that corrodes
pipes and fixtures.
▪ Having a hobby that uses lead (e.g., hunting,
fishing, stained glass, stock cars, making
pottery) could cause you to bring lead home
on your hands or clothes, or contaminate
your home directly. Lead can be found in
hunting ammunition‫ذخيرة‬, fishing tackle‫بكرة‬,
came and solder‫ لحام‬used in stained glass,
weights used in stock cars, dyes and glazes
used in pottery and many other places.
Lead
Exposure:
▪ Some folk remedies that contain lead are used to
treat an upset stomach.
▪ Some folk remedies for morning sickness
contain dangerous levels of lead and other
chemicals.
▪ Consuming even small amounts of lead can be harmful.
▪ Lead poisoning from folk remedies can cause serious and
irreversible illness.
 Lead
Exposure:
▪ Lead can also be emitted into the environment
from industrial sources and contaminated sites,
such as former lead smelters.
▪ Mining, smelting and refining activities have resulted in substantial
increases in lead levels in the environment, especially near mining
and smelting sites.
▪ Leaded gasoline is still used in a number of less-developed
countries, thus roadside soil is contaminated with lead from car
exhaust.
▪ Recycling of lead-acid batteries in impoverished
countries remains an occupational exposure even for
children.
Lead
Why is Lead of Concern?
Lead
Why is Lead of Concern?
❑ Once taken into the body, lead distributes throughout
the body in the blood and is accumulated in the bones.
❑ Depending on the level of exposure, lead can adversely affect the
nervous system, kidney function, immune system, reproductive
and developmental systems, and the cardiovascular system.

❑ Lead exposure also affects the oxygen-carrying capacity of the

blood.
Lead
Why is Lead of Concern?
❑ The lead effects most commonly encountered in
current populations are neurological effects in
children and cardiovascular effects (e.g., high
blood pressure and heart disease) in adults.

❑ Infants and young children are especially sensitive to even low

levels of lead, which may contribute to behavioural problems,
learning deficits, and lowered IQ.
 Lead
Why is Lead of Concern?
Lead is persistent in the environment and
accumulates in soils and sediments through
deposition from air sources, direct discharge of waste
streams to water bodies, mining, and erosion.

❑ Ecosystems near point sources of lead demonstrate a wide range of

adverse effects, including losses in biodiversity, changes in
community composition, decreased growth and reproductive rates
in plants and animals, and neurological effects in vertebrates.
• [Link]
 Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
A great many organic chemicals are volatile;
that is, they can evaporate.
Organic compounds that exist as gases in the
atmosphere or that evaporate into the
atmosphere are called volatile organic
compounds (VOCs).

Examples are hydrocarbons emitted by the leaves of

many plants, from certain trees and plants in heavily
wooded urban areas and methane (CH4), a greenhouse
gas that is 20 times more effective per molecule than CO2
is at warming the atmosphere through the greenhouse
effect.
 Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
About a third of global methane emissions
come from natural sources, mostly plants,
wetlands, and termites.
The rest comes from human sources,
primarily rice paddies, landfills, oil and
natural gas wells, and cattle: sheep,
buffalo, goats, deer and camels – have a
fore-stomach containing microbes, which
are capable of digesting coarse plant
material and which produce methane as a
by-product of digestion.
 Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Methane is excluded in air-pollution contexts
because it is not harmful, however, makes it an
important greenhouse gas.

Other VOCs are liquids than can evaporate into the

atmosphere.
Examples are benzene and other liquids used as
industrial solvents, dry-cleaning fluids, and
components of gasoline, plastics, and other products.

Volatile organic emission are found in many common household

items, and they vaporize at room temperature. Because of this,
concentrations are usually much higher in the home than elsewhere.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Sources
▪ Motor vehicles are the largest source of VOCs. Inefficient internal
combustion engines burn hydrocarbons inefficiently, and large
amounts are emitted as incomplete products of combustion.

▪ Hydrocarbons also evaporate as gas tanks are filled, and when

vehicles are running, idling, or cooling.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Sources
▪ Combustion engines are pervasive, used
not only in cars, trucks, and buses, but also
in airplanes, construction, farm and forestry
equipment, gasoline powered lawn and
garden equipment.

▪ Petroleum refineries, chemical plants and

electric power plants can be important local
sources, but compared with the VOC emissions
of motor vehicles, these are small sources.
 Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Sources
▪ Other non-combustion sources
include a great variety of facilities
including gasoline stations, vehicle
maintenance shops, paint and print
shops, dry-cleaners, wood-drying
or wood-painting operations, even
freshly painted houses.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Sources
▪ Restaurants and bakeries emit
pleasant-smelling VOCs, but large
bakeries emit large amounts of
ethanol formed by the action of
yeast.
▪ Sewage-treatment plants and
composting operations emit VOCs
too, often with objectionable odors.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Sources
▪ Trees and plants are a large natural source of
hydrocarbons, especially in hot weather. Trees may be
a significant source, even in large cities.
▪ Pleasant smelling though they are, they can contribute
to ozone formation.
However, trees do not emit the NOx that interacts with
VOCs to form ozone.
▪ Although natural VOCs are not themselves a problem, they must
be included in any strategy to reduce ozone formation. High VOC
emitter trees are dangerous. The choice of the tree species can be
very important for the quality of the air in our cities.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Sources
▪ Although we don’t produce large amounts of VOCs
in homes or offices, they can be a large source of
human exposure. Paints, solvents, stored fuel,
aerosol sprays, air fresheners, cleansers and
disinfectants, even deodorants and cosmetics all
expose us to VOCs.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Sources
▪ Building materials, from insulations and wood
panels to varnishes and sealants emit toxic
compounds.

