Impacts of Land Pollution
Each kind of pollution has significant impacts
to our everyday lives, affecting all living and non-living factors in the
biosphere and the atmosphere and also involve socio-economic factors. These
impacts have caused significant changes to the environment we are living
in.
Impacts can be seen from the following aspects.
Climatic pattern change : Global Warning
Global Warming is the
extraordinary increase of Earth's surface temperature due to the increase of
greenhouse gases concentration on the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are the
heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide,
and CFC). They are the fundamental parts of the greenhouse effect, the role played by the atmosphere to
continually warm the earth, by trapping some portions of heat that came from the
solar energy (sun radiation) from reflecting back to space --- just like the
work of a greenhouse. Rapid use of fossil fuel will emit
large amount of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. The increase of human population
coincidentally demands for more lands to use. This leads to clearance of
forest area in many regions. By eliminating forests, carbon dioxide that
actually should be photosynthesized is left in the atmosphere and
accumulate to contribute to the increase. Open burning of trash worldwide
emits greenhouse gases. The receding of ice formations on
Earth (snows at mountain-tops, glaciers, and Antarctic and Arctic ice) Thinner clouds over the sky, that
decrease the ability to reflect heat from the sun (as studied by NASA) The discovery of the decrease of
Earth's albedo (the amount of sunlight reflection by the Earth surface to
the Moon) by 2.5 percent, which means the Earth has loosen some levels of
capability to reflect sunlight to the Moon. Stormy weather (more chances for
hurricanes, floods, cyclones, and storms to happen) Increased severity for drought,
hunger and spread of diseases, especially in poor countries Declines of amphibians, caused by
altered precipitation patterns resulted in lower levels of pond and lake
waters, where amphibians survive. Contamination of food leading to food shortage
Fertile land becoming poisonous for
living organisms underground and agriculture practice, nutrients lost,
locked up or becomes toxic Aquatic ecosystem depletes further and
non-consumable water supplies noxious fumes and gas permeates, blanketing
atmosphere. uncontrollable hunting of exotic/rare/endangered species will lead to the disequilibria of species
population. The next impact will be the imbalance in the ration of producers,
consumers and decomposers in the ecology system, which consequently distorts the
pattern of energy flow through the chain/web. This will bring to disruption of
ecological food pyramid.
When ecological food
pyramid is disrupted, insufficient consumption of food cause organisms deprived
of energy, thus affecting the organism's metabolism of its biochemical
activities. Then, growth and development of organisms will be affected, and
leads to mass starvation and mortality in world population. On the other hand,
particular species extinction occurred while its predators dominates, thus
ecological niche in ecosystems change. Economical effects
Continuous development for globalization due to increasing activity of agriculture, industrialization,
fisheries, timber and mining will lead to:
Impacts
Distortion of food web
A combination of
