Renewable and Non-Renewable Resources
A natural resource is a renewable resource if it is replaced by natural processes at a rate comparable or faster than its rate of consumption by humans. Solar radiation, tides, winds and hydroelectricity are perpetual resources, meaning they are available in the long term. Renewable resources may also mean commodities such as wood, paper, and leather, if harvesting is performed in a sustainable manner.
Some natural renewable resources such as geothermal power, fresh water, timber, and biomass must be carefully managed to avoid exceeding the world's capacity to replenish them. A life cycle assessment provides a systematic means of evaluating renewability.
The term has a connotation of sustainability of the natural environment. Gasoline, coal, natural gas, diesel, and other commodities derived from fossil fuels are non-renewable. Unlike fossil fuels, a renewable resource can have a sustainable yield.
Renewable energy
Solar energy is the energy derived directly from the Sun. Along with nuclear energy, it is the most abundant source of energy on Earth. The fastest growing type of alternative energy, increasing at 50 percent a year, is the photovoltaic cell, which converts sunlight directly into electricity. The Sun yearly delivers more than 10,000 times the energy that humans currently use.
Wind power is derived from uneven heating of the Earth's surface from the Sun and the warm core. Most modern wind power is generated in the form of electricity by converting the rotation of turbine blades into electrical current by means of an electrical generator. In windmills (a much older technology) wind energy is used to turn mechanical machinery to do physical work, like crushing grain or pumping water.
Hydropower is energy derived from the movement of water in rivers and oceans (or other energy differentials), can likewise be used to generate electricity using turbines, or can be used mechanically to do useful work. It is a very common resource.
Geothermal power directly harnesses the natural flow of heat from the ground. The available energy from natural decay of radioactive elements in the Earth's crust and mantle is approximately equal to that of incoming solar energy.
Alcohol derived from corn, sugar cane, switchgrass, etc. is also a renewable source of energy. Similarly, oils from plants and seeds can be used as a substitute for non-renewable diesel. Methane is also considered as a renewable source of energy.
Agricultural products
Techniques in agriculture which allow for minimal or controlled environmental damage qualify as sustainable agriculture. Products (foods, chemicals, biofuels, etc.) from this type of agriculture may be considered "sustainable" when processing, logistics, etc. also have sustainable characteristics.
Similarly, forest products such as lumber, plywood, paper and chemicals, can be renewable resources when produced by sustainable forestry techniques.
Water
Water can be considered a renewable material (also non-renewable) when carefully controlled usage, treatment, and release is followed. If not, it would become a non-renewable resource at that location. For example, groundwater could be removed from an aquifer at a rate greater than the sustainable recharge. Removal of water from the pore spaces may cause permanent compaction (subsidence) that cannot be renewed.
A non-renewable resource is a natural resource which cannot be produced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate. These resources often exist in a fixed amount, or are consumed much faster than nature can create them. Fossil fuels (such as coal, petroleum and natural gas) and nuclear power (uranium) are examples. In contrast, resources such as timber (when harvested sustainably) or metals (which can be recycled) are considered renewable resources.
Fossil fuel
Natural resources such as coal, petroleum, oil and natural gas take thousands of years to form naturally and cannot be replaced as fast as they are being consumed. Eventually natural resources will become too costly to harvest and humanity will need to find other sources of energy. At present, the main energy sources used by humans are non-renewable as they are cheap to produce. Natural resources, called renewable resources, are replaced by natural processes given a reasonable amount of time. Soil, water, forests, plants, and animals are all renewable resources as long as they are properly conserved. Solar, wind, wave, and geothermal energies are based on renewable resources. Renewable resources such as the movement of water (hydropower, including tidal power; ocean surface waves used for wave power), wind (used for wind power), geothermal heat (used for geothermal power); and radiant energy (used for solar power) are practically infinite and cannot be depleted, unlike their non-renewable counterparts, which are likely to run out if not used wisely. Still, these technologies are not fully utilized but are still being researched.
Forest Resources and consequences of Deforestation
A forest (also called a wood, woodland, wold, weald, holt, frith or firth) is an area with a high density of trees. There are many definitions of a forest, based on the various criteria. These plant communities cover approximately 9.4% of the Earth's surface (or 30% of total land area), though they once covered much more (about 50% of total land area), in many different regions and function as habitats for organisms, hydrologic flow modulators, and soil conservers, constituting one of the most important aspects of the Earth's biosphere. Although a forest is classified primarily by trees a forest ecosystem is defined intrinsically with additional species such as fungi.
Forests can be found in all regions capable of sustaining tree growth, at altitudes up to the tree line, except where natural fire frequency or other disturbance is too high, or where the environment has been altered by human activity.
The latitudes 10° north and south of the Equator are mostly covered in tropical rainforest, and the latitudes between 53°N and 67°N have boreal forest. As a general rule, forests dominated by angiosperms (broadleaf forests) are more species-rich than those dominated by gymnosperms (conifer, montane, or needleleaf forests), although exceptions exist.
