Environment and Pollution


Environment is everything that is around us. It can be living or nonliving things. It includes physical, chemical and other natural forces. Living things live in their environment. They constantly interact with it and change in response to conditions in their environment. In the environment there are interactions between animals, plants, soil, water, and other living and non-living things.


 Since everything is part of the environment of something else, the word 'environment' is used to talk about many things. People in different fields of knowledge (like history, geography or biology) use the word environment differently. Electromagnetic environment is radio waves and other electromagnetic radiation and magnetic fields. The galactic environment refers to conditions between the stars.


 In psychology and medicine a person's environment is the people, physical things, places, and epornvents that the person lives with. The environment affects the growth and development of the person. It affects the person's behavior, body, mind and heart


 The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather, and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:

  • Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, atmosphere, and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature
  • Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism, not originating from civilized human activity



Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of chemical substances or energy, such as noise, heat or light. Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants. Pollution is often classed as point source or nonpoint source pollution

Forms of pollution


The major forms of pollution are listed below along with the particular contaminant relevant to each of them:

  • Air pollution: the release of chemicals and particulates into the atmosphere. Common gaseous pollutants include carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrogen oxides produced by industry and motor vehicles. Photochemical ozone and smog are created as nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons react to sunlight. Particulate matter, or fine dust is characterized by their micrometre size PM10 to PM2.5.

  • Light pollution: includes light trespass, over-illumination and astronomical interference.
  • Littering: the criminal throwing of inappropriate man-made objects, unremoved, onto public and private properties.
  • Noise pollution: which encompasses roadway noise, aircraft noise, industrial noise as well as high-intensity sonar.
  • Soil contamination occurs when chemicals are released by spill or underground leakage. Among the most significant soil contaminants are hydrocarbons, heavy metals, MTBE, herbicides, pesticides and chlorinated hydrocarbons.
  • Radioactive contamination, resulting from 20th century activities in atomic physics, such as nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons research, manufacture and deployment. (See alpha emitters and actinides in the environment.)
  • Thermal pollution, is a temperature change in natural water bodies caused by human influence, such as use of water as coolant in a power plant.
  • Visual pollution, which can refer to the presence of overhead power lines, motorway billboards, scarred landforms (as from strip mining), open storage of trash, municipal solid waste or space debris.
  • Water pollution, by the discharge of wastewater from commercial and industrial waste (intentionally or through spills) into surface waters; discharges of untreated domestic sewage, and chemical contaminants, such as chlorine, from treated sewage; release of waste and contaminants into surface runoff flowing to surface waters (including urban runoff and agricultural runoff, which may contain chemical fertilizers and pesticides); waste disposal and leaching into groundwater; eutrophication and littering.
  • Plastic pollution: involves the accumulation of plastic products in the environment that adversely affects wildlife, wildlife habitat, or humans

Environment


Pollution has been found to be present widely in the environment. There are a number of effects of this:

  • Biomagnification describes situations where toxins (such as heavy metals) may pass through trophic levels, becoming exponentially more concentrated in the process.
  • Carbon dioxide emissions cause ocean acidification, the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans as CO2 becomes dissolved.
  • The emission of greenhouse gases leads to global warming which affects ecosystems in many ways.
  • Invasive species can out compete native species and reduce biodiversity. Invasive plants can contribute debris and biomolecules (allelopathy) that can alter soil and chemical compositions of an environment, often reducing native species competitiveness.
  • Nitrogen oxides are removed from the air by rain and fertilise land which can change the species composition of ecosystems.
  • Smog and haze can reduce the amount of sunlight received by plants to carry out photosynthesis and leads to the production of tropospheric ozone which damages plants.
  • Soil can become infertile and unsuitable for plants. This will affect other organisms in the food web.
  • Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides can cause acid rain which lowers the pH value of soil



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