Effects Of Urban Areas On The Environment Essay

From 1890 to 1920, cities in the United States experienced a rapid growth that was unprecedented in years previous. This growth was caused by a number of factors and resulted in both positive and negative consequences. Such factors included, industrialization, technological advances, migration and immigration. Although American cities greatly improved by the expeditious urbanization, these factors also developed numerous challenges including pollution, sanitation problems, a need for environmental reform, political corruption, overcrowding, high crime rates and segregation.

The destruction of various ecosystems through modalities such as bulldozers, cranes, and irrigation systems have shaped the current state of the world. As countries continue to industrialize many parts of the world are becoming increasingly urban. The desire to turn undeveloped areas into bustling cities has been exorbitantly transformative in the state of the world's ecosystems. Increasing populations resulted in a greater amount of socio-economic, agricultural and industrial activities (Schultz). Therefore, a high stress was placed on local ecosystems to meet those demands. Cities now lack

More than six billion individuals live on planet Earth. As the populace develops, we are taking increasingly land to live and utilizing a greater amount of the world's characteristic assets. Numerous human exercises likewise create POLLUTION, which is harming the Earth's surroundings.

The biosphere consists of a compound infusion of gases; the main components are oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. The concentration of these gases have been changing for many years. For the most part, this is influenced by human activity. In a persistent effort to improve the quality and longevity of life, humans (particularly in industrialized societies) have tendencies to negatively impact the environment, and at the same time, we strive to replenish what we have nearly depleted to balance the scale.

Urban sustainability is the idea that an urban area can be organised without excessive reliance on the surrounding countryside and be able to power itself with renewable sources of energy. The aim of this is to create the smallest possible environmental footprint and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible, to efficiently use land, compost used materials, recycle it or convert waste-to-energy, and to make the urban area overall contribution to climate change minimal. Therefore allowing the next generations and future generations to have the required resources without compromising them. However sustainably needs to focus also on other issues such as crime and economic factors.

Urbanization and Industrialization brought millions of people to growing cities, these growing cities were ill equipped to deal with growing population rate. While some might argue that Industrialization had primarily positive consequences for society because of a surplus of job opportunities, faster production, and more amenities, it was actually a negative thing for society. Industrialization’s negative effects were angersome working conditions, poor quality of life, and child labor.

The exponential growth of human population, caused an unprecedented problem for the global ecosystem. (Carolina EcoKits, 2012) The increase in pollution brought upon great fear and concern about what types of contaminants were in the foods and water supply for citizens. In 1977, the Clean Water Act was passed, the act ensured that any release of pollutants at toxic levels into any water source was forbidden. (Carolina EcoKits, 2012) It allowed for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set guidelines and standards for how pollutants were emptied in navigable waters. (Carolina EcoKits, 2012)

We live in an age where most environments on earth have been impacted by anthropogenic activities. For thousands of years, humans have been a natural component of ecosystems across the globe (Chapin et al, 2011). Human-environmental interaction contributes to processes that affect fluvial environments. For example, impervious surfaces are ubiquitous in urban areas; these anthropogenic surfaces reroute runoff (among other things), which can ultimately impact the morphology, water quality, vegetation, and floodplain soils of a local watershed, if it is near an urban area. Regardless of the anthropogenic presence throughout environments across the globe, ecological benchmarks can be set—physical, chemical, and biological—regarding what constitutes a healthy, natural environment. These parameters are important factors in ecological remediation activities and synonymous with the term “reference condition.” Based on a spectrum of watershed conditions—ranging from reference to

(claim of fact) Among the many challenges we face in society, environmental degradation and the exhaustion of resources is one of the challenges that will have the most impact on not only our future generations, but the future of the earth. The human population across the globe is degrading both the terrestrial and marine biomes through means such as deforestation, the emission of greenhouse gases, improper disposal of waste, and other forms of pollution. As the global population continues to rise, the way we use our energy and our resources continues to gain importance. “These changes are down to human activity, not natural variability,” says Professor Will Steffen of the Australian National University to The Guardian.