Forests sometimes contain many tree species only within a small area (as in tropical rain and temperate deciduous forests), or relatively few species over large areas (e.g., taiga and arid montane coniferous forests). Forests are often home to many animal and plant species, and biomass per unit area is high compared to other vegetation communities. Much of this biomass occurs below ground in the root systems and as partially decomposed plant detritus. The woody component of a forest contains lignin, which is relatively slow to decompose compared with other organic materials such as cellulose or carbohydrate.
Forests are differentiated from woodlands by the extent of canopy coverage: in a forest, the branches and the foliage of separate trees often meet or interlock, although there can be gaps of varying sizes within an area referred to as forest. Woodland has a more continuously open canopy, with trees spaced further apart, which allows more sunlight to penetrate to the ground between them.
Among the major forested biomes are:
• rain forest (tropical and temperate)
• taiga
• temperate hardwood forest
• tropical dry forest
Forests can be classified in different ways and to different degrees of specificity. One such way is in terms of the "biome" in which they exist, combined with leaf longevity of the dominant species (whether they are evergreen or deciduous). Another distinction is whether the forests composed predominantly of broadleaf trees, coniferous (needle-leaved) trees, or mixed.
• Boreal forests occupy the subarctic zone and are generally evergreen and coniferous.
• Temperate zones support both broadleaf deciduous forests (e.g., temperate deciduous forest) and evergreen coniferous forests (e.g., Temperate coniferous forests and Temperate rainforests). Warm temperate zones support broadleaf evergreen forests, including laurel forests.
• Tropical and subtropical forests include tropical and subtropical moist forests, tropical and subtropical dry forests, and tropical and subtropical coniferous forests.
• Physiognomy classifies forests based on their overall physical structure or developmental stage (e.g. old growth vs. second growth).
• Forests can also be classified more specifically based on the climate and the dominant tree species present, resulting in numerous different forest types (e.g., ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forest).
Forest plantations
Forest plantations, generally intended for the production of timber and pulpwood increase the total area of forest worldwide. Commonly mono-specific and/or composed of introduced tree species, these ecosystems are not generally important as habitat for native biodiversity. However, they can be managed in ways that enhance their biodiversity protection functions and they are important providers of ecosystem services such as maintaining nutrient capital, protecting watersheds and soil structure as well as storing carbon. They may also play an important role in alleviating pressure on natural forests for timber and fuel wood production.
Anthropogenic factors that can affect forests include logging, urban sprawl, human-caused forest fires, acid rain, invasive species, and the slash and burn practices of swidden agriculture or shifting cultivation. The loss and re-growth of forest leads to a distinction between two broad types of forest, primary or old-growth forest and secondary forest. There are also many natural factors that can cause changes in forests over time including forest fires, insects, diseases, weather, competition between species, etc.
Deforestation is the clearance of forests by logging and/or burning (popularly known as slash and burn).
Deforestation occurs for many reasons: trees or derived charcoal are used as, or sold, for fuel or as lumber, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock, plantations of commodities, and settlements. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and aridity. It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland.
Disregard or ignorance of intrinsic value, lack of ascribed value, lax forest management and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that allow deforestation to occur on a large scale. In many countries, deforestation is an ongoing issue that is causing extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of indigenous people.
There are many causes of contemporary deforestation, including corruption of government institutions, the inequitable distribution of wealth and power, population growth and overpopulation, and urbanization. Globalization is often viewed as another root cause of deforestation, though there are cases in which the impacts of globalization (new flows of labor, capital, commodities, and ideas) have promoted localized forest recovery.
Environmental problems
Atmospheric
Deforestation is a contributor to global warming, and is often cited as one of the major causes of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Tropical deforestation is responsible for approximately 20% of world greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change deforestation, mainly in tropical areas, could account for up to one-third of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. But recent calculations suggest that carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (excluding peat land emissions) contribute about 12% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions with a range from 6 to 17%. Trees and other plants remove carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) from the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis and release oxygen back into the atmosphere during normal respiration. Only when actively growing can a tree or forest removes carbon over an annual or longer timeframe. Both the decay and burning of wood releases much of this stored carbon back to the atmosphere. In order for forests to take up carbon, the wood must be harvested and turned into long-lived products and trees must be re-planted. Deforestation may cause carbon stores held in soil to be released. Forests are stores of carbon and can be either sinks or sources depending upon environmental circumstances. Mature forests alternate between being net sinks and net sources of carbon dioxide.
Hydrological
The water cycle is also affected by deforestation. Trees extract groundwater through their roots and release it into the atmosphere. When part of a forest is removed, the trees no longer evaporate away this water, resulting in a much drier climate. Deforestation reduces the content of water in the soil and groundwater as well as atmospheric moisture. Deforestation reduces soil cohesion, so that erosion, flooding and landslides ensue. Forests enhance the recharge of aquifers in some locales, however, forests are a major source of aquifer depletion on most locales.
