Environment

Everything around us is our environment.

All the physical surroundings present on the Earth  may be called the environment. The environment includes everything – living and nonliving, may it be Natural (land, water, air and other living things); man made (dams, roads, bridges, parks, buildings, industries, monuments) or man himself ( which includes the himself, his family, his community, his religion, the educational background, the economic environment and the political situation – all these things have an effect upon him)

The Natural Component mentioned above is classified into Biotic & Abiotic environment.

Biotic environment is the world of Living organisms – plants and animals.

Abiotic environment includes the non living elements – air, water & land.

Natural Environment

The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case which are not artificial i.e. which are not man made. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. Let us see the components in detail.

Earth’s lithosphere includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, which constitutes the hard and rigid outer layer of the Earth.

There are two types of lithosphere:

• Oceanic lithosphere, which is associated with oceanic crust and exists in the ocean basins 
• Continental lithosphere, which is associated with continental crust  This is the place where we live, were agriculture is done, were forests exist.

The Earth’s hydrosphere  is the combined mass of water found on, under, and above its surface. All the oceans and other bodies of water on Earth make up the hydrosphere. The hydrosphere includes the water in the air, such as that in clouds.

The Earth’s atmosphere is the air—the layer of nitrogen, oxygen, and other gases that surrounds Earth. The gravitational force of the earth holds the atmosphere around it.

It protects us from the harmful rays and scorching heat of the sun.

The changes in the atmosphere produces changes in the weather and climate.

Bioshphere

[The biosphere (from Greek  bíos “life” and sphaira “sphere”), also known as the ecosphere, is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems.]

As atmosphere is zone of air, hydrosphere is zone of water and lithosphere is zone of earth, similarly the zone of life on Earth, may be called a biosphere.  

By the most general biophysiological definition, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere,  geosphere,  hydrosphere, and atmosphere.

In a general sense, biospheres are any closed, self-regulating systems containing ecosystems. This includes artificial biospheres such as Biosphere 2 and BIOS-3, and potentially ones on other planets or moons.

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.  There can be numerous types of ecosystems like, grassland ecosystem, desert ecosystem, mountain ecosystem, river ecosystem etc.

[Energy enters the system through photosynthesis and is incorporated into plant tissue. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and energy through the system. They also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. By breaking down dead organic matter, decomposers release carbon back to the atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to a form that can be readily used by plants and other microbes.]

Human Environment

Human beings interacted with the environment and modified it according to their needs. People in the earlier times were simple and lived in harmony with the nature. Now a days things are spoiling. We must learn to live and use our environment in a harmonious way.

[Human impact on the environment  includes changes to biophysical environments and ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans, including global warming, environmental degradation (such as ocean acidification), mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. Modifying the environment to fit the needs of society is causing severe effects, which become worse as the problem of human overpopulation continues. Some human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment on a global scale include population growth,  overconsumption,  overexploitation,  pollution, and deforestation, to name but a few. Some of the problems, including global warming and biodiversity loss pose an existential risk to the human race, and human overpopulation is strongly correlated with those problems.]