Causes of Environmental Degradation

These are the days we keep hearing about global warming, melting of the glaciers, rising of the sea levels, etc., all of which have been linked to environmental degradation. When the natural state of the environment is compromised upon it leads to breakdown of the biological diversity and harms the health of the environment. The process of environmental degradation can either be caused by nature itself or it is man-made (which is a fact). If one has to compare the face of earth as it was hundreds of years ago to what it is today, we will see that environment has severely been compromised upon. When people look at environmental degradation, the intensity of the problem is not actually understood, but it could cause destruction of the human race itself. The causes of this problem vary a lot and it means depletion of the natural resources and disturbances in the natural cycle of things on the face of earth.

Root Causes of Environmental Degradation

The best case of environmental degradation can be seen in land degradation. There are climatic conditions responsible along with the human activities, which have brought about the degradation. The effects can be seen in the arid, semi arid and dry sub humid lands. One of the cause is over grazing of land. Along with that the green cover has depleted severely in almost all parts of the world. The forest cover has made way for human settlement. This has resulted in the temperatures increasing with each passing day.

Since the forest covers have depleted, it has resulted in large-scale erosion, which in turn, is responsible for loss of nutrients from the soil. This has led the soil to becoming barren and in some cases also sterile. Since the forest cover has been lost, the winds now blow the top soil from the land, which also leads to degradation of the environment.

Pollution is eating away into the environment. Here we are talking about air pollution, where toxic substances have made their way into the air, which has caused the air to become unhealthy. Air pollution is caused by a number of reasons. One of the most prominent cause is vehicle emissions. With each passing day, the number of vehicles are on the rise, which means increase in air pollution. The next cause is release of chemical waste from various factories. The waste often forms a layer in the atmosphere of the earth, which further affects the environment.

In environmental degradation we cannot forget the exploitation of fossil fuels. Since the time fossil fuels were discovered, they have been exploited. This has resulted in the fossil fuel reserves depleting all around the world, hence it has become important to find alternate sources of energy. When the fossil fuels are burnt, they release toxins into the air, which further aggravate environmental degradation.

The underlying causes of environment going down way is overpopulation. The land reserve that is available on earth is finite. However, the demands are ever-increasing due to increasing population. There is only so much, that one can actually extract from the earth. This has led to widespread use of chemicals and other toxins to produce more food to feed the ever-increasing number of people. This has further caused depletion of the earth. With the use of chemicals the biological balance of earth has also been destroyed as the microorganisms have been killed.

If one has to see the environmental degradation causes and effects, one will see that entire ecosystems have been destroyed. The ecosystem is made up of all the living and non living elements. However, when any one of them is destroyed, it leads to the destruction of the entire ecosystem as the balance is lost. No doubt plants and animals form an important feature of the ecosystem, but the microorganisms along with water sources and soil cannot be forgotten either.

Industrial waste is known to be hazardous to the environment. The waste can be in the form of liquid waste, which pollute the rivers and cause harm to the ecosystem present in the rivers. It can also be solid waste, which is not biodegradable and pollutes the environment and leads to its degradation. We have already spoken about the industrial waste emitted into the air.

After reading about the causes of environmental decadence, we can say that if the human race has to survive on the face of this earth, it is important that stringent measures be taken up to arrest further deterioration of the environment. One will have to work towards conserving air, water and soil and try to restore balance in the ecosystem, which has been destroyed or is on the verge of destruction. In other words, one will have to work towards restoring natural habitats and make sure no further harm is done to the environment.