Characteristics Of The Ecosystem Services

Sustainability relates to the ongoing capacity of Earth to maintain all life, which means developing ways to ensure that all resources on Earth are used and managed responsibly so they can be maintained for future generations.

Ecosystems maintain themselves by recycling energy and nutrients obtained from external sources. At the first trophic level of primary producers i.e. plants and algae, use solar energy to produce organic plant material through photosynthesis.

The concept of sustainability is about the capacity of the environment to continue to support our lives and the lives of other living creatures into the future. There are a number of programs to restore the river to maintain communities, fisheries and navigation, to ensure long-term sustainability.

So what is sustainability? It is the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance.

Coming into this class I believed sustainability needed to be taught as a mandatory way of life, relying on personal change in order to lessen our environmental footprint. Although my knowledge of sustainability has grown, this new information has only reaffirmed my initial beliefs of what sustainability is. Sustainability is a necessary practice that will only become more important as the population rises. With an increasing population, we face a growing strain on our natural resources. The major point that has changed since my first position paper, was my exclusion of the government and corporate role in the struggle for sustainability and global equality. Immoral corporate control of natural resources, such as water, is a vital factor

There is no one best definition for sustainability. The simplest and most fundamental meaning would be “the ability to sustain” or otherwise “the capacity to endure”. It can also be defined as a need for our generation to manage the resources base efficiently so that the average quality of life that we ensure ourselves can potentially be shared by all future generations.

The term sustainability is one that been conceptualized since the early civilizations of humans inhabited the earth. During those primative times, everything that allowed civilizations to thrive came from the earth. Humans during those times were more more in touch with their reliance on the environment. In today's society, the reliance on our natural environment seems much further away due to our insulation from modern conveniences. Nevertheless, this conception could not be further from the truth; we are more reliant now on the world's renewable resources than ever before.

Sustainable development is defined as “Development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (IISD, par. 1 ).

A resource is anything that is created through a natural process that people use and value. Some examples of resources include air, soil, plants, animals, raw materials, space, land, wind, energy, metals, and sunlight. These resources can be useful to geographers because they are elements of the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere, which people interact with. Natural resources are different from human resources because human resources are created or invented by humans. There are 3 different types of resources, political- cultural, technological, and economic resources. Political- cultural resources are resources that guide a process of identifying substances as resources so we can live life. These resources are very valuable

Sustainable development means that the present generations should be able to make use of resources to live better lives in such a manner that it does not compromise the ability of future generations. For sustainable development to occur, there needs to be sustainable economic, ecological and community development. Society needs to be educated about ways in which they can use resources, especially natural, in such a manner that it does not cause harm to the environment and put future generations lives at risk.

Sustainability is a simple term with a fairly simple definition, a way of doing something that can be continued rather than having a finite limit. However, the much more difficult part is defining what things are actually meet the definition of sustainable. As a concept, we all understand it, but the great challenge is figuring out what it will look like in the real world and, perhaps even more difficult, putting the idea into

1) How are the three root causes of environmental problems interrelated? The three root causes of environmental problems are population growth, abuse of resources and natural systems and pollution.

Sustainability is a topic that has become very important in recent years. Sustainability is defined as, “the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely.” ("Finding and Resolving the Root Causes of the Sustainability Problem", 2014)

Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations” (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future 1987). The concept of sustainability comprises of four pillars: environmental; economic; political and social; as can be seen in the image below. Environmental sustainability is the use and management of the environment in a way that it does not deplete our finite resources. Economic sustainability is a long term sustainable economy that supports its community and political sustainability is the collaboration of different bodies of government to achieve a sustainable future. Now social sustainability is hard to define as it encapsulates many different factors; however to be very broad it is to achieve social justice. The real objective for sustainability is that all four pillars work together equally in a precautionary principle;

The actual definition of sustainable development may not be accepted by everyone but what is important is the recognition that sustainable development is about the balance of the connected Es, Economy, Environment, and Equity.