The factors that undermine environmental quality usually have a cause that is the man and his various activities on earth.
The environmental quality , is the balance that different elements maintain in the biosphere to make possible the development of living beings.
The constant growth of the human population generates an accelerated growth in the demand for resources to subsist, which translates into an ever deeper exploitation of the different natural elements present on the planet.
When the appearance of certain factors becomes too constant, equilibrium tends to ecosystems .
Factors that seriously undermine environmental quality
1 - Deforestation
Deforestation consists of the disappearance of forests either by burning or logging. It is a factor that seriously affects environmental quality and in most cases (95%), is a consequence of human activity.
The causes of deforestation are diverse, but often involve logging for the timber industry and the destruction of forests to create urban and ranching settlements.
Among the consequences of deforestation is the disappearance of the habitat for many animals, floods and landslides, biodiversity and climate impact.
You may be interested Degradation of vegetation: Causes and Consequences .
2- Pollution
It is perhaps the most determining factor in the loss of environmental quality, since it affects the environment in all possible strata.
The contamination can be of multiple types, atmospheric, aquatic, sonorous, visual or radioactive; air pollution and water are the most important consequences.
The atmospheric pollution refers to the emission of gases and dust to the atmosphere, which accelerate the greenhouse effect and the destruction of the ozone layer.
The water pollution for its part, can cause irreparable damage to the marine ecosystems, an example are the oil spills.
You may be interested Top 5 Pollution Factors .
3. Overexploitation of natural resources
Abuse in the exploitation of natural resources causes damage to the ecosystem. For example, mining and oil extraction reduce the biodiversity of the environment by destroying sites where mines and deposits of minerals and hydrocarbons are located.
It is a factor that attents not only against environmental quality but against man himself, since the extraction of non-renewable resources in an uncontrolled way accelerates the disappearance of it.
You may be interested 10 Actions for Biodiversity Care .
4- Indiscriminate hunting and fishing
It is a variant of the overexploitation of natural resources, but whose consequences are more serious.
The disappearance of species by hunting and overfishing causes misalignments in food chains and natural cycles.
If for example a predator disappears from a food chain, the prey would stop counting on natural enemies and multiply their number to become a plague and exhaust their habitat and food.
You may be interested 50 Animals in Danger of Extinction Around the World .
5- Greenhouse effect and global warming
The 4 factors above, trigger in the greenhouse effect and the global warming . The greenhouse effect is a consequence of the excess release of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which cause the planet to undergo a process of thermal radiation that increases the world temperature.
This rise in temperature, known as global warming, can lead to dramatic climate changes such as floods, unprecedented droughts and natural disasters in general.
References
- Roy M. Harrison (2001) Pollution: Causes, Effects and Control. United Kingdom: Royal Society of Chemistry.
- NASA"Climate Change"in: NASA (2017) Recovered in 2017 from climate.nasa.gov.
- European Commission"Causes of climate change"in: European Commission (2017) Recovered in 2017 from ec.europa.eu.
- Rinkesh Kukreja"What is Pollution?"In: Conserve Energy Future (2015) Recovered in 2017 from conserve-energy-future.com.
- Biodiversity Europe"Overexploitation"in: Biodiversity Europe (2010) Recovered in 2017 from biodiversity.europa.eu.
- Healthy People"Environmental Quality"in: Healthy People (2012) Recovered in 2017 from healthypeople.gov.