Introduction
Each of us, each of those who consider themselves a part of world humanity, is obliged to know what impact human activity has on the world around us and feel a share of responsibility for certain actions.
It is a person who is the cause of his own fears about nature, as a house that gives food, heat and other conditions for his normal life.
Human activity is a very aggressive and actively destructive (transforming) force on our planet.
From the very beginning of his development, man felt himself the master of everything that surrounds him.
But, as the proverb says: "Do not cut the branch on which you are sitting."
One wrong decision and it may take tens or even hundreds of years to correct the fatal mistake.
The natural balance is very fragile.
If you do not seriously think about your activities, then this very activity will certainly begin to stifle humanity itself.
This suffocation has already begun to some extent and if it is not stopped, it will immediately begin to develop at an incredibly fast speed.
However, the first steps towards nature are already being taken, they begin to respect nature, take care of it and maintain elementary order in it.
Although more and more new pollutants are coming in, a huge number are being eliminated, but this is not enough.
Pollution should not be eliminated, but prevented.
We need a worldwide association, a long, coordinated and purposeful activity of the driving and producing forces of the planet.
But, initially, in order to fight against the influence of man on the surrounding nature, it is necessary to find out the influence of human activity on certain sections of nature.
This knowledge allows humanity to study the problem more deeply, to find out what causes caused the violation of the natural balance and the deterioration of the ecological state.
Also, a deep study of the sections of nature allows us to develop optimal plans for correcting the situation on the globe in a shorter time.
The solution of the problem of the surrounding nature – if we take into account the costs of research, the creation of new technologies, the re equipment of production and the restoration, at least partially, of destroyed natural systems grows into almost the largest, large scale and expensive program.
Goal:
1. To study the human impact on the surrounding nature.
To study the consequences of human impact on the surrounding nature.
To identify the mistakes of humanity in order to take them into account in later life.
Tasks:
To show the real threat of human impact on the surrounding nature.
To give vivid examples of human influence on the surrounding nature.
Human impact on nature
Impact – the direct impact of human economic activity on the environment.
All types of influence can be combined into 4 types: intentional, unintentional, direct and indirect (indirect).
Deliberate influence occurs in the process of material production in order to meet certain needs of society.
These include: mining, construction of hydraulic structures (reservoirs, irrigation channels, hydroelectric power plants), deforestation to expand agricultural areas and to obtain wood, etc.
Unintended impacts occur side by side with the first type of impact, in particular, open pit mining leads to a decrease in the groundwater level, to pollution of the air basin, to the formation of man made landforms (quarries, landfills, tailings).
The construction of hydroelectric power plants is associated with the formation of artificial reservoirs that affect the environment: they cause an increase in the groundwater level, change the hydrological regime of rivers, etc.
When receiving energy from traditional sources (coal, oil, gas), the atmosphere, surface watercourses, underground waters, etc. are polluted.
Both intentional and unintentional impacts can be direct and indirect.
Direct impacts occur in the case of a direct impact of human economic activity on the environment, in particular, irrigation (irrigation) directly affects the soil and changes all the processes associated with it.
Indirect effects occur indirectly through chains of interrelated influences.
Thus, intentional indirect effects are the use of fertilizers and the direct impact on crop yields, and unintentional ones are the effect of aerosols on the amount of solar radiation (especially in cities) , etc.
The impact of mining production on the environment is manifested in various ways in direct and indirect effects on natural landscapes.
The greatest violations of the earth's surface occur with the open method of mineral development, which accounts for more than 75% of the volume of mining production in our country.
Currently, the total area of land disturbed during the extraction of minerals (coal, iron and manganese ores, non metallic raw materials, peat, etc.), as well as occupied by mining waste, has exceeded 2 million hectares, of which 65% falls on the European part of the country.
Only in Kuzbass, more than 30 thousand hectares of land are currently occupied by coal pits, in the area of the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA) – no more than 25 thousand hectares of fertile land.
It is estimated that during the extraction of 1 million tons of iron ore, up to 640 hectares of land is disturbed, manganese up to 600 hectares, coal up to 100 hectares.
Mining production contributes to the destruction of vegetation cover, the emergence of man made landforms (quarries, dumps, tailings dumps, etc.), deformation of areas of the Earth's crust (especially with the underground method of mining).
Indirect impacts are manifested in changes in the groundwater regime, in the pollution of the air basin, surface watercourses and groundwater, and also contribute to flooding and waterlogging, which ultimately leads to an increase in the incidence of local population.
Among the air pollutants, first of all, dustiness and gas contamination are distinguished.