Shrinking forest cover lessens the landscape's capacity to intercept, retain and transpire precipitation. Instead of trapping precipitation, which then percolates to groundwater systems, deforested areas become sources of surface water runoff, which moves much faster than subsurface flows. That quicker transport of surface water can translate into flash flooding and more localized floods than would occur with the forest cover. Deforestation also contributes to decreased evapotranspiration, which lessens atmospheric moisture which in some cases affects precipitation levels downwind from the deforested area, as water is not recycled to downwind forests, but is lost in runoff and returns directly to the oceans. Trees, and plants in general, affect the water cycle significantly:
• their canopies intercept a proportion of precipitation, which is then evaporated back to the atmosphere (canopy interception);
• their litter, stems and trunks slow down surface runoff;
• their roots create macropores - large conduits - in the soil that increase infiltration of water;
• they contribute to terrestrial evaporation and reduce soil moisture via transpiration;
• their litter and other organic residue change soil properties that affect the capacity of soil to store water.
• their leaves control the humidity of the atmosphere by transpiring. 99% of the water absorbed by the roots moves up to the leaves and is transpired.
As a result, the presence or absence of trees can change the quantity of water on the surface, in the soil or groundwater, or in the atmosphere. This in turn changes erosion rates and the availability of water for either ecosystem functions or human services.
The forest may have little impact on flooding in the case of large rainfall events, which overwhelm the storage capacity of forest soil if the soils are at or close to saturation.
Tropical rainforests produce about 30% of our planet's fresh water.
Soil
Deforestation generally increases rates of soil erosion, by increasing the amount of runoff and reducing the protection of the soil from tree litter. This can be an advantage in excessively leached tropical rain forest soils. Forestry operations themselves also increase erosion through the development of roads and the use of mechanized equipment.
Tree roots bind soil together, and if the soil is sufficiently shallow they act to keep the soil in place by also binding with underlying bedrock. Tree removal on steep slopes with shallow soil thus increases the risk of landslides, which can threaten people living nearby. However most deforestation only affects the trunks of trees, allowing for the roots to stay rooted, negating the landslide.
Ecological
Deforestation results in declines in biodiversity. The removal or destruction of areas of forest cover has resulted in a degraded environment with reduced biodiversity. Forests support biodiversity, providing habitat for wildlife; moreover, forests foster medicinal conservation. With forest biotopes being irreplaceable source of new drugs (such as taxol), deforestation can destroy genetic variations (such as crop resistance) irretrievably.
Since the tropical rainforests are the most diverse ecosystems on Earth and about 80% of the world's known biodiversity could be found in tropical rainforests, removal or destruction of significant areas of forest cover has resulted in a degraded environment with reduced biodiversity.
It has been estimated that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species every single day due to rainforest deforestation, which equates to 50,000 species a year. Others state that tropical rainforest deforestation is contributing to the ongoing Holocene mass extinction. The known extinction rates from deforestation rates are very low, approximately 1 species per year from mammals and birds which extrapolates to approximately 23,000 species per year for all species. Predictions have been made that more than 40% of the animal and plant species in Southeast Asia could be wiped out in the 21st century.
Floods and Droughts
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Flooding may result from the volume of water within a body of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees, with the result that some of the water escapes its usual boundaries. While the size of a lake or other body of water will vary with seasonal changes in precipitation and snow melt, it is not a significant flood unless such escapes of water endanger land areas used by man like a village, city or other inhabited area.
Floods can also occur in rivers, when flow exceeds the capacity of the river channel, particularly at bends or meanders. Floods often cause damage to homes and businesses if they are placed in natural flood plains of rivers. While flood damage can be virtually eliminated by moving away from rivers and other bodies of water, since time out of mind, people have lived and worked by the water to seek sustenance and capitalize on the gains of cheap and easy travel and commerce by being near water. That humans continue to inhabit areas threatened by flood damage is evidence that the perceived value of living near the water exceeds the cost of repeated periodic flooding.
Principal types and causes
Riverine
• Slow kinds: Runoff from sustained rainfall or rapid snow melt exceeding the capacity of a river's channel. Causes include heavy rains from monsoons, hurricanes and tropical depressions, foreign winds and warm rain affecting snow pack. Unexpected drainage obstructions such as landslides, ice, or debris can cause slow flooding upstream of the obstruction.
• Fast kinds: include flash floods resulting from convective precipitation (intense thunderstorms) or sudden release from an upstream impoundment created behind a dam, landslide, or glacier.
Estuarine
• Commonly caused by a combination of sea tidal surges caused by storm-force winds. A storm surge, from either a tropical cyclone or an extratropical cyclone, falls within this category.
Coastal
• Caused by severe sea storms, or as a result of another hazard (e.g. tsunami or hurricane). A storm surge, from either a tropical cyclone or an extratropical cyclone, falls within this category.
