OUR CHANGING CLIMATE

Klein High School - Klein, TX

SCIENCE
An Introduction to Environmental Science

Resource Guide
2 0 24 – 2 0 25
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 Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Human Component of Environmental

Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
SECTION I: FOUNDATIONS OF System Analysis: Determining How
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE . . . . . . . . . 7 Matter and Energy Flow in the
What Is Environmental Science? . . . . 7 Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Environmental Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Inputs, Outputs, and Flux . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Biological Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Steady State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
World Human Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Food Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Environmental Science Case Study:
Resource Consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Mono Lake—an I nput–Output System

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Global Temperatures and Greenhouse Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Mean Residence Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Accumulation and Depletion . . . . . . . . . . 29
Environmental Science Case Study:
Feedbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
M easuring Greenhouse Gases in Ice . . . . .14 Overshoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Air and Water Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Regulating Population Systems . . . . . . . 32
The Scientific Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Environmental Science Case Study: H umans
An Illustration of the Scientific Method . . 18
and Elephants in Africa—Feedback and
The Role of Repetition in Science . . . . . . 19
Understanding How to Interpret Scientific Regulation in I nteracting Population
Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
The Limitations of Environmental Environmental Science Case Study: Red
Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Spruce in the Northeastern U nited
The One Earth Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 States—an Environmental System I mpacted
Inconsistent Units of Measure for by the I nteraction of Natural and
Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 H uman-Caused Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Subjectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Unpredictable Consequences of Environmental Science Case Study:
Preferences and Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Managing Environmental Systems in the
Environmental Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Florida Everglades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
System Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Section I Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Matter and Energy Exchange . . . . . . . . . . 21
Open and Closed Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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SECTION II: BIODIVERSITY: FROM Ecological Communities . . . . . . . . . . . 67
LOCAL TO GLOBAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Food Webs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Keystone Species . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
What Is Biodiversity and Why Does It Succession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Matter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Environmental Science Case Study: A
The Value of Biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Genetic Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Simple Ecosystem—Organ Cave . . . . . . . 72
Expressions of Genetic Diversity . . . . . . . 43
Species Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Primary Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Energy Transfer Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Adaptation through Natural Selection . . . 47
Adaptation to a Changing Environment . . 48
Major Aspects of Ecosystems . . . . . . . 76
Ecosystem Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Nonadaptive Evolutionary Processes . . . 48
The Biotic Components of Ecosystems . . 77
The Pace of Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The Impact of Ecosystem Change on Its
Changes in Environmental Conditions Biotic Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
and Extinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Biomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Fossil Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 The Global Climate and Biomes . . . . . . . . 78
Mass Extinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Biomes and Global Biodiversity . . . . . . . 81
Estimating Extinction Rates from Habitat

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Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 The Cycle of Elements within the
Human Activity and Biodiversity . . . 54 Biosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
The Elements on Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Habitat Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Biogeochemical Cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
The Introduction of Exotic Species . . . . .54
The Hydrologic Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Linking Biodiversity and Evolution to The Carbon Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
The Nitrogen Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
The Ecological Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Section II Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Environmental Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Population Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 SECTION III: THE HUMAN IMPACT ON
Density-Dependent Growth . . . . . . . . . . . 58 NATURAL RESOURCES . . . . . . . . . . . 93
The Logistic Growth Model . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 The Human Population . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Growth Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Environmental Science Case Study: The Lower- and Higher-Income Countries . . .95
Challenge of Managing Population Population Size and Resource Use . . . . . 96
Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Factors Affecting Population Growth . . . .96
Density-Independent Growth . . . . . . . . . . 62 Fertility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Life Expectancy and Infant Mortality . . 97
Metapopulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Populations and Biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . 63 Age Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Community Ecology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 The Elements on Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Interspecific Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 The Cycles of Calcium, Magnesium,
Predation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Potassium, and Sulfur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Mutualism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Soil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

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 What Is Soil? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 The Scientific Management of
Soil Horizons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Fisheries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
State Variables and Soil Formation . . . 105 Managing Fisheries for a Sustainable
Soil Degradation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132
An Economic Approach to Fishery
Water Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
The Long-standing Challenge of Integrating an Ecological Perspective into
Accessing Clean Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 Fishery Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
Water’s Importance to Earth’s
Environmental and Human Systems . . . 109 Environmental Science Case Study:
Groundwater and Surface Water . . . . . 109 Managing an Endangered Fishery . . . . . . 134
Transport of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110
Desalination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Forestry Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136
Water Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Principles of Forestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Water Shortages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Harvesting Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136
Floods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Intensive Forestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Ecologically Sustainable Forestry . . . . 138
Water Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Forestry in the Tropics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Types of Water Pollutants . . . . . . . . . . . .113
Nonchemical Pollutants . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Environmental Science Case Study:
Ocean and Shoreline Pollution . . . . . . . 117 Selective Logging and Butterfly Diversity

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Solid Waste Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 in Borneo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Wastewater Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 North American Forests . . . . . . . . . . . . .141
Improvements in U.S. Water Quality . . . 118
Section III Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Agricultural Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
The Beginnings of Agriculture . . . . . . . . 119
Traditional Agricultural Methods . . . . . .120 SECTION IV: SCIENCE FOR A
The Green Revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 SUSTAINABLE FUTURE . . . . . . . . . . 146
The Status of World Food Production . . 121 Air Pollution and Atmospheric
Food Insecurity—Hunger in the World . 122 Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Conventional Land-Use and Planting Major Air Pollutants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124 Sulfur Dioxide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Mechanization and Intensive Nitrogen Oxides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Working of the Soil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Carbon Monoxide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Irrigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Lead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Monoculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125 Particulate Matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Chemical Fertilizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Ground-Level Ozone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Chemical Pesticides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Secondary Pollutants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
High-Density Farming of Animals . . . . 127 Natural Sources of Air Pollution . . . . . .150
GMOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128 Atmospheric (Thermal) Inversion . . . . . 151
Genetic Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
The GMO Controversy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 Environmental Case Study: Using
Sustainable Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Models to Predict Pollution . . . . . . . . . . 152

Fishery Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130 Energy Use and Sources . . . . . . . . . . .153

Overfishing and the Decline of Units of Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153
Fisheries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Worldwide Patterns of Energy Use . . . 153

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 The Current Fuel Mix in the United Qualitative and Quantitative Risk
States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153 Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Energy Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Environmental Risk Analysis . . . . . . . . . 178
Energy Use for Transportation . . . . . . . 157 Risk Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Finding the Right Energy Source for the
Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .158 Environmental Science Case Study:
Generating Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Risk Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
The Power Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Risk Acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181
Risk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Nonrenewable Energy Sources . . . . . . . 160
Coal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Global Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Petroleum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 The Sun–Earth Heating System . . . . . . 184
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Greenhouse Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185
Natural Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Hydraulic Fracturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Evidence of Temperature Change
Nuclear Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163 over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186
Nuclear Accidents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Indicators of Climate Change . . . . . . . . .187
Radioactive Waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Feedback in the Global Greenhouse
Renewable Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Direct and Indirect Solar Energy . . . . . . 166 The Temperature–CO2 Feedback
Passive Solar Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

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Active Solar Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167 The Temperature–Permafrost
Solar Water Heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Feedback Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Solar Generation of Electricity . . . . .167 The Ice–Albedo Feedback Loop . . . . . . . 190
Wind Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Effects of Global Warming . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Advantages and Disadvantages of Solar
Predicted Future Effects of Global
and Wind Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Warming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Hydroelectric Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Run-of-the-River Hydro . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Water Impoundment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Section IV Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Biomass Around the World . . . . . . . . . . .172 CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Modern Carbon vs. Fossil Carbon . . . . . .173
Ethanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173
Geothermal and Tidal Energy . . . . . . . . .173 GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Conservation and Efficiency . . . . . . . . . 174
Reducing Peak Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Human Environmental Impacts and BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Human Health Risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

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 Introduction

Environmental science is the study of the impacts that In Section III we will turn to the natural resources on
human activities have on the environment, including which human society depends—how we impact them
the pollution impact of turning on your lights, the loss and how we can use science to sustainably manage
of biodiversity from deforestation and the overfishing them. Natural resources include minerals that provide
of the oceans, and the many global impacts of adding the raw materials for many of our modern products,
billions of tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. as well as the soils in which we grow our food. They
However, environmental science is also a tool for also include water resources—critical for drinking and
developing ways to manage those impacts so that for agriculture—and the natural resources we harvest
humans, and the other species with whom we share the from ecosystems, such as timber from forests and
Earth, can have a sustainable future. fish from the ocean. Unfortunately, we have depleted
many of these resources through poor management.
To study these impacts requires an interdisciplinary Environmental scientists are working to develop new,

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approach, relying on many aspects of biology, earth science-based management strategies that will allow
and atmospheric sciences, fundamental principles for the sustainable use of natural resources.
of chemistry and physics, and human population
dynamics. Section I starts with an overview of how In Section IV, we deal with four related topics: 1)
environmental science is conducted—what types of atmospheric science and air pollution; 2) our various
scientific approaches are used and what unique issues energy sources and how their use causes pollution
environmental science has to deal with. We then and other environmental impacts; 3) human health
explore how the Earth is made up of interconnected impacts from pollution and other human activities; and
systems—living (humans and other species) and 4) how economic development and increased energy
nonliving components (e.g., air, water, minerals) use has impacted our atmosphere and the global
joined together by the flow of energy and matter. environment—global change in general and global
Environmental science deals with natural systems like climate change in particular. The human act of adding
lakes and forests and also domesticated systems like greenhouse gases to the atmosphere is impacting us
cities and farms. today and will likely impact people in the future even
more. We will explore what environmental science can
Section II deals with biodiversity, from genes to add to the work of maintaining a sustainable Earth.
ecosystems. You will learn the basics of ecosystem
ecology—the study of the different ways that living
and nonliving components are organized together in
NOTE TO STUDENTS: Throughout this resource guide,
nature. We will then focus on nonhuman species—
you will notice that some terms have been bold-faced. Bold-
how they have evolved, what controls their distribution face indicates a key term, and these terms are defined in the
and abundance, how they interact with each other, and glossary of terms at the end of the resource guide.
how human activities impact them. You will also learn
some of the ways that environmental scientists develop
strategies to protect species and their ecosystems.

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 Section I
Foundations of Environmental
Science
WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE?
Environmental science is the study of the impacts of human activities on environmental systems. These human
activities include large-scale actions, such as clearing land for agriculture, fishing the oceans for food, mining
the land for minerals and fuels, and changing our planet’s climate through the emissions of decades worth
of greenhouse gases. These activities also include everyday individual actions, like driving a car to the store,
turning on your lights, and choosing whether to use plastic, paper, or reusable containers.
The environment is the sum total of all the conditions and living and nonliving factors that surround an
organism, including the others of its kind, its food sources (prey), any predators that may feed on it, the weather,
the landscape, and any other aspect of the world in which it lives. A local environment is the area immediately
surrounding an organism or person; an environment, however, can encompass an area of greater scale. An
environment can be as small as a pond or as large as a complete mountain range or an ocean. The immensely

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complicated global environment is the sum of all the aspects of the Earth.

FIGURE 1

Environmental science is the study of how human activities impact environmental systems.
Source: Odum, E.P., Ecology: A Bridge Between Science and Society, 3rd Ed. Sinauer, 1997.

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Environmental science is interdisciplinary, covering
many aspects of biology, earth and atmospheric sciences,
fundamental principles of chemistry and physics,
human population dynamics, and biological and natural
resources. Environmental science is a science-based
discipline, meaning it is based on the scientific method
that includes observations, hypothesis testing, field and
laboratory research, and other practices, which we will
discuss later in this section. The amount of new growth on trees can be used as an
indicator of the health of a forest.
One way of studying the environment is to study
Image Source: Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
its different systems and the ways they interact. A
system is a set of living and/or nonliving components
connected in such a way that changes in one part of the system affect other parts. A particular system can usually
be isolated and studied apart from other systems. The Earth is a system and so is an ant colony, a lake ecosystem,
and a farm. Because systems are so important to an understanding of the environment, we will devote much of
Section I to looking at environmental systems in detail. But first, we will explore how environmental scientists
monitor human impacts on environmental systems.
ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS
If we wanted to determine whether a person is healthy, we might measure body temperature, heart rate, blood
pressure, and respiration rate. If something is amiss with one or more of these indicators, it is usually a reliable

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signal that something is wrong in the human body. What indicators can we use to determine the vitality of the
planet? Evaluating the health of the Earth, or even a specific environment, is much more complex, and we cannot
measure every single component. However, as with individuals, assessing certain key aspects of the environment
gives us an indication of its health.
An environmental indicator is a measure that reflects the environmental health of a system. For example, the
amount of new growth on trees might be used to indicate the state of a forest. Unfortunately, at present, there
is no single indicator that effectively assesses the whole planet. In addition, the same environmental indicator
can tell a very different story depending on when or where the measurement is taken. Measuring new growth
on trees over the summer will yield very different data than the same measurements taken over the winter.
Likewise, some parts of the world are experiencing declines in annual precipitation, while others are seeing
increases. Rates of change are also important when considering environmental indicators. This is analogous to
taking a person’s temperature multiple times during a day to see if it is stable and, if not, how fast it is changing.
The importance of a measurement may be best understood in the context of a pattern of measurements: Is
growth increasing? Decreasing? Are the changes global? Or regional?
The table below lists a number of commonly used environmental indicators; some are appropriate for studying
small-scale situations, while others are global. On a global scale, some of the most common indicators are the
size of the human population, food production, species diversity, global temperature, and the concentration of
atmospheric CO2. Each has advantages and limitations. The differing opinions about the status of the planet that
you might observe among scientists, the media, and the general public depend in part on what indicators and
which time periods are used to make the assessment.

Some Common Environmental Indicators

Environmental Indicator Unit of Measure

Human population individuals
Ecological footprint hectares of land

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 Per capita food production kg of grain/person
Total food production kg of grain/hectare of land
Carbon dioxide concentration in air (ppm)
Global temperature degrees Centigrade
Sea level change mm
Annual precipitation mm
Species diversity number of species per functional group
Fish consumption advisories present or absent; or number of fish allowed per week
Ambient water quality (toxics) concentration
Ambient water quality concentration; presence or absence of bacteria
(conventional)
Atmospheric deposition rates quantity per unit area per time
Fish catch or harvest weight of fish per annum or weight of fish per effort expended
Extinction rate Number of mammal species per 10,000 species per 100 years
Habitat loss rate land cleared or “lost” per year
Infant mortality rate Number of deaths of infants under age 1 per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy Average number of years a newborn infant can be expected to

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live under current conditions.

This long list of indicators can be grouped into the six indicators on which we will focus:
6 Biological diversity
6 Human population growth
6 Food Production
6 Resource consumption
6 Global temperature and atmospheric greenhouse gas levels
6 Pollution levels
Biological Diversity
Overall biological diversity describes the diversity of genes, species, habitats, and ecosystems on Earth. The
number of species on Earth, and whether that number is increasing or decreasing, can help us measure the
biological status of the planet. A species is defined as a group of organisms that is distinct from other groups
in morphology (body type), physiology, or biochemical properties. Individuals within a species can breed and
produce viable offspring. There are approximately 1.8 million “known”—that is, identified and catalogued—
species on Earth today. The actual number of species, while highly debated, is likely to be more than ten times
that number because most species, especially microbial species, have not yet been identified or catalogued.
Species extinction is a natural part of the process of life on Earth. Roughly 99.9 percent of the species that have
ever lived on Earth are now extinct. Though it is difficult to determine what the “background” rate of extinction
was before people played a role, estimates have been made using “quiet” periods in the geologic record (that is,
time periods with no massive environmental or biological upheaval). “Background” extinction rates are now
estimated to be two mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per one hundred years.1
From recent studies, it is clear that human beings have greatly accelerated species extinction rates to up to a
hundred times higher than background. The loss and degradation of habitat by human beings is considered the
major cause of species extinction today. Attempts to estimate species loss by relating it to the area of land that has
been altered by human activity suggest that as many as 40,000 species per year may be going extinct. Gains have

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been made in saving certain species, particularly those
that attract the attention of people, such as the American
bison, peregrine falcon, bald eagle, and California
condor, but overall, the number of species on Earth is
declining at a rate to rival past mass extinction events,
such as the extinction of the dinosaurs. (See Figure 2.)
Species such as the Bengal tiger, the snow leopard,
and the West Indian Manatee are endangered and
may go extinct if present trends are not reversed. And
the loss of species of particular importance within an
ecosystem—keystone species—can cause a cascade of
extinction of species dependent on them, resulting in
harm to or loss of entire ecosystems. The overall rate
at which species go extinct on Earth not only tells us
Snow leopards are endangered and may go extinct if present
how biological diversity on Earth is decreasing but is an
trends are not reversed.
important indicator of the state of land, water, and air
on the planet. If we use species diversity as an indicator
of environmental quality, we must conclude that the situation is getting worse and is not sustainable.

FIGURE 2

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The five past mass extinctions events. Current human impacts may be causing another such extinction event.
Source: National Geographic

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World Human Population
According to the United Nations, the global human
population reached eight billion people in November
2022. Roughly 378,000 infants are born and 148,000
people die each day resulting in 230,000 new inhabitants
on Earth each day, or almost a million new people
on Earth every four days. Until the 1960s, the world
population was undergoing exponential growth, which
is growth that increases as a percentage of the numbers
already in the population. While human population
growth has slowed and is no longer exponential, world
population size will nonetheless continue to increase
for at least fifty to a hundred years. The United Nations The growing human population on the Earth creates a greater
projects that world population will level off somewhere demand on Earth’s finite resources.
between 8 and 12 billion people by the year 2150.

FIGURE 3

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Human population size estimates from 1960 to today and a projection to 2100.
Credit: Katie Peek; Data Source: World Population Prospects 2022, United Nations Population Division. Image Source: Scientific American

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Can the Earth sustain so many people? If we use
the human population on Earth as an environmental
indicator, it is encouraging that the rate of population
growth has slowed, but we still should be concerned that
the total population will continue to increase for at least
the next fifty years and possibly longer. The additional
people on Earth will create a greater demand on Earth’s
finite resources, including energy, food, water, and land
and—unless we dramatically change our industrial
society—will produce more pollution and waste for the
foreseeable future.

Food Production Combustion of fossil fuel is the primary human activity that
Food grains such as wheat, corn and rice provide more produces carbon dioxide.
than half the calories eaten by humans. Worldwide
grain production is a result of the quality of soils,
climatic conditions, land area under cultivation, human labor, energy, and water expended on growing food,
and other influences. Therefore, an increase or decrease in the amount of grain grown worldwide for human
consumption is an environmental indicator.
The term “intensity” in the context of agriculture refers to how much food is grown per hectare or acre of land.
The agricultural practices used to produce food vary widely from high-intensity monoculture (one crop) to low-

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intensity polyculture (many crops). The yield (tons of grain per unit area of land) from a given area can indicate
both the intensity of agricultural methods and the quality of the land. High-intensity agricultural practices often
lead to soil erosion, runoff of fertilizers and animal wastes into waterways, and buildup of pesticides, all of
which reduce the quality of the land. As land becomes more degraded, its yield begins to decline.

Resource Consumption
Sustainable use occurs when present-day consumption of resources allows an adequate supply to remain for
future generations. Although there is no single way to determine the sustainability of a given society, the rapid
depletion of a resource is a clear indication that its use is not sustainable. The human consumption of resources,
energy, and land all contribute to a decrease in the sustainability of not only human activities, but of the natural
ecosystem on which all species, including humans, depend. However, many of the same human activities that
cause adverse impacts can improve the overall quality of life among human beings. Somehow, there must be a
balance between utilizing resources to improve life today, saving them for future generations, and protecting the
natural environment.
Obviously, the larger the population, the greater the consumption of resources. So, more people, regardless of their
lifestyle or where they live, means a greater environmental impact. But resource use per person, which varies from
region to region and by type of economy and country, is also critical. Patterns of resource consumption differ vastly
in different parts of the world. For example, a country where most people live in relatively small houses will have
less impact than a country where most people live in large houses, all other factors being equal. And the way people
heat and light their homes (with kerosene, candles, or electricity, for example), will produce different environmental
impacts.
For some resources, a very small portion of the world’s population may be responsible for most of the consumption.
The United Nations Development Program reports that the twenty percent of the people in the world who live in
developed countries consume forty-five percent of all meat and fish, fifty-eight percent of total energy, and eighty-
four percent of all paper, and own eighty-seven percent of the world’s automobiles and trucks. The poorest twenty
percent of the people in the world consume or use five percent or less of each of these items. Thus, while it is true
that a larger population translates to more consumption, more pollution, and more environmental impact, the way

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people live is also an important predictor of environmental impact.

Global Temperatures and Greenhouse Gases

The temperature of the Earth is regulated by many factors, including incoming solar radiation, absorbed solar
heat emanating from the Earth, the surface area of ice caps and ocean, and the concentration of certain gases
that surround the Earth. These gases trap heat around the Earth, warming the atmosphere—much like the glass
around a greenhouse traps heat—so they are sometimes called greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide and methane
are two greenhouse gases that are present in the atmosphere due to both natural processes and human activities.
Combustion of fossil fuel is the primary human activity that produces carbon dioxide.
For the past 130 years, global temperatures have fluctuated but show an overall increase. (See Figure 4.) During
the same period, atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations also increased steadily. (See Figure 5.)
Virtually all scientists agree that the increase in carbon dioxide during the last two centuries is anthropogenic (a
result of human activity), coming especially from the combustion of fossil fuels and destruction of forests.

FIGURE 4

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History of global temperature change and causes of recent warming.

Source: IPCC

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FIGURE 5

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Atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Source: NOAA

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Measuring Greenhouse

Gases in Ice
As we have seen, tracking changes in the concentration of gases over time helps us assess the state of
Earth’s atmosphere. However, one of the biggest challenges in environmental science is determining the
concentration of chemical elements that existed on Earth in ancient times. For example, scientists report
that over the past 160,000 years, global temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and
methane have fluctuated frequently. (See Figure 6.) But how do we know it? Ice gives us the answer.
Ice sheets and glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica contain layers of snow and ice. As new snow falls,
the old snow is buried and slowly turns to ice. Annual layers of snow/ice, which are sometimes visible
to the naked eye like the annual rings in trees, can accumulate to thousands of meters in thickness. Each
layer contains bubbles of trapped gases (including human-produced air pollutants in more recent layers)
in concentrations that reflect their atmospheric concentrations at the time the layer was sealed off from the
atmosphere.
Researchers interested in estimating atmospheric concentrations of elements and gases from thousands of
years ago must drill into the layers of buried ice and carefully remove an ice core. The ice core is kept frozen

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 FIGURE 6

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800,000 years of ice core records for atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature change in Antarctica. The last 160,000
years (right side of graph) show variation but an overall decline in both, until recently.
Source: British Antarctic Survey

and brought to a laboratory, where a researcher assigns a

date to each annual layer corresponding to the year when
it was deposited on the surface as snowfall. The ice for a
given year is then removed in a slice, and air bubbles in
the ice are analyzed for their chemical content. Carbon
dioxide concentrations can be measured directly from the
air released as the ice melts. Relative temperature (e.g.,
warmer or cooler than today) can be inferred by the ratios
of different oxygen atoms of varying masses (oxygen
isotopes) that are released from the air bubbles.

Researchers interested in estimating atmospheric

concentrations of elements and gases from thousands
of years ago can drill into the layers of buried ice and
carefully remove an ice core.

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Air and Water Pollution
The metal lead (chemical symbol Pb) is very useful
because it is soft, malleable (can be shaped with just
a hammer), and resists corrosion, but it also impairs
human central nervous system function and is toxic
to most plants and animals. Developing brains (in
fetuses and children) are particularly sensitive to
lead. The amount of lead in the atmosphere, water,
soils, and plants and animals is an indicator of the
amount of pollution that has been introduced into the
natural environment and an indirect indicator of the
amount of harm that may have occurred from human
The major source of lead contamination in the U.S.
manipulation of the natural environment. is drinking water.
From five thousand years ago until fairly recently,
the global production, or mining, of lead has increased. In the early years of lead production, relatively small
amounts of the metal were liberated to the atmosphere during separation and refinement of the lead from other
metals. Changes in refining techniques that came with the Industrial Revolution led to greater releases into the
atmosphere. In addition, coal and oil contain small amounts of lead, and as more of these fuels were burned,
more lead was released to the atmosphere. Lead was also used as an additive to gasoline to improve engine
performance of the automobile engine. As the automobile became more widely used throughout the world, the
use of lead increased as well, and much of the lead production and emissions in the twentieth century were a

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result of this use.
Beginning in 1975, clean air legislation required that new cars sold in the United States use gasoline without
lead, and gradually the same requirements were imposed in many other parts of the world. This switch from
leaded to unleaded gasoline is primarily responsible for the decreases in lead emissions. While there is still a
great deal of toxic lead produced and emitted throughout the world, the substantial decline in lead emissions is
certainly a positive step. If we use global lead emissions as an environmental indicator, we should conclude that
the situation is improving. However, this “easy fix” simply stopped adding a harmful element to gasoline. There
are still significant quantities of lead emitted in coal, oil and even gasoline that we call “unleaded.”
Lead was also a major ingredient in paint. Although houses built after 1960 tend to have much lower
concentrations of lead in paint, there are many houses built before 1960 that are covered with peeling paint that
can be composed of 50 percent lead. This paint can add to the indoor air concentration of lead, and when it
peels, it is sometimes ingested by young children. While not part of the atmospheric measurement of lead, this is
another important pathway of lead pollution to human beings.
However, the major source of lead contamination in the U.S. today is our drinking water—particularly from
lead pipes and other plumbing material that will corrode over time, especially if the water is highly acidic. While
many of these lead pipes have been replaced with safer materials, lead plumbing fixtures are still prevalent,
especially in lower income communities. Lead is but one example of how human activities contaminate our air,
water, and land.

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

The scientific information that we will cover—including the information just presented on environmental
indicators—has been collected, analyzed, and synthesized through a process called the scientific method.
The scientific method is an objective way to explore the natural world, draw inferences from it, and predict
the outcome of certain events, processes, or alterations. This method is used by scientists in many parts of the
world and is the generally accepted way to conduct science. A simple experiment conducted by a first-year
college student follows the same principles as a large, multi-million-dollar experiment conducted by a group of

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investigators at a research institution.

FIGURE 7

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The process of scientific inquiry.

Source: University of California Berkeley, Understanding Science 101

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Let’s look at each of the major steps in the scientific method.
6 Observe the natural world, with or without human interference, and ask questions about those
observations.
6 Generate a hypothesis. Make a general statement about the organisms or processes under observation
that could answer the questions posed. The hypothesis must be testable and falsifiable—that is, the
researcher must be able to determine whether it is incorrect.
6 Based on existing information, make a preliminary determination of whether the hypothesis is true
or false. Based on the hypothesis, the observations, and questions, it is possible to make an informed
projection about the hypothesis.
6 Test the hypothesis with an experiment. Hypotheses should make predictions about the world. Determine
whether the hypothesis is false using an observational experiment or a manipulation experiment, testing
these predictions.
An observational experiment is conducted by observing phenomena in the natural world without any
interference by the researcher. When a wildlife biologist observes hundreds of interactions between moose
and wolves, they are conducting an observational experiment. A manipulation experiment is conducted by
changing some aspect—the experimental variable—of a natural or controlled environment. The elements
being studied are divided into two groups: the experimental and the control. The experimental group is the one
that is manipulated; the control group is left undisturbed for comparison. These two groups should be treated
identically in every way, with the exception of the one variable that is being tested in the experimental group.

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It is important to have a large enough sample size—the number of individuals tested or samples collected—so
that the data gathered are representative of the entire population. For example, if you are testing the effect of a
pollutant on the growth rate of a plant species, you would want to test the effect on ten or a hundred plants, not
just one or two.
6 Accept, revise, or reject the hypothesis. Reconcile any differences between the predictions and the
results. If findings differ from the hypothesis, the hypothesis is modified and retested. This may continue
until there is general agreement between the hypothesis and the experiment.
6 Report findings to others. An essential part of the scientific method is to inform others of what has been
done. Reporting to others can take place through peer-reviewed written communications in publications
or formal presentations of the results at conferences and scientific meetings.
6 Replicate the experiment. For any given hypothesis, the process described above is generally repeated
over and over by different scientists. When a given hypothesis is tested and accepted by many
investigators, it may become a scientific finding. If a hypothesis is widely accepted, it becomes a theory.
If a theory is widely accepted and appears to apply universally without any exceptions, it is called a
universal law. An example of a universal law is the First Law of Thermodynamics, which says that
energy cannot be created or destroyed, it simply changes form. Even though we use the term “law,”
no scientific finding is considered definitively proven, because there is always the possibility of new
information that would change the conclusions. Therefore, scientific laws are considered not disproven.
An Illustration of the Scientific Method
Let’s consider a hypothetical example to see how the scientific method is applied. Scientists have observed that
species diversity, one of our environmental indicators, is affected by the alteration of habitat.
An environmental scientist in an area of Southern California that is being developed for housing poses the
question, “What will happen to the diversity of species of small mammals and shrubs if the size of a natural
area is reduced from ten hectares to one hectare?” (1 hectare = 2.47 acres). The scientist phrases this question
as a hypothesis: “Reducing the size of the natural area will result in a significant loss in small mammal and
shrub species” and predicts that the hypothesis is correct. (Alternatively, they could predict that it is incorrect.)

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The researcher then uses the following situation as an
experiment to test their hypothesis:
Five housing developments are to be constructed
in the suburbs of a major city in Southern
California, each on a ten-hectare plot of land with
one hectare in the middle left as a “natural area.”
Before the developments begin, the investigator
conducts inventories of all the species on all five
ten-hectare areas destined to become housing
developments, and five similar ten-hectare areas
that will remain undisturbed and act as controls.
The survey determines an average number of
species per hectare.
The scientific method is an ongoing discussion among
In this example, the experimental variable is the researchers.
reduction of habitat size from ten hectares to one hectare.
Ten years after the housing developments have been completed, the investigator returns to the survey sites and
inventories the species again. If the one hectare “natural areas” in the housing developments have fewer species
than the undisturbed areas, the investigator could conclude that their hypothesis was not falsified—reducing the
size of the natural area did decrease species diversity—and report their findings to the scientific community. Not
all scientific studies have a clear experimental variable or manipulation. Sometimes, an observation is made after

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an event has occurred, and an environmental scientist must determine what has happened without having data
from before the event. This kind of analysis is a little bit like detective work, but certain aspects of the scientific
method still apply.

The Role of Repetition in Science

The scientific method is an ongoing discussion among researchers. Scientists frequently disagree about hypotheses,
experimental conditions, results, and the interpretation of results. Two investigators may even obtain different
results from similar experiments, or two interpretations may explain the same set of observations. Any single
finding has limited significance. It is when the same finding is repeated over and over by different investigators that
we can begin to trust that the observed phenomenon is real and significant. In the meantime, the disagreements and
the discussion about contradictory findings are not only normal, but are a valuable part of the scientific process.
While reporting on two studies that reached opposite conclusions, the popular press often assumes the
discrepancy is the result of bad science or confusion on the part of scientists. Particularly when a scientific
issue is of great popular interest or concerns policy—questions such as global warming, toxicity of pollutants,
or species extinction, for example—individual preliminary results may be reported to the general public before
scientists have had a chance to reconcile apparent or actual differences.

Understanding How to Interpret Scientific Studies

If it is important to view scientific findings critically, how can we judge whether a report is based on good science?
Sometimes scientific investigators do not differentiate between the control group of subjects and the experimental
group. Other times, there is not a large enough sample size to draw general conclusions. Alternatively, the
conclusions may be made about one group (for instance, mature trees) when the experiment was done on a different
group (seedlings). In order to conduct a scientifically sound study, the investigators must use a large enough
sample size and have a distinct difference between the experimental group and the control group. Further, they
must demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship between a manipulation and a result and be able to identify a
mechanism that would give rise to the observed result. A simple correlation between one event and another—that
is, the two occurring together—does not constitute scientific evidence that one caused the other.

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THE LIMITATIONS OF
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Because of the nature of what is studied and the way
the research is conducted, applying the traditional
scientific method to environmental science presents
a number of challenges and limitations that are not
usually found in other scientific fields.

The One Earth Problem

The greatest challenge is the fact that there is no
undisturbed baseline with which to compare the
contemporary Earth. Virtually every part of the
planet has been altered by human beings in some way. When it is difficult or impossible to decide which of two
Though some remote parts of the Earth appear to be alternative actions, such as using a paper bag or a plastic bag,
is better or worse for the environment overall, our assessments
undisturbed, we can find quantities of lead—produced and our choices ultimately involve value judgments and
by smelters during the time of the Roman Empire— personal decisions.
in the Greenland ice sheet, traces of the organic
compound PCB in the fatty tissue of penguins, and
species carried by ship to remote tropical islands from other parts of the world. This situation makes it difficult to
know the “original” levels of lead or species diversity before humans began to alter the Earth and, consequently,
how the current situation deviates from those unknown levels.

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Inconsistent Units of Measure for Energy
Although the sources may differ, all energy is essentially the same. However, we use it in many different forms,
and our society describes virtually every form in a different way. For example, we purchase gasoline in gallons
and electricity in kilowatt hours. When we buy an air conditioner, its energy use is reported in watts or amps, but
the amount of work it does in the form of extracting heat from the air is measured in British thermal units per
hour, and we measure its effect on our home environment in degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius, depending on where
we live. Scientists, on the other hand, measure energy in joules or calories. The lack of consistent values makes it
very hard to see how much energy we are using overall.

Subjectivity
Paper or plastic? When choosing between two alternative actions, such as using a paper bag or a plastic bag,
we often try to compare their environmental impacts. How can we know for sure which is best? There are
techniques for determining what harm may come from using benzene to make a plastic bag and techniques
for determining what environmental or human damage may come from using chlorine to make a paper bag.
However, different substances tend to affect the environment differently: benzene may pose more of a risk to
people while chlorine might pose a greater risk to organisms in a stream. It is difficult, if not impossible, to
decide which is better or worse for the environment overall. Ultimately, our assessments and our choices involve
value judgments and personal decisions.

Unpredictable Consequences of Preferences and Policies

Understanding natural science is the major focus of this resource guide, but it is not the sole answer to our
environmental problems. An advancement in scientific understanding or a development in technology may appear
capable of achieving fabulous environmental gains. But human action and cooperation are necessary, and they are
not always forthcoming. A recent example is the changes that have occurred in passenger vehicle fuel efficiency
in the United States. Since 1975, technological improvements have increased the fuel efficiency of most cars in the
United States from an average of thirteen miles per gallon to more than thirty miles per gallon by 2021.2
We might assume that the overall average miles per gallon of all vehicles in the U.S. should have steadily

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increased during this time period. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. Due to consumer preferences and
personal choice, more and more people have purchased sport utility vehicles, light trucks, and minivans, which
often get less than twenty miles to the gallon, which brought the overall average vehicle fuel efficiency down
in the 1990s. However, new polices promoting the use of electric and hybrid vehicles along with the popularity
of smaller SUVs, has changed this trajectory for the better. It is vital to remember that no matter how great the
scientific or technological gains may be, human choices, opinions, action, or lack of action are equally important
in the ultimate effect on the environment.
Although we have identified a number of limitations in environmental science, the conclusions reached by
environmental scientists are based on data from many areas of the physical and natural sciences, gathered
according to the scientific method. Environmental science can help us understand the world we live in.

ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS
System Dynamics
A butterfly stirring the air in Beijing can affect weather patterns in New York a month later. This often-
paraphrased statement is a poetic way of describing the interconnectedness of systems on Earth. The study of
the environment is the study of systems. Recall that a system is a set of living and/or nonliving components
connected in such a way that changes in one part of the system affect other parts. In practice, systems are defined
by the person looking at them. For example, one scientist may spend an entire career studying the physiological
and anatomical systems of individual humpback whales to learn how they can dive so deep, swim so far, and
survive in such a range of marine environments. In contrast, the population biologist will focus on gathering data
on population changes over time, while the community ecologist will be interested in the whale’s interaction

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with other species, such as their prey. And the conservation biologist will likely be most concerned with the
adverse impacts of human fisheries—and the gear used in those fisheries—on the whale population. While all
these systems are connected, it is this final one—where human activity has it most serious impacts—where
environmental science will interact with fishery policies, law, and economics.
Throughout this resource guide, we will define systems in terms of the particular environmental issue we are
studying. The largest system studied by environmental scientists, and the one of which all others are part, is our
global system—the Earth. The interactions of systems and components within systems are known as system
dynamics.

Matter and Energy Exchange

Environmental systems, whether small or large, involve the exchange of matter (materials) or energy. One of
the most important materials involved in environmental systems is water; some others are fuels (oil, coal, etc.),
chemicals, and gases (e.g., oxygen). For other environmental systems, the exchange of energy is the important
process. This includes the energy (food) intake of a single animal, the energy flows through an ecosystem, the
fossil fuel energy used to drive modern human society, and the energy on which all environmental systems
ultimately depend: the energy from the Sun.

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 FIGURE 8
Inflow Outflow

Isopods/Amphipods Crayfish prey upon

compete for energy Isopods/Amphipods (use
energy for growth of
individuals and
population)

Energy
Energy (food) (Energy from
Isopods/Amphipods
that is not used by Crayysh
(Energy not captured
by Isopods/Amphipods)
Energy used to grow
larger individuals
& populations

Water Water
Energy lost as heat

A diagram of a simple cave system showing the flow of water and energy through a system. The study of all systems starts with a
similar modeling of the inputs and outputs.

Open and Closed Systems

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Systems can be either open or closed. An open system is one where the exchange of matter or energy between it and
other systems occurs. In a closed system, exchange does not occur. The Earth system is open with respect to energy.
Solar energy enters the Earth’s atmosphere, and heat energy escapes from the Earth’s atmosphere. However, the
Earth system is closed with respect to matter, such as chemical elements. Except for the occasional meteorite or
space shuttle, no material enters or leaves the Earth system. The ocean is a system that is open to both energy and
matter. Energy from the Sun enters the ocean, and energy from the ocean is easily transferred to other systems such
as the atmosphere. And matter, such as sediment and nutrients, enters the ocean via rivers and streams.

FIGURE 9
Energy Matter

Outputs:
Input: Heat No (major) No (major)
Solar energy, inputs outputs
radiation reeected
light

(a) Open system (b) Closed system

Open and closed systems. (a) Earth is an open system with respect to energy. Solar radiation enters the Earth system, and
energy leaves it in the form of heat and reflected light. (b) However, Earth is essentially a closed system with respect to matter
because very little matter enters or leaves the Earth system. The white arrows indicate the cycling of energy and matter.
Source: Friedland, Andrew and Rick Relyea, Essentials of Environmental Science 2nd ed. W.H. Freeman, New York (2016).

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The Human Component of Environmental Systems
Because environmental systems almost invariably include people or run up against human influence in one form
or another, many areas of human endeavor, some of which are not scientific at all, are important to a systems-
based understanding of the environment. Some of the most important areas that we will touch on are:
6 Economics
6 Social structures and institutions, including various levels of government
6 Law
6 Policy
6 Environmental advocacy and action
For example, new scientific data on global warming will affect new policies or laws related to greenhouse gas
production, as well as ways to adapt to a changing climate.

SYSTEM ANALYSIS: DETERMINING HOW MATTER AND ENERGY FLOW IN

THE ENVIRONMENT
Inputs, Outputs, and Flux
People who examine systems often conduct a system analysis to determine what goes in, what comes out, and
what has changed within a given system. This type of analysis is very similar to the kind of analysis you might
perform on your personal checking account to learn your financial status. In your checking account, you start
with a sum of money called your balance. Systems analysts call that balance a pool. If you deposit money into
your checking account, you are adding an input. You also have expenditures—you write checks against your

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checking account balance or withdraw money from your account. Systems analysts call this an output.
In order to determine your financial status, you start with your balance at the beginning of a month, add inputs
(deposits), and subtract outputs (checks and withdrawals). This gives you your checkbook balance at the end of
the month, or the change in the pool of money. Systems analysts call that change a flux. If you quantify your
income in terms of so many dollars per month, you are describing a flux rate, a flow per unit of time.

FIGURE 10

INPUTS – OUTPUTS = TOTAL FLUX

If inputs are greater than outputs, then flux is positive.

The same kind of analysis can be done for water in a bucket, pollutants in the atmosphere, or nutrients in the
ocean. It tells an environmental scientist if the size of the pool is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same.
Because it was designed to be done for materials that have mass, it is often called a mass balance analysis—an
accounting of the inputs and outputs to determine the fluxes in a given system. All types of balance analyses,
whether they be mass, energy, or monetary, can be represented as:
Net Flux = Inputs − Outputs

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Steady State
The most important aspect of conducting a mass, energy, or monetary balance analysis is learning if your system
is in steady state—that is, if input equals output and the size of the pool does not change over time. The first step
is to determine the size of the pool. Sometimes we can measure the pool directly. With a bucket of water, for
example, we could empty the bucket into a measured container to determine the size of our pool. If we are trying
to determine the size of a large or immobile pool, such as a flock of birds or an ocean, we have to calculate or
estimate the pool size.
Next, we want to measure, estimate, or calculate the net flux into and out of the system (input and output). For
example, imagine that someone has punched holes in the bottom of our bucket, so the water is leaking out, and
at the same time we are running water into it from a faucet. We can measure input from the faucet and output
from the holes. As Figure 11 shows, the bucket has a pool of 10 liters, a flux in of 1 liter per minute, and a flux
out of 1 liter per minute. Since the input equals the output, net flux = 0, and over time there will be no change in
this system. The pool will remain at 10 liters until someone changes one of the fluxes, perhaps by turning off the
faucet or plugging up the holes in the bottom of the bucket. This system is in steady state.

FIGURE 11

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A steady state system does not change over time.

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Many pools in the natural world are at steady state; the water in the atmosphere is an example. The amount of
water that enters the atmosphere from evaporation in any given time period is roughly equal to the amount that
leaves the atmosphere as precipitation over the same time. The oceans are also at steady state; the water that
enters from rivers and streams is roughly equal to the water that evaporates. When a community bans watering
lawns and washing cars and declares a drought emergency during a dry summer, it is because their water supply
is no longer at steady state; more water is being lost from the reservoir than is replenished by precipitation and
streams. If a resource, such as a water supply, is decreasing in size, it means that the system is not being utilized
in a sustainable way.

FIGURE 12

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A system that is not in a steady state changes over time.

It is important to realize that one part of a system can be in steady state while another part is not. For example,
though water in the atmosphere is in a steady state, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not; it is slowly
increasing, as we will discuss later.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Mono Lake—An Input–

Output System Analysis
Mono Lake is a large, deep, and old lake—one of the
oldest lakes in North America, estimated to be between 1
and 3 million years old.3 It is located about three hundred
miles northeast of Los Angeles on the border between the
Sierra Nevada Mountain range and the Great Basin Desert.
Four interconnected environmental systems are critical to
the Mono Lake story.

The Natural Water System

The first system we’ll consider is the natural water system
that, analogous to the simplified bucket examples just
discussed, involves the inflow (input) and outflow (output) Mono Lake, one of the oldest lakes in North America,
is estimated to be between 1 and 3 million years old.
of water. Mono Lake is called a terminal lake because
Source: Cal Matters
under “normal conditions” water flows into the lake (from
tributaries bringing water from snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada Mountains), but since it is the lowest point in
the landscape, no water flows out into streams or rivers. Although the water level of the lake fluctuates over
the years, for any given time period the water flux in from precipitation and river input is roughly equal to

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the water flux out through evaporation. This is similar to a bucket of water in which evaporation is balanced
by the slow drip of a faucet.

The Salt-Balance System

The second Mono Lake system involves the changing concentrations of salts in the lake. This system
is dependent upon the water system since small concentrations of salts such as sodium and magnesium
enter the lake via streams (even fresh water contains small concentrations of salts). The salt concentration
increases over time because the evaporation process leaves salts behind while new salts continue to enter
the lake. Therefore, Mono Lake, like other saline lakes, is slowly becoming saltier. We can calculate a mass
balance to see quantitatively how this happens.
We would have to use some very large numbers to do a mass balance for salt in Mono Lake, but we can use a
hypothetical model lake, and one element, sodium (Na), to illustrate how salt water accumulates in a terminal
lake. Since small concentrations of sodium enter the lake but none leaves, the mass balance for sodium in
our lake involves a small, steady input and virtually no output. Remember the mass balance equation we
introduced earlier? We can use that to estimate the change in salinity (concentration of salt in a liquid) over
time (mg = milligrams):

Net Flux = Inputs – Outputs

Input (from tributaries) = (1,000 liters water/day) x (5mg Na/liter) = 5,000 mg Na/day
Output (from evaporation) = (1,000 liters water/day) x 0 mg Na/liter = 0mg Na/day

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Net Flux = + 5,000 mg Na/day
This mass balance indicates that although the amount of water in our hypothetical lake remains roughly
constant, the salt content steadily increases by 5,000 mg per day. Over time, our lake becomes saltier and
saltier. This calculation explains why lakes like Mono Lake, Great Salt Lake, and the Dead Sea have such
high salt contents.

The Ecological System

The third critical environmental system is the ecological system (ecosystem) of populations interacting with
each other and with the physical environment of Mono Lake. We will discuss just one part of this ecosystem,
the relatively simple food chain going from photosynthetic algae at the bottom of the food chain to gulls at
the top. The algae, being green photosynthesizers, receive most of their energy from the Sun’s light. Brine
shrimp and flies eat the algae and are eaten by gulls. The algae obtain most of their important nutrients (such
as nitrogen) that they need to carry out photosynthesis from the excretions and decay of flies, shrimp, and
birds.

The Water-Use System

The use of Mono Lake’s waters by the population of Los Angeles is the final key environmental system
affecting the overall lake system. Los Angeles began withdrawing water from the non-salty Mono Lake
tributaries in 1941 at a rate of approximately 80.4 million gallons/day. The effect of this water withdrawal
on the total pool was exactly what we would expect from a bucket in which the in-flow is decreased (with
water being to diverted to Los Angeles) without any compensatory decrease in evaporation (the outflow); the
lake level dropped—forty feet in forty years. Given this significant change, what were some impacts of this
change in the human water use system on the other three environmental systems of Mono Lake?

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 FIGURE 13

Evaporation
is the only
outflow of
water from
the lake

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Mono Lake’s input/output water system.
Source: Modified image from Mono Lake Committee

The lowering of Mono Lake’s water level had two very noticeable effects. One was the exposure of the
previously water-covered tufa towers, which are the main habitat for the flies and shrimp on which the gulls
depend for food. Exposure of these habitats did not directly lead to the death of the flies and shrimp, but it
did make it easier for birds to prey upon them. This resulted in an initial glut of food for the birds but an
ultimate decline in the prey population from over-predation, which was followed in turn by a decline in
the bird population. Secondly, as the lake level went down, alkaline dust was exposed, leading to vast dust
storms affecting bird and other nearby wildlife populations.
Lowered water levels had another, less obvious, but even more critical effect on Mono Lake’s environmental
system. The salts that were once diluted by the lake’s original large volume were now concentrated in a
smaller volume of water, leading to a dramatic increase in salinity. The algae, shrimp, and other Mono Lake
residents could survive with the natural salt concentrations, but this drastic and rapid increase in salts proved
difficult for them. The most significant effect was on algae, which are the base of the food chain. Higher
salinity slows the uptake of nitrogen from the decayed animals and their excretions. Since nitrogen is a
critical element for growth, slower nitrogen uptake led to slower growth of the algae population and less food
for the flies and shrimp and thus eventually for the birds. By the early 1980s, Mono Lake and the populations
that depended upon it were dying.
The Mono Lake story up to this point is a real-world example of input, output, and steady state in a mass
balance system. Before 1941, the water system of Mono Lake was in an approximate steady state with the
outflow of water from evaporation more or less matching the inflow from streams. The salt-balance system

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 was not in a steady state and was slowly moving toward increased salt concentrations. The food chain had
been able to compensate (at least over recent ecological history) for the increasing salinity but was not able to
adapt to the rapid changes resulting from the addition of the new, human water use system.
Since the early 1980s, the history of Mono Lake is an example of the interaction of environmental
science with other human components mentioned earlier—environmental policy, environmental law, and
environmental advocacy. The effects of Los Angeles’s water use on the Mono Lake environmental systems
was first noticed by ecologists and environmental scientists, who provided information to environmental
advocates and lawyers to bring a series of lawsuits and legislative proposals seeking to stop water
withdrawals.
At the same time, environmental advocates attempted to change the water-use policy through a public
campaign advertising both the beauty and the fragility of Mono Lake. These early attempts to use
environmental science and advocacy to inform environmental law and policy failed. However, in 1983, the
California Supreme Court ruled that it was the duty of the California government to protect the environment
of Mono Lake. This court decision led to new laws requiring federal and state agencies to better manage
Mono Lake. The result is the current reduction in water withdrawals and increase in the lake’s water level.
In 2023, the water level further increased from snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada mountains and the resulting
increase in in-flows from tributaries. The final answer to preventing the death of Mono Lake proved simple:
increase inflow and decrease the diversion of water to Los Angeles until the bucket filled back up.

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Mean Residence Time
The Mono Lake example demonstrates that even a basic understanding of input–output system dynamics can
be useful in solving some environmental problems. However, in many situations, for example if we want to
determine how long it will take for a pollutant to be flushed from a lake, it is valuable to know the rate at which a
pool turns over—that is, how long it takes for the contents of the pool to change.
If a pool is in steady state, we can calculate a mean residence time (MRT), which is the average time that a
portion of the pool remains in the system. The mean residence time is the pool divided by the input or the output:
MRT = (pool)/(flux in or out)
Note that we can calculate the mean residence time using either the flux in or the flux out. Because the system is
in steady state, the flux in and out are equal, and so either flux will give the same answer. For example, consider
the bucket discussed earlier, with a pool of ten liters, a flux in of one liter per minute, and a flux out of one liter
per minute:
MRT = (10 liters ) / (1 liter / minute)
MRT = 10 minutes
The MRT value tells you that an average quantity of water—say, a milliliter—will remain in the bucket for ten
minutes before being flushed out. In fact, some water may remain for a longer time, and some may remain for a
shorter time, but the mean residence time is an average.
Though we determined the mean residence time for water, if we have information on the pool and flux of
something dissolved in water, such as a particular pollutant, we can determine the mean residence time for
that substance as well. We can also calculate residence times for air pollutants. In that case, MRT is usually
defined as the period that an average molecule will remain chemically active in the atmosphere. Residence times
(also referred to as atmospheric lifetime) have been estimated for several gases known to be involved in the
greenhouse effect and in the depletion of the ozone layer:

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Gas Residence Time (years)4
Carbon dioxide 100*
Methane 11.8
Nitrous oxides 109
Chlorofluorocarbons 100
Hydrofluorocarbons 222
It is important to note that the estimated residence time
for carbon dioxide is a particularly rough estimate since
this gas is not destroyed in the atmosphere but is cycled
through different parts of the global carbon cycle at
different rates—ranging from a few years to thousands
of years. (We will learn more about the global carbon
cycle in Sections II and IV of this resource guide.) As
Warmer temperatures at the Earth’s surface lead to greater
we discuss the impacts of human activities on global
evaporation from oceans and lakes. The additional moisture
climate change in later sections, these values will take in the atmosphere from evaporation enhances the layer of
on important significance. heat-trapping gases, including water vapor, that cover the
Earth, which makes the Earth warmer, which leads to greater
Accumulation and Depletion evaporation, and more warming, creating a positive
It is important to remember that mean residence time feedback loop.
is valid only if the system is in steady state. If a system
is not in steady state, we may want to determine the rate at which it is accumulating or losing material. For

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example, if a pollutant is accumulating in a drinking water reservoir, it may be valuable to know the time when
pollutant concentrations will become toxic to organisms in the reservoir or to humans drinking the water in the
reservoir. We can calculate accumulation or depletion rates by using the formula for net flux:
Net Flux = Inputs – Outputs
For example, assume that a pollutant is slowly decreasing in concentration in the water because it is interacting
with the sediment that lines the bottom of the reservoir. A calculation of the change in the system can indicate
when that water will be safe to drink. Suppose the reservoir holds 1,000,000 liters of water, and the pollutant is
at a concentration of 10 mg/L. Assume no additional pollutant is entering the reservoir, and that 1,000 mg/day
interacts with the sediment. We can calculate:
Flux = 0 – 1,000 mg/day
Flux = – 1,000 mg/day
At the start, the reservoir holds 10 mg/L X 1,000,000 liters = 10,000,000 mg of the pollutant.
Losing 1,000 mg/day, the reservoir will contain no pollutant in 10,000 days. In other words, it will take 10,000
/365 days/yr = 27.4 years before the pollutant is totally gone from the reservoir.

