what are the indicators of environmental degradation

Indicators of climate change and environmental degradation

• Earth Overshoot Day
• Global warming -- IPCC estimates
• SDG Interactive Index and Trend Dashboards 2018
• Sustainable development in the European Union
• Ecological wealth of nations
• Simulation of Global Temperature. ...
• Global greenhouse gas emissions
• Economic growth and low-carbon transition are compatible
• Global CO2 emissions

More items...

Full Answer

What are the indicators of land degradation?

The indicators of land quality degradation assessment include physical, biological and chemical factors, as well as socio-economic changes [34] [35] [36]. ... Mapping and quantifying land degradation status is important for identifying vulnerable areas and to design sustainable landscape management.

What are the effects of environmental degradation?

Due to environmental degradation, the results include water scarcity and decline in quality foods. Reduction in air quality is responsible for more than 300,000 deaths annually and millions of chronic diseases.

What is environmental indicators?

ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS: A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO MEASURING AND REPORTING ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY PERFORMANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Allen Hammond Albert Adriaanse Eric Rodenburg Dirk Bryant Richard Woodward

What are the causes of environmental deterioration?

Here are some of the ultimate causes of environmental deterioration. This phenomenon is a result of the unintended consequences of burning fossil fuels and releasing staggering amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

What are the 5 environmental indicators?

Five important global-scale environmental indicators are biological diversity, food production, average global surface temperature and atmospheric CO concentrations, human population, and resource depletion. Define sustainability and explain how it can be measured using the ecological footprint.

How many environmental indicators are there?

The 135 environmental indicators belong to 13 different methods (Table 1). See SI2 for additional information about these footprints.

What do environmental indicators show?

Environmental indicators are simple measures that tell us what is happening in the environment. Since the environment is very complex, indicators provide a more practical and economical way to track the state of the environment than if we attempted to record every possible variable in the environment.

What are environmental pollution indicators?

They include temperature, color, odor, aggregate stability, available water capacity, bulk density, infiltration rate, slaking, crusts, structure, and macro-pores. Only, the most distinct and reliable physical pollution indicators with the actual wide practice were designated.

What are the main environmental indicators?

Indicator: Species extinction rates and threatened species.Indicator: Ecological footprint (land use and CO2 emissions)Indicator: land use change.Indicator: Wetland surface change.Indicator: land degradation: Net Primary production and rain use efficienty.Indicator: Soil pollution.More items...

Why are environmental indicators important?

Environmental indicators are essential tools for tracking environmental progress, supporting policy evaluation and informing the public. Since the early 1990s, such indicators have gained in importance in many countries and in international fora.

How is environmental degradation measured?

The variables like GDP per capita, fuel consumption, water supply and electricity played a major role in classifying the countries in terms of environmental degradation compared to the variables, sanitation and total fertility rate.

What are the indicators of environment development?

Environmental indicators are very important indicators as development should not take place at the cost of environment. It includes those that monitor aspects such as water quality, water availability, rate of deforestation, soil erosion, and existence and quality of habitats.

What are the characteristics of indicators?

Characteristics of good indicatorsValid: accurate measure of a behaviour, practice, task that is the expected output or outcome of the intervention.Reliable: consistently measurable over time, in the same way by different observers.Precise: operationally defined in clear terms.More items...•

Which of the following is indicator of pollution?

LichensCorrect Option: D Lichens are an indicator of air pollution.

What are environmental indices and indicators?

An environmental index is the combination of multiple sources of information (i.e., indicators of ecological responses) about an environmental system (e.g., a stream) from potentially varying attributes of that system (e.g., instream processes, ecological processes, species richness, riparian vegetation, etc.).

Which is an indicator of air pollution?

Summary. Lichens are well known as sensitive indicators of air pollution, particularly for sulfur dioxide.

What Is Environmental Degradation?

The environment is just the natural world that surrounds us. Our environment provides us with everything we need: air, food, water, and all the natural resources needed to build our civilization and keep it running.

Causes of Environmental Degradation

There are many causes of environmental degradation, nearly all of them rooted in human technology. While some are the result of the unintended consequences of technological advancement, others are examples of humans becoming too successful and efficient at resource extraction. Here are some of the ultimate causes of environmental deterioration.

Effects of Environmental Degradation

Environmental degradation has a host of negative outcomes that effect human beings both directly and indirectly. Here are just a few.

Preventing Environmental Degradation

While governments and industry are positioned to make the biggest difference in preventing environmental degradation, there are things everyone can do to reduce their impact. Try implementing some of these changes to minimize your damage to the environment.