▪ Office equipment such as copiers and printers,

correction fluids and carbonless copy paper
graphics and craft materials including glues
and adhesives and permanent markers.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Why are Volatile Organic Compounds of Concern?
❑ VOCs contribute to the formation of ground-level
ozone.

❑ VOCs all by themselves can have adverse

effects: many drivers and pedestrians‫مشاه‬
develop headaches and other symptoms if
heavily exposed to volatile hydrocarbons in
motor vehicle exhausts.
❑ Sensitive individuals may react with attacks of
asthma or other respiratory problems. But
ozone and other air pollutants also contribute
to people feeling ill around heavy traffic.
• [Link]
 Air
Pollution
Case
Studies
Case Study #1 LONDON KILLER SMOG 1952

Lethal smog that covered the city of London for five

days (December 5–9) in 1952, caused by a combination
of industrial pollution and high-pressure weather
conditions .
This combination of smoke and fog brought the city to
a near standstill and resulted in thousands of deaths.

Those images were taken in December 1952, when

London was trapped in a deadly cloud of fog and
pollution for five days.
Case Study #1 LONDON KILLER SMOG 1952
Causes:
• A period of unusually cold weather preceding and
during the Great Smog led Londoners to burn much
more coal than usual to keep themselves warm.
• While better-quality coals tended to be exported to
pay off World War II debts, post-war domestic coal
tended to be of a relatively low-grade, sulphurous
variety which increased the amount of sulphur
dioxide in the smoke.
• There were also numerous coal-fired power stations
in the Greater London area, all of which added to
the pollution.
Case Study #1 LONDON KILLER SMOG 1952
Causes:
• Smoke particles, hydrochloric acid fluorine
compounds and sulphur dioxide were emitted.
• So, when an anticyclone caused cold air to stagnate
over London, the sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide,
and smoke particles mounted.
• These hazes were not natural formations of the
atmosphere: water vapour would stick to
particulates released by coal-burning factories,
producing dark and heavy clouds that impaired
visibility.
Case Study #1 LONDON KILLER SMOG 1952
Results:
o Visibility was so impaired in some parts of London
that pedestrians were unable to see their own feet.
o Aside from the Underground, transportation was
severely restricted.
o Ambulance services suffered, leaving people to find
their own way to hospitals in the smog.
o Many people simply abandoned their cars on the
road.
Case Study #1 LONDON KILLER SMOG 1952

o Plays and concerts were cancelled as audiences

were unable to see the stage, and crime on the
streets increased.
o There was a spike in deaths and hospitalizations
relating to pneumonia and bronchitis, and herds of
cattle were choked to death.
o The effects of the smog were long-lasting, however,
and present-day estimates rank the number of
deaths to have been about 12,000.
• [Link]
Case Study #2 BHOPAL UNION CARBIDE
GAS LEAK 1984
“Bhopal Gas Tragedy” is also known as the “Bhopal
Disaster” in which thousands of people lost their
lives. It is considered the world's worst industrial
disaster. It occurred on the cold wintry night in the
early hours of 3 December, 1984.
At around midnight, the chemical reaction started in
the Union Carbide Limited pesticide factory (India)
that culminated in the leakage of deadly Methyl
Isocyanate (MIC) gas from one of the tanks of the
factory.
Case Study #2 BHOPAL UNION CARBIDE
GAS LEAK 1984
• A cloud of gas gradually started descending and
enveloping the city in its lethal folds, and the city
and lakes turned into a gas chamber.
• The gas drifted over the densely populated
neighbourhoods around the plant, killing thousands
of people immediately and creating a panic as tens
of thousands of others attempted to escape from
Bhopal.
• Investigations later established that substandard
operating and safety procedures at the understaffed
plant had led to the catastrophe.
Case Study #2 BHOPAL UNION CARBIDE
Results: GAS LEAK 1984
o More than half of the population on the morning
after a leakage at midnight were coughing,
complaining about itchiness in eyes, skin and were
facing breathing problems.
o Some people suffered from pneumonia, internal
haemorrhage, and death.
o The situation becomes worst because for several
hours the alarm system of the factory does not work.
On 3rd December, morning thousands of people
were running hospitals with several different types
of complaints.
Case Study #2 BHOPAL UNION CARBIDE
GAS LEAK 1984
o In the tragedy, around 3000 lives of innocent people
were lost and thousands and thousands of people
were physically impaired or affected in several
forms.
o The final death toll was estimated to be between
15,000 and 20,000.
o Half a million survivors suffered respiratory
problems, eye irritation or blindness, and other
maladies resulting from exposure to the toxic gas.
Case Study #2 BHOPAL UNION CARBIDE
GAS LEAK 1984
o According to the reports, people were suffering from
dizziness, breathlessness, skin irritation, rashes, and
sudden blindness, etc.
o Doctors in Bhopal have not faced a situation like
this. They had no experience in dealing with the
industrial disaster. Doctors were not aware of the
symptoms of MIC exposure.
o The lungs, brain, eyes, muscles as well as
gastrointestinal, neurological, reproductive and
immune systems of those who survived were
severely affected.
Case Study #2 BHOPAL UNION CARBIDE
GAS LEAK 1984
o Dead bodies of humans and animals blocked the
street, leaves of the plant turned black.
o People won't be able to work, due to which, the
economy suffered. People were left with no money
and were not able to fulfil their basic necessities.
o Life stock were killed, injured and infected.
o Businesses were interrupted.
Case Study #2 BHOPAL UNION CARBIDE
GAS LEAK 1984
o The environment became polluted, ecology affected,
flora and fauna got disturbed.
o In the early 21st century more than 400 tons of
industrial waste were still present on the site.