Catastrophic
• Caused by a significant and unexpected event e.g. dam breakage, or as a result of another hazard (e.g. earthquake or volcanic eruption).
Muddy
• A muddy flood is generated by run off on crop land.
A muddy flood is produced by an accumulation of runoff generated on cropland. Sediments are then detached by runoff and carried as suspended matter or bedload. Muddy runoff is more likely detected when it reaches inhabited areas.
Muddy floods are therefore a hillslope process, and confusion with mudflows produced by mass movements should be avoided.
Other
• Floods can occur if water accumulates across an impermeable surface (e.g. from rainfall) and cannot rapidly dissipate (i.e. gentle orientation or low evaporation).
• A series of storms moving over the same area.
• Dam-building beavers can flood low-lying urban and rural areas, often causing significant damage.
Effects
Primary effects
• Physical damage - Can damage any type of structure, including bridges, cars, buildings, sewerage systems, roadways, and canals.
• Casualties - People and livestock die due to drowning. It can also lead to epidemics and waterborne diseases.
Secondary effects
• Water supplies - Contamination of water. Clean drinking water becomes scarce.
• Diseases - Unhygienic conditions. Spread of water-borne diseases.
• Crops and food supplies - Shortage of food crops can be caused due to loss of entire harvest. However, lowlands near rivers depend upon river silt deposited by floods in order to add nutrients to the local soil.
• Trees - Non-tolerant species can die from suffocation.
Tertiary/long-term effects
Economic - Economic hardship, due to: temporary decline in tourism, rebuilding costs, food shortage leading to price increase ,etc.
Control
In many countries across the world, rivers prone to floods are often carefully managed. Defenses such as levees, bunds, reservoirs, and weirs are used to prevent rivers from bursting their banks. When these defenses fail, emergency measures such as sandbags or portable inflatable tubes are used. Coastal flooding has been addressed in Europe and the Americas with coastal defences, such as sea walls, beach nourishment, and barrier islands.
In India, Bangladesh and China (i.e.,in the Grand Canal of China region) , flood diversion areas are rural areas that are deliberately flooded in emergencies in order to protect cities.
Many have proposed that loss of vegetation (deforestation) will lead to a risk increase. With natural forest cover the flood duration should decrease. Reducing the rate of deforestation should improve the incidents and severity of floods.
Benefits
There are many disruptive effects of flooding on human settlements and economic activities. However, floods (in particular the more frequent/smaller floods) can bring many benefits, such as recharging ground water, making soil more fertile and providing nutrients in which it is deficient. Flood waters provide much needed water resources in particular in arid and semi-arid regions where precipitation events can be very unevenly distributed throughout the year. Freshwater floods in particular play an important role in maintaining ecosystems in river corridors and are a key factor in maintaining floodplain biodiversity.
Periodic flooding was essential to the well-being of ancient communities along the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers, the Nile River, the Indus River, the Ganges and the Yellow River, among others. The viability for hydrological based renewable sources of energy is higher in flood prone regions.
DROUGHT is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region. Although droughts can persist for several years, even a short, intense drought can cause significant damage and harm the local economy.
This global phenomenon has a widespread impact on agriculture. Periods of drought can have significant environmental, agricultural, health, economic and social consequences. The effect varies according to vulnerability. For example, subsistence farmers are more likely to migrate during drought because they do not have alternative food sources. Areas with populations that depend on subsistence farming as a major food source are more vulnerable to drought-triggered famine.
Drought can also reduce water quality, because lower water flows reduce dilution of pollutants and increase contamination of remaining water sources. Common consequences of drought include:
• Diminished crop growth or yield productions and carrying capacity for livestock
• Dust bowls, themselves a sign of erosion, which further erode the landscape
• Dust storms, when drought hits an area suffering from desertification and erosion
• Famine due to lack of water for irrigation
• Habitat damage, affecting both terrestrial and aquatic wildlife
• Malnutrition, dehydration and related diseases
• Mass migration, resulting in internal displacement and international refugees
• Reduced electricity production due to insufficient available coolant for power stations, and reduced water flow through hydroelectric dams
• Shortages of water for industrial users
• Snakes migration and increases in snakebites
• Social unrest
• War over natural resources, including water and food
• Wildfires, such as Australian bushfires, are more common during times of drought
Globally drought is a normal, recurring feature of the climate in most parts of the world. It is among the earliest documented climatic events
Causes
Generally, rainfall is related to the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, combined with the upward forcing of the air mass containing that water vapor. If either of these are reduced, the result is a drought. This can be triggered by an above average prevalence of high pressure systems, winds carrying continental, rather than oceanic air masses (i.e. reduced water content), and ridges of high pressure areas form with behaviors which prevent or restrict the developing of thunderstorm activity or rainfall over one certain region. Oceanic and atmospheric weather cycles such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) make drought a regular recurring feature of the Americas along the Pacific coast and Australia.