Conclusion

Human activity is the ultimate driver of environmental degradation, but it doesn’t have to be. Cleaner, more sustainable technologies are being developed all the time. By minimizing your contribution to problematic activities and supporting sustainable ones whenever possible, you can do your part to preserve the environment for future generations.

What is the main component of environmental degradation?

Ethiopia's move to fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam 's reservoir could reduce Nile flows by as much as 25% and devastate Egyptian farmlands. One major component of environmental degradation is the depletion of the resource of fresh water on Earth.

What is environmental degradation?

It is defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable. Environmental degradation is one of the ten threats officially cautioned by the high-level PaneI on Threats, Challenges and Change of the United Nations. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction defines environmental ...

What will happen to groundwater reserves?

Groundwater reserves will be depleted, and the remaining water has a greater chance of being of poor quality from saline or contaminants on the land surface.

Why is biodiversity declining?

The loss of biodiversity has been attributed in particular to human overpopulation, continued human population growth and overconsumption of natural resources by the world's wealthy. A 2020 report by the World Wildlife Fund found that human activity, specifically overconsumption, population growth and intensive farming, ...

How does temperature affect snow?

Temperature rise can reduce the snow season in the winter and increase the intensity of the melting snow leading to peak runoff of this , affecting soil moisture, flood and drought risks, and storage capacities depending on the area.

What are the concerns of the transfer of water from agricultural to urban and suburban use?

The transfer of water from agricultural to urban and suburban use raises concerns about agricultural sustainability, rural socioeconomic decline, food security, an increased carbon footprint from imported food, and decreased foreign trade balance. The depletion of fresh water, as applied to more specific and populated areas, ...

How much of the Earth's surface has been altered by humans?

Since the establishment of agriculture over 11,000 years ago, humans have altered roughly 70% of the earth's land surface, with the global biomass of vegetation being reduced by half, and terrestrial animal communities seeing a decline in biodiversity greater than 20% on average.

Abstract

This study explores the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for deforestation in France, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Turkey. The autoregressive distributed lag bounds testing approach was applied on time-series data over the period 1974–2013.

1. Introduction

Deforestation consists in the transformation of a permanent form of forest land into other uses such as agriculture, grazing or urban development ( Van Kooten and Bulte, 2000 ).

2. Materials and methods

This study implements an empirical investigation of the relationship between deforestation and economic growth. Agricultural exports are included as a variable in order to evaluate the agricultural sector’s performance and its impact on deforestation. The relationship between these variables is represented by the following Eq.

3. Results

The ARDL methodology requires that all variables are –at most– integrated of order one i.e. I (1). Table 1 shows the results of the Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test (ADF), which automatically selects the lag length based on the Schwarz Information Criterion (SIC).

4. Discussion

The empirical results suggest that, in the countries where an EKC was proven, agricultural exports do not increase deforestation in the long-run.

What is environmental degradation?

Environmental degradation comes about due to erosion and decline of the quality of the natural environment. It is caused directly or indirectly by anthropogenic activities that extract various environmental resources at a faster rate than they are replaced, and thus depleting them. On this regard, degradation means damage or reduction in quality ...

How does environmental degradation affect the natural environment?

Environmental degradation can alters some of the natural process such as the water cycle and the normal processes of animal and plant activities. Also, environmental degradation aspects such as deforestation and mining destroy the natural land cover.

How does overpopulation affect the environment?

As the human population keeps on enlarging, there is a lot of pressure on the utilization of natural resources. This often causes over-exploitation of the natural resources, and contributes to environmental erosion. According to a study by the UNEP Global Environment Outlook, excessive human consumption of the naturally occurring non-renewable resources can outstrip available resources in the near future and remarkably destroys the environment during extraction and utilization. Overpopulation simply means more pollution and fast extraction of natural resources compared to how they are being replaced.

What are the causes of the scarcity of natural resources?

Scarcity of Natural Resources. Environmental degradation through aspects such as over-exploitation of natural resources, pollution, and deforestation can contributes to the scarcity of resources particularly arable land, water, genetic resources, medicinal plants, and food crops.

What is the cause of the mass extinction of species?

Loss of Biodiversity. Degradation of the environment has recorded a continued destruction of wild forests and the damage of natural ecosystems that has greatly contributed to the mass extinction of species. The number of threatened species persists to multiply worldwide whereas some have completely gone extinct.

Why is pollution important?

