IMPACT OF HUMAN ACTIVITIES ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

1

● Since Homo sapiens live on the planet of earth c.a.180,000 years ago,

human activities have been increased that cause great impacts to environment

2

Major human cultural changes and its impact to environment

Human Cultural changes

Major human activities

Humans were mostly hunter gatherers

HuntingFood gathering

Agricultural revolution Settlement and agriculture development,

domestication of animal, city development (urbanization)

Industrial revolution Development of industrial process, mining and

fossil fuel production , increase the use of pesticide and chemical fertilizer,

Information and globalization revolution

Rapid technology and information development, globalization on many aspects

3

Agricultural revolution Settled Agriculture

● Nomadic hunting and food gatheringSettled agriculture (animal domestication and plants cultivation)

● Settled agriculture has increased food supply that led to support more people, but decrease the environment quality

4

Human activities for settled agriculture and its impact to environmental

● Peoples Cut down vast forest to supply wood for fuel and building material€ soil erosion

● Plowed up large expanses of grassland to grow crops turning fertile land to desert

● Built irrigation systems to transfer water from one place to another€ continous avaibility of water for plants

Such activities cause extensive land clearing which degraded the quality of ecosystems

5

Modern agriculture has harmful impacts on air, soil, water, and biodiversity resources

6

Raising livestock to produce meat by open grazing could destroyed ecosystems

Lightly grazed

Overgrazed7

City development and urbanization● Urbanization: the formation of

villages, town, and cities. Some villages grew into towns and cities, which served as center for trade, government and business

● Towns and cities concentrated sewage and other wastes, polluted the air and water

8

Industrial revolution● Represented shift from

dependence on renewable energy wood to non- renewable

fossil fuels (first coal, later oil and natural gas) this led to switch from handmade goods in small scale production to large scale machine-made goods in industries cities

9

Effects of extracting, processing and using of mineral / fossil fuels

10

Using fossil fuels can leak into the ocean ecosystems● a large amount Liquid fossil fuels can

seeps into ocean◦Tanker accidents◦Waste oil dumped from activities on land

Oil spill onto the ocean and kill a number of organisms

11

Spill of oil fossil fuel over the sea

12

Surface and subsurface mining cause pollution and degradation of stream and groundwater by runoff of acids

13

Burning fossil fuels produces billions tones of CO2, one of greenhouse gases that contribute

global warming climate changeProjected emissions of three important greenhouse gases as a result of human activities

14

Several Impact of human activities cause a major issue:CLIMATE CHANGE

EFFECT of CLIMATE CHANGE to HUMAN HEALTH

15

Building roads is one of human activities that cause destruction and degradation land and ecosystem

16

Soil Degradation

Areas of degraded soil of the world

Controlling pest population by spraying a pesticides

● About 2.5 million tonsof pesticides are use yearly in developed and developing countries to control pests such as insects

● The use of pesticides threat human health:

-According WHO, nearly 3 million agricultural workers in developing countries are seriously poisoned by pesticides each year, estimated 180,000 deaths-In developed country such as USA, 300,000 farms worker suffer from pesticides related illnesses each year

18

Decline of marine species (mostly fish)

About 75% of the world’s commercial oceanic fish stocks are in decline

Overfishing

Pollution, habitat degradation 19

Overload wastes into water cause degradation of water quality

20

Water use● Only a tiny amount of world’s abundant water is

available as fresh water (2.6%)

● Water is collected, purified, recycled, distributed fresh water available

● Human withdraw fresh water from rivers, lakes, andaquifers for cities, residences and industry uses, andalso to irrigate cropland

21

Global water use

The use of too much water by human may effect to the avaibility of fresh water

● Due to large population, human withdraw underground water faster than it is replenished depletion of fresh water

● If it is happened near a coast, salt water can intrudes into aquifer and contaminate drinking water along coastal area

23

24

Too much water: flooding● Natural flooding primarily caused by heavy rain and

degradation of water holding capacity of soil

● Natural flooding have benefits:- provide productive farmland- recharge groundwater- refill wetland

● However, each year flood kills thousands of people and cause property damage

● Since 1960 human activities have contributed a severe flood damage by:-removing water-absorbing vegetation (hillsides)-draining wetland that absorb floodwater-living on flood plain

25

Flood Plain

Hillside

26

Nuclear power● Produce energy: produce electricity at much lower cost than coal

● High-level radioactive wastes (stored in pool of water at plant site)

● Nuclear disaster happened at Ukraine (Chernobyl nuclear power plant) in 1986:- killed 3,576 ~ 32,000 people- a series of explosions caused a huge

radioactive d cloud spread over Ukraine, Russia and other parts of Europe

- forced 40,000 people to leave their homes, probably never to return

● Global nuclear power plant peaked in the 1990s and is projected to decline

28

Information and globalization revolution● Technologies such as telephone,

radio, television, computers, the internet, remote sensing satellites providing people to access people to have much more information on a global scale

29

Positive affect of information and globalization revolution● Allow us to respond environmental

problems more effectively and rapidly● Allow us to use remote sensing satellites to

survey resources and monitor changes in theworld’s forests, grassland, oceans, rivers, polarregions, cities, and other system

● Can reduce pollution and environmental degradation by substituting data for materials and energy and communication for transportation

● Allow environmental researchers and activist to exchange data and information rapidly

30

Negative affect of information and globalization revolution● IT could cause confusion, distraction and

sense of hopelessness as rapidly growing environmental information

● Increase environmental degradation and decrease cultural diversity as a globalized economy spreads over most of the earth and homogenizes the world’s cultures including disease

● Creating and introducing new technologies much faster than we ca evaluate their impacts

31

Infectious disease● Spread by air, water, food, body

fluids, some insects, and other nonhuman carrier (vector)

● Human activities such as International traveling can rapidly spread diseases such as flu, measles, chlorella, smallpox and AIDS

● Migration to uninhabited rural areas and deforestation in tropical country can expose to disease spread by vectors such as malaria

32

Humans activities affected biodiversity

34

Kill endangered animal cause depletion of biodiversity

Consume such protein endanger Confiscated products fromspecies of Gorilla endangered species

35