U4
What is a biome?
large ecological area characterized by similar climate, vegetation and soil type.
causes of food insecurity
• population growth
• unsustainable production, increase in homogeneity in global food supply
• price setting
• land degradation
• agricultural disease
• diverting crops for biofuels
• climate change
• water shortages
• poverty
What is Water Security?
the ability to access enough clean water to maintain adequate standards of food and manufacturing of goods, adequate sanitation and sustainable health care.
What is acid deposition?
A mix of air pollutants that deposit from the atmosphere.
What are greenhouse gases?
gases in the atmosphere that absorb infrared radiation
what is biomass?
is the collective mass of living matter in a given place or time. Organisms with high biomass have high rate of productivity, or Net Primary Productivity
Strategies of managing food security
-Subsistence Agriculture
-Increase food production
-Hydroponics
-GMO's
Causes of water insecurity
-Drought
-flooding
-pollution
-inadequate sanitation
-population growth
What are primary pollutants?
pollutants that result directly from a source such as industrial pollution or volcanic activity.
What are common greenhouse gases?
Carbon dioxide, Water vapor, and methane
what are some factors that contribute to the inefficiency of energy transfer?
• Energy Loss through Respiration: some energy is lost as heat
• Incomplete consumption: Predators do not consume the entire prey organism. They may consume only certain parts, leaving behind inedible parts like bones, feathers, or shells, which contain energy that is not transferred to the next trophic level.
• Energy Loss through Excretion: Organisms excrete waste materials, including undigested food, as feces or urine.
• Indigestible Matter: Some parts of organisms, such as cellulose in plants or chitin in arthropods, are difficult to digest and provide little energy to the consumer.
Causes of energy insecurity
• fossil fuel depletion
• inequality in global energy resources
• population growth
• differing energy needs of countries in different income groups
• climate change
• supply disruption– natural disasters, piracy, terrorism
What are the impacts of water insecurity?
• reduced crop yield and crop failure
• livestock death
• food shortages, malnutrition and famine
• illness caused by contaminated drinking water (diarrhea and cholera)
what are secondary pollutants?
A result from primary pollutants chemically reacting with other chemicals or with sunlight in the atmosphere.
What are some impacts of climate change on the environment?
temperature and precipitation, sea level, ocean and wind, circulation, melting of sea ice, sheet glaciers, and permafrost, species distribution and biodiversity.
what is NPP?
it is the GPP minus the energy required by plants for respiration. It represents the amount of stored chemical energy that will be available to consumers in an ecosystem.
Landfill advantages and disadvantages
Advantages
• can produce gas for energy (methane)
• Can be collected, processed, and used like natural gas – can be a source of revenue;
• Volume of waste is reduced;
• Safe if the lining doesn’t fail.
Disadvantages
• Landfills release greenhouse gases (CH4 and CO2) as wastes decompose;
• Leachate can contaminate the groundwater;
• Air pollution generated from landfill and trucks transporting the waste.
Reservoirs and Dams, advantages and disadvantages
Advantages
• Provides water for year-round irrigation of cropland, and drinking
• Reservoir is useful for recreation and fishing
• Can produce cheap electricity (hydropower)
• Downstream flooding is reduced
Disadvantages
• Large losses of water through evaporation;
• Flooded land destroys forests or cropland and displaces people
• Downstream cropland and estuaries are deprived of nutrient-rich silt
• Migration and spawning of some fish are disrupted
• Risk of failure and devastating downstream flooding
snow, rainfall, hail, and fog are examples of?
Wet deposition
What are some impacts of climate change on human population?
-increased frequency and severity of extreme weather -events leading to flooding and lots of land
-drought and wildfires damage to property and lots of life during extreme weather events.
-forced migration
-impact on crop yields,
-increased pest outbreaks.
-impact on food energy, and water security.
what is CITES?
International agreement that bans selling, hunting, or capturing of threatened or endangered species. Protects more than 30,000 animal & plant species such as rhino (horn), elephant (ivory), birds (pets, feathers) and tigers (skin).
Ways to make sanitary landfills more sustainable
• Use clay and plastic liners to prevent leaks;
• Use pipes that collect leachate;
• Have leachate storage tanks and treatment systems in place;
• Collect methane gas on site and use as fossil fuel;
• Use groundwater stations to monitor for toxins from leachate.
Strategies in managing water security
Recycle water
Rainwater catchment
Irrigation practices
fix pipe leaks
dusts and gases are examples of?
Dry deposition
What was the Paris agreement of 2016?
The Paris agreement is legally binding international treaty on climate change. Its goal is to limit global warming to well it below 2, preferably to 1.5 Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.