The natural environment or natural world encompasses all
biotic and
abiotic things occurring
naturally, meaning in this case not
artificial. The term is most often applied to
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,plateaus, mountains, the
atmosphere, and
natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
In contrast to the natural environment is the
built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural
land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud
hut or a
photovoltaic system in the
desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence
beaver dams, and the works of
mound-building termites, are thought of as natural. (Full article...)
The natural environment or natural world encompasses all
biotic and
abiotic things occurring
naturally, meaning in this case not
artificial. The term is most often applied to
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,plateaus, mountains, the
atmosphere, and
natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
In contrast to the natural environment is the
built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural
land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud
hut or a
photovoltaic system in the
desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence
beaver dams, and the works of
mound-building termites, are thought of as natural.
People cannot find absolutely natural environments on Earth, and naturalness usually varies in a continuum, from 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. The massive environmental changes of humanity in the
Anthropocene have fundamentally effected all natural environments: including from
climate change,
biodiversity loss and pollution from
plastic and
other chemicals in the
air and
water. More precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. If, for instance, in an agricultural field, the
mineralogic composition and the
structure of its soil are similar to those of an undisturbed forest soil, but the structure is quite different and more different (Full article...)
Wetlands
remediation at a former oil refinery is just one example of environmental protection
Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the
natural environment by individuals, groups and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where it is possible, to repair damage and reverse trends.
... that Carol Van Strum, an
environmental activist who wrote the book A Bitter Fog, accumulated 20,000 documents across 40 years that revealed corporate and government cover-ups?
Irrigation is the artificial application of water to the
soil usually for assisting in growing crops. In crop production it is mainly used to replace missing rainfall in periods of
drought, but also to protect plants against frost. Additionally irrigation helps to suppress weed growing in rice fields. In contrast,
agriculture that relies only on direct rainfall is sometimes referred to as
dryland farming or as rain fed farming. Environmental problems such depletion of underground aquifers, ground subsidence, buildup of toxic salts on soil surface in areas of high evaporation, overirrigation and the possibility of water pollution.
After graduating with a B.A. and Ph.D. in political science from
UCLA, Ostrom lived in
Bloomington,
Indiana, and served on the faculty of
Indiana University, with a late-career affiliation with
Arizona State University. She was a Distinguished Professor at Indiana University and the
Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, as well as research professor and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at
Arizona State University in
Tempe. She was a lead researcher for the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP), managed by
Virginia Tech and funded by
USAID. Beginning in 2008, she and her husband
Vincent Ostrom advised the journal Transnational Corporations Review. (Full article...)
Image 11View of Earth, taken in 1972 by the
Apollo 17 crew. Approximately 71% of
Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) consists of
ocean (from Ecoregion)
Image 13Proportion of forest area by forest area density class and global ecological zone, 2015, from
Food and Agriculture Organization publication The State of the World's Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people – In brief (from Ecoregion)
Image 18Biodiversity of a coral reef. Corals adapt and modify their environment by forming
calcium carbonate skeletons. This provides growing conditions for future generations and forms a habitat for many other species. (from Environmental science)
Image 21Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 22A team of British researchers found a hole in the ozone layer forming over Antarctica, the discovery of which would later influence the Montreal Protocol in 1987. (from Environmental science)
Image 34The Paris Agreement (formerly the Kyoto Protocol) is adopted in 2016. Nearly every country in the United Nations has signed the treaty, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (from Environmental science)
Image 37Global oceanic and terrestrial phototroph abundance, from September 1997 to August 2000. As an estimate of
autotroph biomass, it is only a rough indicator of primary production potential and not an actual estimate of it. (from Ecosystem)
Image 38Loch Lomond in
Scotland forms a relatively isolated ecosystem. The fish community of this lake has remained stable over a long period until a number of
introductions in the 1970s restructured its
food web. (from Ecosystem)
Image 39A false color composite of the greater Boston area, created using remote sensing technology, reveals otherwise not visible characteristics about the land cover and the health of the surrounding ecosystems. (from Environmental science)
Image 43Cattails indicate the presence of
phosphorus in the water. Cattails are an invasive species; they crowd out
sawgrass and grow too thick to allow nesting for birds and alligators. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 44Compartments established by C&SF projects that separated the historic Everglades into Water Conservation Areas and the Everglades Agricultural Area. One-fourth of the original Everglades is preserved in
Everglades National Park. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 45Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right) (from Environmental science)
Image 46Climbing
ferns overtake
cypress trees in the Everglades. The ferns act as "fire ladders" that can destroy trees that would otherwise survive fires. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 51Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking novel, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science)
Image 53Few creatures make the
ice shelves of
Antarctica their habitat, but water beneath the ice can provide habitat for multiple species. Animals such as penguins have adapted to live in very cold conditions. (from Habitat)
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