It is estimated that about 200 thousand tons of dust annually comes from underground mine workings and mines; coal production in the amount of 2 billion tons per year from about 4,000 mines in various countries of the world is accompanied by the release of 27 billion m3 of methane and 17 billion m3 of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In our country, when developing coal deposits by underground method, significant amounts of methane and CO2 entering the air basin are also recorded: annually in the Donbass (364 mines) and in the Kuzbass (78 mines), 3870 and 680 million m3 of methane and 1200 and 970 million m3 of carbon dioxide are emitted, respectively.
Mining has a negative impact on surface watercourses and groundwater, which are heavily polluted with mechanical impurities and mineral salts.
Every year, about 2.5 billion m3 of polluted mine water is pumped from coal mines to the surface.
In open pit mining, first of all, the reserves of high quality fresh water are depleted.
At the quarries of the Kursk magnetic anomaly, infiltration from tailings dumps prevents a decrease in the level of the upper water carrier of the horizon by 50 m, which leads to a rise in the groundwater level and waterlogging of the adjacent territory.
Mining also has a negative impact on the bowels of the Earth, since industrial waste, radioactive waste (in the USA – 246 underground landfills), etc. are buried in them.
In Sweden, Norway, England, Finland, oil and gas storage facilities, drinking water, underground refrigerators, etc. are arranged in mine workings.
Impact on the hydrosphere man began to have a significant impact on the hydrosphere and the water balance of the planet.
Anthropogenic transformations of the continents ' waters have already reached global proportions, disrupting the natural regime of even the largest lakes and rivers of the globe.
This was facilitated by the construction of hydraulic structures (reservoirs, irrigation channels and water transfer systems), an increase in the area of irrigated land, irrigation of arid areas, urbanization, pollution of fresh water by industrial and municipal effluents.
Currently, there are about 30 thousand reservoirs in the world and they are being built, the volume of water of which has exceeded 6000 km3.
But 95% of this volume is accounted for by large reservoirs.
There are 2,442 large reservoirs in the world, with the largest number of them in North America – 887 and Asia 647.
237 large reservoirs were built on the territory of the former USSR.
In general, so far the area of reservoirs in the world is only 0.3% of land, but at the same time they increase river flow by 27%.
However, large reservoirs have a negative impact on the environment: they change the groundwater regime, their water areas occupy large areas of fertile land, lead to secondary salinization of soils.
In Russia, large reservoirs (90% of the 237 in the former USSR), with a mirror area of 15 million hectares, occupy about 1% of its territory, but of this value, 60-70% are flooded lands.
Hydraulic structures lead to the degradation of river ecosystems.
In recent years, schemes have been drawn up in our country to improve the natural and technical condition and improve some large reservoirs and canals.
This will reduce the degree of their adverse impact on the environment.
Impact on the animal world animals together with plants play an exceptional role in the migration of chemical elements, which underlies the relationships existing in nature; they are also important for human existence as a source of food and various resources.
However, human economic activity has greatly influenced the animal world of the planet.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 94 species of birds and 63 species of mammals have become extinct on Earth since 1600.
Such animals as tarpan, tur, marsupial wolf, European ibis, etc. have disappeared.
The fauna of the ocean islands was particularly affected.
As a result of anthropogenic impact, the number of endangered and rare animal species (bison, vicuna, condor, etc.) has increased on the continents.
In Asia, the number of animals such as rhinoceros, tiger, cheetah, etc. has decreased dangerously.
In Russia, by the beginning of this century, certain species of animals (bison, river beaver, sable, muskrat, kulan) had become rare, so reserves were organized for their protection and reproduction.
This made it possible to restore the bison population, increase the number of Amur tigers and polar bears.
However, in recent years, the animal world has been negatively affected by the excessive use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture, pollution of the world Ocean, etc. anthropogenic factors.
So, in Sweden, the use of pesticides has led to the death of primarily predatory birds (peregrine falcon, kestrel, white tailed eagle, owl, eared owl), larks, rooks, pheasants, partridges, etc. are dying.
A similar picture is observed in many Western European countries.
Therefore, with an increasing anthropogenic load, many animal species need further protection and reproduction.
Impact on the Earth's crust – a person began to interfere in the life of the Earth's crust, being a powerful relief forming factor.
Man made landforms have appeared on the earth's surface: shafts, recesses, mounds, quarries, ditches, embankments, landfills, etc.
There have been cases of crustal deflection under large cities and reservoirs, the latter in mountainous areas led to an increase in natural seismicity.
Examples of such artificial earthquakes, which were caused by filling the basins of large reservoirs with water, are available in California, the USA, on the Hindustan Peninsula.
