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The Aral Sea is an example of a collapsed ecosystem. [1] (image source: NASA) An ecosystem, short for ecological system, is defined as a collection of interacting organisms within a biophysical environment. [2]: 458 Ecosystems are never static, and are continually subject to both stabilizing and destabilizing processes. [3]
Spring Valley, which was used as a chemical weapons testing ground during World War I. Sydney Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens sites in the city of Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, known as the largest toxic waste site in North America. United States Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites in the United States
The term was first used in the technical sense by Russian geologist Alexey Pavlov, and it was first used in English by British ecologist Arthur Tansley in reference to human influences on climax plant communities. [20] The atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen introduced the term "Anthropocene" in the mid-1970s. [21]
Such alteration, accompanied by changes in the abundance of different species over time, is called ecological succession. Succession often leads to conditions that will once again predispose an ecosystem to disturbance. Pine forests in western North America provide a good example of such a cycle involving insect outbreaks.
An ecological or environmental crisis occurs when changes to the environment of a species or population destabilizes its continued survival. Some of the important causes include: Degradation of an abiotic ecological factor (for example, increase of temperature, less significant rainfalls) Increased pressures from predation
An environmental disaster or ecological disaster is defined as a catastrophic event regarding the natural environment that is due to human activity. [2] This point distinguishes environmental disasters from other disturbances such as natural disasters and intentional acts of war such as nuclear bombings .
[27]: 2321 For example, the decline of sea ice in the Arctic has been accelerating during the early twenty‐first century, with a decline rate of 4.7% per decade (it has declined over 50% since the first satellite records). [28] [29] [30] One well known example of a species affected is the polar bear, whose habitat in the Arctic is threatened ...
The fund is used in various areas, including the management of public forests and protected areas, control, monitoring and environmental enforcement, sustainable forest management, economic activities developed from the sustainable use of the forest, ecological and economic zoning, land planning and regularization, conservation and sustainable ...