In a recent article that I read, the issue of Urban sprawl was brought to bare. The article argued that urban sprawl is the reason for many ecological issues, and I tend to agree. This issue is very controversial as it makes economic improvement and accordingly framework advancement conceivably a negative thing, and therefore numerous organizations are attempting to claim that Urban sprawl is not an issue. Along these lines, I have investigated this topic further to investigate whether urban sprawl is undoubtedly as terrible as the original article states.

Some of the most notable effects of urban sprawl are loss of open space and natural habitats such as farmland, more air pollution, an increase in traffic due to longer commutes to work, and a depletion of water quality (Pope, 1999). Farmland is important to residents because it provides open space, absorbs rainwater, which improves water balance, and offers protection against flooding. Also, farmland vegetation helps air pollution by converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. Aside from these benefits, nutrient farmland is vital for crop production (Frenkel, 2003). Cities such as Scranton, McKeesport, Wilkes-Barre and New Castle have lost more than a third of their residents due to urban sprawl. Pennsylvania alone has lost more than four million acres of farmland since the 1950s. The area of farmland that has been lost in Pennsylvania is equivalent to the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. One may argue that Pennsylvania had to expand our cities in order to accommodate an influx of population. However, unlike rapidly growing states such as California and Florida, Pennsylvania has only seen a 20 percent population increase in the past fifty years (Hylton, 1998,

Cities are characterized by the patterns of streets and squares that define their arrangement, a concept that undergoes frequent changes since the establishment of cities 10,000 years ago. There are multitude factors that influence such changes with system of government, values, population size, values, artistic sensibility, building methods, design techniques, paving techniques, military considerations, and transport technology being the main determinants. Medieval architectural designs emphasized on rigid grid forms, that contemporary writers of the history of urban planning and design, assume the presence of grids even in plans where they exist in approximate forms. Absence of grids is often perceived as lack of planning. Nevertheless, it is critical to note that the complex patters of streets in medieval cities were neither random nor chaotic.

Urbanized areas also modify microclimates and air quality by altering the nature of the land surface and generating heat (Oke, 1987). Although ecological impacts of urban development often seem to be local, urbanization also causes environmental changes at larger scales. Today's cities are sustained by a socioeconomic infrastructure that operates on global scales; the ecologically productive area required to support an urban area can be 100 to 300 times larger than the urban region (Rees & Wackernagel, 1994). A new cooperative relationship between science, business and policy is needed to gather all the information needed and to find a solution that benefits all of society. The study of urban ecology ultimately involves studying how to integrate this new interdisciplinary knowledge about urban ecosystems into policymaking processes--to improve interactions between policymakers and scientists so as to help society achieve more sustainable existence. Today, the scientific and political communities lack the effective two-way communication and trust that they need to address urban ecological problems. Although science can help society formulate a range of options to achieve societal goals, it cannot make value judgments. In addition, scientists often cannot deliver definitive answers to questions posed by policymakers. To be able to find solutions to the larger issues

The number of people living in urban areas is dramatically increasing across the world. Currently, 75 % of people live in cities in the developed world, (Bernhardt E.S. and Palmer M.A, 2007) despite such high percentage many do not get access to the green and blue spaces available, in other words cannot interact with nature. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency green spaces are ‘land that is partly or completely covered with grass, trees, shrubs or other vegetation’ (Environmental Protection Agency, 2014) This includes community gardens, parks as well as cemeteries. (Environmental Protection Agency, 2014) On the other hand, blue spaces include rivers, canals and lakes. (Sally, M, 2010) As urbanisation increases, it will pose a greater threat to nature such as pollution, habitat destruction, erosion and colonisation of native species. There are various ways to engage with nature. However, one reason for green and blue spaces not being utilised effectively by people may be due to people being unaware of the values that these have and the crucial functions they undertake in the ecosystem such as recycling nutrients and controlling the hydrological cycle.

A photograph of Earth reveals a great deal, but it does not convey the complexity of our environment. Our environment (a term that comes from the French environner, “to surround”) is more than water, land, and air; it is the sum total of our surroundings. It includes all of the biotic factors, or living things, with which we interact. It also includes the abiotic factors, or nonliving things, with which we interact. Our environment includes the continents, oceans, clouds, and ice caps you can see in the photo of Earth from space, as well as the animals, plants, forests, and farms that comprise the landscapes around us. In a more inclusive sense, it also encompasses our built