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Preface Environmental science deals with the study of natural resource conservation, bio-diversity, pollution, population explosion, flora and fauna, global warming and climate change. It is a multidisciplinary subject with the combination of several disciplines like Physical and social sciences. The subjects related to the environment are geography, chemistry, anthropology, sociology and meteorology. Hence, there is a need to know about our environmental problems. Due to general awareness about the importance of the environment, this subject has been introduced in the course curriculum of schools, colleges and universities. This book attempts to provide all possible information about environment and hence can be used as a text book for the course. We are grateful to Dr. N.C. Patel, Hon‘ble Vice Chancellor, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh for writing foreword for the book. We are thankful to Dr. C. J. Dangaria, Director of Research and Dean PG Studies, Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh for according permission to publish this book. The help and support rendered by friends and colleagues are thankfully acknowledged. We are indebted to New India Publishing Agency, New Delhi for their interest to publish this book. We hope this book will be highly useful to undergraduate and post-graduate students. Environment science is an ever changing subject. The suggestions for improvement and additions will be highly appreciated.

1.1 Man’s place in Nature All religions of the world share the view that man is the supreme being among God’s creations. He is the only one among many creatures to enjoy nature’s beauties and bounties. Nature is given to him so as to make responsible and judicious use of it. No religion justifies the most destructive attitude the modern man has developed towards his environment. All religions urge man to treat nature as a God-given gift, stating that God is omnipresent in the manifestations of the nature. It is irreligious for man to expect miracles and exploit the environment. Man must be confronted with the reality that struggle is essential for life rather than “struggle for existence.”

Abiotic Environment The physical or abiotic environment includes all those physical and non-living chemical aspects, which exert an influence on living organisms. The abiotic components are soil, water, air and energy from various sources. These provide both habitation and raw material for the synthesis of organic food.

3.1 What is environment ? The word environment is derived from a French word “environne” means to encircle or surround. Environment is defined as the circumstances or conditions that surround an organism or group of organisms. It is also defined as the complex of social or cultural conditions that affect an individual or community. Since humans inhabit the natural world and they build social, cultural and technological world, all constitute important parts of our environment.

In simple words natural resources can be defined as any part of our environment such as land, air, minerals, forest, rangeland, wild life, fish and human beings. The sum total of all physical, chemical, biological and social factors which compose the surroundings of man is referred to as environment and each component of these surroundings constitute a “resource”.  The natural resources are land, water, air, minerals, forests, rangeland, wild life or even human beings known as natural resource. The five basic natural resources are energy, matter, space, time and diversity.

5.1 Concept of Ecosystem Ecosystem is the basic functional unit in ecology, since it includes both biotic and abiotic environments influencing each other for maintenance of life. A.G. Tansky in 1935 first proposed the term ecosystem. According to him, it is defined as the system resulting from the integration of all the living and non-living factors of the environment. In a simplest form, an ecosystem can be defined as a self-sustained community of plants and animals existing in its own environment. The term ecosystem is composed of two terms, “eco” means environment and “system” means an interacting and interdependent complex. It is otherwise known as bio system.

6.1 Biodiversity Biodiversity means biological diversity. It measures the variety of the earth’s animal, plant and microbial species; of genetic difference within species and of the ecosystems that support the species in its widest. Biodiversity is virtually synonymous with “life on earth”, this word was coined in 1985. Biodiversity is the degree of variety in nature and not nature itself.

7.1 What is Pollution?   Pollution is a contamination of the environment by man-made substances or energy that has adverse effects on living or non-living matter. In simple terms, pollution can be seen as the wrong substance in the wrong place in the wrong quantities at the wrong time. This implies that harm is caused to the environment if the same substance is present at levels too low. Types of pollution Pollution can be categorized according to the medium in which it occurs such as

To a layman, wasteland is a piece of land, which is lying uninhabited or uncultivated. These lands are also commonly perceived to produce much less than their potential. Depleted of the green cover and productivity, such lands are often in a critical condition. Broadly, wastelands may be defined as land where the production of biomass is less than its optimum ‘productivity. Wasteland also refers to lands, which are economically unproductive, ecologically unstable and subject to environmental deterioration.

