Portal:Environment

WikiProject Environment

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Welcome to the Environment Portal
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Introduction

Land management has preserved the natural characteristics of Hopetoun Falls, Australia while allowing ample access for visitors.

The natural environment or natural world encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:

Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, the atmosphere, and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions.

In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams, and the works of mound-building termites, are thought of as natural. (Full article...)

Land management has preserved the natural characteristics of Hopetoun Falls, Australia while allowing ample access for visitors.

The natural environment or natural world encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the natural environment can be distinguished as components:

Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, the atmosphere, and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature.
Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water, and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge, and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions.

In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment. Built environments are where humans have fundamentally transformed landscapes such as urban settings and agricultural land conversion, the natural environment is greatly changed into a simplified human environment. Even acts which seem less extreme, such as building a mud hut or a photovoltaic system in the desert, the modified environment becomes an artificial one. Though many animals build things to provide a better environment for themselves, they are not human, hence beaver dams, and the works of mound-building termites, are thought of as natural.

People cannot find absolutely natural environments on Earth, and naturalness usually varies in a continuum, from 100% natural in one extreme to 0% natural in the other. The massive environmental changes of humanity in the Anthropocene have fundamentally effected all natural environments: including from climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution from plastic and other chemicals in the air and water. More precisely, we can consider the different aspects or components of an environment, and see that their degree of naturalness is not uniform. If, for instance, in an agricultural field, the mineralogic composition and the structure of its soil are similar to those of an undisturbed forest soil, but the structure is quite different. (Full article...)

Selected article -

Green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe. It incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, sustainable packaging, as well as modifying advertising. Yet defining green marketing is not a simple task where several meanings intersect and contradict each other; an example of this will be the existence of varying social, environmental and retail definitions attached to this term. Other similar terms used are environmental marketing and ecological marketing.

Green, environmental and eco-marketing are part of the new marketing approaches which do not just refocus, adjust or enhance existing marketing thinking and practice, but seek to challenge those approaches and provide a substantially different perspective. In more detail green, environmental and eco-marketing belong to the group of approaches which seek to address the lack of fit between marketing as it is currently practiced and the ecological and social realities of the wider marketing environment. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that the destructible environment effects in The Incredible Hulk were so extensive that two additional artists were added during the game's development?
... that in 2023, footballer Funso Ojo was named as Port Vale's PFA community player of the year for his efforts at becoming more environmentally friendly?
... that the environmentalism of the poor is a global movement arising from local environmental conflicts?
... that Flathead Lake Biological Station can detect invasive aquatic species in real-time using eDNA technology?
... that ice XVII (structure shown) potentially has a use in green technology as a medium for storing hydrogen?
... that Squatina mapama was named after Spain's Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment?
... that Mycobacterium bacterial species constantly remodel their cell wall layers to survive in stressful environments and avoid their host's immune defenses?
... that Enriqueta Medellín, a Mexican surgeon, has an ecological center and environmental prize named after her in the state of Aguascalientes?

Selected image -

Irrigation in the Sahara Desert.

Irrigation is the artificial application of water to the soil usually for assisting in growing crops. In crop production it is mainly used to replace missing rainfall in periods of drought, but also to protect plants against frost. Additionally irrigation helps to suppress weed growing in rice fields. In contrast, agriculture that relies only on direct rainfall is sometimes referred to as dryland farming or as rain fed farming. Environmental problems such depletion of underground aquifers, ground subsidence, buildup of toxic salts on soil surface in areas of high evaporation, overirrigation and the possibility of water pollution.

Current events

News

Selected biography -

Official portrait, 1994

Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1985 to 1993 and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 to 1985. Gore was the Democratic nominee for president of the United States in the 2000 presidential election, which he lost to George W. Bush.

The son of politician Albert Gore Sr., Gore was an elected official for 24 years. He was a U.S. representative from Tennessee (1977–1985) and from 1985 to 1993 served as a U.S. senator from that state. He served as vice president during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001, defeating incumbents George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle in 1992, and Bob Dole and Jack Kemp in 1996. As of 2023, Gore's 1990 re-election remains the last time Democrats won a Senate election in Tennessee. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

Selected organization -

Naturvårdsverket's coat of arms.

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish: Naturvårdsverket), formerly the National Swedish Environment Protection Board (Swedish: Statens naturvårdsverk) is a government agency in Sweden responsible for proposing and implementing environmental policies. It was founded in 1967 and reports to the Swedish Ministry of the Environment. (Full article...)