Feedbacks
So far, we have presented fairly simple systems with easily defined inputs and outputs. Any change in the system
involves simply increasing or decreasing the inputs or outputs. Even Mono Lake, a major environmental system,
could be described as a simple input/output system. For other environmental systems, the important factors are
not the input and output themselves, but the mechanisms that control, or regulate, these flows. In these regulatory
mechanisms, a change in the system either leads to further change or returns the system to its original state.
Consider your own or your parents’ behavior with respect to a bank account. If you notice that your pool of
money (your checkbook balance) is decreasing, you may spend less money to reduce the flux of dollars out of
your checkbook, or you may work more hours to increase the flux of dollars into your checkbook. Essentially,

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you alter your behavior in one or more ways in order to change your cash flow situation. These changes in
behaviors, called feedbacks, are adjustments made by a system in response to behavior or events.
Balancing your checkbook is an example of a negative feedback loop, in which the behavior always brings the
system variable—in this case, your money—back to a starting point. By contrast, a gambler, who bets more and
more money as they begin losing, will not return to the starting point—the loss of money will cause increased
betting and more losses, until all the money is gone. This is an example of a positive feedback loop, in which the
system variable is continuously moved away from the stable point—what we often call a vicious cycle.

FIGURE 14
Population
increase
Reduced
surface Less
area evaporation

More
Births
births

Level Level

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drops rises

Population
Lake level increase

(a) Negative feedback loop (b) Positive feedback loop

Negative and positive feedback loops.
Source: Friedland, Andrew and Rick Relyea, Essentials of Environmental Science, 2nd ed. W.H. Freeman, New York (2016).

Feedback systems are found throughout the environment. One major feedback system that is of great importance
to environmental scientists, policy makers, and citizens is the Earth’s heating system feedback loop. In general,
warmer temperatures at the Earth’s surface lead to greater evaporation from oceans and lakes. The additional
moisture in the atmosphere from evaporation enhances the layer of heat-trapping gases, including water vapor,
that cover the Earth. This helps to make the Earth warmer, which leads to greater evaporation, and more
warming, and the cycle continues.
In the absence of other factors that compensate for or balance the warming, this positive feedback loop could
continue making temperatures warmer and warmer, driving the system away from the starting point. However,
more evaporation also leads to more cloud cover, which would reflect more incident sunlight and possibly lower
temperatures, resulting in a negative feedback loop. It is unknown whether or not the sum of these loops would
lead to an increase or decrease in temperature.
The balance in many environmental systems is dependent on the smooth operation of feedback loops. Sometimes
conflicting factors lead to a breakdown in the negative feedback loop and send the environmental system away
from its set point, the stable value for the parameter under examination. This is particularly true when the

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system involves a conflict between ecological control factors regulating a natural resource, such as a commercial
fish or an energy source, and economic and social factors driving human use of such resources. As you study the
exploitation of natural resources, both living and nonliving, try to determine what factors may be disrupting the
negative feedback loop of those systems.

Overshoot
One last system dynamics concept to consider in both positive and negative feedback systems is the time between
when a signal is generated and when it is received and responded to. Consider the bank account example. As soon
as you notice that your balance is steadily decreasing, you might alter your spending habits or try to make some
more money. But what if you don’t have an app that provides you with a continuous update of your account? This
delay in receiving the signal might mean that you would keep overspending and exceed your intended balance.
Exceeding the stable set point of a system is known as overshoot. In the natural world, many systems experience
delays in the transmittance of information that lead to overshoot. Overshoot is an important part of human and
nonhuman population systems. When a population’s birth rate is high, the factors controlling population growth
(disease, reduced fertility, etc.) cannot compensate fast enough, and the population will grow past the maximum
number of individuals that can be supported by its environment, known as the carrying capacity. The result of
such an overshoot will usually be a dramatic population crash from disease or starvation.

FIGURE 15

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Consumption

Overshoot
Carrying Capacity

Degraded
Carrying
Capacity

Time
Because of a slow response to a signal, an action continues long after it should. This is known as overshoot.
Source: Paul Chefurka, “Population: The Elephant in the Room.”

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Regulating Population Systems
Environmental scientists define a population as a group
of individuals of a single species. We will discuss
populations in detail in Section II, but for the purpose
of illustrating feedback systems, we need to introduce
some basic population concepts here.
The size of any population is controlled by two inputs—
the number of births and the amount of immigration—
and two outputs—the number of deaths and the amount
of emigration (individuals leaving the population).
Net Population Change = Input (Births + Immigration)
– Output (Deaths + Emigration) In most predator-prey systems, such as wolf-deer systems,
the amount of predation will increase as the number of prey
For most—though not all—populations, births and increases. This negative feedback cycle will drive the prey
deaths greatly outnumber immigration and emigration, population back to its starting point.
so it is the former two “flows” that we will concentrate
on. Environmental scientists usually find it easy to
estimate birth rates and death rates. What is more difficult, and more interesting, is determining how these two
flows are regulated.
Environmental scientists study both single population systems and systems of interacting populations. In

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both cases, the size of any one population can be regulated, through various feedbacks, by abiotic (nonliving)
components of the environment and by populations of other organisms (the biotic components of the environment).
For example, as a deer population increases in size, the amount of food available for each individual will probably
decrease. Less food means less energy for females to put into reproduction, resulting in fewer births, or less food for
newly born fawns—a negative feedback.
In more complex systems containing many interacting populations, one population may be regulated by the size
of another. A deer population may have enough food to fuel an increase in population size, but it may live in an
area with many wolves, which prey upon the deer. In most predator-prey systems, such as wolf-deer systems, the
amount of predation will increase as the number of prey increases (they become easier to find and to hunt). This
negative feedback cycle will drive the deer population back to its starting point.
Let’s now look in more detail at three different real-world examples of environmental systems that are impacted
by human activity and studied by environmental scientists.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Humans and Elephants in

Africa—Feedback and Regulation in Interacting Population Systems
Elephants are found throughout most of central and southern Africa. Overall, the African elephant
population is declining, most notably in East Africa where few elephants are found outside of protected
nature reserves. There are two main reasons for this decline: the loss of habitat resulting from the conversion
of land to agricultural use and the poaching of elephants for their ivory. Both factors are related to the rapid
growth of the human population in Africa—a growing, mostly poor, population that needs food and money
(from the sale of ivory) to survive. The decline of the elephant population was the main motivation for the
1989 CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) ban on the ivory trade. However, the
illegal trade in ivory continues, as does the use of former elephant habitat for farming.

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Habitat loss regulates the elephant population size by
changing both inputs and outputs. First, diminished habitat
results in fewer food resources. This will result in fewer
young being born or surviving (decreased input). Second,
by decreasing the amount of food and space available for
elephants to survive, habitat loss also increases death rates
(increased output). Both of these effects are examples of
positive feedbacks; decline in habitat causes the elephant
population to move further and further from its starting
point.
Poaching is a severe problem for all elephant populations,
particularly in Kenya and the rest of East Africa. Like
water use in Mono Lake, the effects of poaching arise from
the interaction of several ecological and nonecological
systems. Most importantly, the increased death rate due to
hunting is coupled with an increased demand (and value)
for the elephants’ ivory as the populations decrease. Again,
this is an example of a positive feedback system, where the The African elephant population is declining largely
poaching pressure increases as the population decreases, due to habitat loss and poaching.
driving the elephants away from a stable point and toward Photo by Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE - African Elephant

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extinction. (Loxodonta africana) male, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.
wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40724295

FIGURE 16

An elephant economic/ecological system.

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Various negative feedback loops are also involved in regulating elephant populations. Most of these
feedbacks are density-dependent—that is, they change as the population density (i.e., the number of animals
per km2) changes. Three general types of density-dependent feedback loops will affect any population:
6 Increase in death rates or decrease in birth rates due to a shortage of food
6 Increase in death rates due to increases in predation, parasitism, or disease
6 Increase in death rates or decrease in birth rates due to the increased intensity of social interactions
within a population
Food availability is the simplest feedback system. In Kenya, the food resources for elephants are being
reduced through the conversion of natural savannas to farmland or to deserts. In southeastern Kenya, much
of the elephant population is located at Tsavo National Park, a semi-arid habitat that gets less than 500 mm of
rain a year and, as a result, does not have dense vegetation on which the elephants can feed. A recent study
by environmental scientists suggested that a viable elephant population in Tsavo, or habitats like it, would
require 1,000 miles2 of habitat. Only seven of the twenty major nature reserves in central and southern Africa
approach this size.
Environmental scientists have found that the two other density-dependent factors we listed also contribute to
the regulation of the elephant population. For example, elephants have few predators, but in densely packed
populations, death rates have increased due to higher rates of disease; this effect is similar to what is found
among humans living in high-density/low-resource areas. Although elephants are normally very social
within their group, they exhibit an increase in fighting in overcrowded situations. This behavior leads to

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an increase in death rates, emigration rates, and even a reduction in birth rates due to the interference with
normal mating behavior.
Although the interactions between elephants and the human population are complex, the inputs, outputs,
and feedback are reasonably apparent to a trained observer. Sometimes, however, an environmental system
contains so many interacting components and/or components that are difficult to uncover, that even scientists
who are familiar with the system will find it difficult to determine the various inputs, outputs, and feedback
loops. This was the case with the unexplained decline of red spruce trees in the northeastern United States,
which we will consider next.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Red Spruce in the

Northeastern United States—an Environmental System Impacted by
the Interaction of Natural and Human-Caused Factors
Forest ecosystems are complex systems that simultaneously experience all sorts of inputs and outputs. In a
forest, there are births (inputs) and deaths (outputs) of plants and other organisms and also inputs and outputs
of water, nutrients, and pollutants.
Red spruce is a tree species that grows in some of the forests of the eastern United States. It is a needle-
bearing tree that can live for more than three hundred years and is tolerant of shade. It is used primarily
for making pulp and paper. Red spruce grows throughout the eastern United States along the Appalachian
Mountain chain from New England to Georgia. It is an important component of the low-elevation conifer
forests of Maine and eastern Canada and also exists in high-elevation northeastern forests, such as those
in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, although it rarely comprises more than 40 percent of the latter.
Understanding the red spruce system in the northeastern United States became very important in the 1980s
when the trees started to undergo an unexplained decline in number and health.

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There had been occasional reports of unexplained red
spruce death in North America since 1870. But in the early
1980s, multiple reports of damage to red spruce, combined
with a knowledge of the relatively recent phenomenon of
pollution from acid rain, led environmental scientists to
suspect that there was a link: perhaps recent air pollution
severity was causing red spruce to die in unusually large
numbers. The concern was that red spruce might be a
“canary in the coal mine,” a sensitive indicator species
revealing that air pollution was reaching harmful levels.
A number of researchers conducted studies of the forest to
determine if there was a systematic decline in the species
rather than isolated tree deaths or deaths that could be A red spruce forest. In the early 1980s, multiple
easily explained by a pathogen or insect pest, and if so, reports of damage to red spruce, combined with a
knowledge of the relatively recent phenomenon of
whether air pollution might be a factor. The researchers
pollution from acid rain, led environmental scientists
came up with several preliminary findings and possible to suspect that there was a link between acid rain and
explanations for the tree deaths: the demise of the red spruces.
By Kenneth P. James - iPhone 3G Camera, CC BY 3.0 us, https://
6 Surveys taken in 1964 and 1982 at Whiteface commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12100560
Mountain, a 1,483 m peak in the Adirondacks of
New York, revealed that red spruce had decreased

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by almost 70 percent in eighteen years. There were no natural factors, such as disease or drought,
that could explain the decrease.
6 In the northeastern states surveyed (New York, Vermont, New Hampshire), the percentage of
standing dead red spruce trees was positively correlated with elevation—in other words, there were
more dead red spruce trees at higher elevations than at lower elevations. Many stressful conditions
increase with elevation, including colder temperatures, higher winds, thinner soils, and fewer
nutrients in soils. Air pollution also increases with elevation.
6 A survey of nineteen mountains along a west-to-east area from New York to Maine showed that there
were more dead red spruce trees standing in New York and Vermont (the western part of the region)
than in New Hampshire and Maine (the eastern part of the region). The western part of the region is
closer to the Midwest, which is the primary source of acid rain. There is more acid rain in New York
than in Maine, for example. So again, air pollution correlated with the pattern of tree death.
6 Experimental work conducted in the laboratory and field showed that the unexplained red spruce
decline was caused by freezing injury to needles. This was puzzling because red spruce is a species
that exists in cold temperatures—why should it succumb to freezing injury? This led to the suspicion
that some other factor, perhaps a component of air pollution, was making the species more sensitive
to injury.
To put all the factors together and explain exactly what was happening to the red spruce, environmental
scientists conducted a system analysis of the red spruce ecosystem. The system was defined as the trees as
well as the plants, soils, and rocks that occur where red spruce grows. Inputs of water and nutrients came
from the atmosphere; outputs left via streams.
Researchers first constructed a diagram showing the number and size of red spruce trees, which comprises
the basal area of the trees. Over the course of a year, detailed analysis of the basal area’s net gains—the
growth of individual trees—and losses—the death of individual trees—confirmed that red spruce basal area
had decreased.

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Additional mass balance analyses of trees and chemical elements suggested that a number of factors together
contributed to red spruce decline. First, the analyses showed significant inputs of sulfate, a component of acid
rain. The analyses also showed that calcium had been lost both from the soils and from specific locations
within spruce needles. Experimental work in the laboratory confirmed that calcium deficiencies adversely
affect the ability of many trees, including red spruce, to withstand cold.
At the same time as red spruce death was increasing (1960−90), the combustion of oil and coal released large
amounts of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, leading to the formation of sulfuric acid, a component of acid
rain. This acid is composed of hydrogen and sulfate. This pattern was consistent with the hypothesis that
sulfate promoted freezing injury to red spruce, but it did not prove that this was occurring.
When investigators examined the flux of various chemical elements in the red spruce ecosystem, they
found that the input of sulfate to the forest during the 1960−90 time period was much, much greater than
in previous decades. Therefore, they concluded that pollution was the factor making the trees susceptible to
freezing. A system analysis led to the answer that the combination of a natural factor—cold temperatures—
and a pollutant—sulfate—was the cause of red spruce decline.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Managing Environmental

Systems in the Florida Everglades

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The Florida Everglades wetland is one part of a larger
watershed that covers most of southern Florida and is
divided into three connected basins. The entire watershed
extends over more than 50,000 km2.
The Everglades is made up of several interacting
subsystems: water-flow systems similar to Mono Lake;
energy and nutrient systems similar to the red spruce
forest; and population systems similar to the elephant-
human system we examined earlier in this section. One
example of a small subsystem is the “alligator hole,” The Florida Everglades wetland is one part of a larger
which consists of small pools (e.g., two to four meters2) watershed that covers most of southern Florida.
surrounded by marsh plants. The pools themselves are Source: University of Florida Museum
kept plant-free by the activity of alligators. Alligator holes
throughout the Everglades are permanent homes to many
small aquatic animals and plant species that receive their entire input of energy from resources within the
pools themselves. However, the alligators, with their greater food and space requirements, depend upon the
entire Everglade system for survival.
During the twentieth century, human population growth and development, and the resulting need for water
and farmland, have had an impact on all the environmental subsystems in the Everglades. What was once a
subtropical wetland of over one million acres, and home to several bird, mammal, reptile, and plant species
found nowhere else in the U.S., is now half its original size. The Everglades has been managed throughout the
last century by state and federal agencies, but the particular management strategy has varied in response to
large-scale and unpredictable regional changes in the weather that has resulted in periods of floods or droughts.

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In 1999, after years of work by several agencies (led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South
Florida Water Management District, or SFWMD), a restoration plan for the Florida Everglades watershed
was adopted by Congress as part of the Water Resource Development Act of 2000. The Comprehensive
Everglades Restoration Plan is really a collection of several plans ranging from water management to
endangered species protection, each designed to manage a particular subsystem within the Everglades. As
part of the implementation of the plan, the SFWMD developed an “Everglades Landscape Model,” which
integrates information from all levels of systems in the Everglades—from the alligator hole to large-scale
water flow through the three water basins.
This multi-system management plan, while complex in its details, is based upon a few principles. First, there
needs to be an increased flow of water through the watershed in order to counteract the effects of decades
of drainage and to provide enough water for the aquatic and marsh organisms normally found in this type
of environment. Second, because water pollution has toxic effects on plants and animals and adversely
affects the normal functioning of nutrient cycles and energy flows within the ecosystems, there needs to be
a reduction in wastewater from human development. The third principle is that enough water is currently
available in the watershed to meet the restoration needs. However, this water needs to be made cleaner, which
can only be done at significant social and economic costs. This is a clear example of the interaction between
ecology and economics within ecosystem management.
The final principle is that the management of the Everglades ecosystem must be adaptive. The
implementation of each management technique is treated as an experiment that can be modified in the face
of the uncertainties inherent in any ecological system. Adaptive management, a concept that predates and

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improves ecosystem management, is the resource managers’ answer to scientific uncertainty—the fact that
management strategies must change to adapt to new scientific information regarding environmental systems.
Adaptive management was previously applied to the Everglades ecosystems in various ways by both the state
and federal government. First, the SFWMD designed a project for the purpose of reducing total phosphorous
(a major water pollutant) entering the watershed and to provide a test model for a larger proposed system.
The results of this experimental project were used to implement future management strategies.
The federal government is also attempting to apply adaptive management, on a large scale, to the Everglades
ecosystem. The U.S. Department of State’s Man and the Biosphere Program is a holistic attempt to combine
geographic information systems and computer simulation models to develop a range of land- and water-use
strategies. Each strategy provides different levels of environmental protection and economic development.
These different strategies are then studied and debated by those with an interest in the Everglades ecosystem
with the intent of implementing the program that best balances all interests.
The management of the Everglades is not without its problems. Control of water flow and pollution requires
restrictions on the use of private property and economic development, possibly affecting short-term
economic development. However, management of the Everglades is an important application of the concept
that the environment is made up of several interacting systems.

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 FIGURE 17

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Three-picture summary of historic, current, and restoration water flow in the Florida Everglades as provided by the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers in the early 2000s.
Source: Mitsch and Jørgensen, 2004

SECTION I SUMMARY
6 Environmental science is the study of the impacts of human activities on environmental systems. There
is no single environmental indicator that offers an accurate, objective assessment of the status of the
entire Earth, but a number of indicators in different areas are used.
6 There are roughly 8 billion people on Earth today. The total human population continues to increase,
though the rate of growth has been steadily decreasing since the 1960s.
6 While the background rate of extinction is an estimate (two mammal species per 10,000 species per one
hundred years), it is certain that human beings have increased extinction rates on Earth today. Of the
estimated 10 million to 30 million species on Earth, perhaps as many as 40,000—maybe more—are
going extinct each year. Biological diversity gives a negative indication of the state of the Earth and
shows that we are in a sixth mass extinction event.
6 Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are steadily increasing due to
human activity. Global temperatures have risen during the 1900s, with a particularly rapid increase since
1980. It is clear that human activity is causing global temperature increase and climate change.
6 Air and water emissions increased steadily in the early 1900s and decreased (in the U.S. at least) after
the early 1970s due to stricter pollution regulations. However, pollution levels remain a global issue,
particularly for some chemicals.

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6 Sustainability is the consumption of resources in the present that allows an adequate supply to remain for
future generations. Resource consumption varies throughout the world and has different environmental
impacts depending on both the number of people and the type and quantity of resources they use. As an
environmental indicator, resource consumption shows a worsening state of the environment.
6 Scientists often study the dynamics of environmental systems, which are sets of living and nonliving
components connected in such a way that changes in one part of the system affect the other parts.
Systems can be open or closed to exchanges of matter, energy, or both. Human activity almost always
affects environmental system dynamics in some way.
6 A system analysis determines what goes in, what comes out, and what has changed within a given
system. Environmental scientists use mass balance analysis to calculate inputs and outputs to the system
pool and the rate of flux through the pool. If there is no overall change to the pool, the system is in steady
state. Changes in one input can affect an entire complex system, as illustrated by Mono Lake.
6 Mean residence time (MRT), the average time that a portion of the pool remains in a steady-state system,
is important for calculating how long pollution remains in water or the atmosphere. If a system is not at
steady state, then the accumulation or depletion of a material, rather than MRT, is calculated.
6 Systems are regulated by feedback loops. In negative feedback, changes in the system variable bring the
system back to its stable set point. In positive feedback, changes in the variable lead to further changes,
bringing the system further away from the set point.
6 If there is too long a delay between the time between when a signal is generated and when it is received
and responded to, the system may experience overshoot. In some systems, this may lead to exceeding the

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carrying capacity.
6 Systems may comprise a complex interaction of subsystems, as illustrated by the elephant–human
population system in Africa, the red spruce forest in the northeastern United States, and the
Everglades ecosystem in southern Florida.

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 Section II
Biodiversity: From Local to Global
In this section, we will focus on the Earth as a living planet and explore the ways that life is organized from local
to global scales. You will learn about the evolutionary processes that gave rise to the diversity of species on our
planet, the biological and physical factors that regulate biodiversity from genes to species, and how living and
nonliving components are linked together into systems—both small and global. The major elements you will
cover are:
6 Evolution and Biodiversity − Genetic variation resulting in environmentally adaptive traits has resulted
in a diverse number and types of species.
6 Population and Community Ecology − how populations grow, disperse, and interact with other populations
6 Ecosystems − the integration of living and nonliving system components in specific geographic areas
6 Global Climate and Biomes − variation in global patterns of temperature, sunlight, and rainfall are key in

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creating geographic regions distinguished by different dominant forms of plants and animals
6 Global Energy and Matter Cycles − global biogeochemical cycles on which all ecosystems depend

BIODIVERSITY
What Is Biodiversity and Why Does It Matter?
A small plot of land or a tiny pond has dozens or hundreds of different kinds of plants and animals that even the
untrained eye can distinguish, as well as thousands of different kinds of microscopic organisms. In contrast, a
carefully tended lawn or a commercial tree plantation usually supports only a few types of grasses or trees. The
total number of living things in the plantation may be the same as in an equivalent area of natural forest, but the
diversity of organisms will be far less. The number of different species in any given place is the most common
measure of biological diversity. Variety of species, however, is not the only way biological diversity can be
measured. Recall from Section I that biological diversity, or biodiversity, is the diversity of all the genes, species,
and habitats on Earth.
The great number of species on Earth is the result of the large amount of genetic diversity within and among
species. Genetic diversity is the variety of genes, the chemical building blocks that provide the blueprint for
how every individual organism develops. Current estimates are that humans have approximately 30,000
different genes, which can combine to form a virtually limitless variety of individuals. No two people, except for
identical twins, will have exactly the same combination of genes. There is even more genetic diversity between
individuals of different species.
Biodiversity also includes the different ways that groups of species are organized together on the planet. A
forest community will contain different species of plants and animals than a community of organisms in a
desert, a lake, or the ocean bottom. Finally, biodiversity describes different combinations of living and nonliving
components in varied environmental systems of inputs, outputs, and feedbacks, such as the Mono Lake, African
elephant, and red spruce ecosystems that we discussed in Section I.

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 FIGURE 18

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A sample of the range of multi-cellular species diversity.

The Value of Biodiversity

While it is obvious that there is much biodiversity on Earth, it may not be as obvious why biodiversity should
matter to you. Though we clearly need other animals and plants for food, most modern people actually eat very
few species. In fact, although ancient humans (and the few remaining modern hunter-gatherers) used dozens,
if not hundreds, of species of plants and animals, the food most people eat today comes from only a few plant
species (corn, wheat, and rice). What of the millions of other species in the world—how do they matter?
Value can be characterized in two ways: goods, services, or information that provide benefits to people are said to
have instrumental value. Objects, living or nonliving, that have intrinsic value have worth in and of themselves,
independent of any benefit they may provide to humans and are by their nature priceless. People who argue that
biodiversity has intrinsic value do not necessarily deny that it also has instrumental value. However, they argue
that while its instrumental value may provide benefits to human society, its intrinsic value is what should drive its
protection. Many environmental scientists who have made the study and protection of biodiversity their main goal
do so because of their belief that biodiversity is a good independent of any economic benefit.

Genetic Diversity
At the most basic level, species are distinguished from each other by how different their genes are. If you have
ever wondered why some camels have one hump while others have two, the answer lies in the unique set of genes
possessed by virtually every organism on Earth. Genetic diversity is the ultimate source of biodiversity on Earth.
The genetic differences between members of the same species can lead to physical variety such as different eye
color, leaf arrangement, or number of humps; differences between members of various species can result in
dramatically different body plans and capabilities. Over generations, blueprints can change so that sometimes the

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organism of today bears very little resemblance to its ultimate ancestor. This change is the result of evolution.
Evolution occurs when the genes among groups of individuals within the same species change over time, so that
the groups become different enough to be recognized as separate species. To understand how genetic diversity
leads to species diversity, we need to understand some of the basic principles of genetic diversity.
All organisms inherit from their parents the genes that provide the blueprint for their development and function.
Some genes contain most, or even all, of the instructions for relatively simple traits. More complex traits, such
as body size and shape, are the result of the interaction of more than one gene. All of these traits, the simple and
the complex, are referred to as an individual’s phenotype, which consists of all of an individual’s anatomical,
physiological, and behavioral characteristics. All of an organism’s genes together comprise its genotype, which
is its unique genetic composition and the code for its phenotype. Genes are chemically made up of the molecule
DNA and arranged within an organism’s cells on structures called chromosomes.
Genes frequently have alternative forms that contain different instructions for what the gene will produce; each
alternative form is called an allele. If a particular gene in a population has two alleles (we’ll call them A and B), an
individual in the population who has two copies of the gene will have one of three possible genotypes: AA, AB, or
BB. The phenotypes produced by the AA and BB genotypes will differ in some way. For example, in pea plants the
A allele (and therefore the AA genotype) produces purple flowers, and the BB genotype produces white flowers.

FIGURE 19

Possible Alleles from Second Parent

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Possible Alleles from First Parent A B

A AA AB

B AB BB

Possible genotypes of offspring with two copies of a gene that has two possible alleles.

In some cases, the phenotype for the individual with the mixed genotype, AB, will be identical to the phenotype
produced by the AA allele. For example, a pea plant with an AB genotype produces purple flowers, just like a
plant with the AA genotype. In these cases, one allele masks the effects of the other allele. This is an example
of an important aspect of genetics to which we will return later in our discussion of genetic diversity. In other
cases, however, the AB genotype will produce a phenotype that is a mix of the AA and AB genotypes. In the
snapdragon, for example, the AB genotype produces a pink flower rather than either the red or white phenotype
produced by AA and BB plants, respectively.
Taken together, all the different alleles for a particular trait that occur in a population are a pool of genetic
diversity. It is impossible to estimate the number of different alleles for genes of all individuals in any natural
population, and thus all the potential diversity, but a familiar example can give you some idea of the possibilities.
All the varieties of Canis familiaris, the domestic dog, share enough genetic material to be considered one
species. However, by repeatedly breeding individuals with certain desired traits, breeders have produced dogs as
varied as toy poodles and Great Danes. Each different breed is expressing a different combination of alleles that
lead to variations in size, shape, coat texture, color, and so forth.

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There is only one way a new allele can be produced: a mutation, an error made when genetic material is
copied, can permanently alter the genotype an organism passes on to its descendants. Mutations occur
spontaneously and randomly. Millions of copies of genetic material are made within cells, so it’s only natural
that some mistakes will be made. Mutations are even more likely under some environmental conditions—
exposure to anthropogenic chemicals, such as those in tobacco smoke, for instance, or radiation.
Though some mutations will have no effect on an organism, others are harmful. Most neutral or harmful mutations
die with the organism. If the mutation occurs in the sex cells that produce offspring, however, the genetic change
appears in the next generation. And if the mutation is beneficial to the organism in some way, making it more likely
that the organism will survive and pass the traits to its descendants over successive generations, the trait may spread
throughout a population, becoming one more allele in the pool of genetic diversity.
If there are many different alleles for a particular gene in a population, there will likely be a significant amount
of genetic variation among individuals within the population, as different individuals are more likely to have a
different combination of alleles. Further, large populations will usually have more genetic variation than small
populations because the more individuals there are, the higher the likelihood that the population will have many
different alleles for any one gene.

Expressions of Genetic Diversity

In some simple cases, a phenotype is simply the expression of a genotype. For instance, a person who inherits
the genes for blue eyes will have blue eyes whether they live in tropical Africa or subarctic Alaska. However,
most complex phenotypes (for instance, size) are the result of the interaction between the genotype and its

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environment; in other words, phenotype = genotype + environment. Two growing pine trees may have identical
genotypes coding for height, but if one is grown in a nutrient-rich environment and the other in a nutrient-poor
environment, the first tree will likely grow to be taller.

FIGURE 20

An individual’s physical and behavioral characteristics (the phenotype) is a result of the interaction between
genotype and the environment.
Source: Emphasis

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Just as organisms with the same genes may have different phenotypes, individuals with similar phenotypes
may have different combinations of alleles. The nineteenth-century Austrian monk Gregor Mendel was
the first person to understand genetic variation within and among individuals. Mendel studied pea plants
with two different phenotypes for various traits, such as red flowers and white flowers or smooth peas and
wrinkled peas. When he crossed smooth pea plants with wrinkled pea plants, all the offspring (new plants)
had smooth peas. However, when he crossed this second generation of smooth pea plants with each other,
the result was a mix of smooth and wrinkled peas.

FIGURE 21

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Gregor Mendel and his pea-plant experiment.
Source: Khan Academy

What is the explanation for this? Mendel proposed that there was a hereditary factor (what we now call a gene)
that transmitted traits such as pea surface from generation to generation. The plants he used carried genes with
two alleles for each trait, such as pea surface. If a plant inherited one smooth allele and one wrinkled allele,
the smooth allele would dominate, masking the effect of the wrinkled allele, which would not show up in the
phenotype. The allele for wrinkled peas would create the wrinkled pea phenotype only when the plant inherited
two copies of it, one from each parent.
If two smooth pea plants or two wrinkled pea plants were crossed, they would always produce one phenotype—
either all smooth or all wrinkled. However, crosses among the genetically varied plants would always produce a
mixture of smooth and wrinkled peas. In other words, increased genetic variation within individuals will result
in an increase in phenotypic variation in offspring. Darwin’s results with pea surface were replicated with many

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other traits and later with many other organisms and became the basis of our understanding of how genes and
alleles produce genetic diversity.
There are four types of genotypic diversity:

6 Variation within individual organisms − A given individual can possess different alleles of the same
gene, such as the pea plant’s white and purple alleles.
6 Variation among individuals within a population − Different individuals within a population can
have different alleles for the same gene. However, if a population decreases in size due to hunting,
habitat loss, or changes in the environment, the pool of genetic diversity, or the total number of
different kinds of alleles, will also decrease.
6 Variation among populations − When populations of the same species are isolated or partially isolated
from one another, the types or relative number of alleles can vary from one population to another. The
total genetic variation of a species is made up of the variation within each population and the variation
among various geographically separated populations.
6 Variation among species − Genetic variation will, on average, be greater among species than among
populations within species. This is one means of distinguishing species from populations. One of the
methods by which new species arise is through the genetic divergence of two isolated populations of one
species. New and different alleles will arise and persist in each population. Eventually, these different
alleles will produce such divergent genotypes and phenotypes that individuals in the two populations will
no longer be able to interbreed successfully; they will have become different species. There are various

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estimates for how much genetic or phenotypic variation is required to distinguish two populations as
separate species; most rely on quantitative estimates of the number different alleles at specific genes.
Species Diversity
The most common definition of a species is a group of organisms that is distinct from other groups in
morphology (body type), physiology, or biochemical properties and that can breed and produce viable offspring.
Species diversity results from both adaptive and nonadaptive processes. Most new species arise as the genotypes
and phenotypes of two or more populations diverge through processes that take place at the population level,
such as the evolution of different adaptations in populations living in different environments or the decrease in
migration between populations with a corresponding lack of genetic transfer. To understand these processes, let’s
begin by looking at some basic aspects of evolution.

EVOLUTION
As explained earlier, repeated change in genotype over time may result in a variety of phenotypes in a species.
While some of these phenotypes will have no effect or an adverse effect on survival, others may help an
individual survive in its environment. For example, a frog with longer legs than other frogs in its population may
be able to hop faster and will probably have a greater ability to catch food or avoid predators. Thus, the frog with
longer legs is more likely than its short-legged neighbors to live long enough to reproduce and pass its genes on
to its offspring.
Fitness is a measure of the relative viability (ability to survive) and fertility (reproductive success) of an
organism. The more likely that an individual will survive and the more offspring it leaves behind, the greater its
fitness. The successful survival of the genes of more fit individuals over many, many generations of offspring can
lead to a change in the average phenotype of the species. On the other hand, alleles that tend to be more harmful
than beneficial to an individual will usually die out along with the individuals in a population that carry them.

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 FIGURE 22

The number of offspring produced over a lifetime is a main indicator of an individual’s fitness.
Source: UC Berkeley: Understanding Evolution

An example how different alleles produce individuals with different levels of fitness is the allele for sickle-cell
disease, which reduces the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood and results in many severe mental and physical
impairments and usually death, mostly among people of African descent. At the same time, this allele also
conveys resistance to malaria, one of the most deadly diseases in Africa. Two copies of the allele are necessary

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to produce the disease. Individuals with only a single copy of the allele will not develop the disease but will
have some natural protection against malaria and thus a higher likelihood of survival in an environment where
that disease is common. Thus, the sickle-cell allele, although fatal to people who carry two copies, has persisted
in the population because those people with only one such allele have been more likely to survive and pass the
allele on to their descendants.

FIGURE 23

The geographic correlation between the prevalence of malaria and the allele conveying resistance to the disease.
Source: Encyclopedia Brittanica

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 FIGURE 24

Possible Alleles from Second Parent

Possible Alleles from

A B
First Parent
AA (normal resistance to AB (increased resistance to
A
malaria/no sickle-cell disease) malaria/no sickle-cell disease)
AB (increased resistance to BB (sickle-cell disease; usually
B
malaria/no sickle-cell disease) fatal)
Inheritance of increased resistance to malaria and of sickle-cell disease.

Adaptation Through Natural Selection

The idea that species evolve over time had been suggested by a number of scientists and philosophers, but the
concept of evolution through natural selection did not become synthesized into a unifying theory until Charles
Darwin (1809−82) was able to put the various pieces together.
At age twenty-two, Charles Darwin became the ship’s naturalist onboard the HMS Beagle, which was about to

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sail around the world. During his journey (1831−36), Darwin made a great many observations of phenotypic
variation and fitness in a great variety of species. In addition to existing organisms, he found evidence of species
that had not survived. Darwin observed that plants and animals produce many more offspring than are needed
to replace the parents. In fact, in the case of many organisms, such as trees, fish, or insects, which produce
hundreds or thousands of seeds or eggs, most offspring do not survive. Darwin questioned why some survive and
some do not. During the decades after his journey on the Beagle, he synthesized his observations and developed
them into a more robust theory. That theory, finally published in 1859, was called “The Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection.”

FIGURE 25

Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle (1831–36).

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The key ideas of Darwin’s theory of natural selection are:
6 Organisms produce many more offspring than are needed to replace the parents.
6 Within any given species, individuals will express a range of phenotypes.
6 In a given environment, some phenotypes will enable an organism to survive better than other
phenotypes; in other words, some organisms will be more fit.
6 The more fit individuals will have a better chance of reproducing; they will be selected for and over time
will be well established in the environment.
Darwin’s theory explains why individuals with certain traits survive and reproduce. The process of becoming
most fit or most suited for a particular environment is called adaptation. Species differ in how well they adapt to
a given environment and how well they adapt to a changing environment. There are also variations in how long
it takes species to adapt. A species with more genetic variability will have a wider range of phenotypes in any
given environment, and thus it is more likely that a successful phenotype for that environment will exist.

Adaptation to a Changing Environment

Many organisms can adapt to quickly changing environments by simple changes in their physiological or
behavioral responses; they are tolerant to some degree of environmental change without the need to evolve
new adaptations. For example, the panting of a dog or the sweating of a human are means to cool off on a
hot day, while the dropping of leaves by plants at the beginning of the dry season is a means of conserving
water. However, over centuries or more, a species’ environment may change so dramatically that short-term
physiological responses are no longer enough. As environments undergo major changes over a long period of

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time, species will either die out or adapt through natural selection. For example, as the environment in many
parts of the world became drier, many plant species evolved similar adaptations to both conserve and acquire
scarce water. These adaptations include thick, fleshy leaves with thick waxy surfaces, all of which better enable a
plant to conserve water.
The ability of a species to adapt to environmental changes will depend greatly on how much, and how fast, that
change occurs. Consider a tropical bird that has a strong beak that enables it to crack seeds with very hard shells.
Imagine that over many years the shells of the seeds become even harder. The birds with stronger beaks will
be more fit at opening the seeds than individuals with weaker beaks. Thus, those that can adapt to the change
in their environment (harder shells) will be more fit and pass on their strong-beak genes to future generations.
However, if the environment changes so fast that suddenly only extremely hard-shelled seeds are available,
there may not be any birds with sufficiently strong beaks to open the shells, and the species will die out. Much
of the current environmental change caused by humans is both dramatic and sudden, and most species, like our
hypothetical tropical bird, may not be able to adapt in time.

Nonadaptive Evolutionary Processes

Evolution can also occur through nonadaptive processes. When individuals from one population migrate to
another population, gene flow occurs. If the population from which the migrants come had more alleles of a
particular type, or some unique alleles altogether, and if these migrants mated and produced offspring in their
new population, they would introduce these new alleles into the population, and new forms of the resulting
phenotypes would also be introduced. There is evidence that high rates of gene flow occur in species in which
there is much dispersal of individuals. However, most populations of a species seem to be relatively isolated from
each other and need to adapt to their environment with the genetic variation they possess. As we will see, this
genetic isolation of most species is an important issue in the maintenance of biodiversity.
Another nonadaptive process, genetic drift, or random change in genotypes among small populations of a
species, is known to be an important mechanism in evolution. When a population is small, not all possible alleles
will show up in the relatively few offspring that are produced. Imagine a population of only twenty organisms,
ten with allele A and ten with allele B. If only two of those individuals mate and produce offspring, they may

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well both have the A allele; the B allele will be lost
in just one generation. The loss of alleles from one
generation to another will result in genetic change and a
corresponding change in phenotypes over time, a form
of evolution not associated with fitness or selection.
One specific type of genetic drift is the bottleneck
effect, in which a population is drastically decreased in
size due to hunting, habitat loss, a natural disaster, or
changes in the environment. The event that produces
the decrease acts like a bottleneck, reducing the The cheetah population has dramatically decreased due to
number of different alleles present in the population. hunting and loss of habitat. Today, the cheetah population is
The remaining population will thus have a smaller so small that there is almost no genetic variation.
pool of genetic diversity. Environmental scientists who
study the genetics of natural populations have discovered that low genetic variation is correlated to all kinds of
potential problems, including increased risk of disease and low fertility.

FIGURE 26

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An illustration of the bottleneck effect, which is a type of genetic drift.
Source: Naturalis Historia

One well-known example is the cheetah, whose populations have dramatically decreased due to hunting and
loss of habitat. The drastic reduction in cheetah population size over a short period of time resulted in the loss
of all the alleles that had been present in the killed animals. Today, the cheetah population is so small that there
is almost no genetic variation; individuals are essentially all identical twins. Cheetahs tend to have low fertility
(males have 70 percent abnormal sperm cells) and high rates of disease, at least among zoo populations where

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most reliable studies have been conducted. It is uncertain if natural populations have the same reduced fitness.

The Pace of Evolution

How long does evolution take? A significant change in a species’ genotype, such as an adaptation to a completely
different food source, can take many hundreds to thousands of years. If we examine the evolution of life from
single-celled organisms to primates and human beings, we can see that it has taken a very long time. Smaller
scale evolutionary changes can occur over a much shorter time scale. (Keep in mind that “long” and “short” in
the context of evolution are very different from our everyday sense of time.)

FIGURE 27

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A timeline of the evolutionary history of life.

Source: Flexbooks

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Three factors are particularly important influences on
the pace of evolution by natural selection. First is the
rate of environmental change to which a species must
adapt. As we noted earlier, rapid environmental change
forces populations to evolve quickly to adapt to the
new environment or die out. Secondly, if a population
has a large amount of genetic variation that produces
traits that make individuals more fit, evolution can
occur quite quickly, but if the population must generate
new genetic variation through the accumulation of
mutations, evolution will proceed much more slowly.
Finally, new adaptive traits may be able to spread more
quickly in small populations than in larger populations.
Small populations are certainly more likely to undergo
rapid evolution by nonadaptive mechanisms such as A ginkgo biloba leaf from the Eocene epoch from the McAbee
genetic drift and bottlenecks. fossil beds, British Columbia, Canada. The ginkgo tree, which
exists in China and is an ornamental tree in many parts of the
CHANGES IN ENVIRONMENTAL U.S., appears in the fossil record from 60 million years ago.

CONDITIONS AND EXTINCTIONS

Source: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.
php?curid= 6532895
While we do not know the actual number of species in
the world today, we do know that number equals all the

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species that evolved over time minus all of those species that no longer exist. If the environment changes so that
a population is no longer adapted to it, the population’s growth rate becomes negative. Eventually, the population
size will decrease to zero unless the population migrates to a new environment in which it can succeed or unless
it adapts to the changed environment through evolution. In most cases, neither option works. There may be no
favorable environment close enough for the population to migrate to or, if there is, it may already be populated
by species the population cannot successfully compete with. In the second case, the environmental change
may be so rapid that the species does not have the time to evolve new adaptations. Organisms that cannot adapt
to environmental change will eventually go extinct; that is, no members of the species will remain on Earth.
Almost every species that has ever lived on Earth has gone extinct—although this can mean that the lineage is
lost to history, it can also mean that that they gave rise to new species before going extinct.

The Fossil Record

Most of what we know about the evolution of life is based on fossils, remains of extinct plants and animals that
have been preserved in rock. When most organisms die, they decompose fairly rapidly, and the elements they
contain are recycled; in this case, nothing of the organism is preserved. However, sometimes the hard parts of an
organism (bones, shells, teeth, etc.)—and occasionally softer organic material—will be buried and protected by
mud or other sediment, and after much time the material becomes fossilized, or hardened into rock-like material
that is buried under increasing layers of sediment. When these layers are uncovered, they reveal a record of at
least some of the organisms that existed at the time those layers were preserved. Because of the way layers of
earth are deposited on top of each other over time, the oldest fossilized organisms are found in the deepest layers
of the fossil record.
The fossil record is the basis of the geologic time scale, which divides time into various intervals from the
formation of the Earth through the present, with distinctive events, such as the evolution of multicellular
organisms or the extinction of the dinosaurs, characterizing the major time intervals. Bacteria appear in the
fossil record as long ago as 3.5 billion years before the present; multicellular and shelled organisms are visible
about 540 million years ago. In general, we can trace identifiable species for one million years (for example,
mammalian species) to ten million years (for example, some clams and other marine species) of the fossil record.
For the most part, species found in the fossil record from many millions of years ago do not exist today, and

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species that exist today are not found in the fossil record. There are some exceptions; the ginkgo tree, which
exists in China and is an ornamental tree in many parts of the U.S., also appears in the fossil record from 60
million years ago. The fossil record has been the source of most of our knowledge of extinction as well as much
information about the state of the environment today.

Mass Extinctions
The fossil record tells us that all species eventually go extinct. Over time, individual species evolve and go extinct
continually, at random intervals. However, there are periods of mass extinction, in which the fossil record reveals
that large numbers of species died in a very short time interval. The greatest mass extinction on record took place
at the end of the Paleozoic Era. Roughly 90 to 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land vertebrates
went extinct during this time. The cause of this mass extinction is thought to be related to the shutdown of ocean
circulation combined with a massive, sustained volcanic eruption known as the Siberian Traps.5 A better known
mass extinction occurred at the boundary of the Cretaceous and the Tertiary Periods, known as the K-T boundary.
This is the period 65 million years ago when many species, including the dinosaurs, went extinct. However, some
species survived, including a small rodent-like mammalian species that would give rise to the human species.

FIGURE 28

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Five mass extinction events have occurred over various geologic time periods, and we may currently be experiencing a sixth
mass extinction event.
Source: National Geographic

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Estimating Extinction Rates from Habitat Loss
Estimating extinction rates is fraught with related problems—if we cannot know how many species there are,
how are we to estimate how many we are losing each year? One way that environmental scientists get around
this problem is by using a concept known as the species-area relationship. The basic concept is simple: in
general, less habitat will support fewer species than more habitat. The species-area relationship was initially
used to explain why larger islands have more species than smaller islands; it is now used both to estimate the
number of species in a given area of habitat (species richness) and to estimate how many species are lost with a
given loss in habitat. The tropical rainforest contains a minimum of 10 million species, and the area of tropical
forest being cut down is about 2 percent a year. What does this mean with regard to the loss of biodiversity in the
tropical rainforest? How many species are we actually losing each year?

FIGURE 29

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Island biogeography and species-area relationship.

To find the effect of deforestation on species loss, we use a simple mathematical formula to compare the number
of species in an area before deforestation with the number of species in the remaining area after deforestation: S1/
S0 =(A1/A0)Z in which S1/S0 is the number of species after deforestation/number of species before deforestation; A1/
A0 is the area of forest after logging/area of forest before logging; and Z is the rate at which species numbers vary
by area (can change depending on the environment). While not perfect, this method has been used to provide
useful estimates for the link between species and habitat loss for many types of ecosystems, in addition to
tropical rainforests.
During the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, there has been a growing consensus among biologists
that the Earth is in the beginning stages of a human-caused mass extinction of species, resulting largely from
the destruction of habitat. The current mass extinction could reach the magnitude of the previous five mass

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extinction periods that have occurred sporadically over
the last 450 million years. The recovery of biodiversity
from those earlier mass extinctions took from 10 to
100 million years; recovering from the present mass
extinction could take just as long and would probably
require returning large portions of the Earth to their
natural state so that new species could naturally evolve.
Much of the current disagreement about policy among
many environmental scientists and government officials
stems from differing opinions as to how acute this
biodiversity crisis is and how much science is required
to solve it. In the next section, we will discuss current
threats to Earth’s biodiversity.
New housing developments can cause habitat destruction and/
or fragmentation.
HUMAN ACTIVITY AND
BIODIVERSITY
Human activity can alter biodiversity in a variety of ways. Species diversity can be reduced by direct removal
of a species by humans (overexploitation), as when overhunting by European sailors stopping at the Indian
Ocean island of Mauritius in the seventeenth century helped to exterminate the Dodo, a large flightless bird used
as an easy source of meat. (The introduction of animals that competed with the dodo for food resources was
also a significant factor.) Other direct removals such as fishing and overharvesting of plants can also directly

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reduce biodiversity. Humans can also affect biodiversity indirectly when their activities change animal and
plant habitats. In addition, humans can cause extinction through habitat modification and fragmentation, the
introduction of nonnative species, and other ways.

Habitat Fragmentation
Like the tropical rainforest example just discussed, human activity may fragment a large tract of land into smaller
pieces through the construction of roads, housing developments, or shopping or industrial centers. Fragmentation of
habitats has a number of major impacts on biodiversity. Fragmentation reduces the area of contiguous habitat, which
can create barriers to the normal movement of a species for purposes such as feeding, mating, and migrating. While
many species have minimal space requirements and thrive in fragmented areas, others—such as the mountain lion,
wolf, and tiger—require large tracts of relatively uninhabited, undisturbed land.
Secondly, fragmentation generates more habitat that is along an edge. This consequence of fragmentation stems
from basic geometry: a greater number of smaller tracts of land will contain more edge, even if the total area
of land is identical to an unfragmented parcel of land. Edge habitat is in proximity to other kinds of habitat; in
a forest, for example, the edge habitat is that area adjacent to clearings or other nonforested areas. Increased
edge habitat will change the species composition of the habitat overall. For example, raccoons and skunks may
increase in number along forest edges. Since there is now more edge closer to interior portions of land, these
species will be more easily able to penetrate further into the forest, where they may eat plants, small mammals,
bird eggs, and other organisms that normally would be relatively safe in the forest interior.
Third, habitat fragmentation will divide a population into several smaller populations. Gene flow between these
smaller populations will usually be greatly reduced with the result that they will become genetically isolated and
will likely lose genetic variation through genetic drift.

The Introduction of Exotic Species

Before the advent of widespread human travel, the free movement of many species was impeded by large bodies
of water, deserts, mountains, and other land and water barriers. However, for quite some time, people have been
capable of transporting species—knowingly or not—from one part of the globe to another. Species that are not

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native to an area but are introduced, deliberately or
accidentally, by people are called exotic species.
In the process of moving themselves and their
belongings from place to place, people have
accidentally transported many species and diseases
to new continents and new environments. The ballast
water in ships often contains many species from the
point of origin that get distributed in every port the ship
visits. It is believed that the zebra mussel, a native of
the Caspian Sea in Asia, entered the Great Lakes this
way during the 1980s; since then, its population has
grown exponentially there and throughout the eastern
United States and Canada. With no known predators in
North America, it has depleted food supplies, clogged
water intake valves, and caused many other problems.
When an exotic species enters a new environment,
it may encounter an unexploited resource that it can
rapidly utilize. In the new environment, the organisms
that keep it under control in its native environment are
usually not present, nor are there naturally occurring

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predators. While a fair number of exotic species do not
thrive in their new environments, some do survive and
occasionally are successful enough to replace the native
species that are more vulnerable to local pathogens
and predators. Once an exotic species is successful in
its new environment, it is rare for it to ever be brought
under control.
It is believed that the zebra mussel, a native of the Caspian
LINKING BIODIVERSITY AND Sea in Asia, entered the Great Lakes during the 1980s; since
then, its population has grown exponentially there and
EVOLUTION TO ECOLOGY throughout the eastern United States and Canada.
The Ecological Perspective
Evolutionary history provides the first step in understanding why some species are found or not found in
various regions. However, to fully explore patterns of biodiversity, we need to know how species distribution
and abundance is limited by current environmental conditions. This is the domain of ecology, the study of
the relationship between organisms and their environment. The environment includes other individuals in an
organism’s population, other populations of plants and animals with which an organism and its population
interact, and the abiotic environment—the physical and chemical factors that influence life. “Relationships”
include such factors as the adaptation of an individual’s physiology to environmental extremes, the killing and
eating of prey by predators, and the flow of carbon through biotic and abiotic components of the environment.
To study such a diversity of natural phenomena, ecologists have traditionally divided the science into a hierarchy
from individuals to large-scale ecological systems of interacting biotic and abiotic components. Different
ecological processes occurring at these various levels will have different effects on biodiversity. We will begin
our exploration at the individual level. The ecology of the individual is concerned with an organism’s ability
to live in the environment. Three things are critical to an individual’s survival in a particular area: the abiotic
environmental conditions; the availability of resources such as food and water; and a place, or habitat, for the
individual to live.

