Question

What are the major human impacts in terrestrial and aquatic habitats? List four (or more) for each.

Answer 1

The major human impacts in terrestrial habitats are:

1. Pollution : Humans pollute the land, water and air that led to devastating effects on terrestrial habitat. For example of plastic use.

2. Global Warming : The carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions that are produced from burning fossil fuels are affecting the terrestrial ecosystem. The increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere traps heat thereby escaping into space and increasing the Earth’s overall temperature.

3. Genetic Modification : The use of genetic modified organisms, or GMOs, has played an important role in increasing crop yields. Negative effects on the environment include increased use of herbicides. It has caused many weeds to become immune to their effects.

4. Deforestation : As population is increasing their needs are also being increasing which means by removing the dwindling number of forests (deforestation). Forests are also cleared for the timber that we use to build our houses and to make room for new houses.

The major human impacts in aquatic habitats are :

1. Fisheries : The coastal area people totally rely on ocean as a source of food. However, with advances in fishing equipment, larger ships and new tracking technologies, many fish stocks around the world have reduced significantly.

2. Pollution : Our oceans are being used as an intentional dumping ground for all sorts of waste including sewage, industrial run-off and chemicals. Marine pollution remains a major problem and threatens life in the sea at all levels due to bio accumulation of toxic chemicals.

3. Eutrophication : Eutrophication is caused by the release of excess nutrients come from fertilisers used in intensive farming practices into coastal areas via streams and rivers that leads to oxygen demand. Additional nutrients in the oceans can lead to excessive phytoplankton growth that results in ‘blooms’. When these large numbers of organisms die, the sharp increase in decomposition of the dead organisms by oxygen-using bacteria depletes oxygen levels. This may als lead to in the death of other organisms such as fish due to oxygen starvation.

4. Ocean acidification : The human activities have caused the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to rise dramatically. This impacts on the marine environment as the world’s oceans absorb CO2 emissions in our atmosphere which causes the pH to decrease, resulting in the seawater becoming more acidic.