Term 2 Flashcards
Land cover and land use
What is the difference between land cover and land use?
Land cover is the physical land type of an area (such as a forest). Land use is how people use the land
Land cover and land use
What where the first major changes is land cover?
Farming was the first change in land cover, causing deforestation and transforming vast natural areas. Industrialisation escelated land changes as well as the increase in concertation of humans in urban areas.
Land cover and land use
How has land cover changed recently? How does australia relate to this change.
Land cover has greatly changed to expand farmland and sustain an ever-growing popilation. Most natural land cover has changed and australia greatly reflects this decline in natural land
Land cover and land use
What are changes in land cover being initiated by naturally?
Changes in land cover can be initiated by natural processess including climate changes
Land cover and land use
When was the last major climate shift?
During the last glaciation (ice age). It was called the Pleistocene period. Reaching its peak around 24000 years ago which was markebly different from present climate. Which charactaristics such as large amounts of ice and snow cover.
Land cover and land use
What was the major event of the last major climate shift?
The main event of Pleistocene is when the Northern Hemisphere cooked so darasticly, snow from Canada spread to America creating vast sheets of snow.
Land cover and land use
What are some geological processes that initiate land cover change?
Geological processes such as tectonic plate movement, inclyuding earthquakes, volcanic activity and land slides. Others can be weathering, erosion and disposition.
Land cover and land change
How does fire affect land cover?
- It changes trhe structure of habitats and the mix and diversity of species present
- It impacts soil properties such as texture, porosity, organic matter, nutrient avalability and biota.
- Impacting plant life, drought, disease, insect onfestation, overgrazing or a combo of all.
Land cover and land use
What is plant, primary and secondary sucsession?
- Plant sucsession: the change in the types of plants occupying a given area over time
- Primary sucsession: the forming of a new unoccupied habitat uninfluenced by pre-existing communities
- Secondary sucsession: follows the distrubution of a pre-existing community and a climax community is the result of primary and secondary succession in a stable, self-prepetulating plants community it is called a climax community
Land cover and land use
How do fires and pests affect habitats? What is dieback?
Fires are major threats to forests, shrublands and grasslands changing structures of habitats and diversity of species.
Pests also threaten these habitats. They can cause something called ‘dieback’ in forests, the progressive death of trees within a year or two after symptoms appear.
Land cover and land use
What is deforestation?
It i the removal and destruction of forest on land that is converted to non-forest use
Land cover and land use
What is desertification?
Desertification is a type of gradual land degredation of fertile land into arid desert due to natural processes and/or human activities
Land cover and land use
outline how humans have impacted the nature and rate of land cover change.
Humans land cover change includes a rapidly growing population along with improves material starndards of living and tech advantage increasing human capacity to change landscapes. Mostly for clearing of tourists for mining, farming, terracing, urbanisation and irrigation.
Land cover and land use
How do population changes impact food and energy demands?
An increase in population also increases energy and food demands. Standards of developing countries will change to need more energy and food for a growing developed nation.
Land cover and land use
What is some evidence that supports claims made about anthropogenic climate change
Concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are rising rapodly. After remaining below 300ppm for 400 yrs, CO2 concentrations rose to 421ppm in may 2022.
Land cover and land use
Explain why forests are critical to life on Earth
They provide a range of important environmental services, including habitats from plants and animals. They supply oxygen and protect Earths watersheds.
Land cover and land use
Disinguish between primary and secondary forests. What is a plantation?
- Primary forests: dominated by native tree species and there is no visible signs of human activity, leaving ecological processes largley understurbed
- Secondary growth: Forests result from secondary ecological sucsessiuon after disturbance bu human activity
- Plantation forests: commectially managed forests that account for 7% of the worlds forest area
Land cover and land use
What are three princible types of forest and charactaristics?
- **Coniferous forests: **
- core bearing trees, like pines and firs.
- Thrive in northern latitudes with warm summers and cold winters
- Temperate forests:
- covering 25% of land surface.
- Includes coniferous and broad-leafed trees such as oaks and elms.
- Trees turn red and yellow, in autumn(deciduous)
- Found in mid-latitudes with a temperate climate
- Tropical and sub-tropical rainforests:
- most biologically diverce and complex forests.
- Need abundant rainfall and warmth.
- FOund in equatorial regions.
- Act as carbon sinks soaking up CO2
Land cover and land use
What are the importance of tropical and sub-tropical rainforests?
- Most biologically diverse and complex forests
- Account for 80% of worlds terrestrial biodiversity and 50% of all biodiversity
- They act as ‘Carbon sinks’
Land cover and land use
What are the natural causes of deforestation?