Human activity can directly trigger exacerbating factors such as over farming, excessive irrigation, deforestation, and erosion adversely impact the ability of the land to capture and hold water. While these tend to be relatively isolated in their scope, activities resulting in global climate change are expected to trigger droughts with a substantial impact on agriculture throughout the world, and especially in developing nations. Overall, global warming will result in increased world rainfall. Along with drought in some areas, flooding and erosion will increase in others.
Types of drought
As a drought persists, the conditions surrounding it gradually worsen and its impact on the local population gradually increases. People tend to define droughts in three main ways:
1. Meteorological drought is brought about when there is a prolonged period with less than average precipitation. Meteorological drought usually precedes the other kinds of drought.
2. Agricultural droughts are droughts that affect crop production or the ecology of the range. This condition can also arise independently from any change in precipitation levels when soil conditions and erosion triggered by poorly planned agricultural endeavors cause a shortfall in water available to the crops. However, in a traditional drought, it is caused by an extended period of below average precipitation.
3. Hydrological drought is brought about when the water reserves available in sources such as aquifers, lakes and reservoirs fall below the statistical average. Hydrological drought tends to show up more slowly because it involves stored water that is used but not replenished. Like an agricultural drought, this can be triggered by more than just a loss of rainfall.
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges facing humanity. As early as the 1970s "sustainability" was employed to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems.
The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability.
The concept has included notions of weak sustainability, strong sustainability and deep ecology. Sustainable development does not focus solely on environmental issues.
Indigenous peoples have argued, through various international forums such as the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Convention on Biological Diversity, that there are four pillars of sustainable development, the fourth being cultural. The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2001) further elaborates the concept by stating that "...cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature”; it becomes “one of the roots of development understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence". In this vision, cultural diversity is the fourth policy area of sustainable development.
Economic Sustainability: Agenda 21 clearly identified information, integration, and participation as key building blocks to help countries achieve development that recognises these interdependent pillars. It emphasises that in sustainable development everyone is a user and provider of information. It stresses the need to change from old sector-centred ways of doing business to new approaches that involve cross-sectoral co-ordination and the integration of environmental and social concerns into all development processes. Furthermore, Agenda 21 emphasises that broad public participation in decision making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development.
According to Hasna Vancock, sustainability is a process which tells of a development of all aspects of human life affecting sustenance. It means resolving the conflict between the various competing goals, and involves the simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equity famously known as three dimensions (triple bottom line) with is the resultant vector being technology, hence it is a continually evolving process; the 'journey' (the process of achieving sustainability) is of course vitally important, but only as a means of getting to the destination (the desired future state). However, the 'destination' of sustainability is not a fixed place in the normal sense that we understand destination. Instead, it is a set of wishful characteristics of a future system.
Green development is generally differentiated from sustainable development in that Green development prioritizes what its proponents consider to be environmental sustainability over economic and cultural considerations. Proponents of Sustainable Development argue that it provides a context in which to improve overall sustainability where cutting edge Green development is unattainable. For example, a cutting edge treatment plant with extremely high maintenance costs may not be sustainable in regions of the world with fewer financial resources. An environmentally ideal plant that is shut down due to bankruptcy is obviously less sustainable than one that is maintainable by the community, even if it is somewhat less effective from an environmental standpoint.
Some research activities start from this definition to argue that the environment is a combination of nature and culture. The Network of Excellence "Sustainable Development in a Diverse World", sponsored by the European Union, integrates multidisciplinary capacities and interprets cultural diversity as a key element of a new strategy for sustainable development.
Sustainable development is an eclectic concept, as a wide array of views fall under its umbrella. The concept has included notions of weak sustainability, strong sustainability and deep ecology. Different conceptions also reveal a strong tension between ecocentrism and anthropocentrism. Many definitions and images (Visualizing Sustainability) of sustainable development coexist. Broadly defined, the sustainable development mantra enjoins current generations to take a systems approach to growth and development and to manage natural, produced, and social capital for the welfare of their own and future generations.
During the last ten years, different organizations have tried to measure and monitor the proximity to what they consider sustainability by implementing what has been called sustainability metrics and indices.
Sustainable development is said to set limits on the developing world. While current first world countries polluted significantly during their development, the same countries encourage third world countries to reduce pollution, which sometimes impedes growth. Some consider that the implementation of sustainable development would mean a reversion to pre-modern lifestyles.
Environmental sustainability
Water is an important natural resource that covers 71% of the Earth's surface. Environmental sustainability is the process of making sure current processes of interaction with the environment are pursued with the idea of keeping the environment as pristine as naturally possible based on ideal-seeking behavior.
An "unsustainable situation" occurs when natural capital (the sum total of nature's resources) is used up faster than it can be replenished. Sustainability requires that human activity only uses nature's resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. Inherently the concept of sustainable development is intertwined with the concept of carrying capacity. Theoretically, the long-term result of environmental degradation is the inability to sustain human life. Such degradation on a global scale could imply extinction for humanity.
