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Environmental policy is the commitment of an organization or government to the laws, regulations, and other policy mechanisms concerning environmental issues.These issues generally include air and water pollution, waste management, ecosystem management, maintenance of biodiversity, the management of natural resources, wildlife and endangered species. [1]
Biologists define biodiversity as the "totality of genes, species and ecosystems of a region". [42] [43] To measure biodiversity loss rates for a particular location, scientists record the species richness and its variation over time in that area. In ecology, local abundance is the relative representation of a species in a particular ecosystem ...
Water pollution also reduces the ecosystem services such as drinking water provided by the water resource. Sources of water pollution are either point sources or non-point sources. [155] Point sources have one identifiable cause, such as a storm drain, a wastewater treatment plant, or an oil spill. Non-point sources are more diffuse.
The framework is designed to address the need to mitigate and adapt to the challenges posed by pollution, climate crisis, and biodiversity loss. The framework is similar to other multidimensional analyses of human impacts on the environment including global catastrophic risk and planetary boundaries .
With regard to the agriculture sector for example, The State of the World's Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2019, [18] states that "countries report that many species that contribute to vital ecosystem services, including pollinators, the natural enemies of pests ...
Environmental mitigation refers to the process by which measures to avoid, minimise, or compensate for adverse impacts on the environment are applied. [1] In the context of planning processes like Environmental Impact Assessments, this process is often guided by applying conceptual frameworks like the "mitigation hierarchy" or "mitigation sequence". [2]
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. [1] Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the components of pollution, can be either foreign substances/energies or naturally occurring contaminants.
The diversity of species and genes in ecological communities affects the functioning of these communities. These ecological effects of biodiversity in turn are affected by both climate change through enhanced greenhouse gases, aerosols and loss of land cover [citation needed], and biological diversity, causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and extinctions of species and local populations.