Environment (biophysical)

This article is about the biophysical environment. For other uses, see Environment.

The biophysical environment is the biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development and evolution.[1] The biophysical environment can vary in scale from microscopic to global in extent. It can also be subdivided according to its attributes. Examples include the marine environment, the atmospheric environment and the terrestrial environment.[2] The number of biophysical environments is countless, given that each living organism has its own environment.

The term environment is often used as a short form for the biophysical environment, e.g. the UK's Environment Agency. The expression "the environment" often refers to a singular global environment in relation to humanity.

Life/environment interaction

All life that has survived must have adapted to conditions of its environment. Temperature, light, humidity, soil nutrients, etc., all influence any species, within any environment. However life in turn modifies, in various forms, its conditions. Some long term modifications along the history of our planet have been significant, such as the incorporation of oxygen to the atmosphere. This process consisted in the breakdown of carbon dioxide by anaerobic microorganisms that used the carbon in their metabolism and released the oxygen to the atmosphere. This led to the existence of oxygen-based plant and animal life, the great oxygenation event. Other interactions are more immediate and simple, such as the smoothing effect that forests have on the temperature cycle, compared to neighboring unforested areas.

Related studies

The ecosystem of public parks often includes humans feeding the wildlife.

Environmental science is the study of the interactions within the biophysical environment. Part of this scientific discipline is the investigation of the effect of human activity on the environment. Ecology, a sub-discipline of biology and a part of environmental sciences, is often mistaken as a study of human induced effects on the environment. Environmental studies is a broader academic discipline that is the systematic study of interaction of humans with their environment. It is a broad field of study that includes the natural environment, built environments and social environments.

Environmentalism is a broad social and philosophical movement that, in a large part, seeks to minimise and compensate the negative effect of human activity on the biophysical environment. The issues of concern for environmentalists usually relate to the natural environment with the more important ones being climate change, species extinction, pollution, and old growth forest loss.

One of the studies related include employing Geographic Information Science to study the biophysical environment.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Biology online. "Environment. Definition". Retrieved 2012-03-15.
  2. ↑ Kemp, David Walker (1998). Environment Dictionary. London, UK: Routledge.
  3. ↑ Deng, Y. X., and J. P. Wilson. 2006. “The Role of Attribute Selection in GIS Representations of the Biophysical Environment”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96 (1). [Association of American Geographers, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.]: 47–63. JSTOR 3694144.

Bibliography

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