The sustainable development debate is based on the assumption that societies need to manage three types of capital (economic, social, and natural), which may be non-substitutable and whose consumption might be irreversible. While it is possible that we can find ways to replace some natural resources, it is much more unlikely that they will ever be able to replace eco-system services, such as the protection provided by the ozone layer, or the climate stabilizing function of the Amazonian forest. In fact natural capital, social capital and economic capital are often complementarities. A further obstacle to substitutability lies also in the multi-functionality of many natural resources. Forests, for example, not only provide the raw material for paper (which can be substituted quite easily), but they also maintain biodiversity, regulate water flow, and absorb CO2.
Another problem of natural and social capital deterioration lies in their partial irreversibility. The loss in biodiversity, for example, is often definite. The same can be true for cultural diversity. For example with globalisation advancing quickly the number of indigenous languages is dropping at alarming rates. Moreover, the depletion of natural and social capital may have non-linear consequences. Consumption of natural and social capital may have no observable impact until a certain threshold is reached. A lake can, for example, absorb nutrients for a long time while actually increasing its productivity. However, once a certain level of algae is reached lack of oxygen causes the lake’s ecosystem to break down suddenly.
BIODIVERSITY
"Biological diversity" or "biodiversity" can have many interpretations and it is most commonly used to replace the more clearly defined and long established terms, species diversity and species richness. Biologists most often define biodiversity as the "totality of genes, species, and ecosystems of a region". An advantage of this definition is that it seems to describe most circumstances and presents a unified view of the traditional three levels at which biological variety has been identified:
• species diversity
• ecosystem diversity
• genetic diversity
One textbook's definition is "variation of life at all levels of biological organization". For geneticists, biodiversity is the diversity of genes and organisms. They study processes such as mutations, gene transfer, and genome dynamics that generate evolution. Consistent with this, Wilcox also stated "genes are the ultimate source of biological organization at all levels of biological systems..."
A complex relationship exists among the different diversity levels. Identifying one level of diversity in a group of organisms does not necessarily indicate its relationship with other types of diversities. All types of diversity are broadly linked and a numerical study investigating the link between tetrapod (terrestrial vertebrates) taxonomic and ecological diversity shows a very close correlation between the two.
Distribution
Biodiversity is not evenly distributed. Flora and fauna diversity depends on climate, altitude, soils and the presence of other species. Diversity consistently measures higher in the tropics and in other localized regions such as Cape Floristic Province and lower in polar regions generally. In 2006 many species were formally classified as rare or endangered or threatened species; moreover, many scientists have estimated that millions more species are at risk which have not been formally recognized. About 40 percent of the 40,177 species assessed using the IUCN Red List criteria are now listed as threatened with extinction—a total of 16,119.
Even though biodiversity on land declines from the equator to the poles, this trend is unverified in aquatic ecosystems, especially in marine ecosystems. In addition, several cases demonstrate tremendous diversity in higher latitudes. Generally land biodiversity is up to 25 times greater than ocean biodiversity.
A biodiversity hotspot is a region with a high level of endemic species. Biodiversity is the result of 3.5 billion years of evolution. The origin of life has not been definitely established by science, however some evidence suggests that life may already have been well-established only a few hundred million years after the formation of the Earth. Until approximately 600 million years ago, all life consisted of archaea, bacteria, protozoans and similar single-celled organisms.
The history of biodiversity during the Phanerozoic (the last 540 million years), starts with rapid growth during the Cambrian explosion—a period during which nearly every phylum of multicellular organisms first appeared. Over the next 400 million years or so, global diversity showed little overall trend, but was marked by periodic, massive losses of diversity classified as mass extinction events. The worst was the Permo-Triassic extinction, 251 million years ago. Vertebrates took 30 million years to recover from this event.
The fossil record suggests that the last few million years featured the greatest biodiversity in history. However, not all scientists support this view, since there is considerable uncertainty as to how strongly the fossil record is biased by the greater availability and preservation of recent geologic sections. Corrected for sampling artifacts, modern biodiversity may not be much different from biodiversity 300 million years ago. Estimates of the present global macroscopic species diversity vary from 2 million to 100 million, with a best estimate of somewhere near 13–14 million, the vast majority arthropods. Diversity appears to increase continually in the absence of natural selection.
Most biologists agreed that the period since human emergence is part of a new mass extinction, named the Holocene extinction event, caused primarily by the impact humans are having on the environment. It has been argued that the present rate of extinction is sufficient to eliminate most species on the planet Earth within 100 years.
New species are regularly discovered (on average between 5–10,000 new species each year, most of them insects) and many, though discovered, are not yet classified (estimates are that nearly 90% of all arthropods are not yet classified). Most of the terrestrial diversity is found in tropical forests.