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Environmental Conditions
Conditions are the chemical or physical factors in the
environment that influence survival and growth. A
wide variety of conditions determine which species and
communities flourish in some habitats and not others.
For terrestrial systems, the availability of light from solar
radiation, the temperature of the air and soil, the amount
of precipitation, soil type, and quantity of nutrients
such as nitrogen or phosphorus are usually the major
conditions that determine the presence or absence of
certain species. These conditions vary with latitude and
elevation. In aquatic systems, in addition to temperature
and solar radiation, gradients in the amount of oxygen
dissolved in the water, salinity, and pH (concentration
of hydrogen ion) also play a role. These conditions vary
with the depth of the water, the location in a stream
(upstream, midstream, downstream), latitude, elevation,
and many other aspects of the habitat.
Over time, adaptations evolved through natural
selection have allowed some organisms to survive,
grow, and reproduce under any environmental A baobab tree swollen with stored water.

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condition on Earth. Bacteria and other microbes can
be found in almost all conditions, including below ground and at the bottom of the ocean. Plant species can be
found in the high-temperature/low-moisture conditions of a desert, as well as in the low-temperature tundra of
the Arctic and mountaintops. Many insects and other invertebrates, and even some birds and mammals, can be
found in the harshest terrestrial conditions, while all parts of the ocean are home to at least some species of fish
and other marine life. Although some species may be found in almost any type of environment, the number of
species, and the abundance of any one species, decreases as conditions become more extreme.
Organisms either adapt to the conditions in a particular region, or they don’t live there. The baobab tree
of East Africa, for example, drops its leaves during the dry season. Though this prevents the plant from
photosynthesizing at that time, it avoids the loss of water through the leaves’ stomates, openings that allow water
vapor to escape as well as carbon dioxide to enter. During the rainy season, the baobab tree grows new leaves
and swells with water stored for use during the dry season.
Solar radiation and moisture are the two most important abiotic environmental conditions controlling the
distribution of species. Taken together, they can predict what type of large-scale habitat will exist in a given
region. To measure the combined amount of solar radiation and moisture in any region, ecologists have developed
a single index, evapotranspiration, or the total water lost from the land by evaporation and plant transpiration
(loss of water during photosynthesis). The amount of water loss will depend upon both the amount of water in the
ecosystem and the rate of evapotranspiration, which is mainly a function of temperature, or solar radiation.
For each environmental condition, there is a range within which a species can live. Under optimal conditions,
individuals will thrive: they will survive, grow, and reproduce. As conditions become less optimal—for example
if temperatures become significantly higher or lower than the ideal—individuals may survive and grow, but not
reproduce. If conditions become even less desirable, individuals may survive, but not grow or reproduce. Finally,
if conditions become even worse, individuals may not survive, and the species won’t exist in that environment.
The range within which a given species will exist is called its range of tolerance. For many factors—such as
temperature, soil moisture, and exposure to most pollutants—the response curve to a range of conditions is like
that shown in Figure 30.

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 FIGURE 30

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Most species will have an optimal range of abiotic factors—such as temperature and rainfall—where they will thrive and show
higher levels of growth, metabolism, and reproduction.

Resources
Resources are those aspects of the environment that
individuals use to stay alive—food, water, light, and
oxygen. Unlike environmental conditions, resources
are consumed and thereby become unavailable to
other organisms. The amount of available resources is
important at all levels of ecology. Individuals require
sufficient resources to grow and reproduce. Populations
require sufficient resources to maintain a size that will
prevent extinction. And communities require sufficient
resources to maintain several different species in one
habitat. Habitats with a large amount of resources
are generally able to maintain both many individuals Salt marshes produce extremely high levels of biomass and act
within each species and a large number of different as a storage tank for large amounts of nutrients caught from
species, but, surprisingly, in many habitats there is little the flow of rivers.
direct correlation between the amount of resources
and the number of species. The explanation for this rests with the varied abilities of individual organisms to use
resources under various abiotic environmental conditions.
One example is the large salt marshes that extend along the eastern coast of the United States from Georgia to
Cape Cod. Salt marshes produce extremely high levels of biomass and act as a storage tank for large amounts of
nutrients caught from the flow of rivers. This high level of nutrients makes salt marshes an important nursery for
many fish and shellfish species, as well as a source of energy for adjacent aquatic and marine habitats. However,
the vegetation within salt marshes, while abundant, is not diverse; usually only a few grass species make up more
than 95 percent of the total marsh biomass. These plant species dominate the salt marsh because they can process

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the nutrient-rich resources under the extreme environmental conditions.
The environmental conditions in a salt marsh include the increase in salt concentrations that results from the
evaporation of water during summer low tide and the rapid decrease in salt concentrations during flooding
or heavy rains. This means that plants must be able to tolerate both high- and low-salt concentrations and a
dramatic switch between the two. In addition, salt marsh plants must be able to survive the low oxygen levels
in the soil, a result of the high level of microbial decomposition that takes place in a salt marsh. This microbial
activity also produces large amounts of toxins as a side-effect, yet another harsh abiotic environmental
condition. The salt marsh grasses survive because of several adaptations, including special tissues that allow
them to concentrate and excrete excess salt and air chambers in their roots that allow them to produce their own
oxygen-rich microhabitats in the soil surrounding them. Another way that organisms adapt to their changing
environments is to change the way they allocate energy.

POPULATION ECOLOGY
Population ecology studies factors that regulate population abundance and distribution. No single factor is more
likely to increase the probability of extinction for a species or a localized population of a species than small
population size. In the previous discussion of genetic diversity, you learned that small population size means less
genetic variation, with a resulting decline in the ability to evolve in the face of changing environmental conditions
or resources. Small population size also makes it more likely that random environmental changes such as floods
and fires can wipe out an entire local population. Species with large populations, particularly if the populations are
scattered over a wide geographic area, are more likely to survive and adapt to changes in the environment.

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Therefore, to understand species distribution on Earth, it is critical to understand the factors that regulate the
abundance and distribution of populations. This is the science of population ecology. Population ecologists focus
on three aspects of populations:
6 Interactions with abiotic environmental factors, particularly environmental conditions
6 Interactions with other individuals within the population (intraspecific interactions)
6 Interactions with individuals in populations of other species (interspecific interactions)
All population regulation factors can be classified as density-dependent or density-independent. Density-dependent
factors are those whose effects on individuals in a population are directly related to the density of the population.
Scarce food resources, for example, will have a greater effect on individuals in a crowded population than on those
in a less crowded population. Density-independent factors, by contrast, are those, such as extreme weather, whose
effect is the same on all members of the population, no matter what the total population size. Let’s begin our study
of these concepts by looking at a classic experiment that illustrated how population growth is influenced by density-
dependent factors.

Density-Dependent Growth
In 1932, the Russian biologist Georgy Gause carried out some of the first laboratory experiments on the way
resource and habitat limitation regulates population growth. Gause started with twenty Paramecia (single-celled
animals) in a five cubic centimeter tube. Each day Gause added a constant quantity of food (bacteria) for the
Paramecia. The tubes were kept at a constant optimal chemical environment and temperature for Paramecium
growth, and waste products were regularly washed out. In other words, Gause provided the Paramecia with
constant resources and optimal environmental conditions, but limited space.
The growth of the Paramecium population, shown in Figure 31, is an example of logistic growth. When the
number of Paramecia was not limited by the size of the tube, the initial population growth rate was essentially
unlimited. However, as the number of Paramecia increased, the size of the tube began to act as a constraint
on further growth, and the growth rate decreased. Eventually, there was no space for more Paramecia, and
population growth stopped; the population had reached the carrying capacity of the environment.

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 FIGURE 31

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Logistic growth of Paramecium in the laboratory.
Source: Peter Chen, Principles of Biological Science

In Gause’s experiment, population growth was limited by available habitat. Gause would have achieved similar
results if he had provided less food in the tubes: population growth would have slowed and stopped when there was
insufficient food for more Paramecia. In either case, the growth rate of a population slows as the population density
increases and resources or space become harder to obtain. This is unlike exponential growth, in which the growth
rate is not constrained by limited resources or space and continues to increase as the population size increases.
Gause’s experiment was important because it showed that density-dependent factors slow population growth at
high densities. Density-dependent factors do not affect only laboratory populations; they play a significant role in
regulating most natural populations as well.

The Logistic Growth Model

The logistic growth model is one of the most important ecological models. Ecologists use the logistic model to
predict the growth of real laboratory and natural populations. However, like all models that describe a simplified
version of the real world, the effectiveness of the logistic model depends upon the satisfaction of several
assumptions:
6 The population has a stable age distribution. In other words, the proportions of different ages remain
constant as the population increases.
6 Population density is measured in appropriate units. For example, for small individuals in dense
populations, biomass may be a better measure of growth than individuals per square meter.
6 The relationship between population density and growth rate is linear. In other words, the population
growth rate decreases in a predictable and smooth manner with increasing density, as seen in Gause’s
Paramecium experiment (see Figure 32).

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 6 There are no time lags in the decrease of population growth rate as density increases. An example of a
time lag in growth rate adjustment is when a population keeps growing even though prey is no longer
plentiful, which can cause a population to overshoot the carrying capacity. This is particularly true for
populations with high per-capita birth rates.

FIGURE 32

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In the logistic (density-dependent) model of population growth, population birth rate (b) declines linearly as population density (N)
increases, while population death rate increases linearly. (K is the carrying capacity, the population size a local area can sustain.)

Many populations in nature violate one or all of these assumptions, so the logistic model, at best, only approximates
their present and future growth. For example, the growth curve of endangered whooping crane species is non-
logistic and shows ten-year cycles of population fluctuations that may be due to a periodic increase in predation of
hatchlings in the breeding areas by snowshoe hares. As a general rule, the more factors that affect a population’s
growth (intraspecific competition for resources or space, predation, climate, etc.), the more deviation from the
logistic model it will show. Despite the fact that the logistic model does not always match the growth of real-world
populations, it continues to be used to predict and manage many natural populations. The following example
explores the benefits and problems of using the logistic model to manage commercially valuable species.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: The Challenge of Managing

Population Growth
For decades, managers of commercially valuable tree, fish, and game species have wanted to maintain
populations at a level that will produce maximum sustainable yield (MSY)—the maximum harvest of
individuals that will allow the population to not go extinct—and still produce the maximum amount of
economic profit from year to year. The maximum economic profit is obtained by taking as many individuals
as possible. However, to sustain this profit, and the species, over many years requires that the population be
allowed to recover after each harvest. Measuring harvest by the total biomass of adult fish taken, which most
mangers and economists do, predicts that a sustainable harvest during a fishing season is one in which:
Biomass of new adults + biomass of adults remaining alive = loss of biomass from natural mortality +
loss of biomass from previous harvest

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Therefore, fishery managers must set limits that allow the
population growth rate to replenish the individuals lost to
the harvest.
In 1935 the fishery biologist M. Graham used data from
the catch of fish by trawlers in the North Atlantic fishery to
develop a logistic growth model for setting fishing limits.
Graham pointed out that the highest production (rate of
biomass increase) in a fish population growing logistically
occurs not when the fish population is most dense, but at
the point where the logistic curve is at its steepest—at one
half of the population’s carrying capacity. Therefore, to
A Peruvian fisherman harvests anchovies.
maintain the maximum yield, the fishing quota should be
Source: AP Photo/Rodrigo
set at a level that will keep the population at this point.
This logistic model has been used to set catch limits for many fish stocks, including the Peruvian anchovy
fishery which, until 1972, annually harvested the largest amount of biomass in the world. Fishery managers
collected data on the total biomass harvested per year, the total biomass eaten by seabirds, and the total
number of boats and/or days spent to catch a certain amount of biomass. To estimate the annual maximum
sustainable yield (MSY), the managers first assumed that the anchovy population met the assumptions of the
logistic growth model. Then, they fitted the logistic growth curve to their collected data; to predict the point
of maximum growth rate for the anchovy population. (See Figure 33.) The end result was an estimated MSY

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of approximately 10 million tons of anchovies per year.

FIGURE 33

Setting a fishing quota requires adding fishing mortality onto the natural logistic growth of the commercial fish species
(left). However, if the fishing mortality rate is set too high, the population will likely collapse as the Peruvian anchovy
population did in the mid-1980s (right).
By Epipelagic - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19091788

The logistic model and the Peruvian anchovy maximum sustainable yield were developed by averaging the
data on catch over several years, which represented what the yield should be during average conditions.
However, 1972 was not an average year. In that year the upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich water along the
Peruvian coast, which provided the ideal conditions for the anchovies, was disrupted by the El Niño system,
which moved warm tropical waters into the region. Despite these environmental changes, the fishery
continued to harvest anchovies at the MSY even though that level did not account for the unexpected
changes. Because of this change in environmental conditions, the number of young anchovies aging into the

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 fishery fell drastically, resulting in the sudden ecological and economic collapse of the fishery. The anchovy
fishery case tells us that when a population’s growth conforms to the assumptions of logistic growth, the
model can be used to estimate MSY, but only if managers account for changes in a species’ carrying capacity
that results from changes in environmental conditions.6

Density-Independent Growth
So far, we’ve looked at regulatory factors that have a greater effect as population density increases. However,
there are many factors that act independently of population density. Density-independent factors tend to be major
climatic events such as hurricanes or floods, or other types of disturbances such as fires or volcanic eruptions
that will wipe out a constant proportion of a population regardless of its density.
A classic example of density-independent population regulation involves Thrips imaginis, an insect found on the
flowers of many weeds and other plants in Australia. When the population is large enough, Thrips imaginis is a
major pest of the apple crop. During the 1930s and 1940s, James Davidson and Herbert Andrewartha studied the
factors that regulated Thrips’ population size. They found that the most important factor was the decline in the
plant populations that served as the insect’s food source during dry periods of the summer. However, in contrast to
the situations we described for density-dependent growth, the decline in food sources was not due to an increase in
Thrips population density but rather was the result of climatic factors—the heat and lack of rain during the summer.
In this case, the Thrips population is regulated through a density-independent, extrinsic factor.

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Metapopulations
Cougars once lived throughout North America, but because of habitat destruction and fragmentation and
overhunting, these large cats are now found primarily in remote mountain ranges of the Southwest and
California. Like most large carnivores, cougars in New Mexico display a naturally patchy population distribution
corresponding to the topography of the southwestern mountains. Populations are denser in mountain ranges
covering large areas than in smaller mountain ranges. Cougars, primarily males, will disperse from the more
densely populated areas across deserts to smaller mountain ranges, as shown in Figure 34, although long distances
or geographic barriers may keep some suitable habitats from becoming home to a cougar subpopulation.

FIGURE 34

Metapopulation example: cougar dispersal among mountain ranges in New Mexico; there are sufficient levels of genetic
connectivity among dispersed subpopulations to create a single “metapopulation.”

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In the past, each group of cougars living in a separate mountain range would have been considered a separate
population. However, recent research shows that individuals travel from one mountain range to another to such
an extent that there is no evidence of the genetic variation that normally distinguishes different populations
within a species. Moreover, population density in one group will affect other groups as cougars move from
high-density populations to low-density populations. This interconnection between groups has led to a new
classification—the metapopulation, a population subdivided into several geographic groups that remain
genetically and ecologically connected through the dispersal of individuals among groups.
Metapopulations exist at smaller spatial scales than half of New Mexico, but all share certain major characteristics.
Although subpopulations form and disappear in space and time, the population as a whole remains; there is
a changing mosaic of subpopulations over time. Further, not all suitable habitats will necessarily contain a
subpopulation. Dispersal is not always successful because of distance, barriers, inability to find the patch, or
inability of the dispersed individuals to produce a viable population. Finally, while each subpopulation will
undergo its own density-dependent and density-independent regulation, both types of factors will be influenced
by the connection between patches; that is, the dispersal of individuals among subpopulations will change the
sizes of subpopulations independent of other population regulatory factors. The identification and management
of metapopulations is a major feature of the current application of population level ecology to the protection of
biodiversity.

Populations and Biodiversity

Populations go extinct when death rates are greater than birth rates. The factors that can cause extinctions are
both deterministic (predictable) and stochastic (random and unpredictable). Most of the density-dependent

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factors we discussed above are deterministic. If food, for example, is limited by a known amount, the carrying
capacity will change by a knowable degree. Many density-independent factors are stochastic. We cannot predict
forest fires or storms, and we certainly cannot predict what their effect on populations will be. Nevertheless,
there is one general rule that governs the relationship between population size, growth, and extinction: small
populations are more likely to go extinct.
The increased likelihood of extinction for small populations is true for a multitude of reasons. Over the long
term, the loss of genetic variation may prevent adaptations to changing conditions from arising within the
population. In the shorter term, small populations are more vulnerable to catastrophic stochastic (density-
independent) events, such as particularly harsh winters or other climatic factors. Small population size will also
be more sensitive to changes in density-dependent factors, such as predation or human exploitation. A loss of
75 percent of the population is more serious if you are starting with only 100 individuals than if you are starting
with 1,000 individuals.

COMMUNITY ECOLOGY
In the previous section we treated populations as if each existed in isolation from all others, which is most
certainly not the case. A population of one species interacts with populations of other species, and such
interactions can function as both density-dependent and density-independent population regulators. Species
interact with each other in three general ways: interspecific competition, predation, and mutualism.

Interspecific Competition
In 1934, two years after his experiments on logistic growth in one species of Paramecium, Georgy Gause studied
how two different species of Paramecium affected each other’s population growth. When the two species—P.
caudatum and P. aurelia—were grown in separate laboratory cultures, each species thrived and reached a
relatively high population density within ten days. (See Figure 35.)

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 FIGURE 35

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Interspecific competition among paramecia.

When the two species were grown together, however, only P. aurelia thrived while P. caudatum did not. After
ten days of growing together, the P. aurelia population was almost at the density it achieved when it was grown
alone. P. caudatum, however, was at a very low density, and over time its density decreased further. Gause’s
observations, combined with additional experiments with other organisms, both plants and animals, led to the
conclusion that two species cannot coexist on the same limiting resource, whether it is food, oxygen, space, or
any other parameter.
A limiting resource is the one on which a population depends and which exists in low, and usually variable,
quantities. As the limiting resource decreases, so does the size of the population which depends upon it. Species
can share food sources as long as those sources are not their limiting resource. If the food source, or any other
resource, limits the growth and reproduction of the species, it cannot be shared: one species will succeed, and
the other will go extinct, a principle known as competitive exclusion. Generally, when two species (A and B)
compete for resources or space, four outcomes are possible:
6 Species A always wins, and species B is excluded.
6 Species B always wins, and species A is excluded.
6 Either species A or species B wins, but the winner will depend upon chance events.
6 Species A and B coexist.

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Competition among species is not limited to animals. Plant ecologists have shown several instances of the
effects of one plant species on the distribution and abundance of other species. For example, wild oat (Avena
fatua) is an abundant weed in the Great Plains of North America that competes for space and resources with
agricultural crops such as flax, wheat, and barley. Wild oats outcompete crop plants because their seeds ripen
earlier, permitting oat seedlings to start growing before the other species. Only human intervention allows the
agricultural crops to exist.
Closely related to the competitive exclusion principle is the concept of niche. Because of its use in nonscientific
language, the term is often confused with habitat, the range of environments in which a species occurs. In ecology,
niche is commonly defined as the role of an organism within a community—what it does and how it lives. Many
ecologists rephrase the competitive exclusion principle by stating that two populations that fill the same niche, such
as by feeding on the same limited resource, cannot coexist. However, if these same two populations partition the
resources so that their niches do not overlap completely, they can coexist. (See Figure 36.)

FIGURE 36

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Different species of warblers minimize competition by using different parts of trees.
Source : “Resource partitioning among five species of warblers feeding in North American spruce trees.” Biology Forums Gallery.

Predation
Most people think of predation only as a carnivore, such as a wolf or a lion, killing and eating another animal. In
the broadest sense, predation is the use of one species as a resource by another species. This definition allows us
to include two other species interactions:

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 6 Herbivory, in which animals eat plants, seeds, or fruits
6 Parasitism, in which animals, plants, fungi, or bacteria feed on or use as a habitat another organism,
causing injury but usually not death
Predation is an important cause of natural selection and evolution and, in all its forms, is the process that
establishes how energy flows from one population to another within a community and an ecosystem. Moreover,
it is one of the key density-dependent population regulators.
Like competition between two species, predation will have density-dependent effects on both predator and prey,
creating long-term cycles with increases in the predator population causing decreases in the prey population,
leading to decreases in the predator population and a resulting increase in the predator population. (See Figure
37.) Environmental scientists have demonstrated such predator-prey cycles in simple laboratory systems.
However, most of these systems lead to the extinction of the prey, followed by extinction of the predator, unless
some other factor is added to balance the fact that the predator, if able, will eat all available prey.

FIGURE 37

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Predator-prey oscillations.

It is harder to find examples of predator-prey cycles in nature. It is also true that most natural predator-prey
systems involve more than one predator feeding on one prey. These other population interactions will weaken
the population cycles caused by any one predator-prey interaction. Identifying real-world predator-prey cycles
may require decades of data collection, which has rarely been done in ecological studies. Trying to determine
why natural predator and prey populations do, or do not, cycle in the manner predicted by models or laboratory
experiments is one of the current research focuses for ecologists interested in predation.
Though finding natural cycles in predator and prey populations is difficult, observing instances of density-
dependent control of prey populations by predators (as in the wolf/deer populations) is common. Such density-
dependent controls are regulated by two types of processes. Since the amount of available food is the most
important factor determining population growth, when prey density increases, so will predator density. This
is known as the numerical response. In the functional response, when prey populations decrease, individual
predators change their behavior and switch from low-density to high-density prey. For example, many bird
species will forage on whatever insect species is currently most abundant, which allows the low-density
populations a chance to recover. There are enough examples of numerical and functional responses in nature to
indicate that predation is a key cause of density-dependent growth.

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Mutualism
The third major type of population interaction is
mutualism. Mutualistic interactions are those that
increase the survival probability or reproduction of
both species. Though the term mutualism may lead
some people to imagine species helping each other in a
cooperative sense, ecologists see it more as “reciprocal
exploitation” since each species is using the other
to benefit itself. If the self-benefit to one population
becomes too low, the interaction will no longer be of
value and will no longer provide an adaptive advantage
to either species.
The most common type of mutualism involves
interaction between plants and animals. Probably the
single most important type of mutualistic interaction
is the relationship between plants and their pollinators,
such as birds and insects, since many plant species
depend upon pollination for their reproduction and
survival. Some pollinators pollinate many different A hummingbird drinking nectar from a flower while also
species of plants, and many plant species are pollinated serving as a pollinator is an example of mutualism.
by many different species of animals. In these cases, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=763031

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the mutualistic interaction between any particular
pair of plant and animal species is weak. In symbiotic
mutualism, by contrast, one animal species pollinates only one plant species, and the plant is pollinated only by
that one animal species. For example, there are about nine hundred species of fig trees, and almost every one is
pollinated by one particular species of fig wasp. These types of mutualistic interactions are most likely due to
resource partitioning in the evolutionary past.

ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITIES
So far, we have seen how the interaction between two populations affects the survival and growth of
each individual population. However, many of the most important ecological processes occur at a level of
organization higher than the population (or two interacting populations)—the ecological community. A
community is any assemblage of populations in a particular area or habitat. Community ecology studies
groups of populations living in the same area.

Food Webs
A food web summarizes the species that make up a community and the ways they are linked by various
predator-prey interactions to form pathways of energy flow. Food webs operate like food chains, but since they
include all the species in a feeding relationship, they are much more complex, as you can see in Figure 38, which
shows the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem food web. The photosynthesizers are primarily multicellular algae and
single-celled phytoplankton. Single-celled animals (zooplankton) feed on the phytoplankton, and herbivorous
fish eat the algae. Carnivorous fish prey upon zooplankton, insects, and herbivorous fish and are, in turn, eaten
by the secondary carnivores—tarpons (the largest fish species in the lake) and several bird species.
As we have seen, interspecific competition will limit the species found at any one trophic level. In addition,
individual- and population-level processes will limit both the presence and abundance of a particular species. In
most cases, the extinction of one species is not critical to the long-term health of a community. The remaining
species at that trophic level, or species from adjacent areas, can provide the necessary links for energy to flow.
However, the loss of one species in a community can lead to the damage or extinction of the entire community.

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 ecosystem. Source: h;ps://yellowstoneinfo.weebly.com/food-w

FIGURE 38

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Greater Yellowstone ecosystem foodweb highlighting only some of the many species in the ecosystem.
Source: https://yellowstoneinfo.weebly.com/food-web.html

Keystone Species
A keystone species is one that, because of its position in the food web or some other population interaction, plays
a role in the community that is far more important than its relative abundance would suggest (Figure 39). This
means that species that are the most abundant species in a community or the major energy producers, while vital
to the health of a community, are not considered keystone species. The keystone species concept was developed
to explain the sometimes unexpected effect of removing a relatively rare species from the food web.
A keystone species may be the key predator in a community. This was demonstrated in an experiment on a
Pacific Coast intertidal community that included the sea star Pisaster, which preyed on the mussel Mytilus and
several other herbivorous species (Figure 40). When scientists removed Pisaster from the community, there was
no longer any predator of Mytilus, so its population increased and out-competed all the other remaining species.
Pisaster had been a key predator that kept the other populations in balance. It was the keystone species, whose
loss resulted in the loss of eight other species.
Keystone species can be food sources that are present at a time of low food availability or provide essential
nutrients. For example, figs, nectar, and a few fruits make up less than 1 percent of the plant diversity in the
tropical forests of Central and South America. In most years, there is a three-month period in which the more
abundant plant species produce less energy than what is required by the community’s herbivores. During this

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 Figure 27. Importance of Keystone species is much greater than their abundance in an ecosystem.
Source: Richard B. Primack, A Primer of Conserva3on Biology 4th Edi3on, Sinauer Associates (2008)
FIGURE 39

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The importance of keystone species is much greater than their abundance in an ecosystem.
Source: Richard B. Primack, A Primer of Conservation Biology 4th Edition, Sinauer Associates (2008)

FIGURE 40

Sea stars are an example of a keystone species.

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period, the herbivores that don’t migrate rely on the
less abundant figs and nectar, which are the keystone
species in this community.
Three types of species are keystone species not because
of their roles in a food web, but by virtue of other
mutualistic interactions: irreplaceable pollinators,
habitat modifiers, and species whose individual
biological processes play an important community
function. Pollinators that are very abundant or
whose function can be taken over by other species
don’t qualify as keystone species. However, in some
communities, one relatively rare species of pollinator is
not replaceable and is a keystone species. For example, The North American beaver functions as a keystone species
on many South Pacific islands, Old World fruit bats within a community by creating or maintaining habitat for
(flying foxes) are the only pollinator for hundreds of other species.
tropical plant species. Flying foxes have been hunted to
near extinction, leading to the possible loss of entire island communities.
Species can also function as a keystone species within a community by creating or maintaining habitat for other
species. The North American beaver is a prime example of this type of “ecosystem engineer.” Although they
make up only a small percentage of the total biomass of the North American forest, beavers transform streams

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into ponds, creating a new habitat for pond-adapted plant and animal species.
The final type of keystone species is species whose importance is based on their mutualistic interactions with
other species. This type is exemplified by the mycorrhizal fungi on and in the roots of many tree species.
Increasing the tree’s ability to extract nutrients from the soil, mycorrhizae play a critical role in the growth of
tree species, which in turn provide most of the resources and niches for other members of a forest community.
In some cases, the introduction of a new species can have an effect on a community similar to the loss of a
keystone species. The damage from such exotic species can be great, particularly if a keystone species is driven
to extinction. Both the loss of a keystone species and the introduction of an exotic species show how dependent a
community is on the health of its component species.

Succession
Even if keystone species are not lost and exotic species are not introduced, communities will not stay the same
forever. The change of a community over time is just as natural as the evolution of a species. One of the major
changes that occurs in virtually every community is succession, the predictable replacement of certain species
by others over a number of years.
Ecologists have described two types of succession, which differ on the basis of the starting condition of the
land. Since the terminology can be somewhat confusing, it is important keep in mind that the terms primary
and secondary succession refer not to the relation of these two processes in time but to whether the process is
beginning in a place where a biological community has not or has previously existed. Late successional species,
on the other hand, do follow early successional species in time, in either primary or secondary succession.
Primary succession is the series of replacements that occur, on land or in water, after an event such as glacial
scouring or a volcanic eruption creates a new surface devoid of life. In primary succession, bare rock is inhabited
by plant species that are best suited to grow without soil. These first early successional species are usually
lichens, mosses, and similar small plants. As these plants grow, they break up rocks into soil particles, and as
the plants die and contribute organic matter to the soil, other, more advanced plants begin to colonize the site.
The later successional species may be highly adapted to exploiting open, sunny areas without demanding large

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supplies of nutrients, which are lacking in newly
formed soil. In each phase of succession, certain
species are most competitive for resources. After some
period of time, other species outcompete the established
species, and succession proceeds. In some cases, the
number of species increases as succession proceeds; in
others, a late successional community will have fewer
species than an early successional community.
Secondary succession is succession that occurs on
an area of land that is devoid of vegetation but hasn’t
experienced complete destruction of the soil surface.
Secondary succession occurs after events such as forest Primary succession is the series of replacements that occur,
fires, hurricanes, and land clearing by humans. Figure 41 on land or in water, after an event such as glacial scouring or
shows an example of secondary succession in a forest. a volcanic eruption creates a new surface devoid of life.
By Nevilley at the English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.
In forests, late stages of succession were once called wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1271226
climax forest to signify that the last, or climax, stage of
succession had been reached. It is now recognized that because natural disturbances such as fire, wind, and insect
defoliations are a regular part of most forests, a late-successional stage is always a temporary, rather than a final
phenomenon, so the term climax is no longer used.

FIGURE 41

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Forest succession.

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ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: A Simple Ecosystem—
Organ Cave
The deciduous forest of the southern Appalachia of West Virginia is a complex ecological system made up
of a web of many producers (plants), consumers (herbivores and carnivores), and decomposers (bacteria
and scavengers) interacting with the abiotic factors of water flow, landscape, and climate. Hidden just meters
below this forest system is another ecological system containing only three or four species interacting with
each other and with only a few key environmental variables: the cave stream ecosystem of Organ Cave.
As you enter Organ Cave, the largest cave in West Virginia, the first thing you might see is sleeping bats,
resting up for their nighttime flight outside the cave in search of food. However, bats are only part-time
residents of the cave; Organ Cave’s full-time residents, and the main components of this ecological system,
are small (< 1 cm) distant relatives of shrimp, and one species of crayfish, all of which live in the narrow
streams that cut through the numerous cave passages. Their food consists of plant and animal tissue washed
in from the surface and dead cave animals; the crayfish also prey on the isopods and amphipods.
Cave populations are good examples of how evolutionary processes affect the distribution of species on
Earth (which we will deal with later in this section). Three of the Organ Cave species were probably present
during the last ice age in both cave and surface streams. However, as the climate warmed, the surface waters
became too warm for these species during the summer, and they became isolated in the consistently cold
waters of the caves. Therefore, for these three species, what was once a wide-ranging distribution pattern

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became, due to changes in the abiotic environment, a patchy distribution of isolated populations.
Ecological processes, as well as evolutionary history, affect the distribution and abundance of species on
Earth. These processes occur at several levels of biological organization, as we can see in Organ Cave.
First, is the need of individual isopods and amphipods to be able to tolerate the environmental conditions of
low food resources, consistently low water temperatures, and seasonal floods. Individuals who cannot find
enough food or those whose body functions require more food or warmer temperatures, will not survive in
the cave conditions.

FIGURE 42
Inflow Outflow

Isopods/Amphipods Crayfish prey upon

compete for energy Isopods/Amphipods (use
energy for growth of
individuals and
population)

Energy
Energy (food) (Energy from
Isopods/Amphipods that
is not used by Crayfish
(Energy not captured
by Isopods/Amphipods)
Energy used to grow
larger individuals
& populations

Water Water
Energy lost as heat

Inflows and outflows of the cave system.

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 The survival of each species in Organ Cave also
requires that the population remain abundant enough
to be able to survive the inevitable environmental
fluctuations, such as floods, that can drive small
populations to extinction. The isopod, amphipod,
and crayfish populations of Organ Cave do not
live in isolation but interact in several ways, such
as competing for proper sized rocks to which they
can adhere to avoid being washed downstream and
which provide traps for food material. Finally, this
community of species and the energy and mineral
nutrients from the abiotic environment make up the
cave ecosystem.
Organ Cave is the largest cave in West Virginia.
The Organ Cave ecosystem can be thought of as a
relatively simple input-output system of water flow
bringing in energy and nutrients, species competition regulating the use of the energy, and water flow taking
out any unused energy.

PRODUCTIVITY

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If you have ever had the chance to visit the Serengeti
Plains in East Africa, or seen them on a television
documentary, you know that there are literally millions
of herbivores (plant-eating animals) such as zebra
and wildebeest but many fewer carnivores such as
lions. Large, fierce animals are rare in nature because
many energy conversions are required to feed them.
Therefore, more organic matter and energy are stored
within all the herbivores than within all the carnivores.
The laws of thermodynamics tell us why: herbivores
get their energy from green plants, which get their
energy from the Sun. Carnivores get all their energy There are many fewer carnivores, such as lions, than
from herbivores, so there could never be more energy herbivores (plant-eating animals), such as zebra and
within carnivores than within the herbivores on wildebeest. Large, fierce animals are rare in nature because
many energy conversions are required to feed them.
which they feed (First Law). Furthermore, the transfer
Photo by Frank Metcalf
of energy from herbivores to carnivores is always
going to be less than 100 percent (Second Law of
Thermodynamics), so there will always be less energy contained within carnivores. This pattern is true in any
natural system; let’s see how this pattern drives one of the most critical variables of an ecosystem: productivity.

Primary Productivity
The Sun is the primary source of energy on Earth and the major energy input to a grassland system. Green
vegetation (blades of grass) is the primary producer—it converts energy from the Sun, carbon dioxide, and
water to grass, leaves, and wood. This process, known as photosynthesis, can be represented by the following
chemical equation:
CO2 + H2O + energy from the Sun → CH2O + O2
The generic carbohydrate (CH2O) makes up the grass and the roots below the blades of grass, which are

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collectively called biomass, the term biologists use to describe the weight (mass) of biological material. The
amount of CH2O produced in a given area over a given time yields the rate at which biomass is produced, or the
primary productivity of a biological system. However, this does not give us an accurate picture of available
energy in the system because primary producers use some of the energy they produce.
To understand energy use throughout an environmental system, we have to consider a number of other concepts.
The total amount of solar energy converted to chemical energy by photosynthesis over a given time is known as
the gross primary productivity (GPP) of a plant or environmental system. To fuel their own metabolism and
growth, all biological organisms carry out respiration, which is the opposite of photosynthesis: cells convert
carbohydrates and oxygen to energy and carbon dioxide and water. This uses some energy although not as much
as the total amount the plant produces.
CH2O + O2 → CO2 + H2O + energy (heat)
Because of the energy expended during respiration, we must subtract the energy consumed by primary producers
from the GPP to determine the net primary productivity (NPP) of the plant or system. In other words, NPP is
the difference between GPP and respiration, which can be written as a formula:
NPP = GPP – respiration
NPP, expressed as the amount of biomass or energy produced per square meter per year, is the most common
term used to describe the productivity of a biological system.

Energy Transfer Efficiency

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The energy efficiency for a particular ecological system is determined by the ratio of the NPP (the energy output,
which is equivalent to the work desired) to the incoming solar radiation (the total input of energy into the system).
Most primary producers are approximately 1 percent energy efficient. This means that in an open field of grass,
for example, 1 percent of the solar radiation that reaches the grass is converted to biomass. For the purposes of this
example, let’s assume that we have determined that the biomass of the grass is 1,000 g/m2, which represents a given
quantity of energy. Let’s also assume that only one species of grasshopper eats the grasses produced in the field and
that the grasshoppers eat only grass. What biomass of grasshoppers could possibly exist in this field of grass?
The First Law of Thermodynamics mandates that there could never be more than 1,000 g/m2 of grasshoppers (the
consumer) because all the biomass from grass (the energy source for the grasshoppers) could not be converted at
a ratio greater than 1.0. The Second Law of Thermodynamics mandates that, in fact, there will be less than 1,000
g/m2 of grasshoppers because of losses during energy conversion. Furthermore, the grass uses some of its energy
in respiration to support itself, and some portions of the grass may not be available or digestible by grasshoppers,
so there will actually be much less than 1,000 g/m2 of grasshoppers.
In fact, in temperate grasslands, there may be roughly 100 g/m2 of primary consumers, organisms like
grasshoppers that directly eat the primary producers (Figure 43). This efficiency of transfer of energy or biomass
from one level of a system to another is called transfer efficiency. Our example system has a 10 percent efficiency;
some systems may have efficiencies as low as 5 percent or as high as 20 percent, but 10 percent is an average value.
Each level of such a feeding system is called a trophic level, from the Greek word for nourishment, trophe.
Let’s look more closely at our grassland system and assume that one species of songbird eats only grasshoppers,
and this species of songbird is the only organism in the system that feeds on grasshoppers. Here again, the First
and Second Laws tell us that the biomass of these songbirds (the consumer) will be somewhat less than that of
the grasshoppers (the source of energy). As before, respiration and indigestible parts of the grasshoppers will
prevent all of the grasshoppers from being available for conversion to the next level of organisms. Assuming
that energy content per gram is the same for grasshoppers and songbirds, and using a transfer efficiency of 10
percent, we can calculate that there may be roughly 10 g/m2 of songbirds in this field. These birds are called
secondary consumers because they feed on the first-level, or primary, consumers.

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 FIGURE 43

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A grassland food chain.
Source: Sciencefacts.net

Finally, if a predator such as one species of hawk eats only the songbirds, and if the hawks have a transfer efficiency
of 10 perrcent, there might be 1 g/m2 of hawk. In this scenario, hawks are tertiary consumers, or the third level of
consumers. As you can see, there are not going to be very many hawks relative to blades of grass, grasshoppers, or
songbirds. Not only is there less energy available at the highest level of transfer, but since a hawk is a larger animal,
it will require more biomass to make up one individual than would a blade of grass, a grasshopper, or a songbird.
Ecological pyramids can also be used to show the amount of energy that transfers from one level to the next
(Figure 44). We have said that only about 1 percent of the energy of the Sun is transferred to the primary
producer. Most consumers obtain roughly 10 percent of the energy in the trophic level below.
One other level exists that feeds off of the waste products of the producers and consumers. This level is occupied
by detritivores, organisms that feed on dead organic matter. Bacteria, fungi (including mushrooms), dung
beetles, and earthworms are all detritivores.

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 FIGURE 44

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Energy pyramids highlight the decrease in biomass and loss in energy as we move up from one trophic level to the next.
Source: Sciencefacts.net

The feeding relationships in the Serengeti Plain of Africa are much more complex than our example, but the
same reasoning applies. This is why big, fierce predators such as lions (secondary consumers) are rare relative to
blades of grass (primary producers) or zebras (primary consumers). This example also gives you possible insight
as to why a fiercer, larger predator has never evolved to eat lions. Such higher-level predators would have to be
even less densely populated than lions, and it would probably be too difficult for a species to survive given the
relatively low density of its prey (lions).

MAJOR ASPECTS OF ECOSYSTEMS

Ecosystem ecology studies the combination of biotic and abiotic elements in a particular location. Gene Likens,
co-founder of the Hubbard Brook ecosystem research project in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, has
defined an ecosystem as “a spatially explicit unit of the Earth that includes all of the organisms, along with all
components of the abiotic environment within its boundaries.” This definition highlights the three important
aspects of an ecosystem:
6 The ecosystem’s boundary—where does one ecosystem end and another begin?
6 The biotic component—the individuals, populations, and communities that live within the ecosystem

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 6 The abiotic (physical and chemical) component,
including temperature, water, salinity, soil
structure, and mineral nutrients.
The ecosystem is the first level in the hierarchy of
biodiversity that is self-contained. In contrast to
individuals, populations, and communities, which
depend upon other organisms for food and the
physical environment for optimal conditions and
habitats in which to live, an ecosystem contains all
the living and nonliving parts required for long-term
existence. However, an ecosystem is not just the
components within it and the boundary around it. It
is also the processes occurring within it. One of the
major processes is the flow of energy from the Sun Large-scale forest ecosystem research is being conducted at
through the abiotic and biotic components. Cycling of Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire.
materials is also central. So many different materials
cycle through an ecosystem—water, carbon, nitrogen,
and phosphorus, to name only a few—and they are all so important to the global environment as well as to any
individual ecosystem. Here, we will focus on how biotic and abiotic changes create a diversity of ecosystems, as
well as how changes at the ecosystem level produce variation in lower levels of biodiversity.

Ecosystem Boundaries

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Organ Cave, which we discussed earlier, is an example of a well-defined system that contains identifiable biotic
components—the cave animals and their resources—and abiotic components—water flow, temperature, and
salinity. Energy enters the system mostly from water flow into the cave, and the few species exchange this energy
through a food web. The cave system is relatively easy to study because the boundary of the system is relatively
easy to see; it is everything from the point the stream enters the cave to the spring where it exits. Knowing the
boundary of an ecosystem makes it easier to identify the biotic and abiotic components that make up the system.
Many aquatic ecosystems such as lakes, ponds, and streams are relatively easy to identify in nature because
the ecosystem’s boundary corresponds to the boundary between land and water. In most cases, however,
determining where one ecosystem stops and another begins can be difficult. Environmental scientists usually
estimate the boundary of terrestrial ecosystems by the range of the populations that make up the biological
community or by particular ecological processes. Often the boundary of an “ecosystem,” such as a national park
or reserve, is set according to administrative rather than scientific criteria.

The Biotic Components of Ecosystems

The types of species within an ecosystem will influence how energy flows through the system. The conversion
of energy from producers to the different levels of consumers can be modeled as a pyramid in which the amount
of energy or biomass at each level of the ecosystem is represented by the relative size of that part of the pyramid.
Energy pyramids will look relatively constant from ecosystem to ecosystem; most energy is always found at the
producer level and decreases as we move up the pyramid. Biomass pyramids, however, vary from ecosystem to
ecosystem depending upon the characteristics of the populations making up the various trophic levels, as well as
the physical and chemical structure of the ecosystem itself.

The Impact of Ecosystem Change on Its Biotic Components

All ecosystem-level processes are subject to change. Certain kinds of ecosystem-level changes can be characterized
as a disturbance, a process in which physical, chemical, and some biological agents cause the relatively rapid
injury or death of organisms and the damage or collapse of the biotic component of the ecosystem. Some natural
disturbances are hurricanes, ice storms, and natural forest fires; anthropogenic disturbances include clearcutting of

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forests, agriculture, and air pollution. The slow invasion
of a lake by an introduced species is not usually called
a disturbance, but is rather considered a perturbation, a
much broader term that refers to any kind of change to
the normal or equilibrium value in a system. The gradual
increase in temperature by approximately 1oC that has
occurred on Earth in the last one hundred years is a
perturbation. A 2oC increase within one decade would
most likely be characterized as a disturbance.
Resilience is the rate at which an ecosystem returns
to its original state after some sort of disturbance
causes a change. A highly resilient ecosystem would
return to its original state rapidly; a less resilient The Chesapeake Bay is an example of a current ecosystem
system more slowly. For example, if a severe drought restoration project.
were to eliminate half the species in a highly resilient
ecosystem, all the species would return by the following year. A less resilient ecosystem might not return to pre-
drought conditions for many years, if ever.
Not only is some level of disturbance natural, it may be necessary for the maintenance and creation of species-
level biodiversity. According to the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, in ecosystems that do not change,
competitive exclusion will eventually lead to the domination of one species. On the other hand, if there is too

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much disturbance, most species will go extinct unless their population growth is high enough to counter the
density-independent effects of major disturbances. When disturbances occur at an intermediate frequency,
population sizes of major competitors never reach a level at which they can dominate an ecosystem, and
population sizes of other species are never driven too close to zero.
Unfortunately, most human-caused disturbances—such as major building developments, clearcutting, or
watershed draining—are so great that they lead not only to the local extinction of species, but to the elimination
of entire communities and ecosystems. Restoration ecology is a new discipline that attempts to repair or even
“regrow” natural ecosystems. Mono Lake and the Florida Everglades, discussed in Section I, as well as the
Chesapeake Bay7 are three examples of current ecosystem restoration projects.

BIOMES
The Global Climate and Biomes
Biomes are major regions of differing vegetation and wildlife types. Global patterns of temperature and moisture
are the two most important factors controlling the formation and distribution of biomes. Changes in these
factors cause variations in the amount of energy available to the region and thus influence the variation in the
biotic components. Geographic variation in temperature and moisture are caused by global patterns of air and
water circulation. The Sun, which is the principal source of energy for communities and their populations, also
provides the energy that propels air and water circulation. Global variation in the amount of the Sun’s energy
hitting different parts of the Earth, termed solar energy flux, is what causes both global atmospheric circulation
and global oceanic circulation.
All parts of the Earth receive the same amount of total yearly sunlight—an average of twelve hours per day.
However, the amount of solar energy that this sunlight puts into a particular part of the Earth will depend upon
the angle at which the light reaches Earth. When the Sun is low in the sky, its light (and energy) passes through
more atmosphere and is diffused over a larger surface area than when it is shining directly down. Therefore, even
though the arctic region receives the same amount of total light over the year as the equator, the amount of total
solar energy entering tropical rainforests is much greater than in the arctic tundra. This large-scale pattern of
global solar energy flux will determine how much energy is available for various regions.

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Patterns of global atmospheric circulation (see Figure 45) also create much of the large-scale diversity on Earth.
As air is heated by the Sun, it rises, and the more it is heated, the higher it rises. Because the equator receives the
most solar energy, its air rises the highest. As this air rises, air from the north and south moves into the equator
region to replace it. The air that had risen at the equator descends at ~30° north and south latitude, replacing the
air that moved to the equator. This cycle is known as the Hadley cell. The air rising over the equator cools as
it ascends, and the water vapor condenses, which is the main reason that equatorial ecosystems tend to be very
rainy. The descending air has lost its moisture and is dry, which is why most desert ecosystems are found at 30°
from the equator.

FIGURE 45

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Global air circulation. Major east-west circulations are due to the Earth’s rotation, while north-south circulation is due to the
heating and cooling of the air.
Source: UCAR Center for Science Education

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While the heating and cooling of the air produces north-south air circulation patterns, it is the spinning of Earth
that creates the major west-east circulation patterns. At any given latitude, the air mass will move at the same speed
that the Earth does at that latitude. However, as the air mass moves away from the equator, its direction is affected
by the decreasing velocity of the Earth as we move away from the equator (like a spinning top, the Earth’s velocity
decreases with its circumference). In the Northern Hemisphere, air masses tend to move toward the right, and in
the Southern Hemisphere, they tend to move toward the left. This deflection is called the Coriolis effect. Because
the earth is tilted on its axis, there is a seasonal change in the latitude where the most solar energy falls, so the point
where air will rise the highest also shifts with the season. The resulting seasonal variations in the patterns of warm
and cold air movement across the globe are a major influence on the formation of different biomes.
Finally, global air circulation patterns drive the major global oceanic circulation patterns. (Figure 46) Winds
blowing toward the equator from the northeast and southeast will cause water to move toward the equator and
then west until it reaches a land mass, where it will divide into north- and south-flowing water masses. The
movement of water along land masses, from the equator toward the poles, is a major source of heat for northern
latitudes and explains why places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Iceland are not nearly as cold as their extreme
latitudes would suggest.

FIGURE 46

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Global ocean currents.
Source: Earth and Space Science

This effect creates a general clockwise circulation pattern in the Northern Hemisphere and a counter-clockwise
pattern in the Southern Hemisphere. However, both general patterns are modified by the location of land masses,
which act to split and redirect flow. Like wind, ocean currents will change patterns of available heat through the
patterns of movement of cold and warm waters. In addition, water tends to heat up more slowly in summer and
cool off more slowly in winter than land, helping to moderate the temperature changes of adjacent land masses.

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Biomes and Global Biodiversity
Environmental scientists have correlated the presence
and extent of ten major types of terrestrial biomes with
a region’s mean annual temperature and mean annual
precipitation (Figures 47 and 48).

A hydrothermal vent on the ocean floor.

FIGURE 47

400

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Tropical
Annual precipitation (cm)

rainforest
300

t
fores
rain
ra te
m pe
Te
200
Tropical
seasonal
Temperate
forest/
seasonal forest
savanna

100 Boreal
forest Woodland/
shrubland

a nd/ Subtropical
dr te grassla
Tu
n Tempera ert desert
cold des

-10 0 10 20 30
Average annual temperature (°C)
Average annual precipitation and temperature correlated with different biomes.
Source : OpenOregon Educational Resources

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FIGURE 48

Tropical rainforest8 (evergreen)

The wettest and warmest biome is the tropical rainforest, such as those
in the Amazon and in western and central Africa.

Key elements:
High plant and animal diversity
Ecosystem productivity is high, but much of the ecosystem’s energy
and nutrients are tied up in the vegetation, and the soils are often
extremely poor in mineral nutrients.

Tropical dry (seasonal) forest9

Some forests in the tropics experience a pronounced dry season.

Key elements:
Deciduous trees, which drop their leaves and flower during the dry
season, are common.
Productivity and diversity of both plant and animal species per meter

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are less than in tropical rainforests.

Temperate rainforest10
Tall coniferous trees are the dominant form in temperate zone
rainforests such as the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Key elements:
Mild winters, heavy rain, and frequent fog are the main factors creating
optimal conditions for trees that are frequently 60−70 meters high.
Productivity is roughly half that found in tropical rainforests. Soils tend
to be rich in organic matter.

Temperate broadleaf forest11

These forests occur in regions of moderate rainfall and high seasonal
temperature variation and include deciduous-dominated forests in the
eastern U.S., southern Canada, Europe, and eastern Asia.

Key elements:
Productivity is similar to that of temperate rainforests.
Because most plants shed their leaves, a thick leaf litter will decompose
into a rich soil.
Both plant and animal diversity are much lower than in the tropics.

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Boreal coniferous forest12
As temperature decreases, the dominant deciduous vegetation in areas
of moderate to high rainfall are forests almost exclusively of conifers,
primarily spruces and firs that are 10−20 meters high.

Key elements:
Several large mammal species, such as moose, bear, wolf, and Siberian
tiger are found in these forests.
Productivity is roughly one-third that of tropical rainforests, with low
plant species diversity.
Yearly weather variation results in dramatic yearly variation in seed
production, which causes dramatic fluctuations in bird and other animal
populations.
Low temperatures and chemicals in foliage result in low leaf litter
decomposition and relatively poor soils.

Temperate grassland13
When precipitation decreases to the point that there is not enough water
to support dense forests, vegetation shifts to grasslands.