This type of earthquake is well studied in Tajikistan on the example of the Nuker reservoir.
Sometimes earthquakes can be caused by pumping or injecting waste water with harmful impurities deep underground, as well as intensive oil and gas production at large fields (USA, California, Mexico).
Mining has the greatest impact on the earth's surface and subsurface, especially with an open method of mining.
As already noted above, with this method, significant areas of land are seized, the environment is polluted with various toxicants (especially heavy metals).
Local deflections of the Earth's crust in coal mining areas are known in the Silesian region of Poland, in the UK, in the USA, Japan, etc.
A person geochemically changes the composition of the Earth's crust, extracting a huge amount of lead, chromium, manganese, copper, cadmium, molybdenum, etc.
Anthropogenic changes in the Earth's surface are also associated with the construction of large hydraulic structures.
By 1988, more than 360 dams (150-300 m high) were built all over the world, 37 of them in our country.
The total impact of the weight of the dams, as well as the leaching processes, lead to a significant precipitation of their bases with the formation of cracks (cracks up to 20 m long were noted at the base of the Sayano Shushenskaya HPP dam).
Most of the Perm Region annually settles by 7 mm, as the bowl of the Kama reservoir presses with great force on the Earth's crust.
The maximum values and rates of subsidence of the Earth's surface caused by the filling of reservoirs are significantly less than during oil and gas production, large pumping of underground water.
For comparison, we note that the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Osaka have dropped by 4 m in recent years due to pumping of groundwater and compaction of loose rocks (with an annual precipitation rate of up to 50 cm).
Thus, only detailed studies of the interrelationships of natural and anthropogenic relief forming processes will help to eliminate the undesirable consequences of the impact of human economic activity on the Earth's surface.
Climate impacts – in some regions of the globe in recent years, these impacts have become critical and dangerous for the biosphere and for the existence of man himself.
Annually, as a result of human economic activity around the world, the intake of pollutants into the atmosphere amounted to: sulfur dioxide 190 million tons, nitrogen oxides 65 million tons, carbon oxides 25.5 million tons, etc.
Annually, more than 700 million tons of dusty and gaseous compounds are also emitted during fuel combustion.
All this leads to an increase in the concentration of anthropogenic pollutants in the atmospheric air: carbon monoxide and dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, ozone, freons, etc.
They have a significant impact on the global climate, causing negative consequences: "greenhouse effect", depletion of the "ozone layer", acid rain, photochemical smog, etc.
The increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has led to global climate warming: the average air temperature has increased by 0.5-0.60 C (compared to the pre industrial period), and by the beginning of 2000 this increase will be 1.20 C and by 2025 it may reach 2.2-2.50 C.
Such climate change can have both negative and positive environmental consequences for the Earth's biosphere.
The first ones include: an increase in the level of the World ocean (the current rate of water rise is about 25 cm per 100 years) and its negative consequences; violations of the stability of the "permafrost" (increased thawing of soils, activation of thermokarstvo) , etc.
The positive factors include: an increase in the intensity of photosynthesis, which can have a favorable effect on the yield of many agricultural crops, and in some regions – on forest management.
In addition, such climate changes can have an impact on the river flow of large rivers, and therefore on the water management in the regions.
A paleogeographic approach (taking into account past climates) to this problem will help to predict changes not only in climates, but also in other components of the biosphere in the future.
The effects on the marine ecosystem, which is reflected in the annual arrival of the offshore waters of the vast amount of pollutants (oil and petroleum products, synthetic surfactants, sulphates, chlorides, heavy metals, radionuclides, etc.).
All of this is ultimately the degradation of marine ecosystems: eutrophication, reduction of species diversity, the replacement of entire classes of benthic fauna on the stain resistant, mutagenicity of sediments, etc.
The results of the ecological monitor of the Russian seas made it possible to rank the latter according to the degree of ecosystem degradation (in descending order of the scale of changes): the Azov – Black – Caspian – Baltic – Japanese – Barents – Okhotsk – White – Laptev – Kara – East Siberian – Bering – Chukchi Seas.
It is obvious that the most pronounced negative consequences of anthropogenic impact on marine ecosystems are manifested in the southern seas of Russia.
In order to solve the environmental problems of the seas, extensive studies are already being conducted within the framework of the special Program for integrated environmental Monitoring of the ocean in order to predict the state of the natural environment in the basins of the south seas.
Conclusion
In conclusion, from the material presented, it can be concluded that unidirectional human activity can lead to enormous destruction in the natural ecosystem, which will entail large costs for restoration in the future.
With my work, I wanted to encourage you to protect and protect the former beauty of the surrounding nature as much as possible.