- Forest fires
- Disease
- Parasites
- Extreem weather events like cyclones and floods
- (all of these can be increased or affected by human factors)
Land cover and land use
What is the pattern of how much forest has been lost in the year?
10 mil hectares, doen from 12 mil hectares in 2010-2015 and 10 mil hectares in 1990
Land cover and land use
What is the process of forest fragmentation? How does it contribute to the low of biodiversity?
Forest fragmentation is the division of forests into smaller and more isolated fragments.
It causes sever biodiversity loss from altering the charactaristics and connectivity of forests.
Land cover and land use
What is afforestation? To what extent does it offset forest loss?
Afforestation is the process of planting trees in an area with no previous tree cover or forests, typically to create new forest land.
It can offset forest loss largley depending on factors. However it is not a stable solution to deforestation.
Land cover and land use
Outline causes of deforestation.
- Population growth
- demographic trends
- economic development
- illigal logging
- illigal wildlife trade
- invasive species
- unsustainable agricultural practices
Land cover and land use
What is driving the effort to slow down deforestation?
- Growing appreciation for forest loss
- Understanding forest loss on the affect of the carbon cycle
Land cover and land use
What is the criteria needed to be met for a protection area to be affective?
- Large enough to allow ecological processes to be sustained without being negativley affected by surrounding areas
- Managed in ways that meet both intrests of local communities and demands of biodiversity conservation.
- Retention of biological corridors. (Areas of habitat that connects wildlife populatiuons seperated by humans)
Land cover and land use
what are the charactaristics/roles of NGO’s in terms of efforts to protect the worlds forests?
- NGO’s central to efforts to save forests
- Serve as watchdogs and agents of change
- Hold govorments and buisnesses to account by facilitating collective action and community engagment
- Have been successful in shaping public discourse and debate
Land cover and land use
How has consumer and shareholder action proved an affective way of batteling deforestation?
By pushing for consumer boycotts and puttin pressure on shareholders to modify corperate behavior
Land cover and land use
what is the role of govorments in protecting the forests?
- create conditions that ensure all forests are sustainably managed
- Enforce forest-related laws and regulations
- Combat illigal logging
Land cover and land use
What are ways which nartural regeneration can be assisted by humans?
The 4 R’s
- rehabilitaiton
- Reconstruction
- Reclamation
- Replacment
Land cover and land use
What are key features of the Amazon Basons geographically and on a environmental services perspective
- Enormous carbon sink
- Covers 1/3 of South America
- Earths larges rainforest
- Forests cover 80% of basin
- Extreem biodiversity
- Rich soils
- Trees filter CO2 (carbon sinks)
Land cover and land use
What are strategies that could save rainforests?
- Find ways to balance economic growth with preservation
- Forest rehabilitation
- Increased productivity of formerly forested lands
- Expantion of protected areas
Global Desertification
What rate are the worlds deserts growing?
2000 hectares per day
Global Desertification
What is desertification?
The process of losing fertile land.
Global Desertification
What are the causes of desertification?
- If water levels drop and/or the trees and plants are killed by overgrazing the desert extends
- Most is caused by human activities: dams, growing numb. of people in deserts, the many activities that use water and the over-abstruction of ground water.
- Salanisation is the process of salt accumulating to the surface, increasing the salinity of soil. Causing crops not used to high levels of salt to die, making the land not suitable for crop growth.
- Climate change is the biggest cause with unpredictable weather patterns.
Global Desertification
What are the impacts of desertification?
- People are forced to move (jobs, survive)
- More illigal immigration from fleeing desertification
- Increased amount of climate refugees (estimated 50 mill by 2050)
Global Desertification
What are ways of preventing desertification?
Sustainable farming
* Use solar pannels to access underground water for farms
Planting trees
* Tree roots and plant roots keep sand and soil from moving which can prevent desertification.
Dates
What is anthropocene?
A perioud dating from the beguinning of significan human impact on Earths systems, including climate change.
Facts
What are some global warming facts?
- Global temp increased by 1.2 degrees
- Ice sheets melting 12.2% per decade
- Sea level rise 3.9 mm/yr by Nasa
Climate Change
Outline the nature and extent of climate change.
Climate change refers to long-term changes in temperature, precipitation, and other climate patterns. Evidence includes rising temperatures, extreme weather events and ocean addification.
Climate Change
What is the princible cause of climate change?
It is human activities, especially:
* greenhouse gas emmisions from burning fossil fuels. Gasses like CO2, CH2, NO2 and other florinated gasses
* Deforestation of huge carbon sinks
Climate change
What is a temperature anomoly
A temperature anomaly is the difference between the observed temperature and a long-term average baseline. Positive anomalies mean temperatures are higher than the baseline, while negative anomalies mean they are lower. They help track climate change trends over time.