9.1 What are Natural Disasters? The natural disasters are earthquakes, floods, droughts, famines, heat waves, cyclones, wild fire, volcanic, aerosols (small particles), and landslides. 9.2 Disaster Management Both physical solutions and institutional strategies should be developed to manage natural disasters. For flood disaster control the water flow should be checked. Institutional strategies do not rely on physical barriers and include flood plain management, flood and disaster warning systems, education and preparedness programmes.

In November 1992 a document entitled Warning to Humanity was released, signed by 1500 scientists from around the world, including 99 Nobel laureates, and the Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The document stated that “human beings and the natural world are on a collision course,” which “may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know.”

11.1 Global Warming Definition : Global warming is defined as an increase in the earth’s temperature due to the use of fossil fuels and other industrial processes leading to a build-up of green house gases (CO2, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons) in the atmosphere. 11.2 Who Coined the Term Global Warming? The principle of global warming was first put fourth by S. Arrhenius in his paper on “the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground” in 1869. This concept gained ground in the late 1980s and early 1990s when it was found that the earth’s temperature had warmed over the past century, because of increased carbon dioxide emission.

12.1 What is Climate Change?   The earth receives short-wave radiation from the sun, one-third of which is absorbed by the atmosphere, ocean, ice-land and living organisms. The energy absorbed from solar radiation is balanced, in the long-term, by the outgoing radiation from the earth and atmosphere. While short-wave radiation from the sun can easily pass through the atmosphere, the long-wave radiation emitted by the warm surface of the earth is partially absorbed by trace gases in the atmosphere called greenhouse gases’ (GHGs).

India is home of 16.7 % of the world population living in just 2.4 % of the worlds total land area. The decennial increase in population (1991-2001) has been 18.1 equivalents to the total population of Canada, France and Germany. The population in this century has 1.6 billion by 1960.

14.1 What is Education Education is a systematic attempt towards human learning. All learning is subjective and self related. It is neither literacy nor information. Knowledge can never be learned. Knowledge is the fruit of experience and experience is the sensation of the individual. Individual experience is the internal function and is the function of awareness and understanding. And, one of the processes of knowledge and raising awareness is to be able to identify and clarify our values. Now values in education are essential to help each one of us directly so that we may order our relationships to the environment that lies outside us. Once we are clear about values, we shall be better able to shift and control information of the natural world, make wise choices and decisions, and be creative in our mental processes.

The acts for Environment Protection are :         The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act         The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act         The Wildlife Protection Act         Forest Conservation Act         Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)         Citizens Actions and Action Groups         Public Awareness and Awakening

16.1 What is Sustainable Development? Sustainable development (SD) 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 (sometimes taught as ELF-Environment, Local people, Future). The term was first  coined by the Brundtland Commission and defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (UN, 1987; Smith and Rees, 1998)

Tools of Public Awareness The public awareness and awakening can be created among people through various means and ways. In this age of computers and communication, science and technology, information and advertisements there are several quick and effective means of spreading news. The electronic media, the press, education institution, religious, adult education, moral education, spiritual education, religious discourse etc. all are essentially complementary to each other. The governments and the policy makers can only work forwards environmental preservation on political basis. The media, if work passively on pro environmental issues, awareness can be effectively generated among people.

Index a Abiotic environment 5, 6, 40 Acid rain 80, 83, 84, 86, 90, 91 Agro-biodiversity 47, 48, 50 Air pollution 17, 48, 50, 80, 83, 86, 138, 139, 140 Anthropic factors 21 b Biosphere 6, 7, 8, 22, 23, 29, 30, 33, 40, 182 Biosphere reserves 30, 33 Biotic environment 6 Biotic factors 18, 20 c Chloro fluoro carbons (CFCS) 7 Climatic factors 17, 19, 20, 22 Community 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 39, 47, 49, 86, 131, 142, 155 Conservation 7, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 48, 49, 50, 51, 68, 77, 81, 89, 116, 126, 137, 143, 151, 167, 174, 175, 182, 183, 184, 187 Continental drift 117