Seriously polluted environments have become insignificant in value because pollution makes it harsh for the sustainably of biotic and abiotic components. Pollution impacts the chemical compositions of lands, soil, ocean water, underground water and rocks, and other natural processes.

What is degradation in nature?

On this regard, degradation means damage or reduction in quality of environmental features, primarily influenced by human activities. Some natural events such as landslides and earthquakes may also degrade the nature of our environments. Continued environmental degradation can completely destroy the various aspects of the environment such as ...

What are response indicators?

Response indicators focus on how governance can facilitate sustainability, via providing support, proper management, strategies, subsidies and promoting or restricting certain technologies. There are seven of the environmental impact categories that are covered by all three indicator sets (Table 1).

What are the SDGs for eutrophication?

For eutrophication, the Pressures are clearly coming from nitrogen and phosphorus emissions. SDGs aim to regulate nitrogen and phosphorus efficiency (Driver). For chemical pollution, SDGs include indicators on chemical emission and concentration as the Pressure and State indicator respectively.

What are the LCA midpoint indicators?

All LCA midpoint indicators contribute to at least one of the three LCA damage indicators, which are classified as Impact indicators in the DPSIR framework. Driver, Pressure and Response indicators are easier to regulate, but their environmental relevance is more indirect.

What is the environmental pillar?

The environmental pillar addresses the ecosystems and their life support functions for mankind. Here assessments can be based on environmental science with a higher degree of predictability and scientific consensus. This study will focus on environmental sustainability assessment.

Is PB good for environmental sustainability?

Meanwhile, PB provides good scientific support for political decisions related to environmental sustainability. On the environmental impact pathway, Driver and Pressure indicators are closer to the cause than State indicators, while Impact indicators come the last.

Is there consensus on biodiversity and acidification?

For biodiversity and acidification, different States indicators exist, where a consensus is strongly needed. For all the impact categories mentioned above, some research has been done, but not enough to understand the full cause-effect chain, especially the connection between state and impacts.

What is land degradation?

The concept of land degradation means a temporary or permanent long-term decline in an ecosystem function and its productive capacity. Land degradation is the result of numerous factors or a combination thereof, including physical (climate change, soil degradation) as well as anthropogenic activities such as unsustainable land management practices. The present study primarily concerns the processes and status of land degradation in a part of the eastern Chotanagpur Plateau, India. The basin falls under the transitional zone, is undulating in nature and situated between the Chotanagpur Plateau area in the west and the greater Ganga plain area in the east. Largely, the basin falls under the Ganga River system. The major part of the population (>70%) of the area is dependent on agriculture which is largely affected by land degradation as well as soil erosion processes. The status of land degradation is estimated from different physical factors (geology, soil, geomorphology, slope, relief, groundwater, drainage density, rainfall intensity, green biomass cover) as well as anthropogenic factors (land use land cover change, population pressure on agricultural land, deforestation, irrigation intensity etc.). All these factors have been weighted with considerable importance to show the resultant varying intensities of land degradation. The different factor weighted raster has been multiplied in the GIS environment. The different vulnerable land degradation areas have been identified on the basis of the final weighted value. It has been shown that the upper reaches of the basin is considerably more prone to degradation due to its rugged topography, poor soil development and high drainage density. In the lower reaches of the Silabati River, the left bank is characterized by a high degreee of slope whereas the right bank shows intensive agricultural density, which couple up, to cause medium to high degree of land degradation vulnerability.

What is the problem of desertification?

Desertification is a land degradation problem of major importance in the arid regions of the world. Deterioration in soil and plant cover has adversely affected nearly 70% of the drylands. Combating desertification involves having an accurate knowledge on current land degradation status and the magnitude of the potential hazard.

What is burn depth classification?

Burn depth objective classification is of paramount importance for decision making and treatment. Despite the wide variety of burn depth assessment methods tested so far, none of them have gained wide clinical application. Here, we introduce a new approach for burn depth assessment based on hyperspectral imaging combined with a spectral index-based technique that exploits specific spectral bands to map skin areas with different burn degrees. The spectral index amplifies the contrast between normal skin and areas with different degrees of burn, taking advantage of the differences in spectral amplitudes that occur as a result of the morphological and physiological changes occurring in burned skin. We demonstrate that by using the new measurable spectral index, it is possible to generate accurate burn classification maps showing spatial distribution of burn types in the affected body areas, facilitating the decision-making process and prognosis evaluation. The results highlight the potential of the new hyperspectral metric in the field of burn depth classification and its applicability in hospital settings seems promising.

Overview

Biodiversity loss

Water degradation

See also

Sources

External links