EGE 311

People and the Earth’s Ecosystem

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 Module 2

Human Impacts in the Environment

Module Overview:

This part of module introduces the major environmental problems that

humans have created and considers ways to address these issues.

Module Outcomes:

At the end of the lessons, students should be able to:

 Describe how humanity changes the environment;

 Describe land conversion for agriculture; and
 Examine the effects of mining and deforestation to the wildlife.

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Lesson 1
Human Population Change the Environment

Learning Outcomes:
● Define population ecology.
● Explain the four factors that produce changes in population size.
● Summarize the history of human population growth.
● Define demographics and describe the demographic transition.
● Explain how highly developed and developing countries differ in population
characteristics such as infant mortality rate, total fertility rate, replacement-level
fertility, and age structure.
● Define urbanization and describe trends in the distribution of people in rural and
urban areas.
● Describe some of the problems associated with rapid growth rates in large urban
areas.
● Describe sustainable development and its complexities associated with the
concept of sustainable consumption.

Introduction

This lesson talks about the effects of exponentially growing human population
in the environment.

Abstraction

How Do Populations Change in Size?

• individuals of a given species are part of a larger organization called a

population.
• Population ecology- Branch of biology that deals with the number of
individuals of a particular species found in an area and why those numbers
increase or decrease over time.

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(left) A population of blue columbines in Yankee Boy Basin, Colorado. Populations of other flowers
are in the background; (right) A herd of impala survey their surroundings.
Photographed in Tanzania.

• growth rate (r)

• The rate of change (increase or decrease) of a population’s size,
expressed in percentage per year.
• birth rate (b) minus the death rate (d)
• r=b–d
• also referred to as natural increase in human populations

• Dispersal- movement from one region or country to another

2 types of dispersal:
• immigration (i)- individuals enter a population and increase its size
• emigration (e)- individuals leave a population and decrease its size
• growth rate (r) of a local population must take into account birth rate (b), death
rate (d), immigration (i), and emigration (e)

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 • r = (b – d) + (i – e)

Maximum Population Growth

• biotic potential- The maximum rate at which a population could increase

under ideal conditions.
• Factors that influence the biotic potential of a species:
• the age at which reproduction begins
• the fraction of the life span during which an individual can reproduce
• the number of reproductive periods per lifetime
• the number of ofspring produced during each period of reproduction.
• life history characteristics determine whether a particular species has a large
or a small biotic potential.
• Generally, larger organisms, such as blue whales and elephants, have the
smallest biotic potentials, whereas micro organisms have the greatest biotic
potentials

Factors that interact to change population size

Exponential population growth

The accelerating population growth that occurs when optimal conditions allow a
constant reproductive rate.

Environmental Resistance and Carrying Capacity

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 • organisms don’t reproduce indefinitely at their biotic potential because the
environment sets limits, which are collectively called environmental
resistance. Examples: limited food, water, shelter, and other essential
resources, as well as increased disease and predation
• The environment controls population size: As the population increases, so
does environmental resistance, which limits population growth.
• carrying capacity ( K )- The largest population a particular environment can
support sustainably (long term), if there are no changes in that environment.
• population rarely stabilizes at K (carrying capacity) but its size may
temporarily rise higher than K. It will then drop back to, or below, the carrying
capacity. Sometimes a population that overshoots K will experience a
population crash, an abrupt decline from high to low population density when
resources are exhausted.
• When a population influenced by environmental resistance is graphed over a
long period, the curve has an S shape (see next figure)
• The curve shows the population’s initial exponential increase (note the curve’s
J shape at the start, when environmental resistance is low). Then the
population size levels out as it approaches the carrying capacity of the
environment

Human Population Patterns

Thomas Malthus (1766–1834)

• a British economist
• One of the first people to recognize that the human population can’t increase
indefinitely was
• pointed out that human population growth is not always
• Noted that human population can increase faster than its food supply, he
warned that the inevitable consequences of population growth would be
famine, disease, and war.

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Projecting Future Population Numbers
• zero population growth- The state in which the population remains the same
size because the birth rate equals the death rate.
• estimates vary depending on fertility changes
• Small differences in fertility, then, produce large differences in population
forecasts

Demographics of Countries
• Demographics- The applied branch of sociology that deals with population
statistics.
• infant mortality rate- The number of deaths of infants under age 1 per 1000
live births.
• Per person GNI PPP- a country’s gross national income (GNI) in purchasing
power parity (PPP) divided by its population. It indicates the amount of goods
and services an average citizen of that particular country could buy in the
United States

Highly developed moderately developed Less developed

countries countries countries

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 have the lowest birth -have birth rates and have the shortest life
rates in the world, low infant mortality rates expectancies, the lowest
infant mortality rates higher than those of highly average per person GNI
and have longer life developed countries, but PPPs, the highest birth
expectancies they are declining rates, and the highest
-medium level of infant mortality rates
industrialization, and their
average per person GNI
PPPs are lower vs highly
developed countries

• replacement-level fertility- The number of children a couple must produce to

“replace” themselves.
• total fertility rate (TFR)- The average number of children born to each
woman.

The Demographic Transition- process whereby a country moves from relatively

high birth and death rates to relatively low birth and deathrates.

Age Structure of Countries

• Age Structure- The number and proportion of people at each age in a
population
• age structure diagram- presents the number of males and the number of
females at each age, from birth to death
• The age structure diagram of a country with a high growth rate, based on a
high fertility rate (Ethiopia or Guatemala)—is shaped like a pyramid

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 Declining fertility rates have profound social and economic implications
because as fertility rates drop, the percentage of the population that is elderly
increases.

Population and Urbanization

• Urbanization- A process whereby people move from rural areas to densely
populated cities.

The city as a dynamic ecosystem

Environmental Problems of Urban Areas

• Suburban sprawl that encroaches into former forest, wetland, desert, or

agricultural land destroys or fragments wildlife habitat.
• brownfields—areas of abandoned, vacant factories, warehouses, and
residential sites that may be contaminated from past uses

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 • Air pollution: airborne emissions, including particulate matter (dust), sulfur
oxides, carbon oxides, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (from
automobiles)
• water flow is affected because they cover the rainfall absorbing soil with
buildings and paved roads
• Contaminated runoff

Environmental Benefits of Urbanization

• well-planned city actually benefits the environment by reducing pollution and
preserving rural areas.
• Compact development- Design of cities in which tall, multiple-unit residential
buildings are close to shopping and jobs, and all are connected by public
transportation.
• Urbanization is a worldwide phenomenon.
• more than 50% of the world population lives in urban areas with populations
of 2000 or greater

Challenges faced by developing countries

• substandard housing (slums and squatter settlements); poverty; exceptionally
high unemployment; heavy pollution; and inadequate or non-existent water,
sewage, and waste disposal (left figure).
Rapid urban growth also strains school, medical, and transportation systems.

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