Human benefits
Agriculture
The reservoir of genetic traits present in wild varieties and traditionally grown landraces is extremely important in improving crop performance. Important crops, such as the potato, banana and coffee, are often derived from only a few genetic strains. Improvements in crop species over the last 250 years have been largely due to harnessing genes from wild varieties and species. Interbreeding crops strains with different beneficial traits has resulted in more than doubling crop production in the last 50 years as a result of the Green Revolution.
Crop diversity is also necessary to help the system recover when the dominant cultivar is attacked by a disease or predator:
• The Irish potato blight of 1846 was a major factor in the deaths of one million people and the emigration of another million. It was the result of planting only two potato varieties, both of which proved to be vulnerable.
• When rice grassy stunt virus struck rice fields from Indonesia to India in the 1970s, 6,273 varieties were tested for resistance. Only one was resistant, an Indian variety, and known to science only since 1966. This variety formed a hybrid with other varieties and is now widely grown.
• Coffee rust attacked coffee plantations in Sri Lanka, Brazil, and Central America in 1970. A resistant variety was found in Ethiopia. Although the diseases are themselves a form of biodiversity.
Monoculture was a contributing factor to several agricultural disasters, including the European wine industry collapse in the late 19th century, and the US Southern Corn Leaf Blight epidemic of 1970.
Higher biodiversity also limits the spread of certain diseases, because pathogens may have to adapt to infect different species.
Although about 80 percent of humans' food supply comes from just 20 kinds of plants, humans use at least 40,000 species. Many people depend on these species for their food, shelter, and clothing. Earth's surviving biodiversity provides as little-tapped resources for increasing the range of food and other products suitable for human use, although the present extinction rate shrinks that potential.
Human health
The diverse forest canopy on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, yielded this display of different fruit
Biodiversity's relevance to human health is becoming an international political issue, as scientific evidence builds on the global health implications of biodiversity loss. This issue is closely linked with the issue of climate change, as many of the anticipated health risks of climate change are associated with changes in biodiversity (e.g. changes in populations and distribution of disease vectors, scarcity of fresh water, impacts on agricultural biodiversity and food resources etc.) Some of the health issues influenced by biodiversity include dietary health and nutrition security, infectious diseases, medical science and medicinal resources, social and psychological health. Biodiversity is also known to have an important role in reducing disaster risk, and in post-disaster relief and recovery efforts.
One of the key health issues associated with biodiversity is that of drug discovery and the availability of medicinal resources. A significant proportion of drugs are derived, directly or indirectly, from biological sources; At least 50% of the pharmaceutical compounds on the US market are derived from compounds found in plants, animals, and microorganisms, while about 80% of the world population depends on medicines from nature (used in either modern or traditional medical practice) for primary healthcare. Moreover, only a tiny proportion of the total diversity of wild species has been investigated for medical potential. Through the field of bionics, considerable advancement has occurred which would not have occurred without rich biodiversity. It has been argued, based on evidence from market analysis and biodiversity science, that the decline in output from the pharmaceutical sector since the mid-1980s can be attributed to a move away from natural product exploration ("bioprospecting") in favor of genomics and synthetic chemistry; meanwhile, natural products have a long history of supporting significant economic and health innovation. Marine ecosystems are of particular interest in this regard, although inappropriate bioprospecting has the potential to degrade ecosystems and increase biodiversity loss, as well as impacting the rights of the communities and states from which the resources are taken.
Business and Industry
A wide range of industrial materials derive directly from biological resources. These include building materials, fibers, dyes, rubber and oil. Further research into employing materials from other organisms is likely to improve product cost and quality. Biodiversity is also important to the security of resources such as water quantity and quality, timber, paper and fibre, food and medical resources. As a result, biodiversity loss is increasingly recognized as a significant risk factor in business development and a threat to long term economic sustainability. Case studies recently compiled by the World Resources Institute demonstrate some of these risks for specific industries.
Other services
Biodiversity provides many ecosystem services that are often not readily visible. It plays a part in regulating the chemistry of our atmosphere and water supply. Biodiversity is directly involved in water purification, recycling nutrients and providing fertile soils. Experiments with controlled environments have shown that humans cannot easily build ecosystems to support human needs; for example insect pollination cannot be mimicked, and that activity alone represents tens of billions of dollars in ecosystem services per year to humankind.
Ecosystem stability is also positively related to biodiversity, protecting them ecosystem services from disruption by extreme weather or human exploitation.
Leisure, cultural and aesthetic value
Many people derive value from biodiversity through leisure activities such as hiking, birdwatching or natural history study. Biodiversity has inspired musicians, painters, sculptors, writers and other artists. Many culture groups view themselves as an integral part of the natural world and show respect for other living organisms.
Popular activities such as gardening, fishkeeping and specimen collecting strongly depend on biodiversity. The number of species involved in such pursuits is in the tens of thousands, though the majority do not enter mainstream commerce.