o Despite continued protests and attempts at litigation

‫دعوى قضائية‬, the site hadn’t been properly cleaned.

o Soil and water contamination in the area was

blamed for chronic health problems and high
instances of birth defects in the area’s inhabitants.
• [Link]
Case Study #3 SEVESO: ITALIAN DIOXIN
CRISIS
On midday of July 10, 1976 an explosion occurred in a
TCP (2,4,5-trichlorophenol) reactor in the ICMESA
chemical company in Italy.
A toxic cloud escaped into the atmosphere containing
high concentrations of TCDD , a highly toxic form of
dioxin.
Downwind from the factory, the dioxin cloud polluted
a densely populated area of six kilometres long and
one kilometre wide, immediately killing many animals.
Case Study #3 SEVESO: ITALIAN DIOXIN
CRISIS
A neighbouring municipality that was highly affected
is called Seveso. The accident was named after this
village.

The media now mentions Seveso in line with major

disasters such as Bhopal and Chernobyl, which have
both become international symbols of industrially
related disease.

Polluted areas were researched and the most severely

polluted soils were excavated and treated elsewhere.
Case Study #3 SEVESO: ITALIAN DIOXIN
CRISIS
The most remarkable feature of the Seveso accident
was that local and regional authorities had no idea the
plant was a source of risk.
The factory existed for more than 30 years and the
public had no idea of the possibility of an accident as it
occurred in 1976.
Overall, the plant was not perceived as a threat by the
local population. All that changed on the afternoon of
Saturday, July 10, 1976, as parts of the plant were being
shut down for the weekend.
Case Study #3 SEVESO: ITALIAN DIOXIN
Causes: CRISIS
• One of the buildings in the chemical plant was
getting dangerously hot as cooling mechanisms
were turned off.
• When the temperature inside one of the plant's tanks
reached a critical level, a pressure release valve
opened, and about six metric tons of toxic gas was
emitted from the facility.
• The resulting gas cloud that drifted over the Seveso
area contained an estimated one kilogram of TCDD.
Case Study #4 SEVESO: ITALIAN DIOXIN
Results: CRISIS
o Dioxin is universally recognized as a carcinogen (a
cancer-causing agent). It's also known to cause
reproductive, immune and developmental effects in
mammals, and can cause severe liver problems in
people exposed to high levels of the compound.

o Chloracne, a serious skin condition that resembles

very bad acne, can also result from high exposures
to dioxin.
Case Study #3 SEVESO: ITALIAN DIOXIN
Results: CRISIS
o Within a few hours after the ICMESA facility gas
release, over 37,000 people throughout the Seveso
area were exposed to unprecedented levels of
dioxin.
o Among the first to suffer, however, were the area's
animals. According to Time, "One farmer saw his cat
falling down, and when he went to pick up the
body, the tail fell off. When authorities dug the cat
up for examination two days later, said the farmer,
all that was left was its skull."
Case Study #3 SEVESO: ITALIAN DIOXIN
Results: CRISIS
o Despite their exposure to high levels of dioxin, it
was a few days before people began to feel the
effects: nausea, blurred vision, skin lesions and the
development of severe chloracne, particularly
among children.
o As a result of the slow development of symptoms,
the area around Seveso was not immediately
evacuated.
Case Study #3 SEVESO: ITALIAN DIOXIN
Results: CRISIS
o Dead animals, especially chickens and rabbits kept
as food were slaughtered on an emergency basis to
prevent people from eating them.

o Dioxin accumulates in fatty tissue, and can be

ingested by eating plants or animals that have been
exposed to it. By 1978, an estimated 80,000 animals
were slaughtered.
• [Link]