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The nitrogen cycle is of particular interest to ecologists because nitrogen availability can affect the rate of key ecosystem processes, including primary production and decomposition. Human activities such as fossil fuel combustion, use of artificial nitrogen fertilizers, and release of nitrogen in wastewater have dramatically altered the ...
The effects of climate change on the water cycle have important negative effects on the availability of freshwater resources, as well as other water reservoirs such as oceans, ice sheets, the atmosphere and soil moisture. The water cycle is essential to life on Earth and plays a large role in the global climate system and ocean circulation.
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The rate of decomposition is governed by three sets of factors: the physical environment (temperature, moisture and soil properties), the quantity and quality of the dead material available to decomposers, and the nature of the microbial community itself. [64] Decomposition rates are low under very wet or very dry conditions.
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Groundwater recharge also encompasses water moving away from the water table farther into the saturated zone. [1] Recharge occurs both naturally (through the water cycle) and through anthropogenic processes (i.e., "artificial groundwater recharge"), where rainwater and/or reclaimed water is routed to the subsurface.
Diagram showing relative sizes (in gigatonnes) of the main storage pools of carbon on Earth. Cumulative changes (thru year 2014) from land use and emissions of fossil carbon are included for comparison. [147] The geologic component of the carbon cycle operates slowly in comparison to the other parts of the global carbon cycle.
There are three basic types of freshwater ecosystems: Lentic (slow moving water, including pools, ponds, and lakes), lotic (faster moving water, for example streams and rivers) and wetlands (areas where the soil is saturated or inundated for at least part of the time). Limnology (and its branch freshwater biology) is a study about freshwater ...