The human influence on the ecosystem. Artificial ecosystems

From time immemorial, the role of man in the ecosystem assumed its active intervention in the natural chain of nature with a view to its careful study. At the same time, interest was constantly fueled by the constant evolution of the ecosystem, which took place irrespective of human activity, which sometimes led to irreversible consequences for the environment as well as for people.

Human and nature

To date, human influence on the ecosystem has become almost absolute. Over the past few centuries, due to the significant development of technological progress, environmental pollution has reached a critical point and began to pose a serious danger.

The carbon cycle in nature has a significant effect on atmospheric changes, since it is contained in significant amounts in the composition of most minerals on earth. When burning mineral fuels in factories, it releases dioxide (carbon dioxide), which has the property of accumulating in the air, as a result of large-scale deforestation, the remaining plants do not have time to cope with its purification.

As a result of a steady increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide on the Earth, there is an increase in the global greenhouse effect, which is that the dioxide retains heat on the surface, causing excessive heating, the effect of which increases every day.

Analysis and assessment of human activities in the ecosystem allow us to properly judge that if we do not take decisive measures to normalize the ecological situation, the immune system will not be able to properly cope with the pollutions that have a harmful effect on the human body, which in the future can lead to irreversible consequences . The thing is that the pollutant can affect the body both directly and indirectly, easily moving through various elements of the ecosystem.

Deserts

All terrestrial ecosystems can be conditionally divided according to climatic and vegetative characteristics, and each ecosystem has its own individual features, which are connected mainly with rare climatic factors, not with rare animals and plants that live there. First of all, this category of ecosystems can be referred to as deserts.

The main feature of this area is that the power of evaporation in it is much higher than the level of precipitation. As a result of such conditions, vegetation in the desert is very scarce. This area is characterized by clear weather and the predominance of stunted plants, as a result of which at night the soil begins to lose its heat accumulated during the day. It should be borne in mind that deserts occupy more than 15% of the land surface and are located almost in all terrestrial latitudes.

Deserts can be:

• Tropical.
• Moderate.
• Cold.

Plants and animals living in them, regardless of climatic conditions are able to accumulate and retain in the body of scarce moisture. Destruction of vegetation in a given area leads to the fact that its restoration will require a huge amount of time and effort.

Savannah

Natural ecosystems also include the savannah region, the territories of which are essentially herbaceous ecosystems. This category includes areas in which several prolonged dry periods are observed, and upon their completion, excessive rainfall occurs. It is this category of ecosystem that occupies wide sections on both sides of the equator, meeting even in areas adjacent to arctic deserts.

Despite the fact that people are extremely rare in such a locality, the oil and gas reserves discovered in these territories provoked a high anthropogenic impact, because as a result of low decomposition rates of organic substances, the rate of vegetation growth is minimal, due to what this ecological area is one of the most Vulnerable.

Forest ecosystems

All forests, regardless of species, also belong to the category of terrestrial ecosystems.

They are represented by:

• Deciduous forests. The main feature is the rapid restoration of vegetation after cutting. Therefore, this locality is best able to counteract the negative influence that a person exerts on it.

• Coniferous. Basically, these forests are represented in taiga regions. It is in this area that most of the timber is extracted for industrial needs.
• Tropical. Trees in these forests preserve their leaves almost all year round, due to which a stable cleaning of the atmosphere from carbon dioxide is ensured. As a result of human destruction of vegetation, the upper layer of the soil is completely washed away due to prolonged exposure to rain, and it is almost impossible to restore the forest after cutting down.

Artificially created ecosystems

Artificial ecosystems, or agrocenosis, include man-made ecosystems, the main task of which is to maintain and stabilize the ecological situation in the world, as well as the stable provision of people and animals with affordable food. This category includes:

• Fields.
• Hayfields.
• Parks.
• Gardens.
• The gardens.
• Forest planting.

In most cases, artificial ecosystems are required for man to obtain agricultural products for his normal livelihoods. Despite the fact that they are not very reliable in ecological terms, high yields allow using the world's smallest number of land areas to provide food. The main criteria that people invest in their creation are the preservation of crops that have maximum performance indicators.

The population size in the agrocenosis is due mainly to the care that a person can provide to increase the level of fertility, which the artificial ecosystem so needs. A man whose nature is associated with constant discoveries in the most significant areas of life, has long realized that it is this type of ecosystem that constantly needs useful elements. Among them, the decisive role is played by water and mineral fertilizers, some of which are constantly disappearing from the soil as a result of the water cycle in nature. Only in this way can you save the crop and prevent starvation in constantly deteriorating environmental conditions.

At the same time, in agrocenosis, as in any other area, food chains of the ecosystem are observed, the obligatory component of which is man. In this case, it is he who plays a decisive role, because without him no artificial ecosystem can exist. The fact is that without receiving proper care, it retains its properties for a maximum of a year in the form of grain fields and up to a quarter of a century in the form of fruit and berry crops.

Optimal way to increase and maintain the productivity of these ecosystems is the reclamation of soils, which helps to cleanse the earth from extraneous elements and stabilize the natural growth of plants.

Influence on natural ecosystems

Natural ecosystems include both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. At the same time, mankind must take significant measures to protect reservoirs from the penetration of harmful substances. The number of living organisms for which water is the main source of life, directly depends on the content of salts and temperature factors in it. Unlike terrestrial ecosystems, animals that live under water need constant access to oxygen, as a result of which they try to stay on the surface of the water.