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Key elements:
Grasslands are often called prairies in the U.S. and steppes in central
Asia.
Productivity is usually about one-third of that found in tropical
rainforests.
Organic matter accumulates in this biome because decomposition of
dead vegetation is limited by low precipitation rates, resulting in rich
agricultural land.

Tropical Scrub Forest and Savanna14

Savanna is most common in dry tropical regions of Africa, where rainfall
ranges from 10−150 cm/year and is seasonal; during the driest three to
four months of the year, there may be less than 5 cm per month.

Key elements:
Portions of this biome contain scrub vegetation, which is small and
stunted due to limited nutrients and a short growing season.
Migrating herds of herbivores, such as wildebeests, follow the rain and
move across this biome.
Fire and grazing are responsible for generating and maintaining the
savanna biome.
Productivity and species diversity per square meter are significantly
less than in tropical rainforests.

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Mediterranean15
Found in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, as well as
California (where it is known as chaparral), this biome comprises
dry areas that receive most of their rain in the winter, before the
temperatures rise enough to permit plant growth.

Key elements:
Vegetation is made up mostly of dense, woody shrubs and small trees.
Leaves tend to be small, leathery, and waxy—adaptations that help
retain water.
Fires are frequent, and many trees and shrubs have evolved fire-
resistant bark to protect themselves.
Several bird species and small mammals such as jackrabbits, kangaroo
rats, and chipmunks can be found, along with mule deer and several
species of lizards.

Desert16
Usually defined as areas receiving less than 25 cm of precipitation per
year, desert biomes cover a fairly broad temperature and latitude range.

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Key elements:
Although commonly considered hot, there are cold deserts in places
such as Mongolia and Montana.
Because of its low precipitation, Antarctica is classified as a desert.
Most deserts are characterized by sandy or rocky soil.
Sparsely spaced shrubs and grasses are common.
Desert productivity ranges from 0 to roughly 5 percent of that found in
tropical rainforests.
Many desert species have evolved adaptations to the lack of water.

Tundra17
Tundra occurs in the arctic region beyond the tree line, the upper limit
of tree growth at high latitude or elevation.

Key elements:
Vegetation consists primarily of grasses and grass-like sedges, lichens,
and dwarf forms of trees.
The soil (permafrost) is frozen all year round, though it thaws to a
depth of 0.5−1 meters during the brief summer growing season.
Mean productivity in the tundra regions is low, normally between 5
percent and 10 percent of what is found in tropical rainforests.
Rodent species, such as lemmings, can be abundant, but their
populations undergo dramatic fluctuations correlated with variation in
resources.
Though bird populations can be abundant in summer, most species will
migrate south during the long winters.
Ten Terrestrial Biomes

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Without the variety of large plants used to characterize terrestrial biomes, aquatic regions have not been
subdivided into as many different types and are not traditionally known as biomes. However, a few
distinguishable types can be identified in the two major aquatic systems—freshwater and marine.
Freshwater systems can be divided into flowing (rivers and streams) and standing (ponds and lakes) waters with a
relatively low salt concentration. Plants and animals that live on or near the bottom of rivers and streams are known
as the benthic community. Lakes and ponds contain both a benthic community and an open-water community
dominated by the major energy producer, phytoplankton—single-celled algae living in areas of the lake or pond
with sufficient light for photosynthesis. Phytoplankton are fed upon by the primary consumer, zooplankton, which
are small animals, mostly crustaceans. Lake and pond ecosystems are influenced by thermoclines, abrupt changes
in the temperature of water with depth that prevents the mixing of the layers of water.
The ocean covers about 71 percent of the Earth, making it larger than all terrestrial biomes combined. The
uneven distribution of light and nutrients, coupled with the variation in depth, currents, and shoreline and bottom
characteristics, results in many different types of communities and sub-ecosystems. Below 100−200 meters,
there is not enough light for photosynthesis, so most deep-water organisms must migrate toward the surface for
food or wait for material to descend to them—with an exception being the volcanic vent communities found on
the ocean bottom.
A major limiting factor of marine ecosystems is that while light near the surface is sufficient for photosynthesis,
the nutrient content of these waters can be quite low. Therefore, species abundance and diversity near the surface
is relatively low. In general, the peak species diversity in oceans occurs at depths of about 2,000−3,000 meters,
an area of relative stability where descending food material tends to fall. Major exceptions to this general rule are

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areas in which there are major upwellings (some coastal and open ocean areas where winds blowing across the
ocean surface will push some water away and allow nutrient-rich water below to rise to the surface) or coastal
waters where nutrients wash in from the land. Most of the world’s major fisheries are found in waters near the
surface that are mixed with nutrient-rich waters, permitting high levels of productivity and supporting vast
species abundance and diversity.
The final types of distinct regions are wetlands, which are transitional areas between the strictly terrestrial and
aquatic. Salt marshes, bogs, swamps, and intertidal areas are examples of wetlands. There are three broad types
of wetlands: a marine wetland (the intertidal region); an estuarine wetland, which is where salt and fresh water
mix at the mouths of rivers, and freshwater wetlands, which make up 91 percent of all wetlands in the continental
United States. Freshwater wetlands include bogs, marshes, swamps, and peatlands and differ from open waters
(lakes, ponds, and rivers) by having water at or near the soil surface for most of the year, but rarely more than
two meters deep. Some wetlands, like salt marshes, are highly productive and are important nesting and feeding
sites for many animal species, including migratory birds.

THE CYCLE OF ELEMENTS WITHIN THE BIOSPHERE

The Elements on Earth
Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are often called the “building blocks of life” because they are the most abundant
elements in plants and animals and are important in basic structures such as cell walls and membranes. They are
obtained directly from air and water or recycled from other plants and animals. Six other essential elements—
nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur—are considered macronutrients because
they are required in relatively large amounts, usually greater than 0.1 percent of an organism’s dry weight. The
remaining seven plant-essential elements—manganese, iron, copper, zinc, chloride, molybdenum, and boron—
are required in very small quantities and so are called micronutrients. While the atmosphere and rocks are the
original sources of the nutrient elements, the soil is an important intermediate source for most plants.

Biogeochemical Cycles
Elements continually cycle within the biosphere and between the biosphere, soils, and water as plants and animals
grow, die, and decompose. Some of these cycles, known collectively as biogeochemical cycles, have been altered by

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human activities that release excess amounts of an element into the atmosphere, soil, or water. These changes can
have significant effects on ecosystems, landscapes, and the global system. For example, the release of nitrogen and
phosphorus from agricultural fertilizers can result in the over-fertilization of natural ecosystems.
Much attention has been devoted to understanding nutrient cycles for different ecosystems to learn what limits plant
growth in a particular landscape or to understand how the anthropogenic addition of certain elements alters natural
processes. In this section, we will focus on the cycles of carbon and nitrogen because they are most important to
soil fertility and plant productivity; however, cycles for other nutrients, such as phosphorus, potassium, magnesium,
calcium, and sulfur, are also important, and their cycles are similar to those of carbon and nitrogen.
One of the main agents responsible for dissolving and transporting the chemical elements necessary for living
organisms is water. Before we can understand how individual elements cycle, we need the framework of the
hydrologic cycle, the movement of water through the atmosphere and over the surface of the Earth.

The Hydrologic Cycle

The hydrologic cycle is the driver of biogeochemical cycling on Earth. Water in the atmosphere falls to Earth as
rain or snow. When water comes in contact with vegetation or soil, three things may happen to it:
6 It may return to the atmosphere by evaporation, or—after being taken up by plant roots—it may return
to the atmosphere through transpiration, the loss of water from the stomates (openings) in leaves during
photosynthesis. The combination of evaporation and transpiration is called evapotranspiration.
6 It may infiltrate, or penetrate, the soil and enter the groundwater system, the water that fills the spaces in
rocks and sediments below the soil.

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6 It may move across the land surface in rivers and streams or as runoff, rainfall draining from the land
into waterbodies or sinking into the soil.
Eventually, streams and groundwater reach the ocean, which is the ultimate reservoir of water on Earth. Water

FIGURE 49

The water cycle.

Source: NOAA

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in the ocean evaporates and forms clouds, which can
be released as precipitation over the oceans or blown
over land, and then the cycle will begin again (Figure
49). Because evaporation from the oceans is crucial to
the hydrologic cycle, and energy from the Sun drives
evaporation, solar energy is the main energy source for
the hydrologic cycle.
We can represent the hydrologic cycle with a simple
equation:
PRECIP = ET + I + RO
Here, PRECIP = precipitation, ET = evapotranspiration,
I = infiltration, and RO = runoff. These four terms are
the major components of the hydrologic cycle. With slash-and-burn agriculture, forests are destroyed to
produce short-term agricultural fields.
As a way of seeing how the hydrologic cycle moves
By mattmangum - Slash and Burn, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.
water on the Earth and the time it takes for this org/w/index.php?curid=33978429
movement to occur, we can look at the cycle in terms
of the systems analysis introduced in Section I. The
three major pools of water on Earth are the oceans, terrestrial water (water on land or in organisms), and the
atmosphere. The oceans are the largest pool of water on Earth, and the greatest fluxes of water occur between the

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oceans and the atmosphere.
Recall from Section I that mean residence time (MRT) is the average amount of time a quantity of a variable
stays in a given pool. Using approximations for the size of the three pools and flux rates into each pool, the MRT
estimates for the three pools are:
MRT (oceans) = 2,650 years
MRT (terrestrial water) = 403 years
MRT (atmosphere) = 8 days
The difference in these MRTs tells us that water in the atmosphere cycles rapidly in comparison to water in the
terrestrial pool or oceans. This is important when we study the environment because it means that chemical
compounds in the atmosphere, either anthropogenic or natural, are flushed out fairly quickly while compounds
remain in the biosphere and oceans much longer.

The Carbon Cycle

Four processes run the carbon cycle—photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition, and combustion. (Figure 50)
As you have already learned, green plants on land and phytoplankton in the oceans have the ability to convert
solar energy into chemical energy that is stored as sugars and other food. To do this, they remove carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere (by terrestrial plants) and the ocean (by phytoplankton) and incorporate it into plant
material such as leaves, roots, and shoots. This process is called carbon fixation.
Plant carbon is returned to the atmosphere when plants respire at night, and when animals and microorganisms,
which ultimately derive their nourishment from plants, respire. When organisms die, the carbon that was part of
the live biomass pool becomes part of the dead biomass pool and decomposes in the soil or ocean, allowing its
carbon and other elements to continue the cycle. A very small fraction of organic matter present in the biosphere
gets buried in sediments before it can decompose and can be fossilized and eventually may turn into coal, oil,
and natural gas. Hence, these compounds are called fossil fuels.
Combustion, as occurs in a forest fire or the burning of fossil fuels, releases carbon back into the environment.

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 FIGURE 50

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The carbon cycle.
Source: NOAA

Though respiration and decomposition are biotic processes while combustion is an abiotic process, respiration,
decomposition, and combustion are chemically identical processes that break down biomass (abbreviated as
generic carbohydrate):
CH2O + O2 → CO2 + H 2O + energy
(carbohydrate) (oxygen) (carbon dioxide) (water) (heat)
The greatest amount of carbon on Earth is tied up in carbonate rock like limestone and organic matter in
sedimentary rocks such as shale, but this abiotic pool does not cycle very rapidly. There is also a very large
pool of carbon stored in the oceans, but it shows only a very small annual net gain. Despite this slow exchange,
the chemistry of the oceans is starting to change, and the oceans are becoming more acidic as a result of the
extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The movement of carbon between the atmospheric and biospheric pools
is the most important path in the carbon cycle because it cycles rapidly. In the absence of human disturbance,
the carbon exchange between land plants and soils is in equilibrium with the atmosphere; there is no net flux
of carbon between these pools. In other words, in the absence of human activity, the global carbon cycle is
approximately in a steady state.

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In fact, human activities have a major influence on the amount of carbon cycling at both the ecosystem and
global levels. The best known and most significant human alteration of the carbon cycle is the burning of fossil
fuels. Every time a person consumes coal, natural gas (methane), oil, gasoline, or other products derived from
petroleum, fossil carbon that was not part of the contemporary carbon biogeochemical cycle is released to the
environment.
The net destruction of vegetation through cutting and burning without replacement by similar vegetation has also
created a steadily increasing amount of carbon moving from the lithosphere (the buried coal, oil, and natural gas)
and biosphere to the atmosphere and oceans. Normally, if a forest is cut down and a new forest quickly begins to
replace it, the net flux of carbon to the atmosphere is not that great, especially over the course of a few decades.
In recent decades, large areas of forest, particularly tropical forest, have been converted to pastures, grassland,
and crop lands, and the trees they contained have been burned and not replaced, a practice known as slash-
and-burn agriculture. In addition to destroying a great deal of biodiversity, the net destruction of forest adds
significant amounts of carbon to the atmosphere.

The Nitrogen Cycle

Nitrogen is critical for life on Earth because it is one of the elements in amino acids, which are basic components
of all organisms. In terrestrial biomes, the movement of nitrogen from the atmosphere to plants, through many
transformations within the soil, and then back into the atmosphere makes the nitrogen cycle one of the more
interesting and complex cycles among all the elements. (A similar process occurs in aquatic ecosystems as well.)

FIGURE 51

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The nitrogen cycle.

Source: Physicalgeography.net

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Of the macronutrients, nitrogen occurs in the highest concentration in plants, and in many terrestrial systems,
nitrogen is the limiting element for plants. Although the atmosphere is 78 percent nitrogen, most plants
cannot use the dominant form of atmospheric nitrogen, N2 gas. Only organisms capable of nitrogen fixation,
the conversion of N2 gas to a plant-available form, ammonium (NH4+), can make direct use of atmospheric
nitrogen. Cyanobacteria in water and soils and bacteria and fungi associated with certain legumes, such as
peas, and certain trees, such as alders, are nitrogen fixers. Virtually all other species must acquire nitrogen from
intermediate sources, such as the soil.
Most plants use nitrogen that has already been converted to a mineral form. How does this conversion occur?
Atmospheric nitrogen is fixed by lightning and by combustion processes, both natural and anthropogenic, and
made immediately available for plant uptake in the form of nitrate anion (NO3−). Nitrogen that has been fixed
by plants is contained within the organic matter of the plant. When the plant dies, the organic matter undergoes
decomposition, and many of its nutrients become available for use as ammonium cation by other plants and
microorganisms through a series of chemical transformations facilitated by bacteria.
The conversion of organic matter to ammonium, called ammonification, is driven by microorganisms that use
the organic matter as a food source and give off ammonium cations. Ammonium is, in turn, converted to nitrite
(NO2−) and then to nitrate in a two-step process called nitrification. Nitrite is of minor importance in natural
ecosystems, though it can be toxic to human infants; nitrate, however, is an important plant nutrient.
Nitrate is susceptible to leaching—where an element or molecule is washed out of soil by moving water—which
occurs in almost all ecosystems. If a site is disturbed, perhaps by logging or other human activities, nitrate
leaching can be substantial and can have a significant impact on rivers and streams. A high accumulation of

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nitrate in wet soils can lead to denitrification, the natural conversion of nitrate to the gas nitrous oxide (N2O),
which is emitted to the atmosphere. Since N2O is a greenhouse gas, denitrification has important implications for
the environment. Though denitrification is a natural process, anthropogenic contributions to nitrate leaching can
impact denitrification rates.
Because nitrogen is often the limiting element in terrestrial systems, the nitrogen cycle—and in particular, the
conversion of organic nitrogen to nitrate—is extremely important in the regulation of net primary productivity
and plant growth in many ecosystems. The nitrogen cycle is a complex cycle with significant effects on pollution
and productivity.

SECTION II SUMMARY
Evolution and Biodiversity
6 The term biodiversity refers to the diversity of all the genes, species, and habitats on Earth. Biodiversity
has both instrumental and intrinsic value. Instrumental value is the value placed on things that provide
benefits to human beings. Intrinsic value is the value of something for itself, independent of any benefits
it might provide to people.
6 Ultimately, all biodiversity derives from genetic diversity. Individuals inherit from their parents the genes
that make up their unique genotype. Varying combinations of alleles, the alternative forms of genes,
create a pool of genetic diversity within a population. An individual’s genotype, in most cases interacting
with the environment, produces the individual’s phenotype.
6 Because some alleles dominate over others, some traits may not be expressed even though the individual
carries an allele for them. There are four types of genetic diversity: variation within individual
organisms, variation among individuals within a population, variation among populations, and variation
among species.
6 Species diversity results from the divergence of genotypes and phenotypes through the process of
evolution. Darwin’s theory of natural selection posits that in a population with varying phenotypes, some
phenotypes will better enable individuals to survive and reproduce and thereby pass their genes on to

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 succeeding generations. Adaptation is the process of becoming most fit for a particular environment.
6 Evolution also occurs through nonadaptive processes such as gene flow and genetic drift (such as the
bottleneck effect). A significant change in a species’ genotype can take many hundreds to thousands of
years. Human influence can speed the pace of evolution.
6 There are approximately 1.8 million “known” (i.e., identified and catalogued) species on Earth today. The
actual number of species, while highly debated, is likely to be more than ten times that number. Species
diversity is measured as the number of species in a small area, the number of species in a larger area, or
the rate of change in the number of species across a geographic range.
6 Species that cannot adapt to environmental change will eventually go extinct. The fossil record, the
source of our knowledge of species no longer living on Earth, tells us that over geologic time there have
been a number of mass extinctions of species. The current extinction rate is commonly measured by
estimating habitat loss. There is growing consensus among biologists that the Earth is in the beginning
stages of a human-caused mass extinction of species.
6 Human-induced changes are usually a threat to biodiversity. Humans can directly remove a species by
hunting, fishing, trapping, and harvesting. Humans can also indirectly remove species by altering or
fragmenting habitat, introducing exotic species, polluting the environment, or bringing about climate
change.
Population and Community Ecology
6 Population ecology is the study of the factors that control the abundance and distribution of species.
Population ecologists focus on three aspects of populations: 1) Interactions with abiotic environmental

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factors, particularly environmental conditions; 2) Interactions with other individuals within the
population (intraspecific interactions); and 3) Interactions with individuals in populations of other species
(interspecific interactions).
6 All population regulation factors can be classified as density-dependent or density-independent.
6 Density-dependent factors are those whose effects on individuals in a population are directly related to
the density of the population. Scarce food resources, for example, will have a greater effect on individuals
in a crowded population than on those in a less crowded population.
6 Density-independent factors, such as extreme weather, are those whose effects are the same on all
members of the population, no matter what the total population size.
6 A biological community is the assemblage of all populations in a particular area or habitat, and the study
of how these populations interact is community ecology.
6 Interactions between populations of different species can function as both density-dependent and density-
independent population regulators. Species interact with each other in three general ways: interspecific
competition, predation, and mutualism.
6 Much of the interaction can be described as a food web, the complex flow of energy from the major
photosynthesizing producers (green plants and algae) with herbivores that eat the plants and the predators
that eat the herbivores. In most cases, the extinction of one species is not critical to the long-term health
of a community; the remaining species at that trophic level, or species from adjacent areas, can provide
the necessary links for energy to flow.
6 It sometimes happens that the loss of one species, a keystone species, in a community leads to the
damage or extinction of the entire community. Even if keystone species are not lost and exotic species are
not introduced, communities will not stay the same forever.
6 The change of a community over time is just as natural as the evolution of a species. One of the major
changes that occurs in virtually every community is succession, the predictable replacement of certain
species by others over a number of years.

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Ecosystems, Global Cycles, and Biomes
6 Ecosystems are specific places on Earth—such as a lake, a forest, a swamp, etc.—that are made up of
interacting living (populations) and nonliving (climate, minerals, etc.) components.
6 Global biogeochemical cycles of elements and nutrients drive the interaction of an ecosystem’s living and
nonliving components.
6 Global patterns of temperature and moisture are the two most important factors controlling the formation
and distribution of the major units of differing vegetation and wildlife types—the biome.
6 Changes in temperature and moisture cause variation in the biotic components of a region and variation
in the amount of energy available to the region. Environmental scientists have correlated the presence
and extent of ten major types of terrestrial biomes with a region’s mean annual temperature and mean
annual precipitation, ranging from tropical rainforests to the arctic tundra.
6 In addition to terrestrial biomes, there are several distinct water systems that are broadly divided between
fresh water, from small ponds and wetlands to large lakes and rivers, and marine environments.
6 Critical cycles include the hydrologic cycle, the carbon cycle, and the nitrogen cycle; water, carbon and
nitrogen are considered the building blocks of life.
6 The hydrologic cycle is the movement of water through the atmosphere and over the surface of the Earth.
6 The carbon cycle is the movement of carbon compounds through the atmosphere, oceans, and living
organisms. Carbon is taken up from the atmosphere and oceans via photosynthesis and is released back
into the atmosphere via respiration and decomposition.

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6 Like carbon, nitrogen is a key component to life on Earth—nitrogen is an essential part of an organism’s
genetic and protein material. The nitrogen cycle is a set of processes in which nitrogen is converted into
different forms as it cycles through the environment. This cycle is driven by microorganism fixation of
atmospheric nitrogen and its conversion into a biologically useful form.

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 Section III
The Human Impact on
Natural Resources
THE HUMAN POPULATION
In the previous section of the resource guide, we discussed the factors that regulate population abundance and
distribution, with a focus on nonhuman species. We will start this section with a focus on the population whose
growing exploitation of global resources is the primary impact on all environmental systems—the human
population.
According to the United Nations World Population Prospects, the global human population reached its first 1 billion
people in 1804. It then took 123 years for the population to double to 2 billion in 1927. However, from then, human
population growth really took off, taking just thirty-two years to reach 3 billion and only thirty-nine more years to
double to 6 billion. Then, sometime in November 2022, the United Nations estimated that we hit a population of 8
billion people. However, while from 1974 to 2022 we added 1 billion people to the population every twelve years,
it is estimated that it will take approximately fourteen years to reach 9 billion and that the human population may

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well peak at a little over 10 billion by around 2100, if not sooner. In the first part of this section, we will look at how
some of the density-independent and density-dependent factors that we dealt with in the previous section—that
control nonhuman population abundance and distribution—also play a factor in human population growth. We will
also touch upon some of the human-specific factors that regulate our population growth.

Growth Rate
Technically, the growth rate is the percent change that has occurred in a population in a given time period,
usually a year. In 1963 the human population of 3.6 billion was growing at 2.1 percent per year; as of 2023, it is
estimated to be growing at between 0.83 percent to 0.9 percent.18 Growth rates are currently decreasing in most
countries throughout the world. Because of this decline in growth rates, and despite the greater total number of
people in the world today, the number of people added each year is smaller now (roughly 70 million additional
people per year) than when the growth rate was 2.1 percent and there were 3.6 billion people (76 million
additional people per year).
Four factors define the growth rate of a country or continent: births, deaths, immigration (the number of people
who migrate into a country), and emigration (the number of people who migrate out of a country). The growth
rate equals all the additions to the population minus all the subtractions from the population, divided by the total
number in the population. This can be represented as:
(births + immigration) − (deaths + emigration) 100 = %GR
the total population
So, a village with 300 people that in one year had 10 births, 3 migrations, 4 deaths, and 2 emigrations has a
growth rate of
[(10 +3) – (4 + 2)]/300 ≈ .02
To obtain the growth rate as a percent, you multiply by 100 ≈ 2%
Migration and emigration are important when analyzing an individual country—for example, migration has

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 FIGURE 52

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Global human population growth from 1700 to the present and beyond.
Source: United Nations, DESA, Population Division

accounted for up to one-third of the population increases in the United States in some years. When we consider
the entire world, because the numbers are so large, the human birth rate is normally expressed as the number
of births per 1,000 individuals per year. This figure is often called the crude birth rate (CBR) because it is the
crudest, or most basic, measure of birth rate. The number of deaths per 1,000 individuals in the population per
year is the crude death rate (CDR). If we exclude migration, then the growth rate can be calculated based on the
birth rate and death rate alone:
CBR−CDR = %GR
10
Here we divide by 10 because the CBR and CDR are expressed per 1,000 people in the population. To refer to the

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growth rate as a percentage (per 100 people), we must adjust the numbers accordingly.
The most effective way to see the changes that take place in growth rates over time is to plot the birth rate and
death rate versus time for a given country. By looking at the difference between the two, it is possible to see
the change in the growth rate on a year-to-year basis. If the birth rate is above the death rate, the country will
experience positive growth. The greater the distance between the birth and death rates, the greater the positive
growth rate. If there is no difference between birth and death rates, then there is no growth.

Lower- and Higher-Income Countries

Of the 8 billion human inhabitants on Earth today, 1.3 billion live in higher-income countries (Europe, North
America, etc.), and 6.7 billion live in lower-income countries, those countries that haven’t yet or are currently
industrializing—in which we will include China and India for now. The population difference between more-
and less-developed countries has not always been so large. In recent decades, populations in parts of the world,
particularly sub-Saharan Africa, have continued to grow rapidly (an average of 1.5 percent per year) while
population growth rates in the higher-income countries have almost leveled off (an average of 0.2 percent per year).

FIGURE 53

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Population growth divergence: high- versus lower-income countries.

Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), based on United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs World
Population Prospects 2022

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Population Size and Resource Use
Every one of the eight billion people on Earth eats,
drinks, and generates waste products. Provision of even
the most basic foods, such as beans or rice, requires
energy, water, and mineral resources. To raise beef
or catch fish from far offshore requires even greater
expenditures. Further, despite differences around the
world, people generate a huge demand for wood, paper,
plastic, steel, and energy to make homes, automobiles,
and consumer products and to give and receive
services. The mining and extraction, processing,
use, and disposal of all these materials contribute to
environmental degradation.
The overall impacts of 8 billion people are hard Energy use is a good indicator of the overall environmental
to appreciate and even more difficult to quantify. impact of population growth. The larger the human
The following equation can be used to estimate population, the greater the consumption of fossil fuels.
environmental impact: By Walter Siegmund (talk) - Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.
wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3413544
Environmental Impact = Population X Resource Use
Per Person X Impact of the Resource Used
Energy use is one good indicator of overall environmental impact. In 1960, when the population was 3 billion,

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world fossil fuel consumption was almost 3,000 million tons of oil equivalents. In 1999, world fossil fuel use was
7,900 million tons of oil equivalents. While the population doubled, the use of fossil fuels more than doubled. And
in 2022, our now 8 billion people used approximately 11,500 million tons of oil equivalents, continuing to increase
at a rate greater than the human population. The consumption of fossil fuel has numerous environmental impacts,
including land and water degradation from extraction and air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions resulting from
combustion, so we can safely assume that environmental impacts increased considerably during this time.

Factors Affecting Population Growth

If we want to predict future trends in the human population, it is important to identify the factors that have
caused the human population to grow slowly at times and quickly at other times.

FIGURE 54
Crude Birth Rate (CBR) = Total number of live births per 1,000 in population per year
Crude Death Rate (CDR) = Total number of deaths per 1,000 in population per year
Growth Rate (GR; also called the Rate of Natural Increase) = percent population growth per year =
((Yr 2 − Yr 1)/ Yr 1) × 100 or (CBR−CDR)/10
Total Fertility Rate (TFR) = Average number of children born to a woman during her child-bearing years
Doubling Time (Tdouble) = Time in years for population to double at current growth rate
Infant Mortality (IM) = Number of infants per 1,000 live births who die before first birthday
Life Expectancy (LM) = Average expected lifespan of an infant born in a given year
%<15/>65 = Percent of population below age 15/above age 65

Factors that affect population growth—terms and brief definitions.

Source: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), based on United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs World
Population Prospects 2022

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Fertility
We can consider the human population as a system
comprising a pool of 6 billion people with births as
inputs and deaths as outputs. In any given time period,
the number of births in a population is dependent on
the number of individuals in the population and the
birth rate, and the number of deaths is dependent on the
number of individuals in the population and the death
rate.
In the United States, the total fertility rate (an estimate
of the average number of children that will be born to
each woman in the population throughout her child-
bearing years) today is 1.84, which means that, on Infant mortality, the number of deaths of infants (children
average, each woman of child-bearing age will have a under age one) per one thousand live births, together with life
expectancy, can provide an accurate representation of health
little less than two children. As you would expect, the care in a given country.
growth rate of a population and the total fertility rate
By Kimberly Vardeman - CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
correlate with one another; when we compare a number index.php?curid=85075306
of countries, those with higher growth rates usually
have higher total fertility rates.
The replacement fertility rate is the number of children each woman must have on average to replace the current

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population. Replacement level fertility is usually 2.1: a total of 2.1 children, on average, are needed to replace two
parents because some children never reproduce. Therefore, the United States is below replacement level fertility.
Based on that statistic alone, we would expect the population in the United States to decrease over time. However,
we must also consider immigration (remember the equation at the beginning of this section), which is projected
to add almost one million people per year to the population of the United States as well as the individuals in the
population that are not yet reproductively mature who will soon begin to contribute to the birth rate.

Life Expectancy and Infant Mortality

Life expectancy is the average number of years that an infant born in a given year can be expected to live, given
the current average lifespan and the death rate. Life expectancy is often reported for the overall population of a
country and for males and females within the population. In almost every situation, the life expectancy for men
is shorter than that for women, reflecting greater hardships and dangers generally experienced by men in the
workplace and different lifestyle choices. The gap between life expectancy for men and women is decreasing as
more and more women enter the workforce. Infant mortality is the number of deaths of infants (children under
age one) per one thousand live births.
Life expectancy and infant mortality together usually provide an accurate representation of the level of health
care in a given country. If life expectancy is fairly high and infant mortality is fairly low, it is likely that the
country has a relatively high level of health care. Note that crude death rate is not a good indicator of health
care. Even with a high life expectancy and a low infant mortality, a country could have a high crude death rate
because it has a large number of older individuals. For example, the United States has a higher crude death rate
(9) than Mexico (5), which is a reflection of an older population in the U.S. than in Mexico.
Over a dozen developed countries have lower infant mortality rates than the United States, including Canada,
Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Sweden, and France. What accounts for a U.S. infant mortality rate that is one to
two deaths per thousand greater than other comparable countries, many of which spend less per capita on health
care? Universal health care and more generous allowances for time off during the later stages of pregnancy are two
reasons. The large disparity in the level of health care provided to Black Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans.
and other minorities in the United States relative to whites is also a factor. The infant mortality rate for the entire

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U.S. population is 5.4, but for Black Americans in the
U.S., it is 10.4 and for Native Americans, 8.2.19
In addition to having less access to health care, less
prenatal care, and poorer nutrition, minorities and
lower socioeconomic groups are also disproportionately
exposed to pollutants, which contribute to higher infant
mortality and poor health.

Age Structure
One method for assessing the age distribution of a
population is to look at the percentage of the population
under the age of fifteen and the percentage over sixty- Japan is one of a number of countries with negative
population growth, and so its elderly population is larger than
five. Commonly reported as %<15/%>65, this value younger age groups.
shows us the relative age distribution in a country. For
Photo by Issei Kato
example, the %<15/%>65 for Mexico is 24/8 while
the value for the U.S. is 18/18.20 This tells you that
24 percent of the population in Mexico is under age fifteen while in the U.S. 18 percent is under age fifteen.
Eighteen percent of the population in the U.S. is over sixty-five; only 8 percent of the population in Mexico is
over sixty-five. However, compared with other countries, Mexico’s age structure is actually relatively close to
that of the U.S. In Nigeria, part of the sub-Saharan region that is experiencing the highest population growth
rates, 41 percent of the population is under fifteen years of age, while only 3.3 percent is over sixty-five!

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In order to understand the potential environmental impact of a country, it is important to know how many
young people there are and will be in the population. How many potential consumers of soft drinks or “fast
fashion” will there be? How many potential drivers of automobiles or bicycles? How many future parents of more
consumers? The %<15/% > 65 figure can give us some idea of the distribution of ages, but we don’t know how
many people are just about to turn sixty-five, or how many people are in their child-bearing years, having just
moved out of the <15 category. How can we determine what a population will look like in ten or fifty years?
The most common procedure is to divide the population into different age groups by gender (all males between
zero and five years, all females between zero and five years, all males between six and ten, etc.). When the
population pattern is graphed, it produces a diagram showing the structure of each age group, and hence this is
called an age-structure diagram. A brief examination of an age-structure diagram for a country can give an
educated observer an idea of the growth and fertility rates, life expectancy, and even the consumption patterns of
a particular country.
Though each country has a unique age-structure diagram, we can group countries very broadly into three
categories. A country with an age-structure diagram that is widest at the bottom and smallest at the top has many
more younger people than older people. This means its total fertility rate must be somewhat greater than the
replacement level of 2.1 children per pair of adults, and its growth rate is positive. It is this type of age structure
that has led to a common alternative term for an age-structure diagram: population pyramid. The pyramid
pattern occurs in growing less developed countries—those that have growth rates of 2−3.5 percent. Figure 56
shows an age-structure diagram for Uganda, but Nigeria, Ghana, Haiti, and many other countries also display
this pattern. As long as the youngest age group is larger than the age group above it, and that next group is larger
than the next one above it, the population is a growing population. In a country where there are slightly more
individuals in the younger age groups than in the older age groups, the age-structure diagram begins to look
more like a column than a pyramid. Such a country is still growing, but at a relatively slow growth rate, and it
could be called a stable population.

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FIGURE 55

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The global age-structure diagram (population pyramid) for 2024.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau

FIGURE 56

Population pyramid for Uganda—note the large proportion of young people.

Source: Demographic Dividend

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Finally, some countries display negative growth—that is, they are shrinking in size, and so their total fertility
rates must be below 2.1. Each successively older age group is larger than the age group preceding it. With time,
this pattern will tend to an inverse pyramid (Figure 57). Italy, Japan, Germany, and a number of other countries
display this pattern.

FIGURE 57

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Population pyramid for Japan—indicative of an aging population.

Source: PopulatioPyramid.net

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THE ELEMENTS ON EARTH
The elements found on Earth today are as old as the
Earth itself. The Earth formed roughly 4.6 billion years
ago, and within 500 million years, it had heated up to
the point where there was much molten rock on Earth.
Heavy elements in that material sank toward the center
of the planet while lighter elements rose upward or
remained close to the surface, where they stayed after
the Earth cooled. This differentiation of material by its
density resulted in the formation of three distinct layers
to our planet: the dense inner core; the mantle, which
makes up 80 percent of the volume of the Earth; and
the lighter crust on the top (Figure 58). Weathering (physical or chemical breakdown) degrades
mineral rock so that the elements are released, while erosion
Elements are not uniformly distributed due to the
transports the elements via water and wind.
movement of heavy elements away from the Earth’s
surface and the movement of lighter elements toward
the surface. For example, although the whole Earth is 35 percent iron (a heavy element), only 6 percent of the
lithosphere (the crust and the topmost part of the mantle) is iron. The rocks, sand, and soil that form the rocky
shell of the Earth are found in the approximately 100-km-thick lithosphere, where rocks undergo change over
time through the rock cycle (Figure 59).

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FIGURE 58

The layers of the Earth.

Source: GeologyScience

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 FIGURE 59

The rock cycle. Klein High School - Klein, TX

Source: USGS

The lithosphere is one of the two primary sources of elements for the biosphere; the other major source is the
atmosphere, where the elements exist in gaseous form. The three most abundant gases in the atmosphere are
nitrogen (78 percent), oxygen (21 percent), and argon (0.9 percent). Carbon dioxide (0.036 percent) is a trace gas.
Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are often called the “building blocks of life” because they are the most abundant
elements in plants and animals and are important in basic structures such as cell walls and membranes. They are
obtained directly from air and water or recycled from other plants and animals.

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Six other essential elements—nitrogen, phosphorus,
potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur—are
considered macronutrients because they are required
in relatively large amounts, usually greater than 0.1
percent of an organism’s dry weight. The remaining
seven plant-essential elements—manganese, iron,
copper, zinc, molybdenum, cobalt, and boron—are
required in very small quantities and so are called
micronutrients. Plants require the sixteen plant-essential
elements in slightly varying proportions depending on
the individual species. While the atmosphere and rocks
are the original sources of the nutrient elements, the The “dust bowls” of the 1920s and 1930s in the western part of
soil is an important intermediate source for most plants. the United States were the source of large amounts of calcium
and magnesium that were carried by the prevailing westerly
In order to obtain the nutrients they need, plants take winds and deposited in the central and eastern states.
up elements in ionic form. All plant-essential elements
(and many other elements as well) have an aqueous phase; in other words, they have one chemical form that
is soluble in water. Soil water, the water in the pore spaces between soil particles, facilitates the exchange of
dissolved elements (elements in their aqueous phase) between soil and plant roots.
In addition to moving water itself, the hydrologic cycle (see Section II) is instrumental in the movement of chemical
elements. Weathering (physical or chemical breakdown) degrades mineral rock so that the elements are released,

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while erosion transports the elements via water and wind. In their aqueous phase, elements are then mobilized by
the hydrologic cycle and carried to the oceans or taken up by plants and animals on land. Weathering of rock can be
accomplished by water, wind, acid rain, other chemicals, and even the roots of growing plants.

The Cycles of Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, and Sulfur

Calcium, magnesium, and potassium are derived primarily from rocks and decomposed vegetation. Calcium and
magnesium can occur in very high concentrations in limestone, dolomitic limestone, and marble. Calcium and
magnesium are often quite abundant in ecosystems overlying limestone and some other rock types. Calcium and
magnesium are also a large component of terrestrial dust, so airborne dust deposition often translocates large
amounts of these elements. The “dust bowls” of the 1920s and 1930s in the western part of the United States
were the source of large amounts of calcium and magnesium that were carried by the prevailing westerly winds
and deposited in the central and eastern states. Heat, drought, and wind, coupled with poor agricultural practices
and other human land use that caused the destruction of the natural topsoil were the causes of the dustbowl.
Calcium and magnesium combine with organic compounds and do not leach easily. However, potassium is
susceptible to leaching from plant tissue and soils, so it may be more easily lost from systems than tightly held
elements like phosphorus.
The sulfur cycle is similar to the nitrogen cycle in a number of ways. Sulfur has a gaseous component to its cycle,
sulfur dioxide (SO2). Plants take up sulfur from the soil primarily as the sulfate anion (SO42−). Anthropogenic
deposition of sulfur is even greater than the deposition of nitrogen, although clean air regulations have lowered
sulfur deposition significantly in the United States since 1995, as we will see in Section IV. Sulfate is the second
ion, along with nitrate, that comprises acid rain. Sulfate is also easily leached from soils and ecosystems. One major
difference between the sulfur and nitrogen cycles is that there is a pool of sulfur in rocks and minerals. Volcanic
emissions are a natural atmospheric source of sulfur.

SOIL
What Is Soil?
The various soils on Earth form a dynamic membrane that covers much of the land surface, connecting the
overlying biology to the underlying geology. They also serve a number of functions that benefit animals, plants,

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ecosystems, and human beings:
6 Soils are a medium for plant growth.
6 Soils serve as the primary filter of water as it moves from the atmosphere into rivers, streams, and the
groundwater system beneath most land surfaces.
6 Soils are the habitat for a wide variety of living organisms from bacteria and fungi to insects and other
animals and thus contribute greatly to the biodiversity of an ecosystem. In combination, soil organisms
act as organic matter recyclers, taking dead plant and animal material and using it as an energy source.
In the process, they break down the organic material and release mineral nutrients and other materials
that benefit plants.
6 Soils and the organisms within them filter chemical elements deposited from air pollution and sewage
from household waste systems, retaining some and releasing some to the atmosphere above or
groundwater below.
Soil Horizons
Although we aren’t usually aware of it as we move over the ground beneath our feet, soils vary across a landscape,
sometimes differing within only a few meters. A typical soil has three or more horizons, or layers categorized by
their physical, chemical, and biological properties (Figure 60). The top layer of soil is usually the A horizon, which
is a zone of both organic material (humus) and mineral (rock-derived) soil that have been mixed together. The
mixing can be done naturally, by organisms such as earthworms and plant roots, or by human activity, such as
plowing. In forests, the top layer of soil is the O (for organic) horizon, which is comprised of needles, leaves, woody
material, and animal bodies or droppings in various stages of decomposition.

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FIGURE 60

Soil Horizons
Source: Wikipedia

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Sometimes an E horizon forms under the O or A horizon. The E horizon is characterized largely by what is not
in it: most of the chemical elements have leached out, and the remaining soil is light in color. Chemical elements
from the E and the overlying O and A horizons are normally leached to the B horizon, where they accumulate
along with elements that have undergone weathering in place. In contrast to the E horizon, which occurs only
in more acidic soils, all soils have a B horizon, which is the horizon where clay, iron, and aluminum (and other
compounds) accumulate after being leached out of the A horizon by rain.
The C horizon, the least weathered soil horizon, always occurs beneath the B horizon. The C horizon is similar
to the parent material, the rocky material from which the soil is derived. In humid regions, the C horizon may
contain some plant roots and microorganisms but normally these extend only to the bottom of the B horizon.
The different vegetation you see in the different biomes on Earth is in large part dependent on the varying
proportion and composition of the soil horizons in those ecosystems. The presence or absence and size of
different soil horizons can influence what kind of activities may occur in a given ecosystem, and they may also
influence how effectively a soil will retain or release pollution deposited on it.

State Variables and Soil Formation

Soils form in two directions simultaneously. The breakdown of rocks and minerals provides the raw material
for soils from underneath. The deposition of organic matter from vegetation and animals contributes to soil
formation from above. Except in organic soils, such as the type that forms in bogs, the quantity of organic matter
in a soil is normally quite low (only a few percent). However, organic matter greatly affects many soil properties.
Five so-called state variables (important factors that cause a soil to progress from an initial state) determine the

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nature of soils: parent material, climate, and topography, as modified by organisms over time.

FIGURE 61

The five state variables of soil formation.

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Parent material consists of slightly altered rocks and/or minerals that are immediately below the soil. Bedrock is the
solid rock underlying the soil. Bedrock and parent material are sometimes synonymous, but they can be different.
For example, if glaciers have spread a layer of rock and sediment over bedrock, then the parent material may be
different from the bedrock. The parent material is representative of what the upper horizons may have been before
they were altered by chemical and physical weathering and biological activity. Different kinds of soils will arise
from different parent materials. For example, a quartz sand parent material will give rise to a soil that is relatively
nutrient poor, as in most areas along the Atlantic coast of the United States. By contrast, a soil that has calcium
carbonate as a parent material will contain an abundant supply of calcium—as in the area surrounding Lake
Champlain in northern New York and Vermont—and support a high level of agricultural activity.
In terms of its influence on soil formation, climate is the sum of weather-related variables over a long period of time.
The average temperature of a region is extremely important in soil formation, as higher temperatures will speed up
weathering and other soil-forming processes. In addition, the more a soil freezes and thaws, the more mechanical
breakage of rocks and minerals will take place, which creates new rock surfaces for chemical weathering.
Precipitation—which is also a major cause of weathering—and temperature both influence how much leaching
occurs. The more water that moves through a soil, the more leaching will occur, and warm tropical soils generally
experience more leaching than cooler soils. Climate also has an indirect effect on soil formation by its influence on
the type of vegetation that develops and the rate at which the vegetation decomposes after it dies.
Topography, or the surface configuration of a landscape, is a third influence on soil formation. Soils that form on
steep slopes are constantly subjected to erosion and, on occasion, more drastic mass movement of material such

FIGURE 62

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Soil organisms process plant litter in the soil and are responsible for the release of CO2 and CH4 (methane).
Source: SOCCR2

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 FIGURE 63

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Soil particles are classified by size. Particle size affects the amount of water that can be absorbed and used by plants and animals.

as landslides. Soils that are subject to landslides are potential hazards for humans who live on or near them, and
ecosystems in such areas are disturbed at frequent intervals. Despite these well-known dangers, people continue
to build on such soils—often quite expensive structures—and seem surprised when they are destroyed. Soils that
are relatively horizontal will have a greater chance to accumulate and retain material, and soils that form at the
bottom of steep slopes may continually accumulate material from higher elevations. Soils on the windward side
of a mountain may experience higher rates of water deposition from precipitation than those on the leeward side.
A diverse group of organisms populates the soil ecosystem. Three groups of organisms account for 80 to 90
percent of the biological activity in soils: fungi, bacteria/archaea, and protozoa (single-cell organisms, including
algae). These organisms use live and dead plant material and some animal wastes (detritus) for energy and
contribute to the breakdown of organic matter. Some soil organisms are herbivores that eat live plant roots as
well as above-ground parts of plants. However, the majority of soil organisms are detritivores, consuming dead
plant and animal tissue. A grassland meadow may have ten times the mass of soil detritivores as herbivores in
the first fifteen centimeters of soil. Bacteria play roles in a variety of activities in soil such as the liberation of
nitrogen or sulfur from organic matter, allowing the material to be used by higher plants.
In the temperate zone, the most important macrofauna, or large (relatively speaking) animals, in soils are
earthworms, which can ingest a quantity of soil weighing two to thirty times their own weight each day.
Earthworms greatly enhance soil nutrient status. Since they only partially digest what they ingest, their excretions
contain a fair amount of nutrient-rich organic matter, which is available to plants. By their movement through the

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soil, earthworms aerate the soil, improve water drainage, and mix upper layers with lower layers. Most earthworm
species are sensitive to acidic soils and do best in moist habitats that are approximately pH neutral.
Finally, time is an important influence on soils. The length of time a soil has existed in an unfrozen state influences
the amount of soil development that will occur. New soils usually have undergone very little separation into
different horizons. As soils age, they develop horizons and a variety of characteristics. The grassland soils that
support much of the food and livestock feed produced in the United States are relatively old soils. Due to the
hundreds of thousands of years of soil formation they’ve experienced, they’ve developed thick A and B horizons
with a large supply of nutrients. Landslides, glaciers, volcanic eruptions, and other catastrophic events can set a soil
clock back to the beginning, when there was bare rock.
The five state variables, working on physical, chemical, and biological factors, lead to the formation of different
soils within ecosystems and across landscapes. Soils in the United States are classified into different types,
depending on factors like the presence, absence, and thickness of the various horizons describe above, and by
soil particle size.

Soil Degradation
For centuries, the use and abuse of land for agriculture, forestry, and other human activities has led to significant
soil degradation, the loss of some or all of the soil’s ability to support plants. One of the major causes of soil
degradation is erosion, which occurs when topsoil (O and A horizons) is disturbed, for example by plowing,
and then carried away by water or wind. Topsoil can be lost in a single growing season, yet it takes centuries to
replace. Compaction from machines, nutrient depletion from intensive use of the land, irrigation, and chemical
damage from the application of pesticides are also contributing factors. Soil degradation from various factors

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has become more widespread in recent decades; worldwide, it has led to at least a 17 percent reduction in food
production and is most prevalent in Africa and Europe.
The projected impact of global climate change on soils is varied. In some locations, slightly warmer temperatures
may increase decomposition activity and increase nutrient availability. In other locations, soils will become too
dry, and decomposition will slow. There is no general pattern that can be described worldwide or even for a
given continent. There has also been much speculation on how global climate change might affect carbon storage
in soils, but again, no general patterns are certain.
Sometimes, physical and chemical additions can be made to improve the quality of a soil, but generally, once a
soil has been degraded it takes many years of natural processes to restore it to its original state. Soils in zones of
moderate temperatures and precipitation will probably be restored more rapidly than soils in zones with extreme
amounts of moisture or extreme temperatures.

WATER RESOURCES
The Long-standing Challenge of Accessing Clean Water
The ancient Romans are almost as famous for their aqueducts as they are for their roads. The impetus for building
such an elaborate system of pipes and supporting structures to transport water over long distances is less well
known: water pollution. Ancient Rome was very congested, and streets were used not only as passageways, but
also as waste receptacles and sewers. The local springs and shallow wells that supplied residents of Rome with
water soon became polluted. In addition, according to Sextus Julius Frontinus, a Roman water commissioner
whose writings have survived, the Tiber River, which was used as the first major source of water in Rome, was not
protected and received too much wastewater, thereby becoming contaminated and losing its value as a water source.
As a result, it became necessary to bring clean water in from farther away. The demand for aqueducts was present
by the year 312 bce, when the first Roman aqueduct was constructed. Some of the aqueducts extended for more
than 60 km. By 19 bce, there were more than 400 km of aqueducts throughout the Roman Empire.
The Romans foreshadowed not only our current reliance on water transported over long distances, but also many

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of our contemporary water pollution problems. There
are reports of Roman aqueduct water containing too
much sediment, so settling basins were constructed
to allow the sediment to settle out. Archaeologists
have found aqueducts leading to the Roman Forum
that were made of lead. When water travels through
a lead pipe, some of the lead from the pipe goes into
solution, thereby increasing the lead concentration of
the water. It has been hypothesized that the decline of
the aristocracy in the Roman empire was due to the
neurotoxicological impacts of lead poisoning (although Water pollution motivated the Ancient Romans to build
wine that was stored for long periods in lead vessels an elaborate system of aqueducts, pipes, and supporting
was perhaps a more significant factor than water from structures to transport water over long distances.
lead pipes). And Frontinus may have been the first to
consider the use of gray water (wastewater that does not contain sewage), explaining that “it was. . . determined
to separate them all and then to arrange so that [one of the aqueducts] should serve wholly for drinking purposes,
and that the others should be used for purposes adapted to their special qualities. For example, Old Anio
[aqueduct] should be used for watering the gardens, and for the more dirty uses of the city; because the further
from its source its waters are drawn, the less wholesome they are.”
Many of the problems experienced during the Roman Empire still exist in modern societies. In this section,
we will look at where we get our water, how we pollute it, and how we are attempting to safeguard our water

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supplies in the present and for the future. A law passed in ancient Rome—“No one shall with malice pollute the
waters”—is a mandate that is as true today as it was then.

Water’s Importance to Earth’s Environmental and Human Systems

We can see how water fits into Earth’s environmental systems by thinking back to the hydrologic cycle that we
discussed in Section II of this guide. Though water covers 75 percent of Earth’s surface, surprisingly little of
it is available for our use. The oceans are the largest repository for water, so virtually all the water on Earth is
saltwater. Only about 3 percent of total water is fresh water, and most of that is tied up in glaciers and icecaps;
only a little more than 1 percent of all water on Earth is potentially usable by humans and other terrestrial
organisms. Fresh water is the primary subject of our discussion in this section.
Most of Earth’s fresh water is contained underground. Lakes, rivers, and reservoirs, which supply more than half
the drinking water in the United States, comprise only 0.009 percent of the water on Earth. There is even less
water (perhaps 0.001 percent) tied up in the atmosphere and even less than that (0.0001 percent) contained within
organisms. Of course, water moves between these different compartments, and at any given time, there might
be slightly more or less water in any compartment. Nevertheless, these proportions demonstrate how little of the
water on Earth is accessible.

Groundwater and Surface Water

Groundwater comprises all water that is below the ground in aquifers, permeable layers of rock and sediment
that hold water. Water enters the groundwater system through infiltration of precipitation and discharge of
rivers and streams. It usually stays in an aquifer indefinitely unless human interference disrupts it, or some kind
of tectonic activity shifts the orientation of the aquifer so that the water flows due to gravity. Some aquifers
intermittently flow into streams, rivers, or the ocean. It is possible to extract water from an aquifer by drilling a
hole into it (called a well), much like drilling into an oil reserve, and pumping the water out.
The most basic aquifer is porous rock such as sandstone or other consolidated sediments, covered simply by soil.
Water fills up the pore space within the rock, forming what is known as an unconfined aquifer because it is not
constrained on the top by any confining rock. The part of the aquifer that is filled with water is called the saturated

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zone, the top of which is the water table. In some cases, an underground layer of impermeable clay may act as an
impenetrable barrier, called an aquiclude, that impedes the flow of groundwater from the aquifer. Groundwater
confined above and below by an aquiclude is a confined aquifer. A well drilled into a confined aquifer is called
an artesian well. Water flows spontaneously from an artesian well without the need for pumping. An unconfined
aquifer gets charged or recharged—in other words, receives new water—when water infiltrates through the soil.