The relationships between the original natural areas of these often exotic animals and plants and commercial collectors, suppliers, breeders, propagators and those who promote their understanding and enjoyment are complex and poorly understood. It seems clear, however, that the general public responds well to exposure to rare and unusual organisms—they recognize their inherent value at some level. A family outing to the botanical garden or zoo is as much an aesthetic and cultural experience as an educational one.
Philosophically it could be argued that biodiversity has intrinsic aesthetic and spiritual value to mankind in and of itself. This idea can be used as a counterweight to the notion that tropical forests and other ecological realms are only worthy of conservation because of the services they provide.
Number of species
Undiscovered and discovered species
According to the Global Taxonomy Initiative and the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy, the total number of species for some phyla may be much higher as what we know currently:
• 10–30 million insects; (of some 0,9 we know today)
• 5–10 million bacteria;
• 1.5 million fungi; (of some 0,4 million we know today)
• ~1 million mites
• The number of microbial species is not reliably known, but the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition dramatically increased the estimates of genetic diversity by identifying an enormous number of new genes from near-surface plankton samples at various marine locations, initially over the 2004-2006 period. The findings may eventually cause a significant change in the way science defines species and other taxonomic categories.
Due to the fact that we know but a portion of the organisms in the biosphere, we do not have a complete understanding of the workings of our environment. To make matters worse, we are wiping out these species at an unprecedented rate. This means that even before a species has had the chance of being discovered, studied and classified, it may already be extinct.
Species loss rates
During the last century, decreases in biodiversity have been increasingly observed. 30% of all natural species will be extinct by 2050. Of these, about one eighth of known plant species are threatened with extinction. Some estimates put the loss at up to 140,000 species per year (based on Species-area theory) and subject to discussion. This figure indicates unsustainable ecological practices, because only a small number of species evolve each year. Almost all scientists acknowledge that the rate of species loss is greater now than at any time in human history, with extinctions occurring at rates hundreds of times higher than background extinction rates.
Threats
Habitat destruction
Deforestation and increased road-building in the Amazon Rainforest are a significant concern because of increased human encroachment upon wild areas, increased resource extraction and further threats to biodiversity.
Most of the species extinctions from 1000 AD to 2000 AD are due to human activities, in particular destruction of plant and animal habitats. Extinction is being driven by human consumption of organic resources, especially related to tropical forest destruction. While most threatened species are not food species, their biomass is converted into human food when their habitat is transformed into pasture, cropland, and orchards. It is estimated that more than a third of biomass is tied up in humans, livestock and crop species. Factors contributing to habitat loss are: overpopulation, deforestation, pollution (air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination) and global warming or climate change.
The size of a habitat and the number of species it can support are systematically related. Physically larger species and those living at lower latitudes or in forests or oceans are more sensitive to reduction in habitat area. Conversion to trivial standardized ecosystems (e.g., monoculture following deforestation) effectively destroys habitat for the more diverse species that preceded the conversion. In some countries lack of property rights or access regulation to biotic resources necessarily leads to biodiversity loss (degradation costs having to be supported by the community).
A 2007 study conducted by the National Science Foundation found that biodiversity and genetic diversity are codependent—that diversity within a species is necessary to maintain diversity among species, and vice versa. "If any one type is removed from the system, the cycle can break down, and the community becomes dominated by a single species."
At present, the most threatened ecosystems are found in fresh water.
Genetic pollution
Endemic species can be threatened with extinction through the process of genetic pollution i.e. uncontrolled hybridization, introgression and genetic swamping which leads to homogenization or replacement of local genotypes as a result of either a numerical and/or fitness advantage of introduced plant or animal. Nonnative species can hybridize and introgress either through purposeful introduction by humans or through habitat modification, mixing previously isolated species. These phenomena can be especially detrimental for rare species coming into contact with more abundant ones. The abundant species can interbreed with the rare species, swamping its gene pool and creating hybrids, destroying native stock. This problem is not always apparent from morphological (outward appearance) observations alone. Some degree of gene flowis a normal adaptation process, and not all gene and genotype constellations can be preserved. However, hybridization with or without introgression may, nevertheless, threaten a rare species' existence.
Overexploitation
There is a whole history of overexploitation in the form of overhunting. The overkill hypothesis explains why the mega faunal extinctions occurred within a relatively short period of time. This can be traced with human migration. About 25% of world fisheries are now overexploited to the point where their current biomass is less than the level that maximizes their sustainable yield.
Hybridization, genetic pollution/erosion and food security
In agriculture and animal husbandry, the green revolution popularized the use of conventional hybridization to increase yield. Often hybridized breeds originated in developed countries and were further hybridized with local varieties in the developing world to create high yield strains resistant to local climate and diseases. Local governments and industry have been pushing hybridization. Formerly huge gene pools of various wild and indigenous breeds have collapsed causing widespread genetic erosion and genetic pollution. This has resulted in loss of genetic diversity and biodiversity as a whole.
