ENVIRONMENT and INDIA

GEOGRAPHICAL AND NATURAL

Look at natural map of India

On an overall scale, our ‘environment’ consists of

Seas in the south, mountains right in the central

area and in the northern mountain ranges, river

systems, forests, and towns and villages located in

the valleys and plains.

Why are civilizations named after Rivers?

Air, Water, Earth, Space and Energy are called

‘PANCHA MAHABHOOTHAS’ or ‘Five Major

Primordial Sources’ of our existence.

EARTH spins on, orbits the SUN

We have day and night alternating and our annual

seasons perennial, thanks to the motions of

planet earth.

Two monsoons bring rains in our land giving pure

water raised from the salty seas.

Rain clouds are blocked by the mountains,

precipitate waters that flow to form river systems.

The term environment broadly indicates the

surroundings of an individual organism or a

community of organisms, ranging on up to the

entire biosphere, the zone of Earth that is able

to sustain life.

By surroundings is meant all the nonliving and

living materials that play any role in an

organism's existence, from soil and air to what

the organism feeds on and the organisms that

may feed on it.

• The environmental science of ecology is the study of

the relationship of plants and animals to their physical

and biological environment.

• The physical environment includes light and heat or

solar radiation, moisture, wind, oxygen, carbon

dioxide, nutrients in soil, water, and atmosphere.

• The biological environment includes organisms of the

same kind as well as other plants and animals.

• The adaptation of organisms to their

environment is through natural selection.

Our activities affect our environment Rapid industrialization and

urbanization has increased

carbon dioxide levels to the

point where global climate is

being affected.

The protective ozone shield is

being depleted because of the

chlorofluorocarbons.

The forest, which is a complete

ecosystem, is being converted

into dead forests.

The biodiversity is reducing

everywhere in the world.

A system is a collection of interdependent parts that

function as a unit and involve inputs and outputs.

• The major parts of an ecosystem are the producers

(green plants), the consumers (herbivores and

carnivores), the decomposers (fungi and bacteria), and

the nonliving, or abiotic, component, consisting of dead

organic matter and nutrients in the soil and water.

• Inputs into the ecosystem are solar energy, water,

oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and other elements

and compounds.

• Outputs from the ecosystem include water, oxygen, carbon

dioxide, nutrient losses, and the heat released in cellular

respiration, or heat of respiration.

• The major driving force is solar energy.

• Ecosystems function with energy flowing in one direction

from the sun, and through nutrients, which are

continuously recycled.

• Light energy is used by plants, which, by the process of

photosynthesis, convert it to chemical energy.

• This energy is then transferred through the ecosystem by

a series of steps that involve eating and being eaten, or

what is called a food web.

All the living and non-living things in this world are

interlinked and interdependent. They are in a

dynamic equilibrium with each other and cannot

sustain in isolation.

Every process is cyclic and the cycle depends upon

every element of it. If an element is disturbed,

destroyed or extinct the whole chain gets disturbed

That part of the world where life operates is known as

the biosphere.

The biosphere consists of the air (atmosphere), water

(hydrosphere), and earth (lithosphere) where living

things interact with their environment.

The broad units of vegetation are called biomes.

Biomes include associated animal life; major biomes,

however, go by the name of the dominant forms of

plant life.

BIOSPHERE

i) Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and

adequate conditions of life in an environment of quality

that permits a life of dignity and well being.

(ii) Man bears a solemn responsibility to protect and

improve the environment for present and future

generations.

This declaration was adopted by the United Nations

General Assembly in December 1972 and June 5 was

declared as the World Environment Day.

That part of the world where life operates is known as the

biosphere. The biosphere consists of the air (atmosphere),

water (hydrosphere), and earth (lithosphere) where living

things interact with their environment. Several approaches

are used to classify its regions. The broad units of vegetation

are called plant formations by European ecologists and

biomes by North American ecologists. The major difference

between the two terms is that biomes include associated

animal life. Major biomes, however, go by the name of the

dominant forms of plant life.

Influenced by latitude, elevation, and associated moisture

and temperature regimes, terrestrial biomes vary

geographically from the tropics through the arctic and

include various types of forest, grassland, shrub land, and

desert.

These biomes also include their associated freshwater

communities: streams, lakes, ponds, and wetlands. Marine

environments, also considered biomes by some ecologists,

comprise the open ocean, littoral (shallow water) regions,

benthic (bottom) regions, rocky shores, sandy shores,

estuaries, and associated tidal marshes.

Natural Resources in the Environment

1. Forest resources

2. Water resources

3. Mineral resources

4. Food resources

5.Land resources

6. Energy resources

Environment is the sum

total of water, air, and

land, inter-relationships

among themselves and

also with the human

beings, other living

organisms and property.

• Nature has created the coal and petroleum in millions of

years. We tend to exhausted them in hundreds of years.

• In the last 300 years we have consumed enormous

quantities of the coal and the petroleum products.

• Of electricity production in India about 66% is by use of

fossil fuels.

• Only 6% was produced by renewable energy resources

like solar, wind, biomass including small hydropower

plants.

Various Laws, Acts and the Regulatory Bodies at

the Central and State levels have different duties,

functions and powers to control the air, water, soil,

and noise pollution etc.

Parliament enacted the Water (Prevention and

Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. The Water Cess

Act was enacted in 1977 and the Act of 1974 was

amended in 1978.

• The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act was

enacted in 1981 and the Environment Protection Act was

enacted by the parliament in 1986.

• In 1986, the Government of India established an

independent Department of Environment to encourage

research and awareness towards the protection of

environment.

• Now we have a Ministry of Environment and Forest,

Government of India (M.O.E.F.) to protect the

Environment.

1) What is the biosphere?

2) What is a biome?

3) Why does terrestrial biomes vary geographically

from the tropics through the arctic?

4) What is an ecosystem?

5) What are the major parts of an ecosystem?