FIGURE 64

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Groundwater and aquifers.
Source: Utah Geological Survey

Surface water is all the water on the surface of the Earth, including lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, and
constructed and natural reservoirs. (Oceans are also surface water but as we are considering specifically fresh
water here, we will not include them in this discussion.) Most surface water originates as precipitation from the
atmosphere. Some bodies of surface water, however, are fed by groundwater. A spring, for instance, is a small
stream that just “springs up” out of the aquifer to the surface during wet times of the year. Because surface water
receives little or no filtration (unlike groundwater), it is highly vulnerable to contamination.

Transport of Water
Do you know where your water comes from? If you live in an urban area, chances are good that, just as in the
ancient Rome, it comes from a distant location. Though transporting water may ensure its cleanliness or solve
problems of inadequate local supply, long-distance transport introduces problems of its own. Construction of
an aqueduct in a desert or grassland environment introduces many of the same habitat fragmentation problems
that occur when roads are built: vegetation is disrupted, soils are disturbed, and animal habitats are altered or
destroyed. Even if an aqueduct is buried as an underground pipeline, a great deal of disruption occurs during
the construction process. And once an aqueduct or pipeline is constructed, the pipes will degrade over time.

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In Jordan and the Occupied Territories of Israel, for
example, perhaps as much as 55 percent of water
carried through aqueducts is lost as a result of leakage
from old or damaged pipes.

Desalination
One of the ways that water-scarce countries get their
fresh water is through desalination, the removal of salt
from naturally salty water, usually sea water. Countries
of the Middle East and North Africa are responsible
for more than 50 percent of the fresh water produced
worldwide through desalination technology. Most Desalination plants remove salt from naturally salty water,
desalination is achieved through distillation or reverse usually via distillation or reverse osmosis.
osmosis. In distillation, water is evaporated by boiling,
leaving behind salts. The steam produced is condensed, yielding pure water. The disadvantage of distillation
is that energy is required to boil the water and then condense it. Reverse osmosis is a newer technology that is
more efficient and often less costly than distillation although the amount of energy used is still significant. In
reverse osmosis, water is forced through a thin membrane at a very high pressure. The water that passes through
the membrane is very pure; the water left behind, called brine, has a salt concentration greater than seawater.
The brine is usually pumped back into the ocean where it can adversely impact local marine ecosystems by
increasing salt content and depleting oxygen levels.

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Water Use
In 2023, the 334 million people in the United States used a total of 408 billion gallons of water each day, or an
average of approximately 1,300 gallons per person per day. This includes all direct and indirect use of water
including domestic use (inside and outside homes), commercial and municipal use, irrigation, and water for
cooling in electrical power plants. Water use in just about every other country in the world is lower.
Worldwide, approximately 40 percent of food production benefits from irrigation. It takes roughly a thousand
tons of water (250,000 gallons) to produce one ton of grain. Depending on where and how the irrigation is
implemented, a large fraction of that water can be lost to evaporation. Conventional irrigation, in which water
runs through a ditch alongside a row of crops, is only about 60 percent efficient. Drip irrigation, in which a tube
buried in the ground releases water slowly, can be up to 95 percent efficient, but it requires large investments of
capital, which often are not feasible for farmers that are barely making a living already.
Other agricultural uses—livestock and fish farming—are relatively small consumers of water in the United
States, as are mining and industry. The relative amounts of water used in all categories have not changed much
over the last two decades. Water impounded for hydroelectricity generation is not included in any of the U.S.
Geological Survey’s use categories because it is ultimately discharged in the same location it would have gone to
before impoundment and is therefore not “used up.”

Water Shortages
In many parts of the world, drought—an extended period of limited precipitation—caused by either natural climatic
change or human activity is a common occurrence, often of disastrous proportions—such as the ongoing drought in
the Horn of Africa that has impacted Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and other East African countries since 2020. Beyond
the immediate cost to human life and livestock, drought has long-term effects on the land. Prolonged droughts will
desiccate the soil to such an extent that the topsoil (the O and A horizons) blows away in the wind. Once the fertile
topsoil is lost, the land may be useless for agriculture for decades. Land that has become severely parched is also
subject to erosion from flooding when sudden heavy rain falls on earth that can no longer absorb large quantities of
water in a short time.

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Most aquifers contain some water even during the
longest droughts, though aquifers that are heavily
pumped sometimes go dry during extremely severe
droughts. If at any time an aquifer is pumped more
rapidly than it is recharged—in other words, if output
exceeds input—the water supply may be depleted. And
even if an aquifer contains plenty of water, certain
sections of it can become over-pumped, leading to local
water shortages, usually manifested by one or more
wells going dry.
The irrigation of cropland is responsible for the over-
pumping of aquifers in many countries. In the U.S., the
best-known case of groundwater depletion is occurring
in the Ogallala Aquifer, which ranges from Texas and
New Mexico up to South Dakota. Over-pumping a well
can also result in a reduction of water quality in that
well; if a well adjacent to a coastline is drawn down, These aerial photos of Lake Mead show the dramatic decline
the nearby saltwater will be drawn toward the aquifer, in water in the nation’s largest reservoir.
and over time the well water will become saltier, a Photo: NASA
process known as saltwater intrusion. This is common
in a number of coastal areas.

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Floods
Though floods can be devastating anywhere in the world, they normally have the worst impact in developing
countries where home construction may not be as strong, and where there may not be a transportation
infrastructure to help people evacuate the area. A flood in West Bengal, India, in 2000 destroyed more
than 800,000 homes and killed hundreds of people. And, even more recently, flooding in 2023—driven by
increasingly intense storms—occurred across the globe, from Pakistan to New England. Water management
systems use elaborate systems of levees and canals to control the movement of water in flood-prone areas.
Ironically, floods, hurricanes, and torrential rains can have environmental benefits. When water floods the banks
of a river or lake, nutrient-rich sediment improves soil quality in the adjacent areas.

WATER POLLUTION
Throughout the world, many people routinely consume water from surface water such as rivers and streams and
from dug wells. Sometimes the same body of water serves as the supply for drinking, bathing, washing, cooking,
and the disposal of human and other waste. Such a body of water can easily become polluted and a source of
infectious diseases. Between 1 billion and 2 billion people on Earth, most of them in the developing world,
do not have access to safe drinking water. In addition, bodies of water have been degraded in ways that cause
significant damage to the environment.
Water can be polluted in many ways, as Figure 65 shows, but regardless of the specific pollutant, the sources of
pollution can be characterized as point source or non-point source. Point sources are distinct, confined locations,
such as a particular factory or the pipe leading from a sewage treatment plant. Non-point sources are diffuse
areas, such as an entire farm or a farming region, a suburban community with many lawns and septic systems,
or runoff from parking lots. It is important to differentiate the type of source because it can help in controlling
pollutant inputs to waterways. For example, if a municipality can determine that the bulk of waterway pollution
is coming from one or two point sources, it can target the owners of those specific point sources. It is much more
difficult to control pollution from non-point sources.

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 FIGURE 65

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Sources of water pollution (Adapted from USEPA 2000).

Types of Water Pollutants

Disease-causing organisms, or pathogens—parasites, bacteria, viruses—are responsible for a number of diseases
that can be contracted by humans or other organisms who come in contact with or ingest the water containing
them. Large-scale disease outbreaks from municipal water systems are relatively rare in the United States, but
they do occur occasionally. Disease outbreaks from municipal water systems are, however, relatively common in
many parts of the developing world.
Pathogens can enter the water supply from both point and non-point sources. A malfunctioning sewage
treatment plant or septic system can be point sources of pathogens entering into rivers or lakes. Wildlife can
also contaminate reservoirs with disease-causing organisms. Worldwide, the major water-borne diseases are
cholera and hepatitis. Cholera, which claims thousands of lives annually in developing countries, is not terribly
common in the United States, but hepatitis A is appearing increasingly frequently, usually originating in unclean
restaurants. The bacterium Cryptosporidium has caused a number of outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness in the
U.S. Though we may think that our mountain rivers are pure enough to drink from, the influx of hikers into the
back country has transmitted the intestinal parasite Giardia into untreated natural waters.
Oxygen-demanding waste is material that contains organic matter, such as leaves and twigs that get washed into
a body of water during a rainstorm. The material will decompose, and bacteria will grow on it, using oxygen to
survive and thereby depleting available oxygen. Food scraps, human waste, and animal waste are all oxygen-
demanding waste that can enter the water supply.
Oxygen-demanding waste is measured in terms of biochemical oxygen demand or BOD—the amount of oxygen
a defined quantity of water uses up over a specified period of time (usually five days) at a specified temperature
(usually twenty degrees Centigrade). The lower the BOD, the more pristine or unpolluted the body of water; the
higher the BOD, the more oxygen-demanding material is in the water. If there is no organic material in the water,

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 FIGURE 66

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Point-source and non-point source water pollution.
Source: Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality

any bacteria occurring there won’t have a substrate to

feed on and so won’t survive and use oxygen. Domestic
sewage from a household might have 200 mg of BOD
per liter of water over five days. Natural waters might
have a 5 to 20 mg BOD, coming from leaves and twigs
and perhaps dead organisms.
Another important measurement in determining water
purity is dissolved oxygen, the amount of oxygen that is
dissolved in water at a given temperature, measured in
parts per million. When the dissolved oxygen is high,
BOD is low and vice versa. Water with low BOD and
high dissolved oxygen—say, 8−9 ppm—is high-quality
water. Natural waters with such a dissolved oxygen level
are ideal places for fish to spawn, plants to grow, and
other organisms to thrive. In polluted environments, with If too much nitrogen and phosphorus are present, they can
dissolved oxygen around 4 ppm, fish will have trouble overfeed a body of water, leading to eutrophication, the
excessive growth of algae due to an oversupply of nutrients.
functioning. Figure 67 illustrates the impact of oxygen-
By Felix Andrews (Floybix) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.
demanding waste on a marine ecosystem. wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1092921

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FIGURE 67

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Impact of oxygen-demanding organic waste.

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We introduced inorganic compounds—chemical compounds that don’t come from animals or plants—in different
terms when we discussed nutrient cycles in Section II. Perhaps the most important are the two elements most likely
to limit growth in the receiving lake or stream: nitrogen and phosphorus. If too much nitrogen and phosphorus are
present, they can overfeed the body of water, leading to eutrophication, the excessive growth of algae due to an
oversupply of nutrients. Eventually the algae die and decompose, BOD increases, and the fish population declines.
The major terrestrial sources of nitrogen are farm runoff, sewage treatment plants, and acid precipitation; and the
sources of phosphorus are naturally occurring rocks and minerals, fertilizer runoff, and, in the past, detergents.
Other inorganic pollutants can come from non-point sources such as acid precipitation (nitrate and sulfate) or point
sources such as by-products of sewage treatment (chloride) or industrial plants (metals). Metals such as lead, copper,
arsenic, and mercury are among the most toxic water pollutants. In the early 2000s, mercury received a great deal
of attention as an inorganic water contaminant of global proportions. According to a 2002 United Nations report:
Mercury has caused a variety of documented, significant adverse impacts on human health and
the environment throughout the world.... Human exposure to mercury can result from a variety of
pathways, including, but not limited to, consumption of fish, occupational and household uses, dental
amalgams and mercury-containing vaccines.
Coal- and oil-fired electric power plants constitute the largest source of mercury emissions in the United
States. The mercury that is emitted is deposited on land and in waterways. Inorganic mercury (Hg) itself
is not particularly harmful; its dispersion throughout the environment is harmful because of the chemical
transformations it undergoes. In the wet, anaerobic environment of wetlands, aquatic sediments, and temporarily
saturated soils, bacteria convert inorganic mercury to methylmercury, which is highly toxic to human beings.

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Methylmercury damages the central nervous system, including coordination and the senses of touch, taste, and
sight, particularly in developing embryos and children.
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) are toxic chemicals created by humans for industrial purposes that persist
in the environment for decades or longer and can accumulate in organisms, including humans, through food
webs. One group of organic compounds that is causing many problems is polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs,
which are highly toxic and carcinogenic. PCBs were used in manufacturing plastics and insulating electrical
transformers until 1979. Although they are no longer manufactured or used in the United States, because of their
persistence, they are still present in the environment. An ongoing case concerns a General Electric plant in New
York State that was once a point source of PCBs into the Hudson River. In 2002, the EPA ruled that General
Electric must pay for the dredging and removal of approximately 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated
sediment from a forty-mile stretch of the upper Hudson River. Under the terms of a 2006 legal agreement
between the EPA and General Electric, the dredging of the river bottom started in 2009 and was completed in
2015. However, the EPA continues to monitor the river for PCBs in case additional cleanup becomes necessary.

Nonchemical Pollutants
Sediments such as sand, silt, and clay that become mobilized when soil is disturbed are another source of water
pollution. Housing and shopping center development and road construction, along with agriculture, are major
sources of sediment. When a dam is constructed, sediments settle out of the unmoving water. If the water is
later remobilized, a great deal of sediment will end up in downstream water. Sediment can clog fish gills and
otherwise hinder fish from obtaining oxygen, particularly bottom dwellers such as oysters or clams. In addition,
increased sediment in the water column reduces the infiltration of sunlight, which can reduce the productivity of
aquatic plants.
Any time human beings alter water flow so that the water moves more slowly, receives more sunlight, or enters
a shallower waterway, the temperature of the water is likely to increase. Water is also heated when it is used for
cooling in industrial processes and electricity generation (e.g., fossil fuel-fired and nuclear power plants). The result
is thermal pollution. Increasing water temperature reduces the amount of oxygen that can be dissolved in the
water. At the same time, in warmer waters organisms normally increase their respiration rate, which means they

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will use more oxygen and further reduce the dissolved
oxygen in the water. Increased respiration rate is a
stress that can make organisms more susceptible to
disease. Increased water temperature may also affect
reproduction.

Ocean and Shoreline Pollution

Although our major focus in this section has been on
fresh water, pollution of Earth’s oceans and shorelines
is an environmental problem of major proportions.
Perhaps the greatest culprits are crude oil and other
petroleum products, which are highly toxic to many
marine organisms, including birds, mammals, and
fish, as well as the algae and microorganisms that form A pelican is coated in oil following the Deepwater Horizon oil
the base of the aquatic food chain. Oil is a persistent spill in 2010.
substance that can spread across the water for hundreds By Louisiana GOHSEP - Flickr: Oiled Pelicans, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30525946
of miles and leave a thick, viscous covering on land that
is extremely difficult to remove.
Oil and other petroleum products enter the oceans through multiple sources, most notably from spills from
off-shore drilling and oil tankers. Perhaps the most notorious recent spill was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. In that case, 210 million gallons of oil covered miles of ocean and coastline and

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dramatically impacted one of the most productive marine ecosystems on Earth. Cleanup efforts continue to the
present day. Cleanup includes physical methods such as floating booms to keep a spill from spreading, followed
by skimming oil from the water’s surface. It also includes the use of chemical dispersants that break down the oil
into particles small enough to be broken down by sunlight and bacteria.

Solid Waste Pollution

Though the dumping of solid waste in open waters has been reduced since the early 1980s, it is hard to walk
along a beach without finding at least a few bottles, cigarette butts, or food packages. Various forms of solid
waste can be dropped on beaches by negligent people or washed into the ocean from open landfills and travel
long distances before they are washed up on another beach far from where they started. Not only is such beach
garbage unsightly, it can be dangerous to both marine organisms and people. Toxic medical waste poses a threat
to people on the beach, particularly children, and plastic holders for beverage six-packs and plastic bags, for
instance, are known to strangle many animals. And the extent and dangers of plastic pollution goes far beyond
just this. Plastic debris in landfills or waterbodies can degrade over time into microplastics, particles smaller
than 5mm, or nanoplastics, particles smaller than 0.0001mm.21 Microplastics have been found to be a potential
health risk in both animals and humans, which can intake them via eating contaminated seafood, as well as from
multiple other sources.22

Wastewater Treatment
The term wastewater refers to all water from houses and buildings that is destined for a sewage treatment plant
or septic system. In fact, wastewater is highly varied. Obviously, wastewater from toilets contains material
that is harmful and must be treated before it can be returned to the environment. But water from sinks and
showers, while possibly containing high BOD food components or high inorganic contaminants from soaps and
detergents, is much less harmful to the environment. Wastewater from sources other than toilets, called gray
water, is sometimes reintroduced into the environment without treatment for purposes such as watering lawns.
Human sewage is high BOD material that may contain pathogenic organisms and high levels of phosphate,
nitrate, and other compounds. Whether raw sewage is dumped into a free-flowing river or stream and “treated”
naturally or passed through a human-made system, such as a sewage treatment plant, septic system, or solar

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aquatic system, the basic processes are the same: bacteria break down the organic matter into carbon dioxide
and inorganic compounds like nitrate and phosphate; dissolved oxygen levels in the water are reduced; and
eventually BOD goes down; and oxygen levels recover. Wastewater treatment facilities replicate this natural
process to varying degrees, usually more quickly. In addition, decomposing the sewage in a treatment plant
prevents polluting a natural body of water.
In a traditional sewage treatment plant, which might be used in most municipalities in developed countries,
wastewater treatment is accomplished in two phases, primary and secondary treatment. Primary treatment
removes 40 to 50 percent of the solid waste material. Solid material that settles out during the process is
eventually dried and classified as sludge. Sludge usually contains significant amounts of metals, particularly if
the effluent comes from a municipality that includes industrial businesses. After removal of the sludge, the water
undergoes secondary treatment, which effectively accelerates the breakdown of organic matter that would occur
if the sewage were left to decompose naturally. At the end of secondary treatment, roughly 85 to 90 percent
of the original pollutants in the water have been removed. The water is disinfected to kill pathogens and then
returned to the river or lake it originally came from and is once more part of the water cycle.

FIGURE 68

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Wastewater treatment process.
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica

Improvements in U.S. Water Quality

Water quality in the United States has improved in most categories over the past few decades. Forty to fifty years
ago, many harbors and waterways were badly polluted. The Clean Water Act, passed in 1972 and amended a
number of times since then, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1986, and the Water Resources Development Acts
(1986−92) have worked in concert to protect surface water by managing the water supply, wastewater, flood
control, navigation on waterways, and hydroelectric power. The Clean Water Act also requires the establishment
of Water Quality Standards that place an upper limit on the concentration of specific pollutants in major water

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bodies. To achieve these standards, the Clean Water Act also requires the establishment of a Total Maximum
Daily Load for each pollutant—the maximum amount of a pollutant that is allowed to enter a waterbody—that
is based on the total amount of the pollutant discharged from point sources (factories, wastewater treatment
facilities, etc.) and non-point sources (atmospheric deposition, farms, and other runoff from the land). In terms of
the system analysis that we discussed in Section I, Water Quality Standards are the maximum size of the “pool”
of each pollutant in the system (the waterbody) and the Total Maximum Daily Loads are the maximum allowable
“inputs” of pollutants into the system.

FIGURE 69

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Total maximum daily loads.

Under the Safe Water Drinking Act, the EPA is responsible for establishing maximum contaminant levels (MCL)
for seventy-seven different elements or substances that can be found in municipal drinking water sources—either
surface or groundwater. The MCL is the enforceable level that a contaminant must not exceed. “Enforceable”
is a key word here; an MCL reflects the concentration at which harm is thought to occur, but it also takes into
account the feasibility of achieving such a standard based on existing technology and the cost of treating water to
obtain such levels.
While water regulations have greatly reduced contamination of waters and have almost eliminated major point
sources of water pollution, nonpoint sources such as oil from parking lots and nutrients from suburban lawns, to
name only two, are not well controlled under existing regulations.

AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES
The Beginnings of Agriculture
For most of human history, human beings subsisted by eating whatever edible matter was at hand, scavenging,
gathering plants, and hunting animals, activities collectively known as hunting and gathering. Roughly 12,000
years ago, people began to cultivate the soil, domesticate and raise animals, and domesticate or modify certain
wild species of plants and turn them into crops. The coming of agriculture was a major event in human history
because it enabled people to move beyond a subsistence level of existence. At the same time, it has had some
negative consequences. The abundance of food is one factor that led to the start of what would become the
exponential growth of the human population. The deliberate cultivation of food was also the beginning of a
level of environmental degradation never before experienced on Earth. Some people contend that agriculture
collectively has been the most harmful human endeavor in terms of its impact on the environment.

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Agriculture developed in several locations in the
world simultaneously—the Fertile Crescent (part of
the present-day Middle East); China; Mesoamerica
(southern North and Central America); and perhaps
Africa, Southeast Asia, and lowland South America—
and spread, adapting to local culture and habitats. Local
constraints on agricultural development included the
availability of suitable plants for domestication, climate,
settlement patterns, and population density.

Traditional Agricultural Methods

The variation in traditional agricultural patterns around
the world illustrates that many approaches can be used
to manage soil and crop resources, depending on local
conditions. For example, in a flood plain such as that
along the Mekong River in Southeast Asia, where water In semi-arid environments such as the Serengetti ecosystem
in Tanzania, the only viable way for people to use the soil is
periodically overflows the banks of the river and floods
nomadic herding.
the surrounding valleys, nutrients and soil particles are
delivered to the surrounding soils, making them superb
for agriculture. In semi-arid environments such as the Serengetti ecosystem in Tanzania, the only viable way
for people to use the soil is nomadic herding, in which they move herds of animals, often over extremely long
distances, to seasonal feeding grounds. Any more intensive use would degrade the dry, fragile and nutrient-poor

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soils to the point where they would not be viable for any production at all, a process called desertification.
In locations with a relatively warm climate and moderately nutrient-rich soils—for instance, the rainforests
of Central or South America, where a good portion of the nutrients are in the vegetation rather than in the
soil—slash-and-burn agriculture has been practiced for centuries. In order to clear land to grow crops or graze
animals, people cut down the vegetation that is present. This might mean cutting large forest trees, as was done
when Europeans colonized North America, or woody vegetation or brush as in Central America and the Amazon
Basin. The vegetation is then usually dragged into piles and burned. The resulting ash is rich in potassium,
calcium, and magnesium and therefore makes a good fertilizer for crops or grasses. However, after a few years,
the nutrients from the ash are depleted. Moreover, if the deforestation has occurred in an area of heavy rainfall,
some nutrients may be washed away along with some of the soil, which further reduces the nutrient content as
well as the thickness of soil.
Thus, the farmer usually moves on to another plot and repeats the whole process. If a plot is used for a few years
and then abandoned for a number of decades, vegetation has a chance to regrow. Over time, the nutrient supplies
in the soil begin to increase, and even other soil properties, such as organic content and soil structure, may begin
to recover. However, if the land is used continuously without a chance to recover, its productivity decreases. At
best, this type of agriculture can provide for the subsistence of a family, but it will not allow for much surplus to
be generated for sale. A broader side effect of slash-and-burn agriculture is the release of carbon emissions from
burning into the atmosphere.
A typical subsistence farmer in India, Kenya, or Thailand does not use chemical fertilizers because they are not
available or affordable, but instead applies animal and plant wastes as fertilizer. Such traditional farmers may
also practice intercropping, in which two or more crop species are planted in the same field at the same time
to promote a synergistic interaction between them. For instance, corn, which requires a great deal of nitrogen,
could be planted along with a nitrogen-fixing crop such as peas. Crop rotation achieves the same effect by
rotating species in a specific order. Some of these traditional practices are being revived in organic agriculture
in the United States and Europe.

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The Green Revolution
Beginning in the 1940s, researchers in Mexico devised
techniques to increase agricultural output in order to
help developing nations feed their growing populations.
They developed strains of wheat that were disease
resistant and used fertilizers and irrigation to produce
greater crop yields. Wheat production in Mexico
increased so much that Mexico became an exporter of
wheat, enabling countries such as India and Pakistan to
avert famines. The leader of the project, American crop
scientist Norman Borlaug, was awarded the 1970 Nobel
Peace Prize for his work.
After Mexico’s success with wheat, a similar project Norman Borlaug in a Mexican wheat field in 1970, holding
was developed in the Philippines with rice, and the so-called “miracle” wheat that he developed by crossing a
from the 1950s through the 1970s many countries, native Mexican strain with a Japanese dwarf variety.
particularly those in the developing world, underwent Photo by Arthur Rickerby, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
similar shifts in the way agriculture was practiced. The
so-called Green Revolution combined development of
better varieties of domestic animals and crops with intensive use of synthetic fertilizers, management techniques,
and machinery to increase food production rates. It was also characterized by a significant intensification of
agriculture—monocultures (agricultural plantings of a single species), irrigation, and increased intensity and/or

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frequency of cropping. One legacy of the Green Revolution was that from the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s,
world grain production increased by a factor of two. By the 1990s, there were at least eighteen centers around the
world promoting and developing the new techniques of the Green Revolution.
Of course, the Green Revolution is not without its downside. Its critics maintain that it requires large amounts
of synthetic fertilizers and irrigation, and because it encourages large plantings of single crops, it reduces the
variety of crops being planted. In addition, the production of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer—which has, by itself,
been a major factor in increasing the productivity of farmland—relies on the use of fossil fuel (natural gas) and
is a major source of the non-point source water pollution discussed previously. Moreover, these practices tend to
exclude small, lower-income family or subsistence farms and support larger commercial farms. The result has
been a significant increase in poverty among rural farmers and their displacement to cities. In addition, there has
been a loss of individually held land to larger agribusinesses. In 1960, there were roughly 4 million farms in the
United States; today there are approximately half that number.

The Status of World Food Production

Roughly 38 percent of the global land surface, or 5 billion hectares (50 million square kilometers), is currently
classified as agricultural lands, with about one-third being used as cropland and two-thirds consisting of
meadows and pastures for the grazing of livestock.23 Though grain production increased, the amount of land
that is currently under grain cultivation has actually gone down steadily since about 1950, reflecting the
improvements that enabled growers to get more output from the same or smaller land area. However, production
increases that were due to the Green Revolution have largely been realized, and we are now starting to face
limitations of arable land (land suitable for plowing and growing crops) and water.
Currently, approximately thirty plant species provide 95 percent of the calories and nutrition for human beings,
with only six crops providing about 80 percent of the calories in the human diet: wheat, rice, maize (corn),
potatoes, sweet potatoes, and manioc. Eight other crops are important for human beings because they round out a
balanced diet for human beings: sugarcane, sugarbeet, common beans, soybeans, barley, sorghum, coconuts, and
bananas. The top four food crops worldwide are wheat, rice, corn, and potatoes, in that order. Wheat, rice, and
corn, along with other crops such as barley, oats, and rye, are grasses. The fruits of these grasses, called cereals,

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are a good source of carbohydrates and of calories. Cereals also contain protein, oils, vitamins, and minerals.
The relative proportions of nutrients vary for each crop, but any of the cereals can serve as basic foods, and they
do for many people in the world. Potatoes, which are tubers, are the staple carbohydrate in much of the developed
world and have been for centuries. The amounts grown in each country or region depend on factors such as
growing temperatures, available moisture, and available sunlight.

Food Insecurity—Hunger in the World

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that as many as 828 million people lack access to adequate
amounts of food. Chronic hunger, or undernourishment, is not having enough calories to exist in a healthy state.
An average person needs roughly 2,200 kilocalories per day, though of course this amount varies with age, size,
and sex. With a food deficit of only 100 to 400 kilocalories per day—in other words, an intake of about 1,800
kilocalories—a person will not have enough energy to carry out daily activities at full capacity and will be more
susceptible to poor health.
The most common—and intuitive—response to this situation is to conclude that we should grow more food by
further utilizing modern agricultural techniques. This perspective is based on the assumption that there is not
enough food in the world. However, on a global scale, we currently produce enough calories per day of food to
provide everyone on Earth with a healthy diet—although the United Nations also predicts that we will need to
increase food production by 60 percent to feed the larger human population of 2050 and after.

FIGURE 70

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Food [in] security.

Why then is starvation a worldwide problem now? First of all, half the grain grown in the world goes to feed
livestock. In the United States, two of the top cereal crops, corn and soybeans, are fed mainly to animals. People
in the U.S. eat a very large quantity of meat compared to the rest of the world—an average of 270 pounds
(approximately 123 kg) of meat per year, which suggests that some people are eating more than a pound of meat
every day. Recall the discussion in Section II regarding the energy efficiency of eating grain rather than meat.
Of course, if humans were to eat grains exclusively, to avoid malnutrition, we’d have to eat the right combination
of grains and legumes to get enough protein, and other vegetables to get the necessary vitamins and minerals.
Nevertheless, if humans were to eat the grain directly rather than feeding it to animals, we would be able to feed
far more people with the same amount. One way to think about the difference is in terms of the grain multiplier, the

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FIGURE 71

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Calorie production exceeds current needs.
Source: Union of Concerned Scientists

FIGURE 72

Meat consumption among sample countries.

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quantity of grain in pounds that must be fed to animals
to get a pound of meat. The multiplier for beef is 7; the
multiplier for chicken, 2.7. In other words, for every
pound of beef we eat, people could be eating 7 pounds of
grain.
However, most food experts suggest that, ultimately,
starvation on a global scale is mostly the result of
unequal distribution rather than absolute unavailability.
The food is produced, but not everyone has access to it,
partly for logistical reasons (wars), partly because of the
choices we make as to how it is used. Most important,
many people simply can’t afford to buy food or can’t
afford to buy enough or adequately nutritious foods, a One of the greatest changes in modern Western agriculture
problem that cannot be solved simply by planting more in the last century is the amount of mechanization that now
grain or using more technological production methods. exists. Tractors, harvesters, and other machines perform
virtually every process that takes place on a farm.
Conventional Land-Use and Planting
Techniques
Mechanization and Intensive Working of the Soil
One of the greatest changes in modern Western agriculture in the last century is the amount of mechanization
that now exists. Tractors, harvesters, and other machines perform virtually every process that takes place on a

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farm, from plowing and tilling to planting and harvesting. In addition, the transportation, processing, and storage
of food are much more mechanized than they were a hundred years ago.
Plowing and tilling turn over soil, loosen it so that it can be planted, and aerate it. When soil is completely turned
over annually, drainage and root penetration are improved, and seeds germinate more easily. Light tilling during
the growing season allows a farmer to bury weeds, thereby controlling them without the use of pesticides and at
the same time adding the organic matter in the weeds to the soil. Large-scale agriculture normally uses tilling
techniques that leave large areas of soil uncovered for periods of time.
If heavy rains or windy dry periods occur before seedlings are established, the soil will be susceptible to erosion.
Globally, perhaps 16 percent of soil has been lost to erosion, in both developed and developing countries. In
addition, frequent passing over fields with the heavy machinery used on large farms compacts the soil and
counteracts some of the benefits of tilling. Every time the soil is plowed or tilled, soil particles that were attached
to other soil particles or to plant roots are disturbed and broken apart and are now susceptible to movement by
wind or water.
Plowing can have very significant effects on land; in fact, some argue it has the greatest consequences of
all agricultural practices. Soils may take hundreds or even thousands of years to develop as organic matter
accumulates and soil horizons form. In natural systems, as plants die and decompose, the nutrients within
them return to the soil, enriching it and becoming part of the global biogeochemical cycles. In conventional
agriculture, however, farmers generally remove the bulk of the byproducts of an agricultural crop from the soil
so that it won’t interfere with future plantings. Studies that monitor the amount of organic carbon in soil (SOC)
have provided evidence that SOC in agricultural fields decreases over time; however, field studies show that the
SOC will build up again over time if a field is left alone.
Approximately 40 percent of the cropland in use worldwide has been degraded to some degree by erosion,
compaction, or waterlogging and salinization. If alternating portions of previously cultivated land were put aside
and allowed to lie fallow (idle during the growing season) for a certain time, we could perhaps improve the health of
the soil throughout agricultural areas; however, this would have a short-term negative impact on food production.

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 Klein High School - Klein, TX
Types of irrigation.

Irrigation
Another practice that affects the soil is irrigation, or the artificial addition of moisture, usually large quantities
of water pumped from a river, lake, or underlying aquifer. In parts of the world where the food supply is limited
by the amount of rainfall, irrigation can increase growth rates, or even enable crops to grow where they were
traditionally absent. In the United States, irrigation has turned approximately 1 million acres of former desert
in the Imperial Valley of southeastern California into an important source of fruits and vegetables—particularly
during winter—for many parts of the country. A 2016 estimate suggests that only 20 percent of world
agricultural land is irrigated, but this land produces 40 percent of global food. Irrigation is one of the practices
common to both large-scale agribusiness and organic farming, though the methods used may differ in the two
cases. However, over time irrigation can have a number of negative consequences, including depleting the
underlying groundwater table and “drawing down” aquifers so that neighboring wells run dry.

Monoculture
In monocropping, a single crop species, or monoculture, is planted over a large area. In the United States, large-
scale agriculture is based on monocultures; hundreds of acres at a stretch are cultivated with, for example,
soybeans or corn. Even in developing countries, certain lands previously unused for agriculture or used for
subsistence agriculture have now been planted with large monocultures. For example, good farmland in central
Kenya is used for growing tea, while further west in Kenya land that was not previously farmed has been
covered with wheat fields.
The advantage to a monoculture is that all the land in one expansive area can be treated identically: it can receive

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the same regimen of plowing, planting, fertilizer and
pesticide application, watering, and harvesting. A
farmer can sow seed, apply fertilizer or pesticides, or
harvest crops for an entire day without changing the
settings on the tractor or the application rate of the
compound being applied. To some extent, this leads
to an economy of scale; it is more energy and dollar
efficient to grow one crop on a hundred acres than to
grow a number of different crops on the same area of
land. The main disadvantage of monocropping is the
loss of crop diversity and consequent vulnerability to
pests or diseases. For example, the Colorado potato
beetle is a major pest of potato plant foliage but, for the
most part, it does not feed on other foliage. If the potato
beetle becomes established, it could destroy a potato
monoculture, but if three or four different species were
planted on that acreage, the non-potato crops would
survive.

Chemical Fertilizers
All fertilizers contain the chemical elements that
are plant essential nutrients: primarily nitrogen,

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phosphorus, and potassium. In contrast to the organic
fertilizers used in traditional farming, which come
from composting vegetation or animal wastes, the
chemical fertilizers used by modern agribusiness are
synthesized by human beings with fossil fuel energy.
The synthetic process might entail combusting natural
gas in the atmosphere and capturing the nitrogen that A crop-duster sprays pesticides on a field.
is fixed during the combustion process, or it might
use machinery to grind up rock in order to obtain the
minerals contained within.
The widespread use of synthetic chemical fertilizers has increased crop yields tremendously since the Green
Revolution. Worldwide fertilizer use increased from 20 million metric tons to over 200 million metric tons
between 1960 and 2020, but the amount of food produced increased even more rapidly. It is possible to argue that
without synthetic fertilizers, we could not feed all the people in the world. However, the increase in fertilizer use
is also responsible for a worldwide increase in nutrient runoff from agricultural fields to adjacent rivers, streams,
other waterways, and even aquifers. Further, in contrast to the slow release of nutrients from compost, synthetic
fertilizers release nutrients rapidly. Because plants can take up only a certain amount at any given time, much
of the nutrient may actually be leached away by water and end up as runoff. Chemical fertilizers do not add any
organic matter to the soil or contribute to soil structure as organic fertilizers such as humus or compost do. And,
of course, the production of synthetic chemical fertilizers uses fossil fuels and contributes to the release of fossil
carbon to the atmosphere.

Chemical Pesticides
Pesticides are substances, either natural or synthetic, that kill or control organisms that people consider pests.
Those used most commonly in conventional agriculture to increase productivity are insecticides, which
target insects, and herbicides, which target vegetation that is competing with commercially desirable species.

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The pesticides used by agribusiness are normally
petrochemicals, meaning that they are synthesized
from petroleum.
Chemical pesticides normally reduce the targeted
pests for a period of time after application. However,
over time, as the pesticide dissipates, the pests tend to
rebound or recover, requiring an additional application.
Eventually, insects or other pests can build up a
resistance to a pesticide, at first requiring more pesticide
and eventually requiring the use of stronger chemicals.
In addition, pesticides can affect many species other
than the target organisms. For example, one widely
used herbicide, glyphosate (sold commercially under High-density farming has many environmental and health
consequences.
the brand name Roundup®), is used to control annual
and perennial plants including grasses, broad-leaved
herbaceous species, and trees. But because glyphosate is a general, or broad-spectrum, herbicide, it works
nonselectively; in other words, it will kill whatever vegetation it is applied to. Insecticides also can affect non-target
organisms; while killing insects that are considered pests, they may also remove naturally occurring organisms
that are beneficial to crop productivity. In the United States, in the year 2020, approximately 400 thousand tons
of pesticides were applied to food crops, cotton, and fruit trees—more than any other country (although Brazil
was not too far behind at 375 thousand tons). This total includes 300 million pounds of herbicide and 74 million

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pounds of insecticide.24
Like fertilizers, chemical pesticides run off to surrounding surface waters and potentially to groundwater. Their
toxicity to humans and other species is a subject of much debate. Farmworkers, grounds workers, and others who
apply pesticides are at particular risk of exposure to high doses of the active ingredients, especially if they do not
have or use the proper safety equipment. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that as many as 20,000
physician-treated pesticide poisonings occur each year among the roughly 3.8 million U.S. agricultural workers;
it is not known how many poisonings go undiagnosed and untreated.

High-Density Farming of Animals

In addition to producing plant crops, modern agribusiness is heavily involved in the farming of livestock. In recent
years, over 10 billion animals annually have been raised and slaughtered for food in the United States. Roughly
9 billion of these are chickens. By using antiobiotics and nutrient supplements, farmers can increase the density
of animals in a confined area and reduce the amount of sunlight and exposure to the out-of-doors without the
adverse health effects and diseases that would normally occur. This high-density animal farming includes feedlot
beef cattle, dairy cows, pigs, and chickens, all of which are constrained or allowed very little room for movement
during all or part of their life cycle. Such feedlot farming of animals allows an extremely high output of meat
from a small area of land.
High-density animal farming has many environmental and health consequences. Large amounts of manure and
urine accumulate, requiring removal on a regular basis, but they are not always disposed of properly. Sometimes
animal wastes are stored in lagoons adjacent to feedlots, and during heavy rains, storm runoff contaminates
nearby waterways. Animal wastes have also been dumped, either inadvertently or intentionally, into public
waters. For example, chicken farms in Maryland have been found to have dumped chicken waste into local rivers
that eventually feed into the Chesapeake Bay, contributing to infectious disease outbreaks as well as nitrogen
pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that hog, chicken, and cattle waste has led to
some level of pollution along 35,000 miles of rivers in twenty-two states and some degree of contaminated
groundwater in seventeen states. There is some evidence that antibiotics in animal feed are transferred to humans
who eat the animals, with the possibility that antibiotic-resistant strains of microorganisms are developing in

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human beings as a result. High-density animal farming has other ramifications for human health as well.

GMOs
“Frankenfoods,” square tomatoes, animals that glow in the dark—these are some of the images that have been
summoned up in the popular reaction to genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. In fact, genetic modification
of plants (and later animals) has been going on for about 10,000 years, roughly since the start of agriculture.
Darwin even wrote about it in the first chapter of On the Origin of Species. He called the process by which
people breed domesticated species to maintain certain traits while letting others diminish artificial selection,
similar to the natural selection that is the basis of evolutionary change. Some of our best friends—the poodle
and the golden retriever, for instance—and some of the foods that we eat commonly—cabbage, broccoli, and
collards, among many others—have been developed by people through artificial selection. Why, then, are we
afraid of the current GMOs when we happily bite into a piece of seedless watermelon? To understand why it
might be reasonable to have concerns about genetically modified crops, we have to explain a bit of the biology
behind genetic modification.

Genetic Engineering
Traditionally, people have modified plants or animals by interbreeding strains of the same species to emphasize
desired traits, such as size or hardiness or by interbreeding closely related species to create hybrids. For example,
transferring pollen (cells that contain many different genes) between a plum and an apricot, both members of the
genus prunus, has produced the hybrids plumcot and pluot. By contrast, genetic engineering requires isolating a
specific gene from one organism and transferring it into the genetic material of another organism, often one from
an entirely different kingdom of life.

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Let’s consider a specific example. Corn is subject to attacks from the bollworm, European corn borer, and other
insects. Bacillus thuringiensis is a natural soil bacterium that repels such insects. Through genetic engineering,
the bacterium’s insecticidal gene, known as Bt, has been inserted into the genetic material of corn plants,
producing a corn plant with a natural insecticide in its leaves. By 2002, 34 percent of all corn planted in the U.S.
was Bt corn (virtually all of it is fed to livestock). Toxicity of the Bt corn to corn borers and bollworms has been
confirmed, and as a result, growers have been able to use less synthetic pesticide on corn plants.
A similar technique has been used to create plants that are resistant to the herbicide Roundup®, which we
mentioned earlier. The so-called Roundup®-Ready gene has become widely used in corn, soybean, and cotton
plants, allowing growers to spray the herbicide on their fields without fear of destroying crop plants along with
weeds. In this case, less weed control is done through tilling, and erosion is reduced. However, large quantities
of the chemical glyphosate are introduced into the environment. Genetic engineering allows for the rapid
acquisition of desirable traits and in some cases acquisition of traits that might otherwise not be transferrable.
For example, while there might be a small amount of variation in the cold tolerance of strawberry plants, genetic
engineering has allowed a substantially greater cold tolerance gene to be spliced into a strawberry plant.

The GMO Controversy

Genetically engineered crops and livestock clearly offer the possibility of less waste, greater efficiency, in some
cases a reduction in pesticide use, and higher profits for the agribusinesses that use them. They are also seen as a
way to help reduce world hunger by reducing loss to pests and environmental conditions and increasing output.
But they are the source of considerable controversy.
Some people are concerned that the ingestion of genetically modified crops by human beings may be harmful
although so far there is little evidence to support these concerns. Researchers are studying the possibility that
GMOs may cause reactions when people eat foods containing genes transferred from another food they are
allergic to. More significant for the environment are concerns about the accidental release or proliferation of
GMOs in the natural environment after their introduction to specific agricultural locations. In this case, there is
some evidence of harmful effects, such as mortality in nontarget organisms.

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For example, in one study Monarch butterfly
caterpillars died after ingesting pollen from Bt corn.
Though corn is not the Monarchs’ favored food, and
they are unlikely to ingest a great deal of corn pollen,
it is possible that Bt pollen could spread from fields
of corn to nearby milkweed plants, which are the
Monarchs’ usual food. However, repeated studies have
shown little effect on Monarch caterpillars.
Opponents to GMOs also worry that new toxins
or compounds created by GM crops could kill soil
organisms that are beneficial to crops. Another fear is Intercropping trees with vegetable crops (sometimes called
that if crop plants are able to breed with wild relatives, agroforestry) allows vegetation of different heights to act as
the newly added genes will spread to the wild plants, wind breaks and catch soil that might be blown away by wind.
with the possibility of altering or eliminating natural
varieties. Attempts have been made to plant buffer zones around GMO crops and to make sure that wild species
related to crop species are not in the areas where GMO crops are planted. However, wind-borne pollen does not
necessarily respect such borders. One method for eliminating all transfer of GMOs to wild varieties would make
GMO crops sterile; that is, the seeds would be nonviable.
There are negatives (and positives) of using GMOs that we are more certain about. For one, the use of genetically
modified seed is already contributing to a loss of genetic diversity in our food crops. Large-scale commercial

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agriculture relies more on genetically modified seed each year; by 2002, 34 percent of the corn, 75 percent of
the soybeans, and 71 percent of the cotton planted in the United States came from genetically modified seeds; by
2020, those figures had reached over 90 percent for all three crops.25 Not only does such a practice contribute to
the overall worldwide loss of biodiversity, it also makes world crop production susceptible to insect infestations
or a great reduction in output, similar to that discussed for monocultures. However, GMOs have also had the
very positive impact of decreasing pesticide use due to the creation of insect-resistant strains of crops.26

Sustainable Agriculture
Is it possible to produce enough food to feed the world’s population without destroying the land, polluting
the environment, or reducing biodiversity? Sustainable agriculture attempts to combine economic viability
with reduced environmental impact. It emphasizes being able to continue agriculture on a given piece of land
indefinitely, conservation and build-up of soil, and integrated pest management. Many of the practices used by
sustainable farmers are similar to those of traditional farming.
As we discussed earlier, intercropping allows crops with different nutrient demands to benefit from being grown
near one another. Intercropping trees with vegetable crops (sometimes called agroforestry) allows vegetation of
different heights to act as wind breaks and catch soil that might be blown away by wind. Farmers in East Africa,
for example, have planted trees in rows adjacent to rows of vegetable crops. While wind does remove some
soil from the rows of vegetables, the soil particles travel only a few feet to the rows of trees, where the soil is
captured, so erosion is greatly reduced.
Alternative means of land preparation and use also help to conserve the soil. For instance, contour plowing—
plowing and harvesting parallel to the topographic contours of the land—allows for the least amount of erosion
while still gaining the practical advantages of plowing. Some farmers plant a crop of winter wheat during a time
when the fields would normally be unplanted so that the land does not remain uncovered. Yet another approach,
still under development, is the use of perennial crops that do not have to be replanted every year. These methods
also have a dramatic impact on improving the ability of the soil to retain carbon that, through conventional
farming methods, becomes part of the increase in atmospheric carbon levels.

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FISHERY RESOURCES
Overfishing and the Decline of Fisheries
In the final part of this section, we will consider two systems—forest and marine ecosystems—that, unlike
agriculture, appear, on the surface at least, to be “natural” ecosystems like those we dealt with in Section II.
However, many, if not most, forests and marine ecosystems are being managed today for the “harvests” that they
can supply to use in the way of timber (and other forest products) and fish. Harvest (and harvesting) is the apt
term to use since the harvesting of forest products and fish will include many of the same concepts as found in
agriculture.
In May 2003, the journal Nature published an article that made the headlines on CNN and added to the
increasing evidence that many of the world’s marine fish species are in danger of extinction from overfishing.
The article summarized an analysis of the number of large predatory ocean fish, such as tuna and swordfish,
caught in thirteen major global fisheries. The results show a dramatic decline in the number of fish caught over
fifty years, even though both the number of fishing ships and amount of time spent have increased over that
time. While there had been plenty of warning signs in previous years, this study represented the first major study
quantifying the decline for multiple fisheries across the globe. And the news has not been getting better, with a
recent study of the status of the world’s fisheries showing a steady increase in the number of fish species being
harvested at an unstainable level.

The Scientific Management of Fisheries

We saw in Section II, with the example of the collapse of the Peruvian anchovy fishery, that one cause of the
decline of ocean fish populations is the failure to account for environmental uncertainty when establishing

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fishing quotas. Quotas that are set too high are a direct cause of overfishing. A more significant cause is the

FIGURE 73

The state of the word’s marine fish stocks reflects the impact of overfishing.
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

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change in fishing technology. Just fifty to sixty years ago, large-scale fishing, such as the harvest of cod from
the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, Canada, involved tedious, dangerous, and low-yield methods in which
individuals in small dories dangled lines with a few baited hooks. The very low-tech nature of this method
served as an important contribution to the sustainability of the fishery; individual dory fishers simply could not
catch enough to deplete the fish populations. Technological advances in fishing methods, along with economic

FIGURE 74

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Marine fishery methods.

Source: Marine Stewardship Council

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pressures to increase fishing harvests, have made these practices a thing of the past.
Figure 74 shows several of the current methods that make it easy to achieve huge catches. The schooner and
dories of the past have been replaced by large factory ships that can stay at sea for months at a time, processing
and freezing their harvest without having to return to port. Most marine fish are now caught either by huge
trawler nets or drift nets pulled behind one of these ships or by very long fishing lines bearing multiple hooks
and bait. Groundfish (species that live on or close to the ocean bottom) and many shellfish are caught by
dredging, in which special trawler nets are weighted so that they can be pulled across the ocean floor.
Besides reducing the abundance of the adults of commercial species—the direct target of a harvest—large-scale,
high-tech fishing can adversely affect other species as well. Because many commercial fish are keystone species,
decline or loss of their populations can have a cascade effect throughout a biological community, resulting in
the decline or loss of other species. This is true of the large predatory fish that act as major population control as
well as of species lower on the food web that serve as a critical food source for others. In addition, drag nets can
damage ocean bottom habitats by disturbing or destroying rocks, coral, and sea plants.
One of the most serious consequences of intensive fishing for biodiversity is the loss of juveniles or noncommercial
species that are accidentally caught in nets and lines. This by-catch—noncommercial species caught
unintentionally along with targeted species—has significantly affected populations of fish species such as sharks.
By-catch also includes many marine mammals such as dolphins caught in tuna nets and endangered sea turtles
caught and drowned in the shrimp nets commonly used in the Gulf of Mexico.

Managing Fisheries for a Sustainable Future

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Economic pressures, fueled by the high cost of the new technologies as well as by local and international
competition, have further contributed to the overfishing of the world’s fisheries. In response, fishery managers
often set fishing quotas on the high side rather than setting quotas that would better reflect the uncertainty of
their knowledge. In the interest of creating and supporting sustainable fisheries, many countries around the world
have developed fishery management plans, often in cooperation with each other. International cooperation is
particularly important because fish migrate across borders, important fish ecosystems span borders, and many of
the world’s most important fisheries lie in international waters. Some current management strategies of marine
fisheries try to increase the economic incentive for users to practice sustainability and to enforce sustainable
public management through laws, regulations, and plans based on environmental science.

An Economic Approach to Fishery Management

Commercial salmon fishing by non-Native Americans in the waters off Alaska began in the early 1800s. Until
relatively recently, salmon fishing was open to anyone with a large enough boat and the right equipment.
Whenever the catch dropped, fishery managers would initiate controls until the population recovered. After
1940, however, increased demand for salmon coupled with improved fishing technology began to outpace
controls, resulting in a long, steady decline in the salmon population. By 1970 the population was so reduced that
the Alaska salmon fishing season lasted only five to six days.
High scientific uncertainty about the ecology of salmon had made it impossible to develop effective scientifically
based management plans. Consequently, in 1973 fishery managers decided to take a different approach, putting
the major responsibility for managing the salmon stocks on the fishers themselves. They did this through a
system of individual transferable quotas (ITQs). Before the start of each fishing season, fishery managers
establish either fixed or variable amounts of total allowable catch. These quotas are first distributed to individual
fishers or fishing companies with a history of long-term participation in the fishery. Fishers with ITQs have a
secure right to catch a set amount in a set area, so there is no need to spend money on bigger boats and better
equipment in order to out-compete others. If a fisher cannot catch enough to remain economically viable, they
can sell all or part of their quota to another fisher instead of putting more effort into fishing. Like herders using
the commons for grazing, salmon fishers with ITQs have a property interest not only in the fish they catch now,

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but in the fish that their quota will allow them to catch in the future. Since the beginning of the ITQ program, the
salmon population (and harvest) has increased slowly.
In Alaska ITQs are sold primarily to small family-run fishing operations. However, ITQs have also been used
effectively in New Zealand to control overfishing by large fishing companies. The ITQ system is being used
successfully in many other fisheries around the world.

