Environmental science is the study of the earth’s geological environment, its bio-geochemical cycles and how these relate to climate change. The scientific community generally refers to the field as “ecology”, but the more common term is “bial ecology”. It is also the subject of many applied sciences, including botany, genetics, ecology, forestry, environmental science, and geology.
The natural environment encompasses all living and non living things existing naturally, which means on this scale not human. The word is most commonly used to describe the Earth or parts of the Earth. These biological communities are made up of plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, microorganisms, landforms, and other organisms that co-exist and work together to help keep the environment in balance.
Human interference in the environment has had a significant impact on the Earth’s bio-geochemical cycles and climate, resulting in alterations in natural resources and climate. Human activities such as deforestation, overfishing, and mining cause major degradation of the Earth’s environment, polluting air, water, and soil and changing the composition of the atmosphere. Rapid changes in atmospheric pressure, temperature, and precipitation have also occurred with human interference. In addition, human activity has resulted in the introduction of exotic species into regions already inhabited by indigenous peoples.
The physical environment is composed of the living organisms that make up an ecosystem, as well as the environment they live in, known as the atmosphere. A variety of interacting physical environment gradients maintain an ecosystem’s function. Some gradients are impermeable or have a density that prevents solid matter from being frozen into the ambient atmosphere; others are absorptive or responsible for transporting heat away from the Earth’s surface, and still others are net absorbers, transporting heat into the atmosphere.
There are many different types of ecosystems, and their relationships are determined by the basic functioning of the ecosystems as a whole. The diversity of ecosystems provides an important gauge of the Earths’ ability to sustain life. There are two basic classifications of ecosystems habitats and biodiversity. Habitat is the area that encompasses the living organisms in an ecosystem-and biodiversity is the number of different types of living organisms in an ecosystem.
The term ‘environment’ refers to all of the conditions that exist within an ecosystem. It does not refer to a specific physical location. Within an ecosystem there can be an ’emergence’ of anything that disturbs the equilibrium of the environment. Any change that affects the environment in an unnatural way can be termed as being an environmental problem.