Sustainable Biomes Flashcards
What are biomes?
Definition: A biome is a region that shares similar and distinctive climates, soils and vegetation
Examples
Tundra lands biome: characterised by very cold climates, extreme winds and very limited plant and animal diversity
Tropical rainforest biome: characterised by warm and wet climate, highly weathered soils and thick, lush vegetation.
Why study it?
Geographers are interested in the diverse physical features of biomes, their spatial distribution and the way that humans use and alter biomes for food, fibre and material production.
How are biomes used and altered?
All around the world the natural biomes of forests, grasslands, tundra and even deserts are being converted into farms.
Over half of the world’ land area that is considered habitable has now been converted into farmland or housing to provide food, fibre, shelter and fuel to the world’s people – and this area is expanding.
Changes in farmland
5 million hectares of forest is converted for agricultural use
Millions of people who live below the poverty line and struggle to meet their daily food requirements are becoming small-scale slash-and-burn farmers.
Changes to grassland
Clearing the native grasses to grow crops have devastating effects on the natural environment.
As all the crops are eaten by people, none of the nutrients from the plant material is returned to the soil, as a result of this the soil fertility falls and chemical fertilisers are added to the soil, again changing its composition.
Changes to water
About 70% of the available water supply is used for agriculture
Farming process changes the quality of water significantly once the water is returned to the environment and it id then suitable for other uses
Diets impact on food production
Food production industries are changing to meet the growing demand for a diet with more protein from meat and dairy products instead of a diet entirely made up of grains and plants.
Statistics on food production
- Currently 33%, 50% by 2050, or cereals grown feed animals for human consumption (UN report, 2011)
- Meat consumption is expected to increase from 39 kg/person/year by 2009 to over 49kg/person/year by 2050.
- The production of animal protein must be more than tripled is the projected global population of 9 billion in 2050 were to consume meat and dairy at current North American and European levels.
- Today, the number of urban residents is growing by nearly 60 million every year.
- With rising incomes in the developing world, demand for animals products will continue to surge; 74% for meat, 58% for dairy and 500% for eggs (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the Un 2012)
