ALAM SEKITAR DAN KESIHATAN

Objectives:

• Examine the relationship between environment and people’s health

• Understand the relationship between human activities, human health and environment.

What is environment?

Environment: encompasses people’s surroundings and circumstances relating to their surroundings, so it includes physical , biological, social and cultural factors.

Environmental components;

• Biosphere

• Lithosphere

• Atmosphere

• Hydrosphere

Akibat daripada interaksi manusia dan alam sekitar

• Berlaku perubahan terhadap keseimbangan alam sekitar

• Perubahan alam sekitar selain memberi kesan terhadap alam sekitar akan memberi kesan terhadap manusia

• Mengakibatkan kesihatan dan kesejahteraan hidup manusia terjejas.

Human activity and the environment

• The ways in which human change and manipulate their environment influence the interaction between the environment and health.

• Need to understand those factors termed ‘human driving forces’ (WHO 1997)

• These are underlying – human induced changes in social and economic conditions that can influence human activities such as industry and the provision and use of services and household consumption

In turn, this cause environmental change via the use of energy and redistribution of materials:

• These can lead to adverse human and natural consequences such as air pollution, climatic change, water pollution, soil pollution, loss of biodiversity etc.

• Human activity affects environmental health, either positive or negative

What is the pressure that leads to human activities?

• Population and urbanization

• Poverty and inequity

• Technology and scientific development

• Political and economic systems

• Cultural values

Interaksi manusia dan alam sekitar:

• Keperluan biologi dan keperluan budaya

Untuk survival – makan, bernafas, tempat tinggal, pakaian.

Untuk keselesaan hidup – aktiviti ekonomi, pendidikan, infrastruktur, ibadat dll.

Akibat daripada interaksi manusia dan alam sekitar

• Berlaku perubahan terhadap keseimbangan alam sekitar

• Perubahan alam sekitar selain memberi kesan terhadap alam sekitar akan memberi kesan terhadap manusia

• Mengakibatkan kesihatan dan kesejahteraan hidup manusia terjejas.

Atmosphere

Atmosphere composition

Gases

Liquids

Solids

Variations from place to place

Variations with height within the atmosphere

Variations through time

Weather

• The importance of weather

- weather , people and human activities – it determines just about everything they do, when and where they do it

• Weather and health

- Weather can affect human health both directly and indirectly

• Weather disasters

Climate

Climate is very much a product of interactions between the

atmosphere and the other major environmental systems

(lithosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere)

Links between climate and other environmental systems

• The availability of water resources• River flooding• Droughts• Desertification• Snow and ice cover• The natural distribution of plant and animal

species• The development and distribution of soils• Pattern and processes of natural weathering

Hydrosphere

• Water is essential for

life• People relied heavily

on water to drink, obtain food from and use for irrigation

• Hydrological cycle is important as it involves movement of moisture

• The global water cycle – storage amount and times

Hydrological cycle

RIVEREcosystem

Reservoir

Transportation

OCEANNatural resources

Transportation

Ecosystem

Military activities

LAKENatural resources

Ecosystem

GROUND WATERStorage

Natural resources

Human activities induced changes to water cycle

• Urban areas

• Industrial activities

• Construction works

• Agriculture

• Landfill

• Shipping

• Squatters

Changes

• The movement of water vapour

• Evaporation rates

• River runoff

• Infiltration

• Groundwater

Water and disaster

Biosphere Life on Earth

Is occupied by living organism (biota), and this includes parts of the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere

Boundaries

Most of the living organisms on earth are found on or near the

surface of land or water, so biosphere is a very thin layer

around the earth

The biosphere and environmental system

• Links the lower atmosphere (troposphere) with the lithosphere

• Provides a vehicle for the transfer of chemicals via the biogeochemical cycles

• Plays important roles in the hydrological cycle• Affect rates and pattern of weathering within

lithosphere• Contributes to the global energy system

HUMAN IMPACTS ON THE BIOSPHERE

• Environmental pollution• Habitat removal or damage• Changing the structure and distribution of vegetation and soils• Over exploitation of renewable resources• Altering the species composition of an area (through agriculture or

forestry)• Introducing exotic organism (including genetically engineered ones)• Replacing natural biological variety with monocultures (single

species farming)• Elimination of biological pest• Inappropriate disposal of wastes• Disturbing the equilibrium of important environmental systems

Ecology ECOLOGY

Ecology is the study of relationship of plants and animals to their surroundings and to each other. The emphasis is on relationships between organisms and the environments in which they live, including all living (biotic) and non living (abiotic) components

CORE THEMES IN ECOLOGY

• The relationship between habitat stability and biodiversity• The relationship between environmental transformations

caused by human activities and by extinction• The importance of diversity• Carrying capacity and the extent to which useful

productivity can be enhanced and sustained• Resilience: the extent to which nature can restore itself

Lithosphere

Soil as an open system

• That reflect interactions with rock, materials, climate and organism (plants and animals)

• Different types of soil (porosity, permeability)

• In soil we have soil organisms

Soil degradation

• Degradation can often involve loss of soil fertility – food production will effect

• Human factors contribute to the problem include over exploitation or over cultivation

• Can lead to desertification

• Many agricultural activities promote the degradation of soils

Soil and disasters