List of selected organizations

General images -

The following are images from various environment-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Flora of Baja California desert, Cataviña region, Mexico (from Ecosystem)
Image 2Acropora with brown band disease, Lizard Island (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 3Catchments along the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 4A major coral bleaching event took place on this part of the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 5Twenty-five years after the devastating eruption at Mount St. Helens, United States, pioneer species have moved in. (from Habitat)
Image 6A map of the bioregions of Canada and the US. (from Ecoregion)
Image 7Spiny forest at Ifaty, Madagascar, featuring various Adansonia (baobab) species, Alluaudia procera (Madagascar ocotillo) and other vegetation (from Ecosystem)
Image 8Few creatures make the ice shelves of Antarctica their habitat, but water beneath the ice can provide habitat for multiple species. Animals such as penguins have adapted to live in very cold conditions. (from Habitat)
Image 9A map of the Amazon rainforest ecoregions. The yellow line encloses the ecoregions per the World Wide Fund for Nature. (from Ecoregion)
Image 10Planned water recovery and storage implementation using CERP strategies (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 11Structure 65B on the Kissimmee River is destroyed by the Corps of Engineers in 2000 to restore the natural flow of the river. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 12The Amazon River in Brazil. (from Ecoregion)
Image 13WWF terrestrial ecoregions (from Ecoregion)
Image 14The Paris Agreement (formerly the Kyoto Protocol) is adopted in 2016. Nearly every country in the United Nations has signed the treaty, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (from Environmental science)
Image 15An Antarctic rock split apart to show endolithic lifeforms showing as a green layer a few millimeters thick (from Habitat)
Image 16A portion of the C-38 canal, finished in 1971, now backfilled to restore the Kissimmee River floodplain to a more natural state (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 17Global oceanic and terrestrial phototroph abundance, from September 1997 to August 2000. As an estimate of autotroph biomass, it is only a rough indicator of primary production potential and not an actual estimate of it. (from Ecosystem)
Image 18The High Peaks Wilderness Area in the 6,000,000-acre (2,400,000 ha) Adirondack Park is an example of a diverse ecosystem. (from Ecosystem)
Image 19Tropical Cyclone Larry over the Great Barrier Reef, 19 March 2006 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 20The leaves of an Alnus nepalensis tree provide a microhabitat for species like the leaf beetle Aulacophora indica. (from Habitat)
Image 21Rachel Carson published her groundbreaking novel, Silent Spring, in 1962, bringing the study of environmental science to the forefront of society. (from Environmental science)
Image 22A false color composite of the greater Boston area, created using remote sensing technology, reveals otherwise not visible characteristics about the land cover and the health of the surrounding ecosystems. (from Environmental science)
Image 23The Earth's atmosphere (from Environmental science)
Image 24A protest against the Adani Carmichael mine, 2016 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 25This coral reef in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area provides habitat for numerous marine species. (from Habitat)
Image 26Rich rainforest habitat in Dominica (from Habitat)
Image 27Natural water drainage patterns prior to development in South Florida, circa 1900 (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 28Dense mass of white crabs at a hydrothermal vent, with stalked barnacles on right (from Habitat)
Image 29Cattails indicate the presence of phosphorus in the water. Cattails are an invasive species; they crowd out sawgrass and grow too thick to allow nesting for birds and alligators. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 30A team of British researchers found a hole in the ozone layer forming over Antarctica, the discovery of which would later influence the Montreal Protocol in 1987. (from Environmental science)
Image 31The Shen Neng 1 aground on the Great Barrier Reef, 5 April 2010 (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 32Rainforest ecosystems are rich in biodiversity. This is the Gambia River in Senegal's Niokolo-Koba National Park. (from Ecosystem)
Image 33Desert scene in Egypt (from Habitat)
Image 34Storage Silos on the Gladstone waterfront, an industrial area in the water catchment area (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 35Climbing ferns overtake cypress trees in the Everglades. The ferns act as "fire ladders" that can destroy trees that would otherwise survive fires. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 36The Ötztal Alps, a mountain range in the central Alps of Europe, are part of the Central Eastern Alps, and can both be termed as ecoregions. (from Ecoregion)
Image 37Sea temperature and bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 38Aerial view of stormwater treatment areas in the northern Everglades bordered by sugarcane fields on the right (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 39Crown-of-thorns starfish and eaten coral off the coast of Cooktown, Queensland (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 40Proportion of forest area by forest area density class and global ecological zone, 2015, from Food and Agriculture Organization publication The State of the World's Forests 2020. Forests, biodiversity and people – In brief (from Ecoregion)
Image 41Biological nitrogen cycling (from Ecosystem)
Image 42Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (Olson et al. 2001, BioScience) (from Ecoregion)
Image 43Loch Lomond in Scotland forms a relatively isolated ecosystem. The fish community of this lake has remained stable over a long period until a number of introductions in the 1970s restructured its food web. (from Ecosystem)
Image 44A conifer forest in the Swiss Alps (National Park). (from Ecoregion)
Image 45
A freshwater lake in Gran Canaria, an island of the Canary Islands. Clear boundaries make lakes convenient to study using an ecosystem approach.
(from Ecosystem)
Image 46Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right) (from Environmental science)
Image 47Wetland habitat types in Borneo (from Habitat)
Image 48Sequence of a decomposing pig carcass over time (from Ecosystem)
Image 49Current water drainage patterns in South Florida in 2005 (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 50Roseate spoonbills, along with other wading birds, have decreased by 90% since the 1930s and 1940s. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 51Ibex in an alpine habitat (from Habitat)
Image 52View of Earth, taken in 1972 by the Apollo 17 crew. Approximately 71% of Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) consists of ocean (from Ecoregion)
Image 53Trichodesmium bloom off the Great Barrier Reef (from Environmental threats to the Great Barrier Reef)
Image 54Environmental science examines the effects of humans on nature, such as the Glen Canyon Dam in the United States (from Environmental science)
Image 55Compartments established by C&SF projects that separated the historic Everglades into Water Conservation Areas and the Everglades Agricultural Area. One-fourth of the original Everglades is preserved in Everglades National Park. (from Restoration of the Everglades)
Image 56Biodiversity of a coral reef. Corals adapt and modify their environment by forming calcium carbonate skeletons. This provides growing conditions for future generations and forms a habitat for many other species. (from Environmental science)

Selected quote -

More did you know -

Chemical structure of carbon dioxide

...that many countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol actually increased the greenhouse gas emissions, contrary to the treaty? And for that, the 15 January 2011, a representative of the country had to stick their head in a hole of sand in Cancun, Mexico?

... that the recycling symbol is based on the Möbius strip?

... that since 1500 CE 784 extinctions have been documented by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources?

... that climate change scenarios, Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) were superseded by Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)?

... that Summer Rayne Oakes has been called "the world's first eco-model" because she only models clothes made from organic or recycled materials?

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