Climate change
What is the link of increased sea surface temperature and storm events?
The warming of the seas surface sauses unstable weather temperatures and winds, consiquently leading to extreme weather events.
Climate Change
Define the concept of natural climate change?
Long term alteratios in the Earths climate caused by natural processes. Such as volcanic activity, solar variability and orbital changes.
Climate change
What is an ice age?
A prolonged perioud of time during which global temperatures are significatly lowqer than average. Charactaristics include huge ice sheets and glaciers.
Climate change
Outline the relationship of the sun and the ice age
Variations in solar radiation inpact the earths climate. Long-term changes in solar intensity, influenced by factors like Earths orbit and solar activity, can affect global temperatures and periouds of ice ages.
Climate change
Why is natural climate change not associated with this ages climate change?
It is not driven by solar or orbital variations typical of ice age cycles. Also Volcanic emmitions only count for 1% of annulally released greenhouse gasses, an insignificant amount.
Climate change
What is a carbon sink?
A natural or artificial resovour that absorbs and stores large amounts of CO2, helping to reduce concentration and mitigate climate change.
Climate change
What is ocean acidification? What are the consiquences?
When the ocean absorbes greenhouse casses especially Co2 from the atmosphere, making the water more acidic. It destroys marine ecosystems and mitigates the oceans carbon sink attributes.
Paris Agreement
State the goal of the Paris agreement?
Setting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emmitions by world leaders in 2015 to keep global temperatures under 2 degrees and preferabley 1.5 degrees.
Paris Agreement
Outline the limitations of the Paris agreement
- They only volintary agreements so countrys can withdraw support
- There are limited mechanisms to take action againtst those countrys that fail to meet their targets
Paris Agreement
Define the term net-zero emmitions
Emmissions will be equal or less that the capacity of carbon sinks to absorb them
Paris Agreement
What is biochar?
A soil suppliment that significantly increases the capacity of soil to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. It is produced from heated up organic materials.
Mitigation
Explain the concept of climate change mitigation
The acknowledgment that climate change is activley having an impact, also that some consiquences cannot be eliminated and require action to deal with them.
Paris Agreements
Is Australia reaching its Paris Agreements?
Australia is entirally not on track for its agreement, and will not reach its goals in time. This is because we are a stupid country. Where our govorment are idiotically and money blindly following immoral coal and car lobbys that are making a bank off the destruction of our world and the human population.
Asparagosis
Outline the impact of livestock on climate change
Methane secreted by livestock is 28 times more potent than the greenhouse gas of CO2. And it makes up of 15 percent of the total global greenhouse gas emmissions.
Asparagosis
Describe the role of Asparagosis in reducing livestock emmissions.
By adding this seaweed into normal cattle feed it could radically reduce emmissins by 99.9%
Tuvalu
Why is Tulavu so vunerable to cimate change?
Because it is a small island nation that can dissapear with rising sea levels.
Tuvalu
What are the current impacts on Tuvalu? And what are some mitigation strategies developed by Tuvalu?
- Two of the countries islands are almost entirally gone
- Extensive sea defences are put around the islands
- Tuvalu has called on Australia and NZ to accept them as climate refugees.
Costa Rica
Describe Costa Ricas location and why is is vunerable to climate change.
Costa Rica is a small flat and low strip of land in between two oceans, this causes the country to be vunerable towards climate chnga especially sea level rising.
Costa Rica
Explain the concept of net zero emmissions.
The state where emmissions of greenhouse gasses and the removal of these gasses by carbon sinks are in balance.
Costa Rica
What are some key features of Costa Ricas net. decarbonisation plan?
Tackeling emmissions in the transport section, building, energy, agriculture, waste managment and other parts
Costa Rica
Explain why halting deforestation is important in adressing climate chnage?
Because forests are carbon sinks that help stop and mitigate climate change.
Costa Rica
Explain a key challenge for Costa Rica in the implementation of sustainability plans.
A key challange is cost, which is funded mostly through taxation and fossil fuels as well as the world bank.
Geographical features
What are the three different plate boundaries?
Atmosphere
State the four main gasses that make up the atmosphere in decending order.
1.Nitrogen (N2)
2.Oxygen (O2)
3.Argon (Ar)
4.Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Practice Exam Q
Layers of the atmosphere from top to bottom
- Exosphere
- Thermosphere
- Mesosphere
- Stratosphere
- Trpopsphere
Practice exam Q
What are Gyres?
Plastic islands created by ocean currents transporting plastic from different places to one.
Practice exam Q
What is the term rate of natural increase?
The difference between the birth rate and the natural death rate, excluding immigration.
Practice Exam Q
The term geographical processes can be defined as
A combination of physical and human forces that form and transform our world
