Implications for human wellbeing Flashcards
In what three ways are forests valuable?
Sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Storing carbon
Transferring moisture from the soil back into the atmosphere by evapotranspiration.
What does the Kuznets curve show?
As they reach higher levels of development and wealth, societies approach a tipping point when the costs of resource exploitation become fully realised and are set against the benefits of resources conservation and protection.
After centuries of deforestation, what was the decrease in the forest cover of the UK by the end of the nineteenth century?
From 80% to 10% by the end of 19th century
What was set up in 1919 to remedy the country’s shortage of timber?
The Forestry Commission
What did The Forestry Commission start to plant and where?
Fast-growing exotic confers, such as Sitka and spruce, on the moors of Wales, the Scottish Highlands and the English Lake District and Pennines.
How much of the UK’s land surface is now forested?
13%
Today there is much less emphasis on what and much more emphasis on what regarding forests?
Today, there is much less emphasis on the commercial production of timber and more on the environmental benefits of restoring a forest cover close to the original.
Who’s support is particularly important regarding reforestation?
Government and NGO’s
The rising temperatures resulting from greenhouse gas emissions are increasing both evaporation rates and the amount of water vapour. This , in turn, is impacting on what four things?
Precipitation patters
River regimes
Drainage basin stores
The cryosphere.
In the Arctic, how faster have temperatures risen compared to global average?
Twice as fast
Which passage in the Arctic is now open to summer navigation?
North-west Passage
What is the consequence of a lengthening growing season in the Arctic?
Carbon uptake by terrestrial plants is increasing.
What is the effect of climate change in the Arctic regarding human wellbeing?
Pluses:
The warming climate is opening up previously ice-bound wilderness areas to tourism.
The exploitation of mineral resources, particularly Arctic oil and gas, is becoming more feasible.
Minuses:
Climate warming is disrupting and perhaps annihilating traditional ways of life, for example of the fishing and hunting Inuits of North America and the Sami reindeer herders of northern Eurasia.
What are the impacts of declining ocean health?
The FAO estimates that fishing supports 500 million people, 90% of whom live in developing countries.
Millions of fishing families depend on seafood for income as well as food.
Seafood is also the dietary preference of some wealthier countries, notably Iceland and Japan.
Aquaculture is on the rise, but its productivity is also being affected by declining pH values and rising temperatures.