Integrating an Ecological Perspective into Fishery Management

Successful long-range fisheries management must include not only the economic interests of the fishing industry,
but also both local and cross-border political concerns and environmental science that will help control damage to
fish species and ecosystems. Many countries have established exclusion zones ranging up to two hundred miles
around their fisheries. In 1976 the United States established a two-hundred-mile exclusive fishery zone around the
U.S. managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) within the Department of Commerce and eight
regional councils made up of government and industry representatives and advised by NMFS fishery scientists.
The focus was largely on preserving U.S. fisheries as an economic resource. However, the fisheries collapse of the
1990s, particularly in the Northwest Atlantic region, showed that this approach was not sufficient.
The U.S. Northwest Atlantic fisheries comprise several marine shelf ecosystems that stretch from the
northeastern United States to southeast Canada. Except for a small area of Georges Bank on the Canadian side,
the area is under the jurisdiction of the United States. The Northwest Atlantic fisheries were historically among
the world’s most productive. However, by the early 1990s they had experienced catastrophic depletion of fish
stocks, particularly cod and pollock, primarily as a result of overfishing by international fleets of factory ships.

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FIGURE 75

The Northwest Atlantic fishery.

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The fisheries were forced to close down because of the depleted stocks, and the Canadian government imposed a
moratorium on ground fishing in the area, as did the United States in much of the Georges Bank.
In response to the collapse, and in order to restore depleted stocks and manage the ecosystem as a whole, the U.S.
Sustainable Fisheries Act was passed in 1996. This act changed the focus of fishery management from economic
sustainability to an increasingly conservation-minded, species-sustainability approach. Since the passage of this
act, the National Marine Fisheries Service has developed a plan organized around sustainable fisheries, recovery of
protected species, and healthy marine habitat. For many species, such as those listed under the Endangered Species
Act (ESA) or otherwise considered to be in danger, a “sustainable” fishery means no fishery—for example, the
closure of the cod fishery—until populations recover. Protecting critical habitat is required for species listed under
the ESA and is important for the long-term sustainability of other fish species as well.
Although most of the Sustainable Fisheries Act requirements are for the purpose of conservation, restoration,
and management, they do not specifically mention environmental science or ecology, nor are they particularly
ecologically minded. Therefore, fishery managers must do more to actually incorporate environmental science
into the management plan. One place where environmental science has been, and is being, implemented is the
Georges Bank fishery, described in the following Environmental Science Case Study.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Managing an Endangered

Fishery27

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In the late 1990s, Michael Fogarty and Steven Murawski, both then scientists with the National Marine
Fisheries Service, collected and analyzed decades of data on the Georges Bank, producing one of the
most complete pictures of how fishing has impacted individual species, a complex food web, and an entire
ecosystem. Fogarty and Murawski found that variations in which species were harvested and in the total
fishing effort led to changes in both the biological communities and the physical habitat in the Georges Bank
area.
In the early 1960s, before the two-hundred-mile limit was established, heavy fishing by the foreign fleet
reduced the populations of commercial species such as mackerel and herring and led to increased populations
of species with little or no commercial value at that time. Once the two-hundred-mile limit was established
in 1977, the domestic fishing fleet that dominated the fishery targeted cod, flounder, and haddock, which
resulted in the decline of these populations and, at the same time, a return of the formerly targeted species.
The recovered populations of herring and mackerel exerted increased predatory pressure on the juveniles of
several other fish species, as well as on zooplankton.
Changing fishing patterns also brought about changes in the spatial distribution of species. Before the
domestic fleet’s heavy fishing of cod, flounder, and haddock, these species were widely distributed
throughout the Georges Banks. Today, adults of most of these populations are found in the various “Closed
Areas” shown in Figure 76—areas where these populations were originally high and where the most
intense fishing once occurred, but which were closed to fishing in 1994 in order to allow species to recover.
When these once-rich fishing grounds were no longer available, fishers moved to adjacent areas, where
they continued trawling for the various groundfish species. As Fogarty and Murawski point out, trawling
for groundfish results in damage to the ocean bottom habitat, which is particularly detrimental to the cod
and flounder juveniles that concentrate in bottom gravel. The problem is further exacerbated by large-scale
scallop harvesting in these areas, which uses drag nets that greatly disturb the ocean bottom.
Fogarty and Murawski’s study provides clear evidence that intensive fishing will affect not only commercial
species, but also other noncommercial species that belong to the same food web. Further research showed
that attempts to manage the U.S. Georges Bank from 1982 to 1994 with quotas and control of mesh size

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FIGURE 76

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A habitat/ecosystem approach to fishery management—“closed areas” in the Georges Bank.

FIGURE 77

Marine protected area.

Source: Pacific Fishery Management Council

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 in nets failed to reverse the declines in many fish species, partly because these measures failed to account
for the disruption in food webs that fishing caused. Only with closures of large areas of important habitat
has the decline of commercial species begun to reverse. Fogarty and Murawski’s work shows us why long-
term monitoring of the population size and distribution of fish species is necessary to improve ecosystem
management strategies and restore a sustainable fishery.
Marine fishery management today is building upon studies like that by Fogarty and Murawski to move away
from the reliance on quotas and to look at the fishery from a more holistic, ecosystem level. This is being
done by expanding the “closed areas” concept—discussed by Fogarty and Murawski—to include large areas
of a species’ critical ecosystem in systems of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

FORESTRY RESOURCES
Principles of Forestry
Forestry, or silviculture (from the Latin silva, forest), is the management of natural or planted forest ecosystems for
human benefit. The management of forest ecosystems is the most analogous to agricultural systems. A forest used
for timber is connected to the “natural” ecosystem through the nutrient and water cycles that provide resources and
the organisms that pollinate and fertilize the trees. In a commercial forest, humans add inputs—for example, by
planting nursery-bred trees—and change the outputs by removing large amounts of timber to the encompassing
human-dominated techno-ecosystem. Though the specific products differ, the aims of forestry and agriculture are
the same: the domestication and manipulation of ecosystems in order to maximize commercially valuable species.

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The continued production of wood requires attention to two different concepts: renewability and sustainability.
Renewability refers to the ability of a piece of land to support continuous rotations, the cyclical replanting and
harvesting of trees. Sustainability means that the various forest species can be maintained over several generations
of rotations. Like agriculture, forestry draws on environmental science to aid in achieving these aims.

Harvesting Methods
The principal unit of forest management is the stand, an area of forest that is relatively homogenous in age,
species composition, and physical environment. One of the main determinants of stand structure is the method
used to harvest the trees. Though there are several different ways to harvest timber, most fall into one of two
main types: even-age and uneven-age harvesting.
In even-age harvesting, all the trees that are harvested are of the same age, which requires the removal of all the
original trees in a stand, or clearcutting. When a stand has been clearcut, regeneration generally results from
replanting or reseeding by foresters, producing an even-age tree plantation. Clearcutting is ideal for fast-growing
species that need a lot of light to obtain maximum growth rates. It is the easiest harvesting method and, in most
cases, the most economical, although it may not be economically efficient when the commercially valuable tree
species make up only a fraction of any one stand; this is particularly true in many tropical forests.
Uneven-age harvesting, in which harvested trees are of various ages, is often achieved through the selective
cutting of single trees or groups of trees. This method creates many small openings in a stand for young trees or
seeds to be planted, so the regenerated stand is of uneven ages. Since seedlings and young trees must grow next
to larger trees, selective cutting will produce optimum growth only among shade-tolerant tree species. Another
method that produces uneven-age harvesting is shelterwood cutting, in which a stand is harvested over several
years through a series of cuttings. After each cutting, regrowth occurs in the understory so that, by the time of
the next cutting, the new generation is large enough to ensure successful and rapid regeneration. Shelterwood
cutting is the most complicated method to carry out and, therefore, the least used. The three methods of
harvesting have differing consequences for the forest and its surrounding ecosystems. Since selective and
shelterwood cutting are less extensive than clearcutting, their environmental effects are less.

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 FIGURE 78

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Methods of harvesting forests.

Intensive Forestry
To achieve continuous production of goods and services, foresters have traditionally relied on intensive forestry,
which has been the cornerstone of worldwide forest management in both public and privately owned forests. Like
intensive agriculture, intensive forestry aims to maximize short-term gain by producing as much timber each year
as possible. A number of methods, used separately or in combination, have greatly increased forest growth rates.
Just as animal and plant breeders will select for faster growing cattle or wheat, foresters select and breed fast-
growing genotypes. For commercial tree species, a single population or stand will contain most of the genetic
variation for that species. For example, a single stand of loblolly pine trees, the major commercial timber species
in the southern U.S., will represent 92 percent of the total genetic diversity of the species. By 1992, 90 percent of
all new loblolly plantings in the Southern U.S. (about 1.5 million acres) were made up of genetically selected trees,
whose growth cycle had been reduced by almost fifteen years over a twenty-year period. Foresters estimate that
these trees will show a 12 percent gain in wood volume per harvest over the non-selected trees—which corresponds
to more timber and more money per harvest. However, as with agricultural plant crops and animal stocks, over time
intensive selection tends to reduce genetic variation and thus reduce fitness. Consequently, foresters try to maintain
overall genetic variation, while at the same time continuing to select for desired traits, by using some “natural” trees
in a selective breeding program or cross-breeding individuals from different populations.
Vegetation management reduces or eliminates noncommercial plants from a stand, thereby increasing the growth
rate of young commercial trees because they no longer have to compete for limited resources. Traditionally,
foresters have used herbicides that kill noncommercial species such as deciduous trees, shrubs, and grasses
without adversely affecting commercial species. However, as environmental scientists have discovered the effects

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 FIGURE 79

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Intensive forestry—achieving maximum sustainable yield.

of herbicides that are introduced into ecosystem pathways, this method has become controversial. Moreover,
removing species can have long-term adverse effects on community structure. Noncommerical crops play an
important role in the function of a healthy ecosystem—even one as domesticated as a commercial forest stand—
by replenishing nitrogen in the soil; aiding in restoration of the stand after a disturbance; and increasing conifers’
resistance to insects, pathogens, and fire. Instead of automatically trying to remove all noncommercial species,
many modern commercial foresters are attempting to control the density and spatial distribution of competitors
through the stand—using them where they are needed and removing them where they are not.
Though intensive forestry has improved forest production, if the focus is only on short-term production and
profits, environmental problems often result even when scientific methods are used. Intensive forestry has caused
biodiversity losses both directly from the loss of habitat and species and indirectly through the fragmentation of
forests into isolated “islands.”

Ecologically Sustainable Forestry

Ecologically sustainable forestry is an attempt to address the environmental problems caused by intensive
forestry. Aldo Leopold, who helped create this new approach, summarized its goals as treating “land as a
community of interacting and interdependent parts, all of which must be cared for.” Increasing growth rates
remains important, but maintaining species, community, and ecosystem levels of biodiversity is equally
so. Therefore, the goal of ecologically sustainable forestry is the maintenance of all species—commercial
and noncommercial, plants and animals—in as close to a natural ecosystem as possible. Trees are removed
for lumber, but in ways that will not unduly affect the viability of other, noncommercial species. Currently,
ecologically sustainable forestry is the stated goal of management by the U.S. Forest Service in American
National Forests and is practiced in several, though not all, other countries.

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Forestry in the Tropics
Tropical forests are not just the lush jungles that we see
in movies but are dozens of different types of forests,
each a subdivision of the two major tropical forest
biomes (see the discussion of biomes in Section II).
Tropical forests once covered over 15 billion acres (6.2
billion hectares) of the globe. However, between 1985
and 1990 alone, over 200 million acres (85 million
hectares) of tropical forest were destroyed, and the
destruction is continuing at a rate approaching two
percent of the total per year.
Between 1985 and 1990 alone, over 200 million acres
Tropical forests are home to a vast majority of the of tropical forest were destroyed, and the destruction is
continuing at a rate approaching two percent of the total per
world’s biodiversity. And because they produce many
year.
products that are found nowhere else—including
rubber, many medicinal plants, various fruits and
nuts, and many types of wood—tropical forests are also of great economic value. The consumer demand for fine
tropical woods such as mahogany and teak, an $8 billion annual industry, is one of the major causes of tropical
deforestation. A further complexity is that most existing tropical forests are in the developing countries of South
America, Africa, and Asia, where many indigenous people depend on the forests for water, fuelwood, and land for
farming. Any reduction in tropical forestry must be coupled with some way for these indigenous people to earn a
livelihood.

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In a stand of tropical forest, commercial species usually make up only ten to twenty percent of the trees.
Therefore, sustainable commercial forestry in the tropics today must rely on a combination of selective logging
in natural forests and the planting of commercial monocultures in plantations. While selective logging leaves the
forest canopy relatively intact, it is not without adverse environmental impacts, as the following example shows.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Selective Logging and

Butterfly Diversity in Borneo28
Selective logging is the primary method of logging
for timber in Southeast Asia, including Borneo. The
selective logging method used in Borneo involves
the harvesting of all commercially valuable trees
of a specified minimum size. Trees are extracted
from the forest by bulldozer or by overhead cable
systems. While less destructive than clearcutting,
this method does produce collateral damage: a large
percentage of smaller trees are destroyed from the
logging or road-building operations. In addition,
the number and abundance of various vertebrate
species has changed after selective logging.
Since forest communities depend upon insects
for much of their pollination and other important
The Borneo birdwing butterfly.
ecological functions, John Willott and his colleagues
By Notafly - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
studied how selective logging affects the abundance index.php?curid=11636972
and diversity of butterfly species, which are

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 FIGURE 80

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Impact of forestry practices on butterfly species in Borneo.

particularly important pollinators. From March to November 1995, Willott and his colleagues studied butterflies
in four primary, or non-logged, forest sites; four previously logged forest sites; and two open areas resulting
from road construction and other development. The logged areas had been harvested six years earlier, allowing
time for the biodiversity to reach a new “normal” level for a disturbed forest area.
The scientists found that the number of butterfly species and individuals fluctuated over the course of the year.
Interestingly, there was little variation between logged and non-logged areas in the total number of species
or individuals of different families (groups of related species) of butterflies. However, there was quite a bit of
variation in which species, and how many individuals of each species, were found in each area. Some species
with large populations in one habitat type were found, if at all, only in low numbers in the other habitat type.
So, while selective logging seems to have had little effect on the total species-level biodiversity, it did have a
significant effect on community-level biodiversity: the species present changed as the habitat changed.
If you compare these results to the earlier example that focused on the Georges Bank fishery, you can see that
both selective logging and selective fishing had the same effect of changing the structure of the biological
community even when total biomass stayed roughly the same. While there are many differences among
ecosystems that managers must account for, some principles can be applied by environmental scientists to all
ecosystems.

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North American Forests
Despite the prevalence and importance of tropical
forests, approximately fifty percent of all commercial
timber in the world is produced in the United States
and Canada. In these two countries, deforestation is not
an issue; there has been an increase in forestlands in
both countries over the last several decades. However,
these forests are not the old-growth forests of past
generations but are mostly plantations, primarily in the
southern U.S., and new forests growing on abandoned
agricultural lands. Biodiversity at both the species
and community level is not as great in new forests as
in older forests. Further, because there has not been
Approximately fifty percent of all commercial timber in the
enough time for functioning biological communities world is produced in the United States and Canada.
to develop in many of these newer forests, they do not
Copyright: © David R. Frazier/SCIENCE SOURCE
provide the same quality or quantity of ecosystem
services as older forests. And even in older-growth
National Forests, several species of plants and animals are endangered or threatened by habitat loss through
logging. Such environmental concerns are becoming important in the management of North American forests.
North American forest management varies considerably, depending on whether it involves private or public lands.
Much of the private forestland is owned by individuals with little or no interest in commercial forestry. At the

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same time, millions of acres of North American forestland are owned or leased by commercial forestry companies
that historically have not been very concerned with the effects of forestry practices on biodiversity and ecosystem
functions, though this is beginning to change. By contrast, the management of public forests in the U.S., particularly
the National Forests administered by the U.S. Forest Service, is the main global example of how noneconomic
values are being incorporated into an ecosystem management program, though not without a struggle.
While logging, recreation, and other human uses are important purposes of National Forests, so is the protection
of biodiversity. The National Forest Management Act (NFMA), originally passed in 1982, requires the U.S.
Forest Service to “provide for diversity of plant and animal communities based on the suitability and capability
of the specific land area in order to meet overall multiple-use objectives….” The Forest Service’s main method
of meeting this requirement has been through the establishment of NFMA-based regulations that outline
the ecological, economic, and social variables that must be accounted for in planning and carrying out the
management of each National Forest under its administration.
Most recently, the Forest Service has created new regulations that capture the concepts and tools of conservation
biology that the Sierra Club was trying to force them to use in the 1990s. For the Sierra Club, this is an example
of losing the battle, but winning the war.

SECTION III SUMMARY

The Human Population
6 The number of people on Earth continues to increase, but the growth rate is slowing. Of the 8 billion people
on Earth, roughly one-fifth live in more developed countries, and four-fifths live in less developed countries.
The growth rate in less-developed countries is much higher than it is in more-developed countries.
6 Each person on Earth has an impact on the environment. The overall effect on the environment is
influenced by both the number of people and the quantity and type of resource used per person.
Consumption of resources is much greater in more-developed countries than in less-developed countries.
6 A number of population parameters can be used to describe the current and future patterns in a population.
Fertility rate and doubling time give an indication of the growth likely to occur in a population. Life

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 expectancy and infant mortality are fairly good indicators of the level of health care in a country. Age-
structure diagrams allow a view of the current and likely future distribution in the age of a population.
6 Exponential growth occurs when there are no limits on a population. Populations growing exponentially
increase as a percentage of the numbers already in the population. Arithmetic growth increases by a
fixed amount each year, regardless of the population size. Eventually, all populations reach their carrying
capacity, and rapid growth stops.
6 A variety of biological, social, and economic factors affect population growth and carrying capacity.
Countries have undergone transitions from rapid growth to stable population size. The ultimate causes
for these transitions are not always known. Ultimately, it appears that social factors are going to limit and
reduce the human population on Earth.
Minerals and Soils
6 Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are the chemical building blocks of life on Earth. Six other elements are
essential macronutrients, and seven micronutrients are essential for plant life. Elements move between
the atmosphere, biosphere, and soils in biogeochemical cycles.
6 The hydrologic cycle—the movement of water through the atmosphere and over the surface of the
Earth—carries chemical elements as ions in their aqueous phase. The hydrologic cycle can be summed
up as “precipitation = evapotranspiration + infiltration + runoff.”
6 The global carbon cycle is the composite of photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition, and combustion.
Human activities have a major impact on the carbon cycle, adding large amounts of the element, largely
through fossil-fuel use, to what would otherwise be a steady-state process.

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6 Although the atmosphere is 78 percent nitrogen, the dominant form of atmospheric nitrogen, N2 gas, is not
biologically usable by most organisms. The processes of nitrogen fixation, ammonification, and nitrification
convert nitrogen to nitrate or ammonium that plants can use directly. Because nitrogen is the limiting
element in many terrestrial systems, the nitrogen cycle is extremely important in the regulation of primary
productivity. Excess nitrate can accumulate in soil or leach into water, creating pollution in ecosystems.
6 The phosphorus cycle has no gaseous component. Phosphorus comes primarily from rocks and minerals.
It cycles with water but is a conservative element, strongly retained by soils and biota. Phosphorus is
very important in agriculture. Anthropogenic inputs of phosphorus in aquatic systems, now largely from
fertilizer runoff, can cause very destructive algal blooms.
6 Calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sulfur are other elements important in ecosystems.
6 The Hubbard Brook project, underway since 1962, has studied many ecosystem processes including
the effects of clearcutting on a small watershed system in New Hampshire. It demonstrates how human
activity, element cycling, and hydrologic cycling interact to affect an ecosystem.
6 Soils are an important reservoir for nutrients. Soils develop differently depending on five state variables:
parent material, climate, topography, organisms, and time. The proportion and composition of soil
horizons can vary over small or large distances and are in large part responsible for the character of
Earth’s different ecosystems.
6 Soils are comprised of sand, silt, and clay particles in varying proportions. Depending on those
proportions, soils can have very different properties. Because of the way they affect nutrient availability,
a soil’s cation exchange capacity and degree of base saturation are often important determinants of
ecosystem productivity. Soil degradation is increasingly widespread around the world.
Water Resources
6 Though water covers over 75 percent of Earth’s surface, only about 1 percent of it is available for use by
humans and other organisms. Most of Earth’s fresh water is locked up as ice. Of the unfrozen water, the
greatest amount is contained in underground aquifers and can be pumped to the surface in wells. Surface

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 fresh water in rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes must be chlorinated and usually filtered before human
consumption. Some water is transported over long distances from the original source to the end user,
with consequences to the environment it passes through. Desalination removes salt from seawater so
that it may be used for drinking in very arid areas and also reclaims water with high salt concentrations
resulting from evaporation.
6 Cooling for the various kinds of electricity generating plants and irrigation for agriculture are the
two greatest uses of water in the United States. Irrigation is also a major use in many other countries
around the world. The domestic and public water supply includes both municipal use and household use,
categories that are much greater in the United States than in the rest of the world.
6 In many parts of the world, drought caused by either natural climatic change or human activity is a
common occurrence, often with disastrous consequences. Severe drought can not only kill people and
animals directly, but can destroy topsoil, making land unusable for agriculture for decades. Less severe
water shortages may result from human overuse or misuse of water supplies. Floods can be equally
devastating for humans and the environment.
6 Water can be polluted from either point sources or non-point sources. Waterborne disease-causing
organisms are relatively common in the developing world. Oxygen-demanding waste becomes a food
source for bacteria that decompose it. This leads to a depletion of the oxygen content of a body of water,
killing plant and animal life.
6 Inorganic compounds such as mercury can be toxic to people and animals directly; others, such as
nitrogen, can lead to eutrophication of lakes, which may result in harm to plants and animals. Synthetic

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organic compounds such as PCBs can be toxic, cause mutations and genetic defects, or interfere with
growth and sexual development. Nonchemical water pollutants include sediments and thermal pollution.
Oil spills on the oceans have created some of the most extensive environmental contamination in history.
Solid wastes such as shoreline litter continue to despoil our shorelines.
6 Wastewater from toilets is treated via passage through municipal sewage treatment plants or home
septic systems before returning to the natural water system. Gray water from other sources is
sometimes reintroduced into the environment without treatment.
6 In the United States, water quality is monitored and controlled primarily by the Clean Water Act, the
Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Water Resources Development Acts. In general, the water in all
municipal water systems in the United States is safe drinking water.
6 Because usable fresh water is such a small portion of the global water cycle, human well-being—
and perhaps even our lives—may depend on sustainable water use. Individuals can conserve water
by using new water-efficient appliances or by behavioral changes such as using drought-resistant
landscaping instead of grassy lawns.
Agriculture
6 Agriculture is the primary domesticated ecosystem. It has been called a human-dominated techno-
ecosystem, receiving inputs from both natural systems and human technology. Beginning roughly 12,000
years ago, agriculture has been a positive force in human history but has changed the environment
enormously.
6 Traditional agricultural methods such as nomadic herding, slash-and-burn, and intercropping have been
used for centuries and still continue in many parts of the world and have relatively low environmental
impact.
6 Starting in the 1950s, the Green Revolution combined the development of better varieties of domestic
animals and crops with the intensive use of fertilizers, management techniques, and machinery to
provide food for millions of people, particularly in the developing world.

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 6 The Green Revolution shifted agriculture from small, individual farmers to large-scale agribusiness.
Roughly 12 percent of the global land surface is currently under some type of cultivation, with only six
crops providing 80 percent of the calories in the human diet.
6 As food yield gains resulting from the Green Revolution have begun to taper off, millions of people
suffer from starvation, undernourishment, or malnourishment.
6 Though the world is producing enough grain to feed its population, many people cannot afford or do
not have access to sufficient food, so producing more food alone is not the answer to world hunger.
Conventional Western agriculture, a very high-input system, is dominated by agribusiness, particularly a
few very large international corporations.
6 To increase production as much as possible, conventional agriculture uses a great deal of mechanization
and intensive working of the soil, irrigation, monocultures, and synthetic chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, all of which are environmentally detrimental.
6 The high-density farming of animals allows an extremely high output of meat from a small area of land.
6 All these processes involve large inputs of fossil-fuel energy and water; Western agriculture has the
highest energy subsidy, or amount of energy expended above the solar energy input.
6 Highly technological genetic engineering has enabled humans to modify plants and animals to a degree
that goes beyond traditional artificial selection.
6 Genetically modified organisms have generated a great deal of controversy, particularly due to concerns
related to accidental release to and proliferation in the wild with the possibility of altering or eliminating

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natural varieties of crops.
6 The extensive use of genetically modified seed is already reducing the genetic diversity of food crops. In
an attempt to produce enough food to feed the world’s population without destroying the land, polluting
the environment, or reducing biodiversity, some people are turning to alternative agricultural techniques.
6 Sustainable agriculture attempts to combine economic viability with reduced environmental impact,
emphasizing the continuation of agriculture on a given piece of land indefinitely. Organic farming, which
may or may not be sustainable, uses ecological principles and minimizes synthetic inputs.
Natural Resources—Fisheries and Forestry
6 Many of the fisheries, forests, and rangelands in the world are owned and managed by governments.
These and other public lands are domesticated ecosystems with unique management requirements that
arise from public ownership. In an attempt to avoid the tragedy of the commons, most environmental
policy, laws, and management plans for public resources throughout the world have been based on the
resource conservation ethic. Public lands are classified by the uses allowed on them. For decades, the
principle of multiple use has underlain U.S. public land management.
6 Fisheries, like agriculture, are ecosystems manipulated by humans for economic benefit. Natural marine
ecosystems are affected by actions and changes within fishery systems. Many of the world’s marine fish
are in danger of extinction because of overfishing and the introduction of high-tech intensive fishing
practices. Because most fishing takes place in international waters, countries are developing cooperative
management plans for sustainable fisheries. Individual transferable quotas and exclusion zones are two of
the main methods that have helped to reduce overfishing and restore some populations. Technology, such
as turtle exclusion devices, can limit loss of by-catch.
6 Forests cover approximately 33 percent of Earth’s surface. The ancient practice of forestry manages
natural or planted forest ecosystems, whether publicly or privately owned, for human benefit—primarily
for timber production, with biodiversity protection a secondary, though increasing, interest. Stands of
trees are harvested according to various methods, ranging from clearcutting to shelterwood cutting, with
differing effects on renewability and sustainability. Intensive forestry, like intensive agriculture, aims to
maximize short-term gains by producing as much timber each year as possible.

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6 Forests in the tropics are home to a vast majority of the world’s biodiversity, and many species are
in increasing danger of extinction as tropical forests are cleared for agriculture or development. In
developing countries, sustainable forest management plans must include ways for indigenous people to
benefit economically. North American forests are increasing, but the replacement of old-growth trees
with monoculture tree plantations is removing habitat and endangering biodiversity. While logging,
recreation, and other human uses are important purposes of U.S. National Forest management, so is the
protection of biodiversity.

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 Section IV
Science for a Sustainable Future
AIR POLLUTION AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE
Lichens, the gray-green or orange growths you may have seen on rocks and trees, are a complex symbiosis
between two separate organisms—a fungus and an alga. The green algal cells (cyanobacteria) live within the
fungal filaments and carry out photosynthesis, providing energy both to the alga and the fungal part of the
lichen. While fascinating themselves, lichens are also indicators of changes in the levels and ecosystem effects of
many air pollutants, particularly sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, and toxic metals.

FIGURE 81

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Lichen as an air pollution indicator.

Two characteristics of lichens make them useful as pollution monitors. First, different species of lichens will
respond to various pollutants in ways ranging from tolerance to death. The absence of a lichen species in
regions where it once existed can indicate that pollutants have increased to levels intolerable for that species. For
example, the absence of some species of lichens from the eastern United States (except for parts of Florida and
Maine) has been correlated with high levels of sulfur and nitrogen pollutants.
Second, lichens will rapidly accumulate pollutants into their tissue, providing a sensitive bioassay (use of an
organism to measure levels of chemicals) for changes in pollutant levels as well as a measure of pollutant effects
on ecosystem processes. Lichens are being used as bioassay organisms in many areas, including the South Ural
Mountains of Russia, one of the most polluted regions in the world. A team of environmental scientists, led by
O. William Purvis from the Natural History Museum in London, used lichens to monitor a major point source of
gaseous and particulate emissions—the copper smelter in the town of Karabash.
Unlike sites in the U.S., where the EPA and the Clean Air Act require careful monitoring of both pollutant
emissions and biogeochemical uptakes, no data are available in Karabash. To see where the levels of pollutants
were highest relative to the emissions source, Purvis and his colleagues transplanted over six hundred lichens
from a nonpolluted area upwind of the smelter to areas at various distances downwind. After two and three

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months, they collected the transplants along with samples of native lichens. Analysis of transplants is a good
estimate of short-term pollutant absorption (which reflects short-term variation in emissions), whereas analysis of
natives is a good estimate of long-term accumulation of pollutants.
The results of the analyses showed that significant levels of many pollutants, including lead, zinc, and uranium
(resulting from radiation exposure), and particulates, such as coal dust, were found in both the transplanted
and the native lichens. Further, the closer the transplanted species of lichen were to the smelter, the more likely
they were to exhibit tissue damage, which explained why these species were no longer growing normally in the
transplant sites and provided a measure for the adverse effects of pollutants on the ecosystem.

FIGURE 82

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Layers of the atmosphere.

Source: NOAA

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This is but one example of the role of science in monitoring air pollution. In general, science is used to study
and manage the impact of air pollution on human health and environmental systems. In this first part of Section
IV, we will focus on the environmental system impacts of air pollution—particularly air pollution that results
from conventional energy production (e.g., emissions from power plants). Later in the section, we will turn our
attention to environmental health, including the human health impacts of air pollution and other sources of
environmental contaminants.
Air pollution is the emission of compounds into the atmosphere at levels high enough to harm plants, animals
(including humans), and buildings (and/or other nonliving materials) as well as adversely impact the structure
and function of ecosystems. Air pollution can be produced by natural sources, such as volcanoes and fires, or by
human sources such as automobiles, power plants, and factories. Air pollution usually refers to pollution in the
troposphere, roughly the first ten km (six miles) of the atmosphere above Earth’s surface. Tropospheric pollution
is sometimes called ground-level pollution. Other layers of the Earth’s atmosphere also contain pollution, but for
now we will focus on the troposphere.

Major Air Pollutants

The atmosphere, like most of the oceans, is considered a global commons that is protected by governments that
regulate the activities producing air pollutants. Environmental science was used in the development of these
regulations, including the U.S. Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1970. As part of the development of the CAA, scientists
identified the six most common and widely harmful air pollutants, and these pollutants remain a primary focus
of air pollution regulation and are the criteria by which the air in cities, regions, and states is judged to be
significantly polluted. These six criteria pollutants are sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, lead,

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particulate matter, and ground-level ozone.

Sulfur Dioxide
Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is a gas released in nature by volcanic eruptions and by humans, primarily through the
burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. All living things contain various amounts of sulfur, and thus fossil
fuels formed from long-ago plants and animals. This sulfur is released when fossil fuels are burned.
SO2 harms mammalian respiratory systems, including reducing lung function. While this is particularly harmful
for people with asthma or other respiratory illnesses, it can irritate the lungs of anyone. Sulfur dioxide can also
harm plants, as SO2 in the atmosphere can undergo a chemical reaction to form sulfuric acid, one of the main
components of acid rain.

Nitrogen Oxides
The atmosphere is 78 percent nitrogen gas (N2)), and all combustion in the atmosphere leads to the formation
of a wide variety of nitrogen oxides (NOX). Atmospheric NOX gases can be harmful themselves, but they also
play a role in forming ozone and other common components of urban air pollution. Like SO2, NOX can undergo
chemical reactions in the atmosphere to form nitric acid, which also is harmful to ecosystems.

Carbon Monoxide
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless gas that is formed during incomplete combustion of most organic
matter, such as gasoline, which makes it a major part of automobile emissions. Carbon monoxide binds with
hemoglobin (an oxygen transporting protein in the mammalian body) and interferes with the transport of oxygen,
which—if exposure is high enough—can lead to health impacts such as dizziness, headaches, confusion, loss of
consciousness, and even death.

Lead
Lead (Pb) is a naturally occurring element that is part of the Earth’s crust and can be found in air, water, and soil.
Airborne lead, such as when lead was used as an additive in gasoline and emitted from tailpipes, is only one of
the ways that lead may impact humans. The use of leaded gasoline ended in the U.S. in the 1970s and globally in

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2021 when the final stocks of leaded gas were used up
in Algeria. Lead can also be found in lead-based paint
and lead plumbing, both of which can still be found
in some homes and communities. Lead, regardless of
the source, can adversely impact an animal’s blood
production, producing anemia but, even more critically,
it has been found to have a wide range of adverse
neurological impacts, particularly on young children.

Particulate Matter
Particulate matter refers to solid or liquid particles
suspended in air. Particulates come from most
combustion products, including wood, coal, oil, and
gasoline. They are most commonly known as a class
of pollutants resulting from “dirty burning” fuels such
Air pollution has a significant impact on human health.
as coal and oil or low-efficiency wood stoves (which Particulate matter is suspected of causing lung cancer and
are a major source of air pollution in many northern other lung ailments.
states and countries). Forest fires and volcanoes are two
natural sources of particulates.
Particulates range in size from 0.01 microns to 100 microns in diameter, which is approximately the thickness
of the average human hair. Most air pollution particulates are in the 2.5 to 100 micron range with oil smoke on

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the smaller side ( +/− 2.5 microns). Particulates smaller than 10 microns (PM10) can be inhaled and accumulate
in the respiratory tract and lungs. Particulates between 10 microns and 2.5 microns are generally categorized as
coarse. Fine particles—those smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5)—pose a greater health risk than larger particles
since they travel further along the respiratory tract before depositing deep in the lungs. Particulates of various
sizes are suspected of causing lung cancer and other lung ailments in humans. Particulates also block sunlight. If
the atmospheric concentration of particulates is high enough, as it is immediately following a large forest fire or
a volcanic eruption, photosynthesis in the region can even be reduced.

Ground-Level Ozone
Photochemical air pollutants (e.g., ozone) are a class of air pollutants that are formed as a result of action by the
Sun on compounds that are oxides, such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide. Photochemical pollutants are among
the compounds that comprise photochemical smog, a comprehensive term that refers to the haze that appears
over cities, particularly cities like Los Angeles where surrounding mountains will trap the smog.
The formation of photochemical pollutants is complex, but we can represent it in simplified form as:
sunlight + NO + O2 + VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) =
O3 + HNO3 (nitric acid) + organic compounds
There are many photochemical pollutants, but ozone (O3)—three oxygen molecules bound together—is the most
important for its positive and negative impacts. Ozone forms in the stratosphere, where it absorbs ultraviolet light
and thereby removes harmful ultraviolet radiation, keeping it from reaching the Earth. In the troposphere (closer
to the Earth’s surface), ozone is an oxidant harmful to plants and animals. Volatile organic compounds, which
are human-produced air pollutants that are used and produced in the manufacture of paints, pharmaceuticals, and
refrigerants, are another significant component in creating smog.
While criteria pollutants are common air pollutants with known adverse health impacts and are regulated under
their own part of the Clean Air Act—the National Ambient Air Quality Standards—there are many other air
pollutants, such as mercury (primarily produced through the burning of coal for energy), that adversely impact
human health and ecosystems. Many of these pollutants are regulated under different parts of the Clean Air Act,

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such as the Hazardous Air Pollutant section. Regardless of the regulatory method, the initial step is for scientists
to set standards for how much of a certain pollutant should be allowed in the atmosphere (e.g., the ambient air) or
can be emitted from a source (e.g., a car or a power plant). These standards are primarily based on the impact of
various levels of pollutants on human health (which we will discuss later in this section) or on ecosystems, such
as the impact of acid rain on forests and aquatic systems.

Secondary Pollutants
Most of the criteria pollutants are classified as primary pollutants because they remain in the form that they
are emitted from the power plant, factory, car, or other source. However, some pollutants, such as smog and
acid rain, result from chemical reactions in the atmosphere in which primary pollutants are transformed into
secondary pollutants. Solar energy powers some of these reactions, such as the formation of smog, and they
rely on atmospheric water and the higher temperatures found near the Earth’s surface. Smog is a secondary
pollutant—smog is not emitted from a smokestack or tailpipe. Instead, like sulfuric acid and nitric acid, it is
created by chemical reactions in the atmosphere.

FIGURE 83

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The formation of smog.
Source: University of Calgary: Energy Education

Natural Sources of Air Pollution

Though we tend to think of air pollution as caused by human activity—and most of it usually is—a significant
percentage of air pollution comes from natural sources. Volcanoes, forest and grassland fires, living plants, and dead
plants all release compounds that can be classified as pollutants. Volcanoes release SO2, particulates, CO, and NOX.
Forest fires release particulates, CO, and NOX. The summer of 2023 provided a critical example of how wildfires
can impact air quality as wildfires in the Pacific Northwest and, in particular, northern Canada produced high levels
of particulate matter and other pollutants, causing extremely unhealthy air quality in much of North America and

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even impacting Europe. In addition, the 2023 Canadian wildfires more than doubled the previous annual high for
Canada’s level of carbon dioxide emissions. While we can classify the pollutants produced from these wildfires as
“naturally produced,” a 2023 study concluded that climate change—mainly due to human-caused greenhouse gas
emissions—more than doubled the likelihood of the extreme weather conditions in eastern Canada.29

FIGURE 84

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Causes of air pollution.
Source: NPS

Even without wildfires, living plants release a variety of VOCs, including ethylene and terpenes (which cause
the fragrant smell from conifer trees and the smell from citrus fruits). Long before human-caused pollution was
common, the natural VOCs from plants gave rise to smog-like haze and photochemical pollution—hence the
names of the forested mountain ranges in the southeastern U.S.: the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains. Large
nonindustrial areas, such as agricultural fields, can give rise to particulate matter when they are plowed, as
happened in the dustbowl of the 1930s. Even the intestinal tracts of domestic livestock contribute to air pollution
through the release of methane, a greenhouse gas.

Atmospheric (Thermal) Inversion

Atmospheric temperature contributes to the formation of smog. Normally, temperature decreases with increasing
altitude. But when a warm layer of air at mid-altitude blankets a cooler layer below it, an atmospheric inversion
occurs, and pollutants released at ground level—whether natural or anthropogenic—accumulate in the
troposphere, often causing a severe pollution event. Atmospheric inversions are particularly common in cities
where high concentrations of vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions are easily trapped by an inversion layer.

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FIGURE 85

Temperature inversion.
Source: MDPI

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Using Models to Predict

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Pollution30
In order to develop measures to prevent or control pollution, it is very useful to be able to predict its occurrence
and effects. For example, scientists have shown an association between exposure to photochemical smog and
the incidence of childhood asthma. One tool that helps researchers understand where the greatest incidence of
asthma will occur is the predictive air pollution model. Given certain known conditions, researchers can predict
where pollution concentrations will be greatest, and public health officials can concentrate their efforts on
asthma education and prevention in those areas.
Mathematical modeling is one of the key methods used by environmental scientists to predict how various
emission limitations affect distribution from pollution sources. In fact, the use of mathematical models is
so important in this area that the Clean Air Act makes models the preferred method of estimating emission
distribution, and they are a required component of most state implementation plans. Models are critical
because it is not possible to collect enough data from enough different sites and enough different times to
make accurate predictions.
Because pollution levels and distribution are a function of both the individual characteristics of the source—
such as smokestack height or production per hour—and local topography and weather patterns, no one model
can be used to predict emission levels and pollution distribution for all types of sources in all places. To address
this problem, environmental scientists have collected, tested, and modified several models that can be used
in different situations. Many models use equations based on the known physical relationships between the
movement of pollutants and various weather/topographical variables. Some of the models approved by the
EPA include those that model the emissions release and downwind movement from aluminum reduction plants
and similar sources; estimate concentration of pollutants from highway traffic; model the dynamic ways that
weather conditions vary over time and location to affect pollutant transport; and account for the settling and
deposition of particles as a function of downwind distance, separation of individual point sources, and more.

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ENERGY USE AND SOURCES
Units of Energy
The British thermal unit (Btu) is the most common unit for the comparison of energy sources. One Btu is
the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water by 1º Fahrenheit (F) at the
temperature water has its greatest density (approximately 39º F).31
Below are the amounts of energy, in Btu, from some common sources of energy:
6 1 barrel (42 gallons) of crude oil produced in the United States = 5,684,000 Btu
6 1 gallon of finished motor gasoline (containing about 10 percent fuel ethanol by volume) = 120,214 Btu
6 1 gallon of diesel fuel or heating oil (with sulfur content less than 15 parts per million) = 137,381 Btu
6 1 gallon of heating oil (with sulfur content at 15 to 500 parts per million) = 138,500 Btu
6 1 barrel of residual fuel oil = 6,287,000 Btu
6 1 cubic foot of natural gas = 1,036 Btu
6 1 gallon of propane = 91,452 Btu
6 1 short ton (2,000 pounds) of coal (consumed by the electric power sector) = 18,820,000 Btu
6 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity = 3,412 Btu
As you can see from the above list, one Btu is a small amount of the energy consumed by a household, let alone
a nation; in 2021, the United States used about 97 quadrillion Btu of energy. One quadrillion can be written out
as a 1 followed by 15 zeros: 1,000,000,000,000,000.32 For large amounts of energy, we will use quadrillion Btu or
quad Btu, for short.

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Worldwide Patterns of Energy Use
Figure 86 shows the global consumption of the major energy sources from 2017 to 2021.

FIGURE 86
Global Energy Consumption (in quad Btu) 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Total Consumption 584.674 598.521 600.899 576.605 603.321
Coal 164.109 165.807 164.191 158.757 166.72
Natural gas 136.81 143.77 146.138 143.292 150.35
Petroleum and other liquids 196.802 198.201 197.23 178.963 186.714
Nuclear 26.237 26.784 27.773 26.968 28.031
Renewables and other 62.032 65.295 66.917 69.794 72.842

Global energy consumption.

In 2010, China passed the U.S. as the major energy-consuming country in the world and in 2021 consumed
165.168 quad Btu compared to the U.S.’s 97.907 quad Btu.

The Current Fuel Mix in the United States

We can consider the energy requirements and end uses in the United States today as the inputs and outputs
of an enormous system. The boundaries of the system are both physical (the borders of the country and the
ground) and social/technological. For example, oil inputs enter the U.S. energy system both from other countries
and from beneath our own soil. Hydropower comes from flowing water within the physical boundaries of the
country, but it is not an energy input until we move it to a technological system (a hydroelectric dam). Outputs

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from the system are not energy moving out of the country but rather the end use of the energy—again, a
movement from a raw form (say, oil) to a human use (transportation).
Figure 88 shows energy consumption by source in the United States in 2022 (in which total energy consumption
rose to 100.41 quad Btu from the 2021 level) and also shows the end use sector (what the energy sources are
being used for). In 2022, 79 percent of energy consumed came from fossil fuels: coal, petroleum, and natural gas;
8 percent from nuclear power; and 13 percent from renewable energy. The patterns in other developed countries
are fairly similar, although specific details vary since countries tend to utilize the resources that are most
abundant and local. Energy use in the developed world, however, is not typical of the world as a whole.

FIGURE 87

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U.S. Energy Consumption, 1776–2021.

Source: EIA

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 FIGURE 88

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U.S. Energy Consumption in 2022.
Source: EIA

Nonrenewable fuels are those that have a finite amount present on Earth, at least in the context of thousands of
years. If we wait long enough, more coal or oil will form, but this will take millions of years. For our purposes,
coal, oil, and natural gas are nonrenewable. Uranium is also nonrenewable because as an element, the total
amount of uranium on Earth is decreasing. Renewable fuels are those that are replenished by a process such
as the shining of the Sun, the blowing of the wind, or precipitation. By definition, the use of fossil fuels is not
sustainable because future generations will not have access to these fuels if we completely use them up over the
next few decades.
Fuel mix varies by region of the country and time of the year for certain sectors. For example, energy-intensive
industries in the central U.S., such as steel manufacturing, use coal to produce the energy needed for production
and as a component in the manufacture of the steel, making steel production one of the most carbon-intensive
industries. In contrast, high-tech electronics industries in California and the Pacific Northwest use electricity
from predominately renewable energy sources. For electricity generation, more coal is burned in the Midwest

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and Southeast than in the Northeast, which uses more nuclear, natural gas, and hydropower for electricity
generation. These trends have to do mostly with where the resource exists (more coal is found in the Midwest
than in other parts of the country, for instance). Also, coal combustion for electricity, which creates the most air
pollution, is less common in areas of high population density. In northern parts of the United States, more oil and
natural gas are used during the winter months to meet demands for heating than in summer.

Energy Efficiency
The goals for energy use in a sustainable society are to increase efficiency while reducing costs and pollutants.
Because we use energy in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes, it’s a challenge to evaluate how well
we achieve different tasks. By quantifying energy conversions from one form to another, and by quantifying how
efficiently we use the converted energy, we can get an appreciation for how effectively we use energy, including
the efficiency, financial cost, and the amount of pollution produced for a given task.
Energy efficiency is a measure of how effective we are at getting usable work from a given input of energy (i.e.,
the amount of energy or work output—in the desired form—divided by the total energy input). No energy source
is ever 100 percent efficient; some energy is always lost at each conversion, usually as heat leaving the system.
Figure 89 shows a coal-energy system from the point of coal extraction to the point of turning on a light at home.
At each step in the process, some energy is lost. By the time you turn on the light, you only have 34 percent
of the energy that you started with at the coal mine. And the more steps there are in the process of turning an
energy source into work, the more opportunities there are for a loss of energy and the more inefficient the system
is. Overall, the United Nations Development Program World Energy Assessment (2015) estimates that global
energy efficiency is about 37 percent.

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FIGURE 89

Energy efficiency of a coal to electricity system.

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Energy Use for Transportation
Transportation—personal travel by automobile, bus, train, airplane, and ship, as well as the distribution of
goods by these vehicles—accounts for about 36 percent of the total energy used in the U.S. and over two-thirds
of oil use. In addition, gas-powered vehicles contribute to much of the country’s air pollution and greenhouse
gas emissions. While driving a gas-powered car is relatively energy inefficient because of the loss of energy at
each stage from drilling for oil to burning gas in an engine, there are other factors to consider in calculating the
efficiency of any means of transportation, including how many people travel in a given vehicle and the relative
efficiencies of different types of mass transport.

FIGURE 90

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Fuel economy by travel mode. GGE is gasoline gallon equivalent, which is the amount of energy contained in a gallon of
gasoline.
Source: U.S. Department of Energy

We can start by defining the “work” we want. For personal transportation, we need to transport a person from
Point A to Point B by train, bus, airplane, or car. Figure 90 shows the average fuel economy per passenger for
different means of travel. Note that the energy values report only energy consumed per passenger mile traveled
and do not include the energy used to make the cars, trains, or planes.
To better under the impact of various forms of transportation, let’s work through the example of an automobile
with a driver and no passengers. The average car in the United States can travel 25 miles on one gallon of
gasoline, so we can state that the driver travels 25 passenger miles per gallon. A gallon of gasoline contains
113,738 Btu of energy. Therefore, 113,738 Btu / gallon divided by 25 passenger miles per gallon gives 4,550
Btu per passenger mile. If four people were in the car, we would divide by 100 passenger miles (4 people each
traveling 25 miles). For the purposes of this example, we’ll assume that the distance the car travels on a gallon of
gasoline with four people is the same as with one person, although it might be slightly less because of the added
weight. The same calculations can be made for the other modes of transportation, including an assumption of the
average occupancy for trains, buses, and airplanes. As you can see, modes of transportation that include more
people are more efficient—they will take people farther (the work output) for the same amount of energy used.

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Finding the Right Energy Source for the
Job
When deciding between two energy sources for a given
job, or between two different ways to achieve a given
task, it is essential to consider the thermal efficiency
as well as the overall system efficiency. An excellent
illustration of this principle is the home hot water heater.
Electric hot water heaters are often described as being
100 percent efficient. Even though the Second Law of
Thermodynamics tells us that it is impossible to be
100 percent efficient, electric water heaters come very
close. This is because heat, which is usually the waste
product that reduces the efficiency of an engine, is the
intended product of the electrical energy conversion. If
the conversion from electricity to heat occurs inside the
tank of water, which is usually the case with electric
hot water heaters, so little energy is lost that we can say
the thermal efficiency is ~100 percent. (In a hot water
heater, there are no accessory functions, such as running
the drive train or turning the wheels of the car, so the
thermal energy and the machine energy are the same.)

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There are often two or more fuels that can serve the
same function. The source that provides the desired
work with the fewest energy conversions is the best
match, or the most efficient energy source for a given Animal dung can be burned in an open fire and a pot heated
task. Cooking food indoors, for example, can be directly from the flame.
achieved with a variety of fuels. Animal dung can be By ‫עיש‬.‫ ק‬- Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.
php?curid=10359518
burned in an open fire and a pot heated directly from
the flame. Wood can be burned under a stove, heating an entire stove-top. Natural gas can be burned directly
under the pot. And an electric coil underneath a pan can heat it. Without doing any calculations, we can compare
the number of steps involved in cooking with natural gas, wood, or animal dung:
Combust natural gas, wood, or animal dung  heat food
Now, let’s consider the steps involved in cooking with electricity:
Combust coal, sustain a nuclear reaction, etc. heat water produce steam  turn turbine  generate
electricity  transfer to home  electric stove top  heat food
Clearly, with only one energy conversion compared to seven, cooking with gas or biomass is a much more
energy-efficient process.
So far, in talking about the various sources of energy that power modern society, we have treated electricity
as a part of the mix that is comparable to the other sources. It is important to realize, however, that although
electricity does provide energy, it is not the original source as biomass or oil are. In other words, electricity is an
energy source but not a fuel. We use a variety of fuels to generate electricity.

Generating Electricity
The non-renewable energy sources discussed above—and the renewable energy sources we will discuss later—
are primary energy sources. However, the electricity that we use to power our lights, EVs, electronics, and
much of our modern society is a secondary energy source that is converted from a primary source. Electricity-

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 FIGURE 91

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Sources of U.S. electricity generation, 2022.
Source: EIA

generating powerplants convert the chemical potential energy of a number of fuels into electrical potential
energy (electricity). The basic process is the same, regardless of the fuel. Non-renewable energy source-powered
plants use coal, oil, natural gas, or radioactive fuel rods to produce steam, which turns a turbine, which turns
a generator. The electricity generated is then transported along power lines and converted to heat energy for
cooking, kinetic energy for running motors, and radiant energy for powering lights. As we will see later,
renewable energy sources—such as wind and the flow of water in a hydroelectric dam—can also be used to
drive a turbine.
Most older, conventional electricity-generating plants have an efficiency of about 36 percent. Newer coal-burning
plants may have efficiencies of up to 42 percent. Efficiencies of over 50 percent are possible for coal-fired systems
but are not commercially feasible at present. An improvement in gas-combustion technology has led to the
combined cycle natural gas-fired power plant, which can achieve efficiencies of 60 percent, making this system
highly desirable.

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 FIGURE 92

Electricity generation from an electric turbine.