Ground-based ecosystems differ from water not only by the root system of vegetation, but also by the basic components of nutrition. In this case, depending on the depth of water, the sources of food becomes much less. Even if emissions of waste from enterprises are not produced in water sources, but on the surface of the Earth, due to atmospheric precipitation, pollution penetrates into groundwater. And already with them reaches the main sources, destroying in them the most part of living organisms and exerting harmful influence on the human body in the course of people drinking water.

Types of air pollution

The consequences of human activities in ecosystems primarily affected air pollution. Until recently, it was considered the most large-scale environmental problem in all major cities, but thanks to a thorough study of the problem, scientists were able to find out that atmospheric pollutants can travel considerable distances from a direct source of release. Therefore, we can conclude that even living in an extremely favorable ecological environment, people are insured from harmful influence as little as those who live in close proximity to industrial sources.

The most common air pollutants, from which the environment suffers significantly, are:

• Increase in the air content of the concentration of its main element - carbon dioxide.
• Oxides of nitrogen.
• Hydrocarbons.
• Sulphur dioxide.
• A gas mixture of chlorine, fluorine and carbon compounds, known as CFCs.

Such a human impact on the ecosystem has led to the fact that the fight against environmental pollution has become a global level, becoming the most important task for all countries without exception. Only in conditions of close international cooperation can an optimal rapid stabilization of the environmental situation be achieved.

Negative consequences

Negative human activity in the ecosystem has led to the fact that in the air the concentration of natural atmospheric constituents decreases every year, and the upper atmospheric layer, in which the concentration of ozone sometimes reaches a critical level, suffers the most. At the same time, the main difficulty in restoring its stable indicators is precisely the fact that ozone itself can substantially increase air pollution on the earth's surface, having a disastrous effect on most crops. In addition, when ozone is mixed with a hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide, a photochemical smog is formed, which is the most harmful mixture, which has a harmful effect on the ecology.

To date, the best minds in the world are working on the problem of reducing the negative consequences of human activities. Of course, man-made ecosystems partially normalize the indicators, but there is a steady increase in harmful emissions from industrial plants that accumulate in the atmosphere.

In addition, there are also side-effects in the form of dust, noise, amplification of electromagnetic fields and climate changes, as a result of which the ambient temperature has significantly increased in recent years, thus causing irreversible climatic changes.

Measures to support ecology

Since human influence on the ecosystem has led to serious climate changes, and in particular to global warming, mankind must develop serious measures to control pollution by increasing the number of ecosystems on the Earth, regardless of whether they are natural or artificial. Because of the accumulation in the atmosphere of various gases, of which only a small part dissipates in outer space, and the rest cause a greenhouse effect on the earth, scientists assume in the future a significant increase in temperature on the planet, which has a disastrous effect on all living things. However, it should be borne in mind that without such influence, which has undergone little change over millions of years, modern ecosystems directed by man to support the ecological situation could not exist.

Nevertheless, mankind should seriously reduce emissions of harmful elements into the air, and also at least stabilize the process of deforestation with the formation of new green spaces, because a stable increase in the greenhouse effect in the future will lead to evaporation of water and deterioration of weather systems. It is important that certain measures in this area have already been taken. First of all, this concerns the creation of the Intergovernmental Group, whose task is to monitor climate change and to identify the location of powerful gas emissions, abandoning all efforts to improve the environmental situation in this area.

In addition, the World Ecological Congress, better known as the Earth Summit, was established. He carries out full-scale works aimed at concluding an international agreement between all countries in order to reduce emissions of gas and other harmful elements into the atmosphere.

Despite the fact that there is no convincing evidence of modern anthropogenic warming today, most scientists believe that an irreversible process has already begun. That is why it is so important that the whole world unite to stabilize the ecological situation on Earth.

The human impact on the ecosystem can be partially eliminated by developing and further implementing powerful installations that will be used for thorough air purification. Today, such structures are installed only in the most progressive enterprises, but their number is so insignificant that the reduction of emissions passes almost unnoticeably on the global background.

Equally important is the development of alternative energy sources that do not have a harmful effect on the environment. In addition, industrial production should reach a new level of work with the use of non-waste industrial technology, and measures to combat exhaust gases produced by cars should be maximized. Only after the situation has been stabilized to the maximum, world environmental organizations will be able to properly identify and combat all violations.

Steps to stabilize the situation

The negative impact of man on the ecosystem can be observed not only in the pollution of nature by chemical waste, as, for example, in the case of Chernobyl, but also in the widespread extinction of the rarest species of animals and plants. All these factors contribute to the deterioration of human health regardless of age groups. In addition, environmental violations affect even unborn children, significantly worsening the overall state of the global gene pool and affecting the mortality rate of the population.

A detailed analysis and assessment of the human consequences in ecosystems make it possible to judge that the main deterioration of the ecological state on Earth is mainly related to deliberately directed human activity. This area includes poaching and an increase in the number of chemical enterprises, the emissions of which have a strong impact on the environment. If in the near future humanity is not aware of what result will result in its actions, and does not begin to actively use purification technologies, including increasing the number of green plantations, especially in large industrial cities, in the future it can lead to irreversible consequences throughout the world.