What are the main components of environment ?
Answers
Answer:
Environment comprises interacting systems of physical, biological, and cultural elements, which are interlinked individually as well as collectively in various ways.
Constituents of Environment
Physical elements constitute space, landforms, water-bodies, climate, soils, rocks, and minerals. These elements determine the variable character of human habitat, and also its opportunities and limitations.
Biological elements include plants, animals, micro-organisms, and man.
Cultural elements include economic, social and political conditions which are largely man-made features.
Types of Environment
Since environment is a combination of physical and biological factors, it contains both living or biotic and non-living or abiotic components. On the basis of this basic structure, environment can be divided into physical or abiotic and living or biotic environment.
Physical or Abiotic Environment
Physical environment is made up of the following states - solid, liquid, and gas. These three elements signify lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere respectively. On the basis of spatial distribution, smaller units are termed as coastal environment, plateau environment, mountain environment, lake environment, river environment, maritime environment, etc.
Living or Biotic Environment
Biotic environment consists of plants (flora) and animals (fauna) including human beings as a significant factor. Thus, biotic environment can be of two types such as floral environment and faunal environment.
Apart from the above, there are social, cultural, and psychological environment.
Social and Cultural Environment
This type of environment includes the varied aspects of socio-cultural interactions along with its outcomes such as beliefs, attitudes, stereotypes etc. The tangible and intangible aspects of environment are included in it.
Psychological Environment
Psychological environment deals with the perception and experiences related to any environmental setting. Some environment may be stimulating and exciting for us, while others may be dull and boring. Psychological environment is more often used in the organizational context.
Man-Environment Relationship
Man and environment relationship is as old as the evolution of mankind. Since the evolution of man, the physical elements of the planet earth, such as terrain, soil, water, climate, flora and fauna formed man’s environment. During that time man was a typically a ‘physical man’ because of his limited wants, requirements, and total dependence on nature.
With the growth in social and economic activities, advancement in technologies, man expanded his own environment through design and skill to have provisions for improved and better food, shelter, access, and comfort or luxuries. Man’s ability to survive in a variety of ecosystem and his unique ability to adapt to a great variety of external conditions make man-environment relationship quite a fascinating area of study.
The environment in which man survives and to which he adapts himself and which he influences include physical, socio-cultural, and biological aspects. Man and environment has never been static and a great many factors are responsible for the shifts in man environment relationship.
Approaches to Man-Environment Relationship
The man and environment relationship can be studied under the following approaches.
Determinism − Friedrich Ratzel, the German geographer, was responsible for the development of the concepts of determinism, which was further expanded by Ellsworth Huntington.
This approach is based on the concept of ‘nature controls man’ or ‘earth made man’. According to this approach, man is largely influenced by nature. In fact, the determinism states that man is subordinate to natural environment because all aspects of human life such as physical (health and well-being), social, economic, political, ethical, aesthetic, etc. not only depend on but are dominantly controlled by the physical environment.
World famous biologist, Charles Darwin, in 1859 laid the foundation stone of the concept of environment influences on man and other organism.
Possibilism − Lucien Febvre, the French historian, founded the concept of Possibilism. Possibilism approach in the study of man-environment relationship is an offshoot of the criticism of environmental determinism and the impact of science and technology on such a relationship.
Possibilism indicates that the physical environment is passive and man is the active agent at liberty to choose between wide ranges of environmental possibilities. According to it, the pattern of human activity is the result of the initiative and mobility of man operating within the natural framework. Nowadays, the role of natural elements in conditioning, though not controlling human activities, is often lost sight of.
The environment consists of various segments such as atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. Before explaining the chemistry that is taking place in these segments one by one, a brief out line about their importance will be discussed.
1. Atmosphere:
The following points highlight the vital role played by atmosphere in the survival of life in this planet:
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i. The atmosphere is the protective blanket of gases which is surrounding the earth. It protects the earth from the hostile environment of outer space.
ii. It absorbs 1R radiations emitted by the sun and reemitted from the earth and thus controls the temperature of the earth.
significant amounts of radiation only in the regions of 300 – 2500 nm (near UV, Visible, and near IR) and 0.01 – 40 meters (radio waves), i.e. it filters tissue damaging UV radiation below 300 nm.
iv. It acts as a source for C02 for plant photosynthesis and 02 for respiration
v. It acts as a source for nitrogen for nitrogen fixing bacteria and ammonia producing plants.
vi. The atmosphere transports water from ocean to land.
2. Hydrosphere:
The hydrosphere is a collective term given to all different forms of water.
It includes all types of water resources such as oceans, seas, rivers, lakes, streams, reservoirs, glaciers and ground waters. The distribution of earth’s water supply.
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As can be seen, only 1 % of the total water supply is available as fresh water in the form of rivers, lakes, streams and ground water for human consumption and other uses. The extent of the use of available fresh water for various purposes.
The major problem with global water supply is its non-uniform distribution, since people in areas with low precipitation often consume more than people in regions with more rainfall.
3. Lithosphere:
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i. The earth is divided in to layers
ii. The lithosphere consists of upper mantle and the crust.
The crust is the earth’s outer skin that is accessible to human. The crust consists of rocks and soil of which the latter is the important part of lithosphere.
4. Biosphere:
The biosphere refers to the realm of living organisms and their interactions with the environment (VIZ: atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere)
i. The biosphere is very large and complex and is divided into smaller units called ecosystems.
ii. Plants, animals and microorganisms which live in a definite zone along with physical factors such as soil, water and air constitute an ecosystem.
iii. Within each ecosystems there are dynamic inter relationships between living forms and their physical environment. The natural cycles operate in a balanced manner providing a continuous circulation of essential constituents necessary for life and this stabilizes and sustains the life processes on earth.
iv. These inter relationships manifest as natural cycles, (hydrologic cycle, oxygen cycle, nitrogen cycle, phosphorous cycle and sulphur cycle).The shape of the Earth is very close to that of an oblate spheroid, a sphere flattened along the axis from pole to pole.
5. Important Note Regarding Earth:
i. Equator:
An equator is the intersection of a sphere’s surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere’s axis of rotation and containing the sphere’s centre of mass. The capitalized term Equator refers to the Earth’s equator. In simpler language, the Equator is an imaginary line on the Earth’s surface equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole that divides the Earth into a Northern Hemisphere and a Southern Hemisphere.
ii. Altitude:
Altitude or height is defined based on the context in which it is used (aviation, geometry, geographical survey, sport, and more). As a general definition, altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or “up” direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. (A datum is a reference from which measurements are made.
On in other words, a datum is a set of reference points on the Earth’s surface against which position measurements are made, and (often) an associated model of the shape of the earth (reference ellipsoid) to define a geographic coordinate system. Horizontal datum are used for describing a point on the earth’s surface, in latitude and longitude or another coordinate system. Vertical datum measure elevations or depths. In engineering and drafting, a datum is a reference point, surface, or axis on an object against which measurements are made.
An oblate spheroid is a rotationally symmetric ellipsoid having a polar axis shorter than the diameter of the equatorial circle whose plane bisects it. Oblate spheroids stand in contrast to spheroids. It can be formed by rotating an ellipse about its minor axis, forming an equator with the end points of the major axis.
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