Source: EIA

The Power Grid

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Electricity-generating power plants are located throughout the country in a large, somewhat amorphous delivery
system called the electric power grid. The grid loosely connects the plants to one another and to all the homes
in a given area. For example, the northeastern United States is part of one grid; California, Oregon, Washington,
and many of the Rocky Mountain states belong to another grid. When one electric powerplant is operating and
generating electricity, it sends its output over the power lines. Most likely, electricity users near the plant utilize
the electricity. But if the plant is generating more electricity than local users need, the electricity is transported
along the power grid to users farther away. For example, when there is a summer heat wave in Boston, it is
likely that powerplants in cooler Maine are sending some electricity south, perhaps preventing blackouts and
brownouts that occur when energy consumption is greater than the amount of energy that can be provided.
Likewise, a cold spell in Oregon might result in electricity from California being transported northward.
Any number of power plants contribute to the electricity grid. The mix of fuel sources that provide electricity
in any given locality varies by region of the country and by country throughout the world. Coal-fired plants
were the backbone of electricity generation in the United States, responsible for approximately 50 percent of all
electricity produced as recently as 2005. However, that dropped to only 19.5 percent by 2022. Nuclear power
plants make up 18 percent of electricity generation in the U.S., while natural gas has gone from contributing only
15 percent of electricity generation in 2000 to almost 40 percent in 2022.

Nonrenewable Energy Sources

Coal
Between 160 million and 400 million years ago, tropical plants growing in swamps and marshes were covered
by sediments. Because the rich organic matter was buried, decomposition was limited. High pressure and
temperature and eons of time compacted the organic matter into the dense, energy-rich carbon material that
we know as coal. Because of this origin, coal is called a fossil fuel. There are several different kinds of coal,
representing the different amounts of time and pressure needed for formation; classified from lesser to greater
energy content, they are peat, lignite, bituminous coal, and anthracite.
Because coal is very energy dense and plentiful, it is ideal for the generation of electricity and for industrial

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processes such as making steel. Coal is mined in two general ways: deep shaft mining and surface mining. In
deep-shaft mining, tunnels are dug into the Earth, perhaps as deep as 2,000 feet, and people descend into the
shafts, dislodge the coal, and bring it to the surface. Surface mining comes in many forms, from digging a pit
to removing a mountaintop. Coal extraction can result in major adverse environmental impacts, including the
emissions of several harmful air pollutants, including sulfur dioxides, particulate matter, and mercury, and
mining degrades water quality of nearby streams, creating an environmental problem called acid mine drainage.

FIGURE 93

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Environmental impacts of coal mining.

Petroleum
Petroleum—the mixture of hydrocarbons, water and, usually, sulfur that occurs in underground deposits—
is also a fossil fuel. In contrast to coal, petroleum formed from the remains of ocean-dwelling plankton that
were preserved roughly 65 to 250 million years ago. It occurs in certain locations with porous rocks, such as
sandstone, that are capped by nonporous rock. The petroleum filled the pore spaces in the rock, geologic events
deformed the rock layers so that they formed a trap, and after millions of years, the petroleum migrated upward
toward the highest point in the rock.
Petroleum must be extracted with wells, drilled on land and under water, and pumped from the ground, except
in specific locations where it flows out under pressure from drilling. Petroleum contains natural gas as well as
oil; when the gas is separated out, the remaining product is known as liquid petroleum or crude oil. Crude oil
is further refined into a variety of compounds that are separated by weight, including, among others, gasoline,
diesel fuel, and kerosene.

Oil
Petroleum is currently the greatest energy source in the United States, although natural gas has closed the
gap. It is extremely convenient, relatively energy dense, and clean burning compared to coal. Sulfur and other
impurities can be removed from oil before combustion, although the lower-sulfur-content oils are generally more

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expensive to manufacture and thus more expensive to purchase. Since it is a fossil fuel, oil will release carbon
into the atmosphere when burned, although only 85 percent as much as coal when producing the equivalent
amount of energy. In addition, as we discussed in Section III, oil spills of all sizes are a significant source of
water pollution.

Natural Gas
Natural gas, which is 80 to 95 percent methane (CH4), occurs with oil in the ground. Because it is less dense than
oil, it lies above it in the rock strata. Relative to coal and oil, natural gas contains fewer impurities and therefore
gives rise to virtually no SO2 and particulates during combustion. However, CH4 is a potent greenhouse gas
(twenty-five times more efficient at trapping heat from the Earth than CO2). The leaking of natural gas during
extraction is a major cause of CH4 pollution. However, natural gas only produces 60 percent as much CO2 as coal
for the same amount of energy produced, making it, overall, a lower contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

Hydraulic Fracturing
Hydraulic fracturing extracts previously untapped oil and natural gas reserves. Hydraulic fracturing (or fracking)
involves injecting high-pressure streams of water, sand, and chemicals into bedrock to create fractures in the
rock formation to extract trapped oil and gas. This technique, coupled with horizontal drilling, has allowed
previously unreachable reservoirs of oil and natural gas to be tapped. Fracking has been the major reason that
natural gas has overtaken coal as the second most used energy source in the U.S., behind petroleum.
There are several environmental and human health concerns related to fracking. The fluid used to “frack” the
bedrock contains chemicals such as methanol, ethylene glycol, and propargyl alcohol that are hazardous to
human health.33 The extent to which these chemicals are impacting water resources is uncertain. However, it

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FIGURE 94

The fracking process.

Source: NRDC

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is known that large-scale fracking operations use a tremendous amount of water—about 1.5 trillion gallons of
water since 2011, and fracking a single well can use 40 million gallons of water or more.34 Large-scale fracking
projects can dramatically lower key aquifers. And much of this large-scale fracking, and massive use of water, is
taking place in areas like Texas, where droughts are becoming more common.

Nuclear Power
Nuclear power is a relatively clean means of electricity generation but produces radioactive waste. Nuclear power
does not directly provide energy for consumers but is used to generate electricity. The fuel itself is uranium,
a natural element that occurs in relatively small concentrations in a wide variety of rocks, including shale and
sandstone. As much as two thousand pounds of uranium must be mined to produce seven pounds of uranium
oxide for nuclear fuel. Surface mining removes large amounts of the host rock. The uranium is extracted from
the rock and concentrated, and the remaining material is left in slag piles. The western U.S. and parts of Canada
are two locations where commercial operations mine uranium for nuclear fuel.
After extraction, the uranium ore is enriched, a process that includes, among other things, the removal of
naturally occurring impurities so that the ore might contain 2−3 percent uranium oxide. The enriched uranium
is processed into pellets, which are then put into hollow fuel rods approximately six feet high. A typical nuclear
reactor might contain 75 to 100 bundles of fuel rods. A pellet of uranium oxide undergoes extremely rapid
radioactive decay, or the splitting of the uranium atoms into more atoms. Each time an atom splits (a fission
reaction), a small amount of heat is given off. When a number of pellets representing trillions of uranium atoms
are bundled together into fuel rods, a great deal of heat is released. In the reactor, the heat warms water, which
eventually becomes steam, which turns a turbine just as in any other electricity generating station.

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FIGURE 95

Diagram of a nuclear reactor.

Source: World Nuclear Association

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Uranium is the most concentrated of all the energy
sources we have considered. A pound of enriched
uranium, which is smaller than a baseball, has the energy
content of a million gallons of gasoline. Ten tons of
enriched uranium oxide contain roughly the same energy
as 260,000 tons of coal. We can say that there is 26,000
times more energy in uranium than in coal.
Nuclear power plants do not produce any air pollution
when they are operating, so proponents of nuclear
power consider it “clean” energy. However, fossil fuels
are used during other parts of nuclear power generation,
which does produce air pollution—for example when
the power plant is constructed, when uranium ore
is mined and processed, when used fuel rods are
transported from the plant to their ultimate storage
location, and when the plant is decommissioned.
(Nuclear power plants have a life of approximately fifty
years before the level of radioactivity in the plant and
obsolescence of the structure require them to be shut
down.) Nevertheless, even with all these releases taken
into account, emissions of carbon dioxide per kilowatt- A clean-up crew works to remove radioactive contamination

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hour of electricity generated are at most 60 grams for at Three Mile Island after the accident there in 1979.
a nuclear power plant, compared to 800 to 1,100 grams
for a modern coal-burning power plant.

Nuclear Accidents
Three accidents in widely separated parts of the world have contributed to the extensive protests against nuclear
power in the United States. On March 28, 1979, at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, human error caused
a cooling water valve to be closed, which led to a loss of coolant around the nuclear core. The core overheated and
suffered damage, and a small amount of radiation was released from the plant. This event, compounded by the
coincidental release of the film The China Syndrome, in which a nuclear plant suffered a major “meltdown,” led to
widespread public fear and anger. One result was a huge amount of scrutiny given to the safety of nuclear power
plants and some of the early assumptions that had been made about the relative risks of operating them.
An even more serious accident occurred on April 26, 1986, at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine. An
explosion and fire exposed the core of one of the reactors, and at least thirty-one plant workers and firefighters
died immediately of acute radiation exposure—with many hundreds, and perhaps thousands, dying over a longer
period of time from the radiation exposure. The Chernobyl accident has been intensively studied and has been
characterized as a “runaway” reactor incident. The accident occurred during a special test of the plant when,
in violation of safety regulations, operators deliberately disconnected emergency cooling systems and removed
the control rods. With no control rods and no coolant, the nuclear reactions went out of control, and the plant
overheated. Shortly afterward, the plant exploded, and fires began to burn. Because the control rods were made
of flammable graphite, the fire was worse than it would have been in a plant with water control rods.
Finally, in March 2011, a major earthquake occurred off the coast of Japan that resulted in a tsunami hitting the
main island of Honshu, killing over 18,000 people and flooding the reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
This caused radioactive leakage that forced more than 150,000 people to evacuate. The area around the nuclear
plant remains off limits, and it is estimated that it will take up to forty years to finish the decontamination work.35

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Radioactive Waste
While nuclear power does not produce fossil-fuel emissions, it does produce extremely dangerous radioactive
waste that requires special and secure storage. The radioactive waste is classified as: 1) high-level waste from
spent fuel rods; 2) low-level waste from contaminated maintenance materials; and 3) the uranium residue that is
left over after uranium mining and enrichment. While all three kinds of waste require careful handling, it is the
spent fuel rods that are most dangerous and therefore require the most care in disposal.
After a period of time, nuclear fuel rods become “spent,” meaning they do not have enough fuel left to produce
enough heat to effectively generate electricity. The rods still contain highly radioactive fission fragments and
will remain a threat to humans and other organisms for tens of thousands of years. At present, nuclear power
plants are required to store spent fuel rods at the plant itself, in pools of water at least twenty feet deep that act as
a shield from the radiation. From the spent fuel pools, rods are moved to onsite cement storage canisters (called
dry cask storage), which can fit two to six dozen spent fuel rod assemblies each.
In 1978, the U.S. Department of Energy began examining a site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, about a hundred
miles northwest of Las Vegas, as a possible long-term repository for the country’s spent nuclear fuel and
other high-level radioactive waste. In the early 2000s, it seemed almost certain that the repository would

FIGURE 96

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Renewable energy currently accounts for 13 percent of U.S. energy consumption.

Source: EIA

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be constructed; however, that has not happened. Political pressure from Nevada, protests from the Western
Shoshone people living in the area (who also identify Yucca Mountain as a sacred site), and some scientific
uncertainty over whether the site was geologically stable enough to house the waste for thousands of years has,
as of 2023, seemingly put an end to that plan. If and where radioactive waste will be consolidated into a few or
one single storage site is currently uncertain.

Renewable Energy
From the system analysis perspective introduced in Section I, fossil fuels are a resource pool with many outputs
(human energy use), but no real inputs (any “new” coal, oil, or natural gas will not be available to use for many
millions of years). So, like a lake that is being drained, but not being replenished, the use of fossil fuels is not
sustainable. Instead, sustainable energy use is based on the use of renewable energy sources—sources like the Sun
and the wind—that cannot be depleted (at least as long as our Sun and Earth survive). Other energy sources, such
as biofuels like wood, are potentially renewable if they are managed so that their use is balanced by the creation of
new resources, e.g., balancing the logging and regrowth of a forest. And the sustainability of energy use, in general,
can be improved by using less energy through improving energy efficiency and energy conservation.

Direct and Indirect Solar Energy

Almost all energy on Earth, both conventional and alternative, derives from the Sun. Fossil fuels are the product
of plants and animals that were buried millions of years ago. The energy stored in these organisms was gained
either directly or indirectly through photosynthesis. The Sun is also responsible for evaporating water, which
is an essential aspect of the hydrologic cycle. In the hydrologic cycle, water moves from the oceans to the land,

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FIGURE 97

Average annual solar radiation in the U.S. (kilowatt-hours per square meter per day).
Source: NREL

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where it falls to the ground as precipitation. This
precipitation is the source of all rivers and streams,
which provide hydrologic power. And because the Sun
heats the Earth unevenly, causing air to move from
one location to another, it is responsible for generating
wind. Water- and wind-based energy sources can
therefore be considered forms of indirect solar energy.
The only significant sources of energy that are not solar
based are nuclear, geothermal, and tidal.
Energy from the Sun also comes to us directly. Every
day, the Earth is bathed with solar energy. The amount
reaching the top of the Earth’s atmosphere—roughly
1,370 watts per square meter each day—is called the The Andasol solar power station in Spain.
solar constant. Because the atmosphere reflects and
absorbs a good fraction of this energy, only about 200 watts arrive at the Earth’s surface near the equator, though
this amount may vary between 50 and 300 watts, depending on the location and the time of year. This is the
energy that is potentially available for use by people; it is known as the solar potential. Of course, solar energy
is not available in every location every day. On cloudy days, there is much less solar input to the surface of the
Earth than on sunny days; at night solar input is zero. And different regions of the world have different solar
potential. In the United States, the Southwest has the greatest solar potential, with solar energy available at least
90 percent of the time.

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Passive Solar Energy
Passive solar refers to the collection of solar energy directly from the rays of the Sun without an intermediate
technology such as a pump or blower. Passive solar energy has been harnessed for thousands of years for
purposes ranging from home heating to cooking. Positioning a house so that it absorbs the most energy and using
dark materials on the roof or walls of a building so that more solar energy is absorbed than reflected are passive
solar techniques. In the Northern Hemisphere, constructing a house with windows along a south-facing wall
will allow the Sun’s rays that are close to the horizon for much of the day during the winter months to penetrate
and warm the house. Sometimes it is advantageous to install construction material with a great deal of thermal
inertia—in other words, material that once heated, remains hot, and once cooled, remains cool. Stone and
concrete have thermal inertia; wood and glass do not. A southern exposure room with stone walls and a stone
floor will heat up on sunny winter days and retain that heat long after the Sun has set.

Active Solar Energy

Systems that utilize energy from the Sun with the assistance of fans, blowers, and pumps are active solar
systems. Active solar energy is used primarily for two main applications: heating hot water and generating
electricity.

Solar Water Heating

In a house with an active solar water heater, before cold water enters the water heater, a small electric pump
pushes water onto the roof, where it circulates in copper tubing. Painted black and sometimes put behind glass,
the tubing absorbs energy from the Sun and transfers it to the water. The water then returns to the building,
where it enters the hot water heater tank and is heated further or, if it is already hot enough, is available for use.

Solar Generation of Electricity

Energy from the Sun can be converted directly to electrical energy with a photovoltaic solar cell. A photovoltaic
solar cell makes use of the fact that very thin, ultra-clean layers of silicon dioxide (SiO2) generate an electrical
current when they are exposed to direct sunlight. Contemporary photovoltaic cells are made of SiO2 combined
with a very small amount of a metal, such as arsenic or antimony, to increase the voltage of the output. An

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 FIGURE 98

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Diagram of a photovoltaic cell.
Source: EIA

individual photovoltaic cell will produce about one or two watts. Normally twenty-four or more cells are joined
together and often mounted on the rooftops of buildings.
The electricity from photovoltaic cells can run directly to an appliance through wires from the roof or can be
stored in batteries that are then used for power. The electricity can also be converted to the voltage of the power
grid and exported to the grid.

Wind Energy
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind to the potential energy of electricity. A
contemporary wind turbine may be as tall as ~100 meters, with blades 40 to 75 meters long. The average turbine

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will generate over 843,000 kWh per month, which
is enough energy for over 940 average U.S. homes.36
The most rapidly growing sites for wind-generated
electricity are offshore wind parks that are clusters of
windmills within a few miles of the coastline. There
are at least forty offshore wind farms in operation in
Northern Europe, with over two thousand total wind
turbines. However, there are only two offshore wind
farms in the U.S. although more have been proposed or
are in the permitting or construction process.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Solar and

Wind Energy
The use of solar and wind energy has the potential to A windfarm near Palm Springs, California.
provide heat and/or electricity without producing any By Conn, Kit at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5395739
air or water pollution or fossil carbon dioxide at the time
the energy is harnessed. Solar and wind energy can also
provide electricity in remote locations where there are no transmission lines. A correctly constructed and positioned
house can take advantage of passive solar energy to produce energy savings and offset pollution and carbon dioxide
for decades without any additional energy input. And large wind turbines—especially in agricultural areas—have
been found to be compatible with other land uses, such as farming and animal grazing.

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Nevertheless, there are disadvantages to both. The Sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow all the time.
That means that some of the energy that is produced when conditions are good will need to be stored for when

FIGURE 99

Solar and Wind—

Environmental Impacts
• Utility-scale wind
facilities use 30 to 141
• Utility-scale solar acres per megawatt
facilities require from output; however, less
3.5 to 16.5 acres per than 1 acre per
megawatt output; little megawatt is
opportunity to share permanently
land with other uses disturbed—the rest can
(e.g., farms) be used for other land
uses.
• Bird and bat deaths
occur but can be
lessened with improved
technology and
knowledge of animal
behavior.

Environmental impacts of solar and wind energy.

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conditions are not ideal. Storage requires large-scale battery production, which remains difficult and expensive.
Also, as we have discussed previously, energy is lost with each new step added to an energy system—including
the storage of energy in a battery and use of the energy from a battery. The batteries used to store the energy are
similar to the batteries in smart phones, computers, and electric cars—they require lithium, cobalt, and other
minerals that require mining, which leads to environmental harm and environmental health and justice issues for
those workers mining the materials.
Once wind turbines are manufactured and installed, the only energy input to them comes from the wind, a
sustainable, renewable, and free resource. Some energy is required to maintain the windmill (travel to the wind
park and service of the moving parts), but relative to the energy generated, these energy costs are minimal.
However, wind farms have an aesthetic disadvantage—many people do not like living in a place where they can
see or hear the turbines. For example, in 2003 a proposal to put windmills off the coast of Cape Cod in Nantucket
Sound raised questions of both economic equity and aesthetics. Some opponents of the project asked why a
private company had the right to profit from wind blowing across the ocean, in a public space. They maintained
that wind is public, and no individual or corporation has the right to capture it, convert it, and sell it for profit.
Another objection was that the windmills would be unsightly and destroy the view from many towns along
Cape Cod and Nantucket. In response, proponents of the project accused the opponents, a number of whom were
wealthy celebrities, of NIMBY (not in my backyard) behavior at the expense of much needed clean electricity for
many people. They also claimed that the windmill support towers would take up very little space on the ocean
floor, look attractive, and appear quite small from the coast.
One environmental objection to wind power has come from the fact that an estimated 10,000 to 40,000 birds die

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each year in collisions with windmills in the United States. New designs and the purposeful location of towers
away from migration paths have reduced bird deaths, but some bird deaths are an inevitable by-product of wind
power. For comparison, many millions of birds die in collisions with communication towers, buildings, and
windows in both commercial buildings and residences. The number of bird deaths from collisions with wind
towers is relatively small. That said, newer objections have been raised about the possibility of off-shore wind
farms harming migratory and endangered whales off the New England coast.

Hydroelectric Power
The kinetic energy of water can be used to generate electricity. Hydroelectric power, or hydropower, the use
of river water to generate electricity, is one of two renewable energy sources that are widely used in the United
States today. (The other is the combustion of biomass.) Hydropower currently accounts for approximately 28.7
percent of the total renewable electricity, and 6.2 percent of the total electricity generated in the U.S.
As water falls over a vertical distance, the potential energy stored is released as kinetic energy. A hydroelectric
power plant captures this kinetic energy and uses it to turn a turbine, just as the kinetic energy of steam turns
a turbine in a coal-fired electricity generating plant. The turbine transforms the kinetic energy into electrical
energy. The amount of electricity that can be generated at a particular power plant depends on both the vertical
distance through which the water falls and the flow rate, or amount of water that flows past a certain point per
unit of time. There are two main types of hydroelectric generation: run-of-the-river and water impoundment.

Run-of-the-River Hydro
In run-of-the-river hydro generation, water is diverted from a river, passed through a narrow channel, and
directed toward a turbine. After the water goes through the turbine, it is returned to the river. Run-of-the-
river hydro plants are mostly small scale, generating around one megawatt at peak capacity, enough to supply
electricity to about a thousand homes. Because the water is not stored in a reservoir, run-of-the-river electricity
generation is dependent on natural water flow, which means that supply is variable during the year, limiting its
usefulness during the dry summer months, when electricity demands are at their highest.
Although run-of-the river hydro has much less impact on aquatic plants and animals than water impoundment
because natural high- and low-flow periods continue, species that swim upstream will find at least part of their

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 FIGURE 100

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Water impoundment hydroelectric dam.
Source: U.S. Department of Energy

path impeded by the presence of even a run-of-the-river electricity generation facility. Fish ladders, a series
of pools and pipes designed like ascending steps that allow fish to travel upstream around a hydro dam are
sometimes installed, but some species find it difficult to utilize them, and some predatory species have learned to
watch the fish ladders for prey. In addition, the water intake for any dam, run-of-the-river, or water impoundment
is a potentially dangerous place for any number of species, including humans.

Water Impoundment
A more reliable source of water for hydropower is water impoundment, or storing water in a reservoir behind a
dam. The basic principle of dammed hydropower is similar to that of run-of-the-river, but the flow of water is
controlled. Water impoundment is more common than run-of-the-river hydro because it allows for electricity
generation on demand, rather than only during periods of heavy rainfall and water flow. In addition, it can
produce more power than run-of-the-river generation; the large series of Hydro Quebec dams near James Bay,
Canada, for example, can generate 7,300 MW at peak, far more than any run-of-the-river station could produce.
Nevertheless, water impoundment has many negative environmental effects. First, when water that was formerly
free flowing in a river is stored, an area of land is flooded. This may entail the loss of hundreds of square miles
of forest, rich bottom land ideal for agriculture, canyons that have great aesthetic or archeological value, or wild
river recreation. Ecological communities are lost, and people are often displaced from their homes, communities,
and livelihoods. The Hydro Quebec dams mentioned above forced the resettlement of a major James Bay Cree
community, and the Three Gorges Dam in China forced over 1.3 million people to abandon their home. In
addition, anaerobic bacteria that thrive on the flooded vegetation mobilize mercury from the water column and
sediment. Hydro dams can create the conditions for the mercury to be converted from elemental mercury, which
is relatively harmless in ecosystems, to methyl mercury, which concentrates in fatty tissue and bioaccumulates

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 FIGURE 101

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Potential energy (water stored in reservoir)→Kinetic energy (energy of moving water)→electric energy
(from hydroelectric turbine).

in fish and ultimately humans, potentially causing serious health problems. This has also impacted the James
Bay Cree community near the Hydro Quebec dams; the fish that once formed a major part of their diet now show
unhealthy levels of mercury.
Even without the problems noted above, large-scale hydro dam projects alter the ecology of the water and land
areas both upstream from the dam, where large areas of a former river have been flooded, and downstream. For
example, certain species, such as salmon, steelhead trout, and freshwater clams and mussels, have life cycles
that depend on seasonal variations in water flow. Some plant species, such as the cottonwood tree, depend on
sand bars created by natural flooding to carry out the reproductive phases of their life cycles. Researchers have
documented changes in the abundance of such species that have resulted from interrupted flow, lack of flooding
downstream, and other conditions stemming from the creation of a dam.

Biomass Around the World

Biomass energy is the potential energy contained in organic matter. The Earth’s organic matter—plants,
animals, and other organisms, and their waste products—contains a great deal of energy that originally derived
from the Sun and was concentrated in what we know as biomass. The potential energy remaining when these
organisms die and decompose, or in their waste products, is available to do useful work. Wood—including
charcoal—animal dung, plant remains, and any decomposition products from plants, such as ethanol, are
all sources of biomass energy. Municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration—burned in waste-to-energy
facilities—is also a source of energy. Together, the variety of biomass products accounts for roughly 37 percent
of all renewable energy consumed in the U.S.
Biomass is burned as wood, charcoal, or dung to heat homes or water or to cook food; combusted in wood-fired
power plants to produce electricity; and, after being fermented to ethanol (from corn) and mixed with gasoline,
used to power vehicles. Roughly two-thirds of the biomass energy used in the U.S. comes from wood and wood

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products. Almost one-quarter comes from MSW.
Agricultural wastes and methane collected from MSW
landfills each comprise 5 percent of biomass energy.
In many parts of the world, especially developing
countries, animal dung is the most common source of
biomass energy.

Modern Carbon vs Fossil Carbon

Biomass is organic matter, and thus it contains a great
deal of carbon. You might think, therefore, that burning
it would contribute to pollution and global warming in
the same way that burning fossil fuel does. However,
the age of the carbon in biomass makes its effects
different. The carbon in biomass was in the atmosphere
until fairly recently (months ago for products like corn, Roughly two-thirds of the biomass energy used in the U.S.
comes from wood and wood products.
a few hundred years ago for a large tree). This carbon
is called modern carbon, in contrast to the carbon in
fossil fuels, which is called fossil carbon.
Although all carbon is chemically the same and can combine with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, the use
of fossil carbon is more deleterious to the environment because its use adds to the amount of carbon in the
atmosphere. Modern carbon, on the other hand, was already in the atmosphere until it was removed by plants

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relatively recently. Moreover, if new vegetation regrows where crops or trees were cut down, the new vegetation
will take up a good deal of the carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. (Some older forests actually remove very
little carbon from the atmosphere because their primary productivity is not much greater than their respiration.)
As long as the amount of biomass removed is replaced by new growth, there is no net effect on the carbon cycle
or global CO2 concentrations from burning biomass. In contrast, any time fossil carbon is burned, there is a net
increase in global CO2 concentrations.

Ethanol
Ethanol is the most common biomass fuel, or biofuel. It is made by fermentation, the decomposition of the
sugars and starches in biomass by yeasts, bacteria, and molds that results in the production of alcohol. More
than 1.8 billion gallons of ethanol are made and used in the U.S. each year. Of that, 92 percent is derived from
corn and corn by-products. Ethanol is mixed with gasoline, usually at a ratio of 1:10. It boosts the octane of the
gasoline and helps oxygenate it, which reduces certain air pollutants. In addition, it has other beneficial effects,
such as absorbing moisture in the gasoline to prevent freezing. Finally, it reduces the amount of gasoline used
and replaces fossil carbon with modern carbon that was removed from the atmosphere the year the corn was
harvested. Some opponents of using ethanol in automobile fuel point out that a 90 percent gasoline/10 percent
ethanol mix is two to three percent less efficient than 100 percent gasoline fuel. Furthermore, growing corn
specifically for fuel and converting it to ethanol uses fossil fuel energy and reduces the amount of agricultural
land for producing food crops.

Geothermal and Tidal Energy

Besides the major renewable energy sources discussed above, other types are of regional and potential importance.
We won’t discuss these in detail, but you should be aware of their existence and the potential they have to become
more important energy sources in the future. Geothermal energy is the heat produced from the radioactive
decay of elements deep in the Earth. Geothermal energy will not deplete for as long as there is an Earth, and it is
relatively inexpensive to tap. The energy can also be used directly to heat water, or it can be used as the primary
energy source to produce electricity by creating steam to power turbines, without the greenhouse gases or other
pollutants that are produced by burning fossil fuels. However, it can emit other localized dangerous gases, and most
importantly, it is geographically limited to those areas that are geologically active. Iceland, a country known for,

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among other things, active volcanoes gets 100 percent of
its electricity from renewable energy sources: 73 percent
hydroelectric and 27 percent geothermal.37
Tidal generation plants are operating in areas of Maine
and Washington state; Brittany, France; Nova Scotia,
Canada; and other locations. However, tidal energy
is not currently a major energy source. One reason
is that, in most areas, the difference in water level
between high and low tides is not great enough to
provide enough kinetic energy to generate a sufficient
amount of electricity. In addition, to harness tidal
energy and convert it to electricity, power stations must
be built directly on the coastline, for example, in an A geothermal power plant in Iceland. Twenty-seven percent of
estuary, which has a disruptive effect on the ecology Iceland’s energy comes from geothermal sources.
of coastal, shoreline, and ocean organisms. Areas used
for tidal generating stations are unavailable for recreational and commercial use and contribute to the aesthetic
deterioration of the coastline, all of which tend to generate opposition among nearby residents.

Conservation and Efficiency

So far, we have talked about sustainable energy in terms of particular sources or technologies. It may be years
before many of these are available or affordable, and often they have disadvantages of their own. Therefore,

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energy sustainability relies as much on reducing the amount of energy that individuals or nations use as on new
sources or technologies for providing energy. Conservation and increased efficiency are necessary aspects of
energy sustainability.
Conservation is a consumer-based approach that focuses on reducing energy use by changing users’ habits and
actions. Conservation measures can be everyday actions as simple as turning off lights when they’re not needed,
choosing to drive less, combining trips so that overall mileage driven is reduced, wearing warmer clothes
rather than turning up a thermostat in winter, taking a shorter shower, and many, many more. This approach is
available to anyone; its only drawback is the need to change long-standing habits.
More complex is increasing energy efficiency, or using less energy to do the same work. We have previously
discussed the concept of energy efficiency and how it is derived; here, let’s consider it from the perspective of
sustainability. Energy is the ability to do work—say, getting from Point A to Point B, one hundred miles down the
road. The quantity of usable work (getting you there) is the same, regardless of the weight of the vehicle in which
you travel. In terms of physics, however, traveling in a two-ton car takes more work than traveling in a one-ton car,
and therefore uses more energy. If you can get there in
a smaller, lighter car, you consume less gasoline in the
process and therefore increase energy efficiency.
Creating more energy-efficient machines is within the
ability of—and some would say is the responsibility of—
the manufacturers of vehicles and appliances. However,
we can increase energy efficiency individually through
the choices we make. Buying a small car rather than a
large car or an SUV, insulating a home so that less fuel is
required to heat it, using compact fluorescent light bulbs,
Uniti, a two-seater micro electric vehicle. Smaller, lighter cars purchasing EnergyStar appliances, and traveling less all
are more energy efficient. contribute to energy sustainability.
Photo: Uniti

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Reducing Peak Demand
There are certain times when demand for electricity is greatest—in the middle of a hot summer day, when people
are using more air conditioning than normal; or in the middle of a cold winter night in a region where homes
have electric heat. In order to meet peak demand—the greatest quantity of electricity that will be needed at any
one time—utilities usually build new power plants. However, some utilities have come up with creative ways to
reduce peak demand.
One way is to encourage consumers and businesses to conduct optional activities that demand electricity at
non-peak times. Usage is monitored by having two electric meters at each location, one recording the electricity
used during the peak demand period—usually 8 am through 8 pm and the other recording the usage during non-
peak periods. Peak-demand electricity is billed at a higher rate, so a business or consumer might choose to wait
until after 8 pm to conduct certain high-electricity-demand activities. For example, a homeowner might choose
to run the dishwasher and electric clothes dryer at 9 pm; a business might use a timer to run energy intensive
applications at night or create a second shift for certain activities. If this is done throughout a utility district, it
can greatly decrease the peak electrical demand and thereby reduce the need for new power plants.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Program designates as Energy Star compliant certain
appliances that do their job at a specified level of efficiency. For example, an air conditioner that removes 10,000
Btus of heat per hour while using less than 1,000 watts will receive an Energy Star designation. A non-Energy
Star compliant air conditioner might use 1,200 watts to do the same job. The difference of 200 watts for an hour
in one household doesn’t seem like much; it might be 2 cents worth of electricity. But if 100,000 households in
a large city had Energy Star compliant air conditioners, the peak demand during a mid-afternoon summer heat

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wave could be reduced by 20 megawatts, or 4 percent of a typical power plant’s output. If both residential and
business customers used a variety of Energy Star appliances regularly, it could make a significant difference in
the number of new power plants needed.

HUMAN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND HUMAN HEALTH RISKS

All the human activities that we have discussed in this and previous sections modify the environment (the land,
water, and the air) and adversely impact humans in some way. In the following section, we will focus on how
science is used to determine the risks to human health from those human actions that add chemicals to the
environment, whether from emitting or discharging them into the air and water, from spraying them on our
crops, or by adding them to products that you buy in a store. And while we will focus on only a few chemicals as
examples, the methods discussed are used for the thousands of chemicals released into the environment as part of
our modern industrial society, including the “forever chemicals,” perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances
(PFAS), that are of growing concern today.38

Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Assessment

Risk analysis helps determine the relative costs and benefits of environmental decisions. Let’s consider a specific
example. Radon, a radioactive gas that results from the breakdown of uranium, occurs naturally in rock and soil in
many parts of the world. Humans can be exposed to radon if it seeps into homes or drinking water from underlying
rock, soil, or groundwater. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal agency most responsible
for identifying, measuring, and dealing with environmental risks, estimates that between 6,500 and 31,000 people
die each year from radon-induced lung cancer, making radon the second leading cause of lung cancer behind
smoking. The range of potential deaths is so broad because, unlike the link between cigarette smoking and lung
cancer, the evidence for the cancer-causing effects of radon is much more indirect—it is based primarily on studies
of the cancer rates among uranium miners, who are exposed to much higher levels of radon in their work, rather
than on studies of the general public.
Ironically, even though airborne radon is responsible for the vast majority of radon-caused cancer deaths, the
EPA has the legal authority to regulate only radon in drinking water. Lacking the legal power to require the
reduction of airborne radon, the EPA suggests that people test their homes for airborne radon and take relatively

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inexpensive actions such as sealing basements and
improving ventilation to reduce radon levels. The EPA
estimates that spending $86 million on a program that
combines a recommended reduction in airborne radon
with a required, but minimal, reduction in radon levels
in drinking water would significantly reduce the risk of
radon-caused cancer.
The EPA could achieve the same level of risk reduction
by using their legal authority to require an even
lower level of radon in drinking water. However, the
necessary improvements in water treatment plants
across the nation would cost more than $400 million.
An estimated 168 deaths per year are caused by
radon in drinking water. Is it worth spending more
than $300 million extra to ensure that the radon risk
to this group is reduced? Or do we push some of the
burden onto individuals to decide whether the risk
from radon outweighs the cost of installing radon
mitigation systems for their air and/or water in their A radon mitigation system. Although airborne radon is
homes? Such questions provide a vivid example of how responsible for the vast majority of radon-caused cancer
environmental science, economics, and ethics must deaths, the EPA only has authority to regulate radon in

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be balanced in the measurement and management of drinking water, so it is up to individuals to assess their risk
environmental risks. and consider means of mitigating it.

Many of our actions involve some risk from economic, health, or environmental hazards. The hazards we
face may be voluntary, as when we make a decision to smoke tobacco or take up skydiving, or they may be
involuntary, such as the unknown risk from radon in our example above. How “risky” a hazard is depends
upon both how common it is and how certain it is to cause harm once faced. We can express this relationship
mathematically with a simple equation:
Risk = probability of exposure to a hazard × probability of harm once exposed
For example, flying 1,000 miles in a year or eating 40 tablespoons of peanut butter, which contains the naturally
occurring aflatoxin fungus, a carcinogen, in a year both give you a 1 in 1 million chance of dying. The risk of
dying in a plane crash depends on the probability of your plane crashing (which is very low) multiplied by the
probability of dying if the plane does crash (which is relatively high). In contrast, the risk of dying of cancer from
eating peanut butter depends upon the near 100 percent chance that you will be exposed to the aflatoxin fungus
multiplied by the very small chance that you will die from cancer from eating it. Few of us base our personal
activities on such a quantitative estimate of the probabilities of the various risks that we face. However, when we
choose to slow down on a wet highway and thereby risk missing our job interview or pick a more expensive car
for its increased safety, we are making qualitative judgments of the relative risks of various decisions.
The peanut butter/plane crash example demonstrates a fundamental rule of risk assessment: the risk of rare
events with a high likelihood of causing harm can be equal to the risk of common events with a low likelihood of
causing harm. Current studies of risk perception show that most people don’t realize this and see a catastrophic
though rare event (a plane crash or nuclear reactor meltdown) as riskier. This misperception is just one way in
which individual subjectivity biases the qualitative comparison of different risks. We also tend to downplay the
risk of activities that may result in cultural, political, or economic advantages to ourselves. Figure 102 compares
the EPA’s assessment of risk of a number of environmental hazards with public perceptions of risky activities,
albeit from a few decades ago.

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FIGURE 102
EPA’s Top Concerns (Not in Rank Order) Public’s Top Concerns (In Rank Order)

Ecological Risks

Global climate change Active hazardous waste sites

Stratospheric ozone depletion Abandoned hazardous waste sites
Habitat alteration Water pollution
Loss of biodiversity Occupational exposure to toxins
Health Risks
Criteria air pollutants (smog) Oil spills
Toxic air pollutants Destruction of ozone layer
Radon Nuclear power plant accidents
Indoor air pollution Industrial accidents
Drinking water contamination Radioactive waste
Occupational exposure to chemicals Air pollution from factories

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Application of pesticides Leaking underground storage tanks
Stratospheric ozone depletion Coastal water contamination
Solid waste and litter
Pesticide risk to farmworkers
Water pollution from agriculture
Water pollution from sewage plants
Air pollution from vehicles
Pesticide residues in food
Greenhouse effect
Drinking water contamination
Destruction of wetlands
Acid rain
Water pollution from city runoff
Nonhazardous waste sites
Biotechnology
Indoor air pollution
Radiation from X-rays
Radon in homes
Radiation from microwave ovens

Public Perception versus EPA Assessment of Risks (1990)

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Environmental Risk Analysis
Environmental Risk Analysis is based on a quantitative assessment of risks. For environmental scientists,
risk is the probability of health, economic, or environmental harm resulting from exposure to some form of
environmental hazard. An environmental hazard is anything in our surrounding environment that can potentially
cause harm, including substances, such as pollutants or other chemical contaminants; human activities, such as
draining swamps or logging forests; or natural catastrophes, such as volcanoes and earthquakes.
International and national agencies do risk analyses routinely. You can see that risk analysis is one place where
environmental science intersects with concerns about sustainability, economics, and equity. Environmental
scientists and policy makers usually follow three steps in accounting for risks:
6 Risk Assessment: How much risk is there?
6 Risk Acceptance: How much risk is acceptable?
6 Risk Management: How can we manage the risk?
Risk Assessment
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified four types of risks that need to be assessed: cancer
risks, non-cancer health effects, damage to public welfare, and ecological risks. Ecological risk assessment
refers to the risk to non-human populations and ecosystems that results from our use and manipulation of the
environment. The harms identified focus on biodiversity and other ecological and/or ecosystem elements of the
environment. Such activities as filling in a swamp to promote urban development or increasing a fishing quota to
meet demand for fish sticks may not directly affect human health but may cause harm to specific ecosystems or
non-human populations.

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After identifying a potential risk, a quantitative risk assessment must estimate how much harm will be caused by
various levels of exposure to the risk and how likely these levels of exposure are. (Remember our equation: Risk
= probability of exposure to a hazard × the probability of harm once exposed.) Assessments will include such
scientific research as laboratory and field studies of health and ecological effects, animal studies for estimating
health effects, and epidemiological studies of current or past real effects on human populations. The result of the
research is an estimate of how much harm is caused by varying amounts of the hazard under study, known as

FIGURE 103 The Four-Step Risk Assessment Process

The Four-Step Risk Assessment Process
Dose-Response
Hazard Identification
Assessment
What health problems
What are the health
are caused by the
problems at different
pollutants?
exposures? Risk Characterization
What is the extra risk of
health problems in the
Exposure Assessment exposed population?
How much of the pollutant
are people exposed to during
a specific time period? How
many people are exposed?

The EPA’s four-step risk assessment process.

Source: EPA

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dose-response. All this research is then integrated into a more complete statistical risk assessment that results in
an estimate of the probability of harm. Figure 103 illustrates the EPA’s four-step assessment process.
Risk assessment works only if risks are known. For many of our actions, including environmental decisions,
there is uncertainty not only about how much risk is involved, but also about what the risks are. And scientific
uncertainty—from the lack of being able to collect perfect data from dose-response or other scientific studies—is
the source of many errors in identifying the amount of risk involved in environmental decisions.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CASE STUDY: Risk Assessment

The amount of exposure to an environmental hazard is one part of a risk assessment (C in Figure 104).
Uncertainty in the measurement of any of the variables in this example will result in uncertainty in the
estimation of risk.

FIGURE 104

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Determining exposure to risk.
Source: Risk Assessment for Toxic Air Pollutants—A Citizen’s Guide (EPA, 1991)

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are mixtures of synthetic organic chemicals that are used in many
industrial applications because they are inflammable, chemically stable, and have insulating properties.
However, the very stability that makes them commercially useful results in their persistence in the
environment. PCBs are known to cause cancer at high doses in laboratory animals. Studies also show that
workers in industries that use PCBs have a higher incidence of cancer.
Further, because PCBs are found throughout the environment and can be taken up by humans in multiple
ways, the risk exposure is relatively high.
What was not known was how harmful these environmental levels of PCBs were to humans. In 1996 the
EPA carried out a dose-response study, which quantified the cancer-causing action of various levels of PCB
exposure. This study involved four parts:
1. Epidemiological studies of the effects on humans of occupational doses of PCBs.
2. Dose-response studies of the cancer-causing effects during the lifetime of laboratory rats.

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 3. Comparative studies of how various environmental pathways (e.g., eating contaminated fish versus
breathing contaminated air) will affect PCB exposure levels.
4. Mathematical models using the data from steps 1, 2, and 3 to estimate the increased rate of cancer
that would be expected from environmental levels of PCBs.
The EPA attempted to reduce scientific uncertainty as much as possible through a large number of independent
research studies (recall our discussion in Section I of the importance of repetition in scientific methodology).
The final result was an extrapolation of the relative risk of developing cancer by being exposed to various levels

FIGURE 105

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PCB risk analysis.
Source: PCBs: Cancer Dose-Response Assessment and Application to Environmental Mixtures. EPA Publication. EPA/600/P-96/001F (1996).

FIGURE 106

Pathways of human exposure to PCBs.

Source: NCBI

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 and environmental sources of PCBs. The findings
showed that the risk from eating contaminated fish
is higher than from drinking contaminated water
and much higher than from breathing contaminated
air, but the overall absolute risk of an individual
developing cancer from PCB exposure is very low.
Nevertheless, the large number of people exposed
to PCBs in the environment will result in many new
cancer cases.
Scientific research on the human health impacts
of PCBs continues today—adding knowledge of
additional human health harms (including dementia,
immune system dysfunctions, and cardiovascular
disease) and newer sources of exposure (with e-waste
Old power transformers are a major source of PCBs.
recycling sites found to be a major contamination
By Sturmovik, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.
source). In addition, there is newer evidence of how php?curid=24404504
ecological processes that we discussed in Section II
(the movement of material through trophic food chains in particular) increase the potential risk to humans.39
The key ecological processes that increase the harmful impacts of PCBs—and other POPs—are
bioaccumulation and biomagnification, which are two different processes that often occur together. Toxins,

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like PCBs, that are long lasting can build up in the tissues of organisms (bioaccumulate) as the organism
continues to ingest or inhale the toxins over its lifetime. For example, bioaccumulation can occur when fish
continue to feed on contaminated food sources and when humans continue to feed on the contaminated fish
population. Recent studies have shown that PCB bioaccumulation can increase PCB levels to a point where
they may cause both reduced fertility in one generation and harm to the reproductive systems of offspring. In
addition, the exposure to PCBs, and concentration levels in the body, will increase through biomagnification
as the chemical moves up the food chain, from lower concentrations in prey species to higher concentrations
in predator species (including humans).

Risk Acceptance
Risk assessment is only the first part of the decision-making process. Assume that one in one million is a
relatively accurate estimate of the chances of dying from radiation-induced cancer by living next to a nuclear
power plant for fifty years. Is this risk too high? Our acceptance of risk involves several factors:
6 The amount of harm associated with the risk.
6 The importance of the activity associated with the risk to us.
6 Our confidence in being able to deal with the risk.
While not requiring the marshaling of scientific studies as risk assessment does, risk acceptance can be far more
difficult to achieve. Some people are willing to accept various levels of risk, even very high risk, to do things
they want—for them, the benefits of the activity outweigh the risks. For other people, the goal of environmental
management is to reduce risk to as close to zero as possible—risks will almost always outweigh the benefits. In
this case, the disagreement is not over the risk assessment results, but over individual feelings regarding how
much risk is acceptable. Further, even among those people who are willing to accept some risk, how much risk is
open to heated disagreement.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finds that a one in a million risk is acceptable for most

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environmental hazards. But some people see even
this as too high a risk, one that devalues human life.
Others see a one in a million chance of death from
radiation leaks as a small price to pay for such benefits
as the relatively cheap power that we can obtain from
nuclear power plants. While personal preferences will
always complicate the determination of risk acceptance,
environmental scientists, economists, and others can
help by providing as accurate estimates as possible of
the benefits and costs of environmental activities. And,
the more accurate the risk estimates are, the less that
uncertainties over scientific findings can be used to A landfill is unlikely to be built if the benefits obtained from
disposing of the wastes do not balance the risk to human
reduce the acceptance of managing the risk.
health or its acceptance by the public.
Risk Management
The assessment of how much risk is present as well as the determination of how much risk is acceptable are
critical parts of the cost-benefit analysis that is used in environmental economics. It is the relative risk of
different activities that is the basis of the non-money costs of various environmental decisions. When the decision
is made to locate a toxic-waste landfill in a particular place, the costs include the financial cost of building the
landfill and transporting the waste. However, it is unlikely that the landfill will be built if the benefits obtained
from disposing of the wastes do not balance the risk to human health or its acceptance by the public.

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Risk management is the balancing of actual risks and acceptance of those risks with the benefits. Whereas
environmental risk assessment is the job of environmental scientists, risk management is a regulatory
activity that is typically carried out by government (local, national, or international) agencies. Put simply, risk
management is the decision to regulate a particular environmental activity (automobile lead emissions, for
instance) depending upon whether the risks have been shown to outweigh the social and/or economic benefits.
How an agency, or a society, decides to balance these risks and benefits is frequently based on two distinct
philosophies: 1) the precautionary principle (or, “guilty until proven innocent”) in which a substance (e.g., a
potential new pesticide, food additive, etc.) is assumed to be unsafe until sufficient scientific studies show that the
risk is low and acceptable; or 2) the “innocent until proven guilty” approach in which limited testing is done on
a substance before consumers become exposed to it. In this case, the substance is not rigorously tested for safety
until there is evidence that it may be too risky.
Unfortunately, until recently, much of the U.S. approach in testing new chemicals and other substances used for
commercial and other purposes fell into this second approach, unlike the European Union where the precautionary
principle tends to dominate. This is why you can see the same pesticide banned in Europe, but allowed in the U.S.
However, the federal government in the U.S.—as well as several state governments—has strengthened its pre-
commercial testing of many new compounds and is moving toward a precautionary principle approach.

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environment
Programme and the World Meteorological Organization in 1988 for the purpose of preparing reviews of the state
of knowledge on climate change, including climate change science and climate change impacts today and in the
future. From 2021 to 2023, the IPCC published its sixth multi-volume assessment of the changing knowledge
regarding climate change. During each assessment, the IPCC has improved and increased the amount of global
climate change data it analyzes and the models it uses to make projections. This has enabled the IPCC to
decrease the amount of scientific uncertainty in its estimates to the point that, in the latest assessment, it could
state that, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and
rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”40

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FIGURE 107

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Human impact on major climate system components.

Source: IPCC

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The melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice that shows up in the news with increasing frequency is only one example
of physical and biogeochemical change taking place on Earth. Increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2
and other atmospheric chemicals, such as compounds of nitrogen and sulfur, and the increase in mercury in
fish and mammals are some other significant biogeochemical changes that have occurred over the past fifty
years and more. Change that occurs in the chemistry, biology, and physical properties of worldwide systems is
referred to as global change. Many of these types of changes have occurred over geologic time; for example,
concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere have ranged from 180 parts per million (ppm) to almost 280 ppm over
the last 800,000 years. However, not only has the pace of change increased dramatically because of recent human
activity, but the CO2 concentrations we see today (420>400 ppm) are the highest they have been for millions
of years. Global change incorporates all the previous topics that we have dealt with—the interconnectedness
of Earth’s systems, the current and future status of Earth and the environmental indicators that enable us to
evaluate it, and the interaction of environmental science and policy.
The terms global change, climate change, and global warming are often used synonymously, particularly in
the popular press, but they should not be. Climate change is variation in the average weather—temperature,
precipitation, storm frequency and strength, etc.—over years and decades. Global warming deals with the fact
that the Earth’s global surface temperature has been increasing relative to pre-industrial temperatures. Global
change includes those issues, as well as the other environmental changes that have been largely caused by human
activity. This includes large-scale deforestation and other land conversions and the correlated loss of biodiversity,
non-greenhouse gas pollution and its impact on human health, and other large-scale changes.

The Sun–Earth Heating System

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The physical and biogeochemical systems that regulate temperature at the surface of the Earth are essential to
life on our planet. These systems derive ultimately from what we can think of as the Sun–Earth system, which—
like other systems—can be treated as a series of inputs and outputs, and which involves the interaction between
multiple environmental systems.
If you have entered an automobile that has been parked in the sun with its windows closed on a relatively cool
day, you have experienced the greenhouse effect. Though the outside temperature may be 10ºC (50ºF), the inside
of the car might be 30ºC (86ºF). On a day when the outside temperature is 30ºC, the inside of the car might
be 38ºC (100ºF) or even higher. These striking temperature differentials can be explained by the greenhouse
effect, a natural process that leads to the warming of an area that is underneath something that traps heat—in
the case of a greenhouse or the car, the glass of the windows. Most incoming solar energy passes through the
windows without being absorbed by the glass, which is transparent to solar radiation in the visible range. The
solar energy is absorbed by the upholstery, the dashboard, and the steering wheel, which experience an increase
in temperature and then begin to radiate energy outward. Though the windows of the car allowed solar radiation
to pass through, they do not allow passage of very much of the outgoing “car” radiation, which is in the infrared
range. This energy is absorbed and reradiated back into the car. The inflow of energy into the car is greater than
the outflow of energy, so there is a positive net flux of energy into the car, causing the car to become increasingly
warmer, even on a relatively cool day.
A very similar process takes place at the surface of Earth. As energy from the Sun travels toward Earth, it is
absorbed by the atmosphere or is reflected and scattered back into space. Almost half of this solar energy passes
through Earth’s atmosphere, much like the solar energy passed through the car windows, and is absorbed by objects
at the surface of Earth, such as water, land, vegetation, rocks, and human-made structures, and radiated back out.
Since objects at the surface of Earth are roughly the temperature of Earth (15ºC), they radiate in the infrared. Like
the car windows, heat-trapping gases make the atmosphere almost opaque to outgoing infrared radiation.
In the Sun–Earth heating system, there is one major energy input—solar radiation—and two major outputs—
reflection of solar energy from the atmosphere or from the surface of the Earth and infrared radiation of Earth
energy. Over the long term, the net flux of heat is zero; inputs of heat to Earth equal outputs from Earth, and the

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 FIGURE 108

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The Sun–Earth heating system.
Source: NASA

system is in a steady state. However, the input can be greater than the outputs because of an increase in incoming
solar radiation (from sunspots, for example) or because of a decrease in outgoing reflected solar radiation either
from a change in materials covering the surface of the Earth or from an increase in heat-trapping greenhouse
gases. If solar radiation is greater than the sum of reflected solar energy and radiating infrared Earth energy,
Earth becomes warmer in response to the input of additional heat energy. If solar radiation is less than the other
two fluxes, Earth becomes cooler. This is where the greenhouse effect becomes important.

Greenhouse Gases
The relatively hospitable temperatures on Earth are largely a function of the heat-trapping gases that are present
in the atmosphere, commonly called greenhouse gases (GHGs). We discussed the generation of GHGs when
discussing pollution and energy production. Nevertheless, you may be surprised to learn that the most common
GHG is water: water vapor (H2O gas) absorbs infrared energy radiating from the Earth. The major, but not the
only, heat-trapping gases added to the atmosphere by human activities, such as the combustion of fossil fuels and
clearing of land, are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
In the absence of GHGs, the temperature on Earth would be approximately negative 18ºC (0ºF). Thus, although
we commonly think of GHGs—and the global greenhouse effect—as a negative, it is actually necessary for

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human life on Earth. The problem arises when the natural greenhouse effect is increased by the human addition
of GHGs, making for a hotter greenhouse.
While the temperature of Earth has fluctuated over geologic time, most of the temperature changes have been
very slow, and in any given decade, century, and sometimes millennium, the Earth’s temperature has been
relatively constant. Our system analysis makes clear that in order for Earth to stay at a constant temperature,
the energy inputs must equal the energy outputs. However, a variety of natural processes and human activities
may increase or decrease the concentration of GHGs, and the extent of absorption and radiation of energy
will increase or decrease accordingly, resulting in variations in the greenhouse effect. The re-radiation and
reabsorption of energy by greenhouse gases is called radiative forcing because the gases that are present return
energy to Earth, forcing a change in Earth’s energy balance.
When assessing the impact of each GHG, we need to consider three environmental parameters: the concentration
of the gas in the atmosphere, its global warming potential, and how long the gas molecules will persist in the
atmosphere. The global warming potential of a gas is an estimate of how much a molecule of that gas can warm
the atmosphere over a hundred years, relative to a molecule of CO2. Methane, nitrous oxide, and CFCs all have
greater warming potential than CO2. However, it is the much greater concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere—
along with its much longer duration in the atmosphere—that makes it the most important greenhouse gas.

FIGURE 109
Concentration in 2022 Global warming
Duration in the

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Greenhouse gas (ppm = parts per potential (based on
atmosphere
million) Carbon Dioxide = 1)

Water vapor Variable with temperature <1 9 days

Highly variable (years to

Carbon dioxide 417 ppm 1
hundreds of years)

Methane 1.9 ppm 25 12 years

Nitrous oxide 0.3 ppm 300 114 years

Chlorofluorocarbons ≈0.8 ppm 1,600 to 13,000 55 to >500 years

Major greenhouse gases and their impacts on warming. The major greenhouse gases differ in their atmospheric concentrations,
their ability their global warming potential, and the duration that molecules of the gas will remain in the atmosphere.
Source: NOAA

At the beginning of our discussion of global change, you saw the current estimates—from the IPCC’s 6th
Assessment Report—for several climate change indicators, including the increase in global surface temperatures.
We will now explore some of the ways that these indictors have been measured.

Evidence of Temperature Change over Time

Global warming refers to the increased warming of Earth’s atmosphere and surface due to an increase in gases
that trap heat and, in particular, warming caused by human activity. As previously mentioned, global warming
is one component of the broader phenomenon of global change. One of the greatest difficulties in determining
if global warming is occurring is the difficulty of establishing what, if any, temperature change has occurred in
recent decades. Though indirect measurements have made it clear that global temperatures have fluctuated over

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geologic time, what is needed is precise, widespread measures of temperature from locations around the globe
for hundreds and thousands of years. Earth surface and ocean temperatures have been measured directly only
since about 1880, with varying, though increasing, degrees of confidence. There is a high degree of confidence
in at least one global temperature data set maintained by James Hansen at the NASA Institute for Space Studies
in New York City. Hansen and his colleagues have generated a graph of global temperature change that is
updated monthly and posted on NASA’s website (Figure 110). This graph, which is comprised of thousands of
measurements from around the world, clearly shows a steady increase in global temperatures from 1880 through
2020 (although there are yearly variations). Measurements for 2023 are not yet complete; however, we can note
that June, July, August, and September of 2023 were the hottest for those months on record. Historical evidence
and scientific models suggest that Earth is becoming warmer.

FIGURE 110

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Global surface temperature measurements. Lowess smoothing is a method of fitting a smooth curve (the black line in the figure)
to data points, such as the yearly temperature variation in the figure.
Source: NASA

Indicators of Climate Change

Indirect measurements that can be obtained through biological and physical parameters suggest that current global
temperatures are higher than at any time in at least the last 150,000 years. One such indicator is the sampling of ice
cores that we discussed in the first part of Section I. Trees can provide indirect records of temperatures for decades
and centuries and on rare occasions for more than a thousand years. Each year, most trees add layers of wood
from millimeters to centimeters thick. In middle and high latitudes, these annual rings are quite distinct and allow
careful measurement of tree growth and a subsequent estimate of temperature. Wider rings correspond with better
temperatures for growth (if there is also enough moisture), which usually means warmer and/or wetter conditions
in the year when—or the year before—the rings were added to the tree. Corals are another surrogate indicator. In

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relatively clean ocean waters in and near the tropics,
marine corals add annual bands of calcium carbonate. A
number of geochemical signals in the calcium carbonate
allow researchers to reconstruct the approximate
temperature of the water in which the corals have been
growing. Corals can record temperatures for tens and
sometimes hundreds of years.

Models
We’ve previously discussed the use of models to predict
the environmental effects of various factors such as
energy use or pollution. Because direct measurements
are scarce, models are particularly important in
calculating changes in temperature and other aspects Corals can serve as an indicator of climate change, as they
of climate. Environmental scientists use recorded can record temperatures for tens and sometimes
temperatures to construct models that correlate many hundreds of years.
By Holobionics - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.
parameters, including past concentrations of GHGs, org/w/index.php?curid=49070224
with past temperatures. The models are then used to
predict future concentrations of greenhouse gases and estimate future temperatures based on the predicted gas
concentrations. Based on the projected temperatures, estimates are then made of how another parameter, such as
sea level or precipitation patterns, will be affected by the change in temperature.

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For example, when Earth becomes one degree warmer, eventually the oceans will become one degree warmer as
well. Because of thermal expansion, each degree Centigrade increase in ocean temperature results in approximately
a six centimeter rise in the height of the ocean. Sea level change is difficult to measure precisely—although current
satellite data is becoming more reliable for recent measurements—but it appears that over the past century, as ocean
temperature has risen approximately 1ºC, sea level has risen by approximately 10 cm. Based on these correlations,
predictions for the next hundred years suggest that sea level might rise another 10 cm or more.
Other models can be used to predict, for instance, a particular change in ocean or atmospheric circulation
patterns resulting from certain air or water temperature changes. The changes in circulation might lead to
warmer or cooler temperatures in one region of Earth, in turn influencing the precipitation patterns that occur in
this region. Finally, the combined effects of changes in temperature and precipitation may influence a particular
species of tree, which may expand or constrict its geographic range. The effect might also include the length of
the growing season in a particular area, or increased temperature of water in freshwater lakes, which could lead
to a decrease in biodiversity in those lakes.
A variety of models, known collectively as atmosphere/ocean/sea-ice general circulation models (AOGCMs), are
used to predict the effects of global climate change. Researchers first characterize past climate based on existing
data for air and ocean temperatures, CO2 concentrations, size of different biological populations, extent of sea
ice coverage at the poles, and many other parameters. Characterizing past climate conditions, which can be
assessed against the actual climate conditions that were measured by meteorological instruments, is a test of how
well the model works and thus how well it will predict future conditions. The model is calibrated and refined
to better “predict” what has already happened. Then future parameters, such as the estimated atmospheric CO2
concentration in 2050, are inserted into the model to predict what the temperature might be at a given location on
Earth at a certain time in the future, such as 2050 or 2100.

Feedback in the Global Greenhouse System

The global greenhouse system is similar to the Mono Lake system we examined in Section I in that it is made
up of several interconnected systems. However, both the number of subsystems and the number of different
components within each system make the global greenhouse system much more complex. Several important

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feedback loops contribute both to increased atmospheric concentration of GHGs and to increased global
temperatures. Global warming affects all environmental and human systems.

The Temperature–CO2 Feedback Loop

As you learned in Section II, soils of different kinds cover much of the land surface on Earth, and in many
locations the soils contain a significant amount of organic matter. When oxygen is present, the organic
matter is broken down by microorganisms, which give off CO2 as a by-product of this aerobic (oxygen-rich)
decomposition, much as human beings give off CO2 as a by-product of respiration. In general, organic matter
in soils is at steady state: it is decomposed at roughly the same rate at which new organic matter is contributed.
However, certain changes can disrupt this steady state.
Decomposition generally occurs more rapidly in warmer environments than in cooler environments. If an increase
in CO2 emissions leads to warmer temperatures, decomposition will increase, giving rise to more CO2 production.
The increase in CO2 production will increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations further and enhance the greenhouse
effect. This in turn will promote more decomposition, which will lead to more atmospheric CO2, and so on, in a
positive feedback cycle that will continue to move CO2 toward an exceedingly high concentration. In the real world,
something would eventually limit the positive feedback, such as the availability of dead organic matter, but in the
meantime the net concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would have increased.

FIGURE 111

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Temperature–CO2 feedback loop.

The Temperature−Permafrost Feedback Cycle

In the northern latitudes, a large amount of dead organic matter is bound within the arctic tundra, which is frozen
much of the year. When the tundra thaws, it is very wet. Extremely wet organic matter contains little oxygen and
therefore does not undergo aerobic decomposition. However, the tundra contains organisms that can decompose
organic matter anaerobically, which produces methane as well as CO2. Even a slight warming of temperatures in
northern latitudes would increase the number of days each year that the tundra is not frozen, thereby increasing the
number of days during which anaerobic decomposition, and hence methane production, would occur.
Since the greenhouse gas efficiency of methane is twenty-five times that of CO2, a positive feedback cycle could
easily result. An increase in methane in the atmosphere would lead to more radiative forcing, which would lead

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to slightly warmer temperatures, which would lead to more days with unfrozen tundra and increased anaerobic
decomposition. Like the temperature–CO2 feedback cycle, the temperature–permafrost feedback cycle will
create a net increase of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, which will have an impact everywhere in the world,
not simply in the arctic.

FIGURE 112

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Temperature–permafrost feedback loop.
Source: Professor Ross Virginia, Environmental Studies Department, Dartmouth College.

The Ice−Albedo Feedback Loop

One last feedback loop to consider is of particular
importance in ice- and snow-covered areas: the
ice−albedo feedback loop. Sea ice and snow-covered
ground are solar reflectors, sending solar energy
from the Earth’s surface back to the atmosphere, with
some escaping back into space. The overall effect
is to cool global surface temperatures. However, as
global warming decreases the amount of sea ice and
snowpack, the albedo decreases since the ocean and
uncovered ground have lower albedo and absorb more
A young male polar bear found a remaining iceberg, clawed
of the solar energy.
out a bed, and drifted off to sleep in Norway’s Svalbard
archipelago. The impacts of climate change are significant,
Effects of Global Warming and environmental scientists foresee still more extensive
Global warming is already contributing to overall changes throughout all of Earth’s systems in the future.
global change. Atmospheric CO2 has increased 50 Photo by Nima Sarikhani/Wildlife Photographer of the Year
percent since 175041, and global average temperature
has increased by about 2ºF since 1880. Although a temperature increase of 2 degrees may seem small, it is
enough to affect global processes significantly, as suggested by many environmental indicators, including the
amount of arctic ice. Snow cover has decreased by at least 10 percent since observations were first conducted in
the 1960s. Permafrost has thawed, warmed, and degraded in polar, sub-polar, and some mountainous regions.
The growing season has lengthened by one to four days per decade since the 1960s in the Northern Hemisphere.

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 FIGURE 113

Melting

Lower albedo

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The ice–albedo feedback loop.
Source: Professor Ross Virginia, Environmental Studies Department, Dartmouth College.

The geographic range for many plants, insects, and birds has shifted northward in the Northern Hemisphere
and on some occasions has moved up in altitude on mountains. In some cases, species that have increased
the northern extent of their range in the Northern Hemisphere have constricted their southern range because
conditions are less favorable for them further south. Flowering plants have been blooming earlier, birds arrive
earlier at their spring nesting grounds, and insects are emerging earlier in the Northern Hemisphere.
“The tip of the iceberg” is an almost literal description of the changes that have already occurred. Environmental
scientists foresee extensive changes throughout all of Earth’s systems in the future.

Predicted Future Effects of Global Warming

A number of global changes have been predicted to occur by the end of the twenty-first century as a result of
global warming, a few of which we have already mentioned. Here we outline some other projections based on
available data and the models we described earlier. Though these occurrences represent moderate to worst-case
scenarios, many of them are nevertheless considered likely.
6 Continental glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet are expected to continue to retreat. Global mean sea
level, in part as a result of the melting of glaciers, is expected to rise by 0.1 to 0.9 m by 2100.

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 6 Maximum temperatures will be higher, and
more heat waves will occur across virtually all
land areas. There will be a potential for heat and
drought damage to crops or greater irrigation
requirements for crops. Demand for energy for
cooling of living spaces and food will increase.
6 Minimum temperatures will increase over
most land areas, with fewer extremely cold
days and fewer days below freezing in certain
locations. Such conditions will result in fewer
cold-temperature deaths among humans and a
decrease in the risk of crop damage. A decrease
in killing frosts that limit the geographic extent
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, with his two-year-old
of pest species will lead to an increase in the granddaughter Isabelle Dobbs-Higginson on his lap and
range of pest and disease vectors. Demand for United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon looking on,
heating of living spaces should decrease, which signs the COP21 Climate Change Agreement on behalf of the
will decrease the demand for energy. United States during a ceremony on Earth Day, April 22, 2016,
at the U.N. General Assembly Hall in New York.
6 Precipitation patterns will change. Higher
rainfall amounts over certain land areas are
projected, although models differ on which areas of the globe will receive the greatest rainfall. Increased
precipitation is expected to result in increased flooding, landslides, and mudslides, as well as increased

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soil erosion. Benefits may include increased recharge to aquifers and in some cases increased crop yields.
At the same time, changes in regional climates may either increase or decrease precipitation and storm
frequency; how regional climates will change is not well understood.
6 Global ocean currents may shift, which would dramatically disrupt the distribution of heat on the planet
(remember that the unequal distribution of heat is the basis for the circulation currents present on Earth).
6 The natural processes of ecosystems, especially those that have already been fragmented by human
development, will change. Anticipated changes in ecosystems in the northeastern and north-central
U.S., for instance, suggest that spruce-fir, aspen-birch, and maple-beech-birch stands of forest will move
significantly northward, greatly decreasing their abundance in existing locations. This change in the
makeup of vegetation will have profound impacts on the wildlife that depends on these particular types
of trees. Many other species may be threatened by extinction, as rapid temperature change does not allow
every population of organisms time to adapt. As the productivity of an ecosystem and the ecological
services it provides are generally a result of the variety of species that are present in the ecosystem, a
reduction in species may mean that overall ecosystem function and productivity will be reduced.
6 Global warming and the resulting changes will dramatically affect human populations. As sea levels rise,
coastal communities and certain open ocean islands will be threatened by inundation and, even before
that, contamination of their drinking water and erosion of their coastal areas. In the South Pacific, a
number of islands and island nations have already been threatened with flooding from rising sea levels.
High tides and rough seas have led to short-term inundation of areas in the Marshall Islands, Cook
Island, Tuvalu, and lower lying areas of Papua New Guinea.
6 A general decrease in water availability in landlocked regions is also predicted. As the planet warms,
disease vectors, such as the mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus and malaria, will extend over greater
areas, bringing disease to areas that were once relatively untouched. Heat waves will cause more deaths
among the very young, the very old, and those without access to air conditioning. Infectious diseases and
bacterial and fungal illnesses will extend over a wider range than at present.
Climate change is already having economic and environmental justice consequences. In northern locations,

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warmer average temperatures and shorter winters may sound appealing at first but would drastically alter the
character of northern communities that depend on snow for the tourism industry. The damage to marine corals
will have an impact on eco-tourism. Poorer communities close to or along coastlines will not have the resources
to rebuild on higher ground. In general, the poor will bear the greatest costs of global change because they have
the fewest resources to deal with the changes.
While environmental science, in general, and climate change science in particular, can provide important data
on the current and potential future states of our Earth, the issues summarized above cannot be solved by science.
Reducing GHG levels in the atmosphere—as well as funding and building the necessary infrastructures required
to deal with the climate change impacts that we are facing—require global policy agreements, such as the 2015
Paris Agreement that provides a framework for every country to do what it can to reduce GHG emissions and
provide the help necessary to those countries that are on the frontlines of climate change.

SECTION IV SUMMARY
Atmospheric Science and Air Pollution
6 Air pollution includes the compounds present in the troposphere at levels high enough to cause
damage to human beings, animals, plants, and structures or to alter ecosystems. The six U.S. criteria
air pollutants are sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, lead, particulate matter, and
ozone. Primary pollutants—compounds that are pollutants in the form that comes directly out of a
smokestack, exhaust pipe, or natural emission source—include CO, CO2, SO2, NOX, most suspended
particulate matter, and many VOCs. In the atmosphere, primary pollutants are transformed through
complex chemical reactions into secondary pollutants. Ozone and components of acidic deposition

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are some of the secondary pollutants of greatest concern.
6 A large percentage of air pollution comes from natural sources such as volcanoes, fires, and plants.
Anthropogenic sources are transportation, industrial processes, and other fuel combustion, primarily
electricity generation. Transportation is responsible for more than half of outdoor air pollution.
6 Through a series of reactions, SO2 and NOx form into the secondary pollutants nitric acid and sulfuric
acid, which produce acid rain.
6 Photochemical smog forms when oxides such as NOX combine with oxygen and VOCs in the
presence of sunlight to produce photochemical air pollutants, particularly ozone. Human activity
is an important contributor to smog because it supplies the VOCs without which ozone would be
destroyed. Smog is common in urban areas, particularly if a thermal inversion traps pollutants at
ground level, but it also occurs in nonurban settings. Photochemical smog is detrimental to both
human health and ecosystems.
6 Particulates can be removed from industrial emissions by a number of technological devices. Primary
pollutants are harder to control, and photochemical smog is particularly difficult because of the complex
of primary pollutants involved. Predictive models help environmental scientists and governments
determine where and when pollution might be a problem.
Nonrenewable Energy Sources
6 Energy use has changed over time with the appearance of different technologies. The United States and
the rest of the developed world have moved from a heavy reliance on wood and coal to mostly fossil fuels
and nuclear power, whereas the developing world still relies largely on biomass. Different sources of
energy are suited for different activities.
6 Energy efficiency, the amount of usable work that can be obtained from a given input of energy, can
be broken down into three different types. To determine how efficient a particular device is, we must
compare its thermal, machine, and system efficiencies. In general, the energy source that entails the
fewest conversions from its original form to the end use will likely be the most efficient. Though multi-

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 passenger transportation is the most energy-efficient way to travel, in the United States the single-
passenger vehicle is most popular.
6 Electricity-generating power plants convert the chemical potential energy of fuel into electrical potential
energy (electricity). Coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power are the most common energy sources for
generating electricity. The power grid ties electricity-generating plants together over defined regions.
6 Coal is a very dense fossil fuel that is a good source for efficient electricity generation. Deep-shaft
coal mining has serious health and safety consequences and leaves toxic slag piles in the environment.
Surface mining can remove whole mountain tops and contaminate nearby waterways. Coal combustion
is a major source of air pollution.
6 Petroleum includes both crude oil and natural gas. Oil is currently the greatest energy source in
the United States, used primarily for transportation. It produces significant air pollution as well as
greenhouse gas, and oil spills are a major hazard to organisms and habitats. Oil extraction in various
parts of the world has led to environmental justice issues. Natural gas (methane), the fuel of choice for
cooking and heating, does not produce particulate air pollution, but it is a major GHG.
6 Nuclear power is a relatively clean means of electricity generation, though fossil fuels are used in
constructing nuclear power plants and mining uranium. The major environmental hazards of nuclear
power are accidents and radioactive waste. The fuel used in a nuclear plant will remain radioactive for as
long as 100,000 years; disposing of it is currently a political as well as environmental issue.
6 Total energy consumption in the United States is projected to increase in the future, while the country’s
fossil fuel reserves are shrinking, indicating that the existing energy program in the U.S. is not

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sustainable.
Renewable Energy Sources
6 Sustainable energy is energy consumed at a level that will allow an adequate supply to remain for future
generations and at the same time does as little direct damage to the environment as possible. Renewable
energy is created continuously from perpetual sources such as the Sun and wind and will always be
available.
6 The Sun is the ultimate source of most energy on Earth. Direct solar energy is the energy from the Sun’s
rays striking the Earth directly, or the solar constant. The Sun is also responsible for causing winds and
promoting the hydrologic cycle, which are thus indirect forms of solar energy. Passive solar refers to the
collection of solar energy without an intermediate technology such as a pump or blower, as in a solar
cooker. Active solar utilizes mechanical devices, such as photovoltaic cells, to harness or transfer the
energy to useable forms of heat or electricity.
6 The kinetic energy of wind is converted to potential energy in electricity. Wind power is the fastest
growing source of electricity in the world. Large wind turbines are frequently grouped in wind farms or
offshore wind parks. Wind is a very clean form of energy, though some people object to wind turbines
largely on aesthetic grounds.
6 Biomass energy, the potential energy contained in organic matter, is one of the major forms of energy
in the developing world but is also used in developed countries. The carbon produced by the burning
of biomass does not add appreciably to atmospheric CO2 levels because it is modern, rather than fossil,
carbon. Wood and wood byproducts, dung, municipal solid waste, ethanol, and biodiesel are all biomass
energy sources. Wood is potentially renewable because if managed correctly, it can be a continuous
source of biomass energy.
6 The kinetic energy of water can be harnessed to generate electricity. Run-of-the-river hydroelectric
power uses little or no water impoundment. More common are larger dammed hydro systems.
6 Heat from deep in the Earth produces geothermal energy. This energy is used to generate electricity.
Hydropower is one of the cleanest forms of energy, as fossil fuels are used only in construction and

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 maintenance of the facilities; but hydropower facilities impact the environment by flooding or otherwise
disrupting ecosystems. Tidal energy is derived from the twice-daily movement of water along coastlines.
6 Though many scenarios have been predicted for the world’s energy future, conservation—the reduction
in energy demand—and increasing energy efficiency—the use of less energy to do the same amount of
work—as well as new technologies will be necessary for energy sustainability.
Global Climate Change
6 Changes to Earth’s biogeochemical, climatic, and biological systems are interconnected. Global warming
and climate change are subsets of overall global change.
6 Radiant solar energy of differing wavelengths reaches Earth, where energy is absorbed and radiated
back. In the Sun–Earth heating system, if the solar radiation reaching Earth is greater than the sum of the
solar energy reflected back and the energy radiated by Earth, Earth becomes warmer. The greenhouse
effect is a natural process that leads to the warming of an area underneath something that traps heat.
On Earth, heat can be trapped by a number of greenhouse gases, the most common of which is water
vapor. Radiative forcing—the radiation and absorption of energy by greenhouse gases—forces a change
in Earth’s energy balance. The impact of each GHG is measured by its relative GHG efficiency, which
depends in part on the concentration of other GHGs in the atmosphere. CO2 is the greatest contributor to
total anthropogenic radiative forcing because of its high concentration in the atmosphere.
6 Global warming is the increased warming of Earth’s atmosphere due to an increase in gases that trap
heat—in particular, warming caused by human activity. Because of the scarcity of direct temperature
measurements over historical time (more than 140 years), evidence of the warming of Earth is based

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largely on surrogate indicators. Models are used to predict future warming on the basis of past trends.
6 Natural causes of global warming include volcanoes, denitrification, and evaporation from all sources
of water on Earth. Currently, anthropogenic causes of global warming are of more concern than natural
causes because they are increasing over a much shorter time scale and are of a greater magnitude.
6 Burning of fossil fuels is the greatest anthropogenic source of global warming, adding new carbon to
the carbon cycle and thus increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Other anthropogenic causes
include deforestation that is not balanced by replanting and, to a lesser extent, certain agricultural
practices and biomass burning. Developed countries are by far the largest contributors to global
warming.
6 Global warming affects all environmental and human systems through three interconnected feedback
cycles. Global average temperature has increased over the past hundred years to a level which is enough
to affect natural processes significantly. Predicted future effects include weather and climate changes;
disruption of natural ecosystem processes; loss of biodiversity; and health, social, and economic
problems for humans.

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 Conclusion

Earth is made up of many interconnected systems of different sizes and complexities. Systems can be natural (e.g.,
a lake), human-made (e.g., a city), or a combination (e.g., a farm). Systems can also vary in scale, from a small pond
to the largest system that we dealt with—the entire Earth. What all systems have in common is that they consist of
interacting components in which changes in one component affect other parts of the system. Environmental science
studies those systems, how they change when impacted, and how we can better manage them for the future.
Environmental indicators are one of the main tools relied on by environmental scientists; these indicators include
changes in species number, global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and food production
and land use. From following these indicators over time, environmental scientists have been able to show,
with variable levels of scientific certainty, how the growth of the human population and industrialization have
negatively impacted these environmental indicators. Their work shows that species loss is currently so great
that we are likely heading toward a sixth mass extinction event. Deforestation and other human land use is

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eliminating much of our natural world. Furthermore, atmospheric greenhouse gas levels are a major cause of
rising temperatures, droughts, increasing intensity of storms and wildfires, and rising sea levels.
Despite all these negative consequences of human activities, there is hope—quite a bit of it actually.
Environmental scientists, working with policymakers, are developing strategies to protect large parts of the
wilderness and the species that live there. Holistic approaches to natural resource management that focus on
entire ecosystems are demonstrating that the sustainable management of natural resources is possible. Stricter
standards for the release of human-generated chemicals into the environment are the result of scientists studying
the human health impacts of air and water pollutants, pesticides, and other substances. And the many decades
of work by those environmental scientists working on global climate change has resulted in new international
agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thereby slow and, maybe in the future, reverse the large-
scale impacts we are already beginning to experience.

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 Glossary42

acid rain − acid deposition that results when rain than in the ambient environment; compare with
combines with the air pollutants sulfur dioxide and biomagnification.
nitrogen oxides to produce rain with a pH value of
biodiversity (biological diversity) − the richness of
4.0, instead of the pH of 5.0 to 5.5 of normal rain
biological variation, including genetic variability as
aerobic −
 refers to an environment in which oxygen well as species and community richness
(O2) is readily available; compare with anaerobic.
biodiversity crisis −
 the present era of high rates
age-structure diagram −  a diagram that shows the of species extinction and reduction in multiple
proportions of individuals in various age classes of levels of biodiversity, from genetic diversity to
a population ecosystems
agroforestry − the cultivation of trees in plantations, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) − the capacity

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typically using relatively intensive management of organic matter and other substances in water to
practices consume oxygen during decomposition
algal bloom − an event of high phytoplankton biomass biomagnification − the tendency for top predators in a
food web to have the highest residues of chemicals
ammonification − the oxidation of the organically
that persist and move through the food chain;
bound nitrogen of dead biomass into ammonium
compare with bioaccumulation.
(NH4+).
biomass energy −
 the chemical potential energy of
anaerobic −
 refers to an environment in which there is
plant biomass, which can be combusted to provide
no free oxygen (O2); compare with aerobic.
thermal energy
anthropogenic − occurring as a result of a human
biome −
 a geographically extensive ecosystem,
influence
occurring throughout the world wherever
aquifer − groundwater resources in some defined area environmental conditions are suitable
artificial selection − the deliberate breeding of species biosphere − all life on Earth, plus their ecosystems
to enhance traits that are viewed as desirable by and environments
humans
bog − a freshwater wetland of soft, spongy ground
atmosphere − the gaseous envelope surrounding the consisting mainly of partially decayed plant matter,
Earth, held in place by gravity called peat, that usually develops in cool but wet
climates
atmospheric inversion (temperature inversion) −  a
relatively stable atmospheric condition in which boreal coniferous forest −  a northern forest
cool air is trapped beneath a layer of warmer air dominated by coniferous trees, usually species of
fir, larch, pine, or spruce
atmospheric water − water occurring in the
atmosphere in vapor, liquid, or solid forms by-catch − inadvertent harvesting of a non-target
species
bioaccumulation − the occurrence of chemicals
in much higher concentrations in organisms calorie − a standard unit of energy, defined as the

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 amount of energy needed to raise the temperature composting − the process of encouraging
of one gram of pure water from 15°C to 16°C; decomposition of discarded organic matter under
compare with joule. warm, moist, oxygen-rich conditions; the product,
known as compost, is a useful fertilizer and soil
carnivore (secondary consumer) − an animal that
conditioner.
hunts and eats other animals
conservation − wise use of natural resources;
carrying capacity − the number of organisms that
conservation of renewable resources includes
can be sustained indefinitely without the habitat
recycling and ensuring that harvesting does not
becoming degraded
exceed the rate of regeneration of the stock.
chaparral − a shrub-dominated ecosystem that occurs
contamination − the presence of potentially damaging
in south-temperate environments with winter rains
chemicals in the environment
and summer drought
control (control treatment) − an experimental
chromosome −  subcellular unit composed of DNA and
treatment that was not manipulated and is intended
containing the genetic information of eukaryotic
for comparison with manipulated treatments
organisms
core −
 Earth’s massive interior, made up of hot molten
clear-cutting − the harvesting of all economically
metals
useful trees from an area at the same time
Coriolis effect − an influence of Earth’s west-to-east
climate − the prevailing, long-term, meteorological
rotation, which makes winds in the Northern
conditions of a place or region, including
Hemisphere deflect to the right and those in the
temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and other

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Southern Hemisphere deflect to the left
factors; compare with weather.
crust − the outermost layer of Earth’s sphere, overlying
climate change −  long-term changes in air, soil, or
the lithosphere and composed mostly of crystalline
water temperature; precipitation regimes; wind
rocks
speed; or other climate-related factors
decay −
 the decomposition or oxidation of dead
coal − a carbon-rich, solid fossil fuel mined from
biomass, mostly through the actions of
sedimentary geological formations
microorganisms
community −  In ecology, this refers to populations of
decomposer − a heterotroph that feeds on dead
various species that are co-occurring at the same
organic matter
time and place.
deforestation − a permanent conversion of forest into
compaction − a decrease in the pore space of soil or
some other kind of ecosystem, such as agriculture
sediment (or increased bulk density) caused by the
or urbanized land use
passage of heavy machinery
denitrification − the microbial reduction of nitrate
competition − a biological interaction occurring when
(NO3–) into gaseous N2O or N2
the demand for an ecological resource exceeds its
limited supply, causing organisms to interfere with desert − a temperate or tropical biome characterized
each other by low yearly precipitation, usually receiving less
than 25 cm of precipitation per year
competitor − a species that is dominant in a habitat
in which disturbance is rare and environmental desertification − the increasing aridity of drylands; an
stresses are unimportant, so competition is the environmental change that can make agriculture
major influence on evolution and community difficult or impossible
organization
developed countries − countries with a relatively
compost − partially decomposed, well-humified well-organized economic infrastructure and a high
organic material average per-capita income

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development (economic development) − an economic ecosystem approach − a holistic interpretation of
term that implies improving efficiency in the use of the natural world that considers the web-like
materials and energy in an economy and progress interconnections among the many components of
toward a sustainable economic system ecosystems
discipline − a specific area of study, such as ecosystem service −  an ecological function that is
mathematics or music useful to humans and to ecosystem stability and
integrity, such as nutrient cycling, productivity, and
disturbance −
 an episode of destruction of some part
control of erosion
of a community or ecosystem
endangered − In the U.S., this specifically refers to a
DNA −
 the biochemical deoxyribonucleic acid, the
species listed as endangered under the Endangered
main constituent of the chromosomes of eukaryotic
Species Act because of its high risk of extinction.
organisms
energy −
 the capacity of a body or system to
domesticate − to genetically, anatomically, and
accomplish work; divided among electromagnetic,
physiologically modify crops and other species
kinetic, and potential energies
from their wild progenitor species through the
selective breeding of preferred individuals environment (the) − (1) refers to influences on
organisms and ecosystems, including both non-
doubling time − the time it takes for something
living (abiotic) and biological factors; (2) an
to increase by a factor of two (as in population
indeterminate word for issues associated with the
growth)
causes and consequences of environmental damage
dumping − the inappropriate disposal of disused or with the larger environmental crisis

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material, for example, by placing solid waste into a
environmental degradation − commonly refers to
sanitary landfill or by discarding liquid waste into
pollution, disturbance, resource depletion, lost
a waterbody
biodiversity, and other kinds of human-caused
earthquake − a trembling or movement of the earth, environmental damage but can also be caused by
caused by a sudden release of geological stresses at natural environmental stressors
some place within the crust
environmental indicators − relatively simple
ecological footprint − the area of ecoscape (i.e., measurements that are sensitive to changes in
landscape and seascape) required to supply a the intensity of stressors and are useful for the
human population with the necessary food, monitoring of human and nonhuman impacts on
materials, energy, waste disposal, and other crucial the environment
goods and services
environmental justice − the fair treatment and
ecological pyramid − a model of the trophic structure meaningful involvement of all people regardless
of an ecosystem, organized with plant productivity of race, color, national origin, or income with
on the bottom, that of herbivores above, and respect to the development, implementation and
carnivores above the herbivores; see also trophic enforcement of environmental laws, regulations,
level. and policies
ecology − the study of the relationships between environmental quality − a notion related to the
organisms and their environment amounts of toxic chemicals and other stressors in
the environment, to the frequency and intensity of
ecosystem − a general term used to describe one or
disturbances, and to their effects on humans, other
more communities that are interacting with their
species, ecosystems, and economies
environment as a defined unit; ecosystems range
from small units occurring in microhabitats to environmental risk − a hazard or probability of
larger units such as landscapes and seascapes, and suffering damage or misfortune because of
even the biosphere. exposure to some environmental circumstance

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environmental risk assessment −  a quantitative fitness −
 the proportional contribution of an individual
evaluation of the risks associated with an to the progeny of its population
environmental hazard
flux − a movement of mass or energy between
environmental science − an interdisciplinary branch compartments of a material or energy cycle
of science that studies the impacts of human
food chain − a hierarchical model of feeding
activities on environmental systems
relationships among species in an ecosystem
erosion − the physical removal of rocks and soil
food web − a complex model of feeding relationships,
through the combined actions of flowing water,
describing the connections among all food chains
wind, ice, and gravity
within an ecosystem
estuary − a coastal ecosystem that is open to the
forestry −
 the harvesting of trees and management of
sea and has habitats transitional between purely
post-harvest succession to foster the regeneration
marine and freshwater ecosystems
of another forest
ethics − norms of conduct that distinguish between
fossil fuels − geological materials, such as coal,
acceptable and unacceptable behavior
petroleum, and natural gas, made from
eutrophication − increased primary productivity of an decomposing plants and animals that contain
aquatic ecosystem resulting from nutrient inputs carbon and hydrogen that can be burned for energy
evaporation − the change of water from a liquid to a gene −
 a region of a chromosome containing a
gas length of DNA that behaves as a specific unit in
inheritance and determines the development of a

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evapotranspiration − water losses from a landscape
specific trait
due to evaporation and transpiration
genotype − the genetic complement of an individual
evolution − genetically based changes in populations
organism; see also phenotype.
of organisms occurring over successive generations
geothermal energy − heat in Earth’s crust, which can
experiment − a controlled test or investigation
sometimes be used to provide energy for heating or
designed to provide evidence for, or preferably
generation of electricity
against, a hypothesis about the natural or physical
world glacier − a persistent sheet of ice, occurring in the
Arctic and Antarctic and at high altitude on
exposure − the interaction of organisms with an
mountains
environmental stressor at a particular place and
time; often used in environmental health as a Green Revolution − intensive agricultural systems
measure of the amount of contact of an individual involving the cultivation of improved crop
with a specific health risk varieties in monoculture and increased use of
mechanization, fertilizers, and pesticides
extinct (extinction) −
 a condition in which a species or
other taxon no longer occurs anywhere on Earth greenhouse effect −
 the physical process by which
infrared-absorbing gases (such as CO2) warm the
First Law of Thermodynamics − a physical principle
atmosphere
stating that energy can undergo transformations
among its various states, but it is never created greenhouses gases (GHGs) − atmospheric gases
or destroyed; thus, the energy content of the that efficiently absorb infrared radiation and then
universe remains constant; see also Second Law of dissipate some of the thermal energy gain by re-
Thermodynamics. radiation
fission reaction − nuclear reaction involving the gross primary productivity (GPP) − the fixation of
splitting of heavier, radioactive atoms into lighter energy by primary producers within an ecosystem;
ones, with the release of large quantities of energy see also respiration and net primary productivity.

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groundwater − water stored underground in soil and environmental and health risks
rocks
interdisciplinary −
 encompassing a wide diversity of
habitat − the place or “home” where a plant or animal kinds of knowledge
lives, including the specific environmental factors
intrinsic value − value that exists regardless of any
required for its survival
direct or indirect value in terms of the needs or
hazardous waste −  wastes that are flammable, welfare of humans
explosive, toxic, or otherwise dangerous
invertebrate − any animal that lacks an internal
herbicide − a pesticide used to kill unwanted plants skeleton, in particular a backbone
herbivore (primary consumer) − an animal that feeds joule − a standard unit of energy, defined as the energy
on plants needed to accelerate 1 kg of mass at 1 m/s2 for a
distance of 1 meter
higher-income countries − countries with a relatively
high average per-capita income keystone species − a dominant species in a
community, usually a predator, with an
humus − amorphous, partially decomposed organic
influence on structure and function that is highly
matter; an important and persistent type of soil
disproportionate to its biomass
organic matter, it is very important in soil tilth and
fertility. kinetic energy −
 energy associated with motion,
including mechanical and thermal types
hydrocarbons − molecules composed of hydrogen and
carbon only laws of thermodynamics −  physical principles that

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govern all transformations of energy; see also
hydroelectric power (hydropower) −  electricity
First Law of Thermodynamics and Second Law of
generated using the kinetic energy of moving water
Thermodynamics.
hydrologic (water) cycle − the movement between and
leaching − the movement of dissolved substances
storage of water in various compartments of the
through the soil via the flow of water
hydrosphere
less-developed countries − countries with a relatively
hypothesis − a proposed explanation for the
less developed economic infrastructure and a lower
occurrence or causes of natural phenomena;
average per-capita income
scientists formulate hypotheses as statements and
test them through experiments and other forms of limiting resource −
 an environmental resource that
research. is the primary restriction on the productivity of
autotrophs in an ecosystem
impoundment −  an area of formerly terrestrial
landscape that is flooded behind a dam lithosphere − an approximately 100-km thick region
of rigid, relatively light rocks that surround Earth’s
incineration − the combustion of mixed solid wastes
mantle and core
to reduce the amount of organic material present
lower-income counties − countries with a relatively
individual organism − a genetically and physically
small average per-capita income
discrete living entity
mantle −
 Earth’s thickest layer that encloses Earth’s
insecticide −
 a pesticide used to kill insects that are
core and is below the crust; composed of minerals
considered pests; see also pesticide and pest.
in a hot, plastic state known as magma
instrumental value − the usefulness of a thing or
marsh − a productive wetland, typically dominated by
function to humans
species of monocotyledonous angiosperm plants
integrated pest management (IPM) − the use that grow as tall as several meters above the water
of a variety of complementary tactics toward surface
pest control, with the aim of having fewer
mass extinction − an event of synchronous extinction

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 of many species, occurring over a relatively nuclear fuel − unstable isotopes of uranium (235U)
short period of time, that significantly reduces and plutonium (239Pu) that decay through fission,
biodiversity; there are five mass extinction events releasing large amounts of energy that can be used
documented in the geological record, and there to generate electricity
may be a sixth human-caused mass extinction
nutrient −
 any chemical required for the proper
occurring now.
metabolism of organisms
maximum sustainable yield (MSY) − the largest
nutrient cycle − the transfer and chemical
amount of harvesting that can occur without
transformation of nutrients in ecosystems,
degrading the productivity of the stock
including recycling through decomposition
mitigation − an action that repairs or offsets
old-growth forest − a late-successional forest
environmental damages to some degree
characterized by the presence of old trees, an
monoculture − the cultivation of only one species uneven-aged population structure, and a complex
while attempting to exclude others from the physical structure
agroecosystem
organic agriculture − systems by which crops are
mutualism (mutualistic symbiosis) − a symbiosis in grown using natural methods of maintaining soil
which both partners benefit fertility and pest-control methods that do not
involve synthetic pesticides
natural gas − a gaseous, hydrocarbon-rich mixture
mined from certain geological formations overexploitation − unsustainable harvesting of a
potentially renewable resource, leading to a decline
natural mortality − mortality due to natural causes

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of its stocks
natural resource − a source of material or energy that
parameter − one or more constants that determine
is extracted or harvested from the environment
the form of a mathematical equation; in the linear
natural selection − a mechanism of evolution, equation Y = aX + b, a and b are parameters, and
favoring individuals with genotypes that produce Y and X are variables; see also variable.
phenotypes that are better adapted to existing
parasitism − a biological relationship involving one
environmental factors; these more fit individuals
species obtaining nourishment from a host, usually
have an improved probability of leaving
without causing its death
descendants, ultimately leading to genetically
based changes in populations, or evolution. parts per million (ppm) − unit of concentration,
equivalent to 1 milligram per kilogram (mg/kg), or
net primary productivity (NPP) −  primary
in aqueous solution, 1 mg per liter (mg/L)
production that remains as biomass after primary
producers have accounted for their respiratory persistence −
 the nature of chemicals, especially
needs; see also respiration and gross primary pesticides, to remain in the environment before
production. eventually being degraded by microorganisms or
physical agents such as sunlight and heat
niche −
 the role of a species within its biological
community pest − any organism judged to be significantly
interfering with some human purpose
nitrification −
 the bacterial oxidation of ammonium
(NH4+) to nitrate (NO3–) pesticide − a substance used to poison pests
nitrogen fixation − the oxidation of nitrogen gas (N2) petroleum (crude oil) − a fluid, hydrocarbon-rich
to ammonia (NH3) or nitric oxide (NO) mixture mined from certain geological formations
nonrenewable fuel − a fuel resource present on Earth phenotype − the set of traits expressed by individuals
in finite quantities, so as it is used, its future stocks that result from the interaction of genotype and
are diminished; examples are metals and fossil environment; see also genotype.
fuels.

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photochemical air pollutants −  ozone, peroxy acetyl primary producer − an organism that uses the energy
nitrate, and other strongly oxidizing gases that of the Sun to produce usable forms of energy
form in the atmosphere through complex reactions
primary productivity − productivity by primary
involving sunlight, hydrocarbons, oxides of
producers, such as plants or algae; often measured
nitrogen, and other chemicals
as biomass accumulated over a unit of time, or
photosynthesis − the process by which producers use sometimes by the amount of carbon fixed
solar energy to convert carbon dioxide and water
productivity − an ecological term for production
into glucose.
standardized per unit area and time
plantation − In forestry, these are tree farms managed
recycling −
 the processing of discarded materials into
for high productivity of wood fibre.
useful products
poaching − the illegal harvesting of wildlife (plants or
replacement fertility rate −
 the fertility rate that
animals)
results in the numbers of progeny replacing their
point source − a location where large quantities of parents, with no change in size of the equilibrium
pollutants are emitted into the environment, such population
as a smokestack or sewer outfall
residence time −  (1) the time required for the
pollution − the exposure of organisms to chemicals disappearance of an initial amount; (2) the length
or energy in quantities that exceed their tolerance, of time that a stressor or other environmental
causing toxicity or other ecological damages influence remains active
population − In ecology, this refers to individuals of resilience − the ability of a system to recover from

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the same species that occur together in time and disturbance
space.
respiration −
 physiological processes needed to keep
potential energy − the stored ability to perform work, organisms alive and healthy
capable of being transformed into electromagnetic
restoration − establishment of a self-maintaining
or kinetic energies; potential energy is associated
copy of a natural ecosystem on degraded land, as
with gravity, chemicals, compressed gases,
when abandoned farmland is converted to a native
electrical potential, magnetism, and the nuclear
prairie or forest
structure of matter.
restoration ecology − activities undertaken by
prairie − grassland ecosystems occurring in temperate
ecologists to repair ecological damage, such
regions
as establishing vegetation on degraded habitat,
precautionary principle −  an approach to increasing the populations of endangered species,
environmental management, adopted by many and decreasing the area of threatened ecosystems
countries at the 1992 Earth Summit, which
run-of-the-river − a hydroelectric development
essentially states that scientific uncertainty is not
that directly harnesses the flow of a river to
a sufficient reason to postpone control measures
drive turbines, without creating a substantial
when there is a threat of harm to human health or
impoundment for water storage
the environment
salinization − the buildup of soluble salts in the soil
precipitation −
 deposition of water from the
surface, an important agricultural problem in drier
atmosphere as liquid rain or as solid snow or hail
regions
primary consumer −  an herbivore, or a heterotrophic
scientific method − an objective method to explore
organism that feeds on plants or algae
the natural world, draw inferences from it, and
primary pollutants − chemicals that are emitted predict the outcome of certain events, processes,
into the environment; compare with secondary or changes
pollutants.
Second Law of Thermodynamics − the law stating

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 that when energy is transformed, the quantity of isolated from other such groups
energy remains the same, but its ability to do work
species richness − the number of species in some area
diminishes; see also First Law of Thermodynamics
or place
secondary consumer − a carnivore that feeds on
stratosphere −
 the upper atmosphere, extending
primary consumers (or herbivores)
from 8−17 km to as high as about 50 km; see also
secondary pollutants − pollutants that are not emitted troposphere.
(primary pollutants), but form in the environment
succession − a process of community-level recovery
by chemical reactions involving primary
following disturbance
pollutants; compare with primary pollutants.
surface water − water that occurs in glaciers, lakes,
sedimentary rock − rock formed from precipitated
ponds, rivers, streams, and other surface bodies of
minerals such as calcite, or from lithified particles
water
weathered and eroded from other rocks
swamp −
 a forested wetland, flooded seasonally or
selective cutting − harvesting of only some trees
permanently
from a stand, leaving others behind and the forest
substantially intact symbiosis −
 an intimate relationship between different
species; see also mutualism.
sewage treatment − the use of physical filters,
chemical treatment, and/or biological treatment to system − a set of living and/or nonliving components
reduce pathogens, organic matter, and nutrients in connected in such a way that changes in one
waste waters, containing sewage part of the system affect other parts; a group

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or combination of regularly interacting and
slash-and-burn agriculture −  an agricultural system
interdependent elements, which form a collective
that results in a permanent conversion of a forest
entity, but one that is more than the sum of its
into crop production, involving cutting and
constituents; see also ecosystem.
burning the forest followed by continuous use of
the land for crops temperate grassland −  grass-dominated ecosystems
occurring in temperate regions with an annual
sludge − a solid or semi-solid precipitate that settles
precipitation of 25–60 cm per year; sufficient to
from polluted water during treatment; sludge is
prevent desert from developing but insufficient to
produced during the treatment of sewage and also
support forest
in pulp mills and some other industrial facilities. It
may be disposed of in a landfill, but if it is organic, temperate rainforest − a forest developing in a
it can be used as a beneficial soil amendment. temperate climate in which winters are mild and
precipitation is abundant year-round; because
smog −
 an event of ground-level air pollution
wildfire is rare, old-growth forests may be
soil −
 a complex mixture of fragmented rock, organic common.
matter, moisture, gases, and living organisms that
theory − a general term that refers to a set of scientific
covers almost all of Earth’s terrestrial landscapes
laws, rules, and explanations supported by a large
solar energy −
 electromagnetic energy radiated by the body of experimental and observational evidence,
Sun all leading to robust, internally consistent
conclusions
solid wastes − extremely variable municipal wastes
that include discarded food, garden discards, thermal pollution − an increase in environmental
newspapers, bottles, cans, construction debris, old temperature sufficient to result in ecological
cars, and disused furniture change
species − an aggregation of individuals and threatened − in the U.S., a species that is listed as
populations that can potentially interbreed and threatened under the Endangered Species Act
produce fertile offspring and is reproductively because it is at risk of becoming endangered; see

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 endangered. volatile organic compounds − organic compounds
that evaporate to the atmosphere at typical
tidal energy − energy that results from the change in
environmental temperatures, so they are present in
water level due to tides in oceanic surface waters
gaseous or vapor forms
and can potentially be used to generate electricity
waste −
 any discarded materials
tolerance − In environmental health, this refers to a
genetically based ability of organisms or species waste-to-energy facility −
 an incinerator that burns
to not suffer toxicity when exposed to chemicals or organic waste and uses the heat generated to
other stressors. produce commercial energy
transpiration − the evaporation of water from plants; water cycle − See hydrologic cycle.
compare with evapotranspiration.
watershed − an area of land from which surface water
trophic level − a level in the feeding structure of and groundwater flow into a stream, river, or lake
organisms; the higher trophic levels consume
weather −
 the short-term, day-to-day or instantaneous
organisms from lower levels, and together these
meteorological conditions at a place or region;
levels form a trophic structure.
compare with climate.
troposphere − the lower atmosphere, extending to
weathering −
 physical and chemical processes by
8–17 km
which rocks and minerals are broken down by such
tundra −
 a treeless biome occurring in environments environmental agents as rain, wind, temperature
with long, cold winters and short, cool growing changes, and biological influences
seasons

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wetland −
 an area that is wet constantly or seasonally
variable −
 a changeable factor believed to influence and is intermediate between aquatic and terrestrial
a natural phenomenon of interest or that can be ecosystems, such as a bog, fen, marsh, and swamp
manipulated during an experiment
wind −
 an air mass moving in Earth’s atmosphere
vector − species of insects and ticks that transmit
wind energy −  the kinetic energy of moving air
pathogens from alternate hosts to people or
masses, which can be tapped and utilized
animals
in various ways, including the generation of
vertebrates − animals with a backbone electricity

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 Notes

1  eballos, Gerardo, et al., Accelerated modern human-induced species

C 26 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5443613/.
losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Sci Adv. 1, e1400253 (2015). 27  Michael J. Fogarty & Steven A. Murawski, “Large-Scale Disturbance
2 https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends. and the Structure of Marine Systems: Fishery Impacts on Georges
3 Hill, M. (2006). Mono Lake: The “Dead Sea” of the West. In Geology of Bank,” Ecological Application; Vol. 8(1) Supplement, pp. S6−S22, 1998.
the Sierra Nevada (pp. 323-333). Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: 28 Willott, et al., “Effect of Selective Logging on the Butterflies of a
University of California Press. Bornean Rainforest,” Conservation Biology 14 (4) 1055−1065 (2000).
4 https://www.c2es.org/content/main-greenhouse-gases/; Sixth 29  https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-more-than-
Assessment Report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2021 doubled-the-likelihood-of-extreme-fire-weather-conditions-in-eastern-
Working Group I - The Physical Sciences, Table 7.15. canada/#:~:text=.
5 Shen et al 2023 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35272-8. 30 Source: “Guideline on Air Quality Models” (Appendix W to Part 51),
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